Complaint Review: Combined Insurance Company - Chicago Illinois, Nationwide

When I applied at Combined in the summer of 2010, after a short and very unhappy experience at New York Life, the market director who interviewed me made a point of saying that Combined supplies its agents with leads at no cost.  That was a breath of fresh air after my experience at New York Life, where new agents have no access to company-supplied leads. 

Things at Combined didn't turn out to be quite so rosy.  All of the "real" leads, in other words contact information for people who had contacted the company and inquired about buying insurance, went to the territory managers for use while training new agents.  What this meant is that in my first couple of weeks, while I went around with my manager, I had some very easy sales and made some *very* decent money.  Once my two weeks of training were done, however, my access to these leads ended.  What I and other agents got were information cards (called "work") on existing and lapsed customers. 

Selling to existing and lapsed customers was far more difficult than selling to people who had contacted Combined.  While on occasion an existing customer could be talked into upgrading to additional or new coverage, more often they were thoroughly fed up with having been contacted many times over the years by a succession of different agents.  [Note: people aren't stupid.  When an agent calls and wants to offer a "free review of your coverage," most people know exactly what that means.]  Another issues was that laws restricting the replacement of existing coverage often prevented the sale of new policies to existing customers.  As for lapsed customers, well, most of them lapsed because they had found no value in their policies, and a substantial percentage couldn't be contacted at all.

So yes, Combined technically does give free leads to all agents, but except during the initial training period these leads aren't particularly useful.

Another recruiter posing as a normal citizen. You've been schooled Combined. 

I spent 20 great years with Combined in NY . Like your husband I was contacted blindly  interviewed , hired , trained and put to work . After 3 years of busting my butt and never wronging a soul . I cracked a six figure income which doubled after 7 years . 

This company is awful to work for! They don't care about your educational and work related experience (they didn't even look at my CV when they hired me! Not once!) and just try and "sell" you the job. Unfortunately for me, I fell for it. I spent nearly three months of my life "working" for them on a self-employed basis, loosing nearly 4000 in loss income in the process! The pressure they put on you to sell is absolutely shocking, as it's commission only.!! I was working 12-14 hours a day, on foot, in the car, six days a week. You have to pay for your own food and petrol etc, which is not cheap when you're not earning enough to cover those expenses, let alone  your normal bills like rent, utilities, car...! This job was an utter waste of time, you get treated like dirt, work your butt off for no reason as you don't get rewarded for it, and it's door to door sales, business to business, home to home, not the easiest thing in the world - you get a constant stream of no no no no no, regardless of how well you know their "talks" or how nice you can be to people! They just dont want to know if your trying to sell them something.

An absolute, and utter, revolting waste of my time, sanity and livelihood. Biggest mistake of my life so far. Honest.

I worked for Combined Insurance in Ontario, Canada, for about 8, long, gruelling months. The person who recruited me lied from the very start. He assured me that there was minimal travel (read thousands of kilometres a month in reality), no door to door sales required (another lie, sales training was ALL about door to door sales), that he would call me every day during training ( I eventually had to call him after about a week of not hearing from him) and that he'd train me and within a year I'd be making six figures (reality, he did not spend a single minute training me; when he was supposed to come 1300 kms to help train, he "forgot his wallet at home", another lie). The moral of the story? DON'T TRUST THESE RECRUITERS!!! They get bonuses for recruiting, they make money off training, then they don't care if you stay because you've written them a ton of new policies during your training. Combined is, in my opinion, a bad company to work for.

I must get confused easy, but let me see if I understand this. You are looking for a job, someone contacted you about an opening and offered you an interview, am I right? And you show appreciation by calling them "bogus"? You say the email is vague, but you know it is a sales position and what company is, and I am guessing he also said if interested to email him back. I am not sure whats wrong with that? In todays job market, people are struggling to find jobs. Part of the reason is job experience, sometimes you have too much and sometimes you have too little. Your complaining because a company is reaching out to your husband, who has too little experience, and is offering to training him in a new career? There are thousands of people who are paying big $$$ to colleges so they can change careers, Combined is offering, if he is selected, training for free in a new field. By the way, did he contact the recruiter? Did he have a first interview with them? Did he make it to the second interview? Did he make it to the third interview? Was he even offered a position? What really are you complaining about? It sounds like you are complaining about something you know absolutely nothing about, except that a company offered your unemployed husband an interview for a job so he could provide for his family. Wow, that is awful of them.

After looking over the complaint levied on Daniel Thom personally, I felt compelled to respond. I do not know the individual personally but I am certain that he was simply doing his job and should not be publically scorned for doing so. Secondly, when people are contacted for job opportunities due to posting resumes online, it should be assumed that you will receive inquiries that will not be a fit. I have personally worked in the insurance industry (different company) and can state for certainty that combined is in fact a company that is hiring agents. I have also been contacted for this position. It is typical that insurance companies recruit virtually anyone as they may be the next great agent. Sales experience aside, I have hired several insurance agents myself and the best ones tended to be those that had very little if any sales experience. The reason? No preconcieved notion of what insurance sales are and how to provide superior customer service. I am sorry that you had a bad experience with Combined Insurance and gave you a bad enough impression that you felt the need to defile a persons character online. Next time, when your husband posts resumes and receives calls from insurance companies, simple questions like is there base pay, insurance, etc would eliminate any unneccesary trips for interviews that may not be the right fit. Exercise caution when posting your resume on the major job boards and good questions will prevent future frustration.