Combined Insurance Comapny Working for this company will cause you to go broke! PMA Bullsh*t Chicago, Illinois

Hey Stone Jr, what's the matter? Can't handle the truth? I haven't seen one report in 91 that actually liked their experience with this cult. So go back to singing your stupid chants MORON!!!!!!!!!!!!! BTW the orginal poster's experience is atypical of everyone my self included.

I spent 5 years with Combined Insurance Company as an agent and sales manager. I had years that I made good money and years that I did not. Its all got to do with how much time and effort you put into it. I guess I remember mostly going out and trying to make at least 100 dollars plus per day with renewals and sales. Sometimes I could do that in a half hour, sometimes it took all day. This company is not the evil that some people say that it is. They pay claims just the way the policy states if you make the claim properly. I just got tired of traveling around because I got married, so I found another job. For a single person that loves to get out and run around making money, this is a great job. If you are a whiner and think the world owes you a living, forget it. Like I was told once, "don't ever forget what you learned while working for Combined Insurance Comany. You will use it the rest of your life in one way or the other." With Combined Insurance, I found that it was either hero or zero. District and regional managers want results to report to the company so they wouldn't be a zero. This created great pressure for sales results and led to some agents doing things they should not have done. This sounds familiar in todays economic times, right? I have no regrets working for this comany but I moved on and would not do it again. Although I do find myself wishing I had a 5 grand assignment in a good old country town on a fine spring week. I bet I could bust a $1000.00 income! Does anybody out there want to buy my handtooled roll I won from the company? I will sell it for $1000.00 and wouldn't take a penny less.

The new Enhanced Sales Model is the worse idea they ever had.  While you no longer have to drive 100 miles to pick up a $10 check for a field renewal, you no longer get the commission for getting those checks. The only way you now can get paid is to sell something. It is strictly commission based now.

You still have to go to an 8 a.m. meeting to sing songs and do PMA games. You are expected to have 15 appointments every day, and to canvass in between appointments. You can canvass for sales, or canvass for new appointments.

The only way to sell anything is to move fast and be an obnoxious person who talks over and through every prospect. You have to close hard and overcome all their objections. The company teaches you argument starters that are meant to overcome their objections to you barging in announced and trying to sell them something they dont want or need or cannot afford. These usually start an argument with the prospect because you have to close extremely hard and fast and never stop talking.

You have to work until 10 p.m. every night because during the day you always hear I have to talk with my spouse so you have to have appointments until late at night to see both spouses at once. You still must call in your numbers every night by 9 p.m., so if you are with a client you have to excuse yourself, go make a phone call to your manager with your numbers, and then go back to arguing with your client.

There are hundreds of people who did well in the old system, but they are not fast movers or do not like to start arguments, so they have quit or are about to quit. Some have been fired for underperforming because they are actually nice sales persons and will let someone think about it for a couple days instead of tricking them into buying a product they do not want.

You still average about $12-14,000 per year in income. You still drive between 35,000 and 40,000 a year in your car. You still go to morning meetings every day to sing songs, dance, and get a PMA boost. You still have to call every night at 9 p.m. no matter where you are. If you call before 9 p.m. then you get yelled at for leaving the field too early and will get yelled at the following morning at the morning after you are done singing songs and dancing.

Most of the employees have sex with each other after going out for drinks at midnight or on weekends. Most everyone has had sex with each other.  If you do not go out for drinks late at night or give in to someones sexual advances, life becomes even more miserable.

Remember Michael David Barrett, the man accused of stalking ESPN reporter Erin Andrews? He kept his yard manicured, played golf and enjoyed cooking on a gas grill on a patio behind his $300,000 suburban Chicago town house. He was a perverted man. What you rarely hear is that he also worked for Combined Insurance when all this came down. He is your typical perverted Combined agent.

In short, never be employed with the company. Do not fall for their tricks and lies, and do not join the PMA cult. Their products are excellent, though, so just buy them online or through the mail.