Complaint Review: Sumner Financial & Insurance Service - Lakeland Florida

This guy, his agency and management team are a real piece of work.  You are most likely reading this because you have already made the mistake of signing your life away and have been working for them.  Here is what you are in for; Fred Sumner will make you verbal promises and then flat out lie to you by denying everything agreed to.  Case in point in 2008 Parker and Associates (Fred is a partner) purchased a DME company and in the unveiling meeting Fred and Ken Parker asked the agents how many orders they could produce within 30 days.  I already knew that I had at least 80 clients that would sign on.  Fred, in front of the entire agent force, promised that if I produced 100 orders, I would be paid an additional commission.  So, after I did produce in excess of 100 orders, Fred changed the rules, added stipulations and never paid even the base commission for the orders produced. 

Be prepared, if you are not one of the chosen few, meaning you are not connected by blood or close personal relationships to Freds inner circle, you will never move ahead.  The inner circle consists of Billy, Jerry, Jeff, Josh, David and Javier.  These guys get special treatment.  The inner circle receive all of the leads that are close to home, everyone else gets to drive all over the state, spending money on gas, hotel bills, tolls, food etc. in order to simply survive.  As far as field support goes, you may receive it, if you beg and plead long enough.  Then when you do, even though the managers get overrides on production, you will be told that you will receive no commission for any sales made while out with the managers.  Javier will take you on appointments where the prospect speaks Spanish, Cuban or Puerto Rican as he does.  So, unless you are multi-lingual, you will have absolutely no idea what he is saying and how the sale is made. 

The leads are some of the worst in the industry and you will pay for them in more ways than one.  They push you to purchase a minimum of 60 leads per week at $10 each and tell you that you must keep up the PPL (price per lead) ratio or else you cannot order leads.  The higher the monthly premium you get out of your client, the better your PPL, however, you client will most likely be able to make a few payments and then cancel.  Then your chargebacks begin.  They have the most screwed up accounting department I have ever been subjected to.  You will never be able to get an honest accounting of your statements, you will eventually be working for nothing because not only must you cover the lead costs but the chargebacks will eat up your front end commissions and you will never see any renewal commissions.

Fred and his crew hide behind the veil of Christianity, making you believe that you are in the right place to forward your career.  Nothing could be further from the truth!  Fred, even though he states that he wants to see you make money, thinks of no one but himself.  You cannot share your thoughts, feelings or frustrations with this man because he is so hard to deal with very short tempered.  He has even gone as far as tell the agent force that he will not discuss commissions or chargebacks having to do with the medicare advantage products he so vehemently supported during the selling season. 

One of your biggest hurdles will come when you finally wise up and decide to quit this pack of liars and thieves.  If you have not done so, DO NOT sign every contract they put in front of you.  Fred is a liar when he tells you that should you ever decide to leave that he will give you a release.  Even if you have no debit balance at the time, he will refuse to release you.  You then must wait the statutory 6 months without production for whatever insurance company you contracted with before a release would be possible.  In the meantime, you must find other carriers or face no income for 6 months.

I am sorry to say, you got screwed.  All we can do now is spread the word about this corrupt organization that shields itself from blame under the veil of Christianity while all the time stealing from the agents foolish enough to contract with them.  If you have not contracted, STOP NOW before its too late for you and your family.