Pros
Being a Shelter agent was a great experience from the actual Agency/Owner aspect. You are able to keep a good work/life balance if you can keep up with your workload. If you have a good District sales coordinator (which I did) they will help you with any problems, questions, or concerns you have. You can work anytime you would like even outside your normal office hours so your performance and pay is truely based off of how much work you’re willing to put in but earning potential is unlimited. You are given a monthly base pay which includes the commission you make off of sales which helps in keeping a solid financial cushion. You are able to hit bonuses and earn extra money several times throughout the year. The company will typically split any advertising with you 50/50 down the middle. Your counterparts and managers are nice and eager to help for the most part. They are focused a lot on their agents and are always asking for feedback.
Cons
Shelter is very behind on the times when it comes to their actual quoting system/software making it difficult and frustrating to use. Most of the time you feel like you are utilizing a quoting system from the early 2000’s. Their billing system is a joke. Underwriters are next to impossible to get ahold of usually getting back with you on a question you have 1-2 days later at the earliest after reaching out to them. Underwriter turnover rate is high and new ones come and go making it confusing to even know which underwriter you should be dealing with. Their cancellation policy on insurance products will lose you a lot of business , if a customers policy cancels to reinstate they have to pay what they owe then also pay another month down even if missing payment by one day in order to keep policy active. The bonuses are attractive but the structure is a mess. I was told that by my 1st full year in office I would be able to write commercial policies through shelter in the state of Ohio which was a lie, I had to write commercial policies through a 3rd party my entire time at Shelter making the quoting process longer and frustrating. Shelters agent turnover rate is high with some agents only making it a couple months making it hard to network with other agents in your district. They are always pushing life insurance constantly and 80% of your bonuses depend on life insurance sales. I felt like I had more success getting drivers with poor driving/credit history than individuals with good driving/credit history due to Shelters high and non competitive rates. Shelter is not competitive at all with other companies in the market especially the big mutual companies like State Farm, Allstate, etc making sales hard to come by which in return makes you work harder. People are very unfamiliar with Shelter as their advertising and ads are next to non existent. Their life insurance application process can be a nightmare for customers and yourself as an agent.