Pros
It is a meritocracy, which is good if you have the willingness to relentlessly prospect for new clients. They have a strong whole life product, great training materials and knowledgeable trainers, first class facilities for employees and clients, and a staggering level of compensation once you start pulling in real first year commissions at $70K and above. The compliance environment protects you from ever getting sued, and ranks the company at 100% compliance when the state auditors come calling. This company pays death benefits without question, and the agents have been known to go way out of their way to make sure that the beneficiaries receive everything that is coming to them. Very moral, very client-centered company when it comes to life insurance and the payment of benefits for life and long term care.
Cons
WHOLE LIFE WHOLE LIFE WHOLE LIFE. Dear God, please don't ever say whole life to me again. The entire company lives and dies on this product, so much that it is pretty much a "drink the Kool-Aid" kind of focus on it during training. They also have an expensive VUL product with a pathetic number of investment choices, a Variable Annuity product line with a very limited range of investment choices. On the variable product side, NYLIFE Securities does not give two spits if your client with $1M in mutual funds walks away and takes their business elsewhere; they won't lift a finger to call you or send you an email warning you that a client is unhappy. Now, if someone misses a life insurance premium by a day, you'll get written and electronic warnings out the gazoo. Here is the mantra that was repeated in company literature, by senior management and by the Chief Investment Officer of the company: WE ALWAYS GET PAID MORE THAN THE RISK IS WORTH. Let''s examine what that really means. When the company buys bonds, this is a good way to protect clients. When the company underwrites a life contract, they absolutely punish the insured if they smoke, have a little cholesterol, or anything wrong for any reason. As an agent, you are left with the impression that you need to find rich, skinny, young people in order to be competitive. When the company brings in a new agent, they know that 85% will fail in the first two years. This means that the company will NEVER, EVER, EVER pay for renewals on that product again, making all that business pure profit from your failure. On the long term care insurance side, declines run at more than 50% because the company has such strict guidelines for acceptance. It really rankles me as a former agent that worked there for 4.5 years to hear the company brag over and over again about our financial strength and how many billions the company had in reserves while I am starving for people to talk to instead of the company providing worthwhile leads of people who wanted to buy something or talk to a rep. You have to buy your own leads, manage all your own activity, pay all your own expenses, pay for a cubicle and phone, pay for software, pay MORE if you wanted anything but the most rudimentary help using the software, pay for E&O insurance, pay $1,500 a year to belong to NYLIFE Securities, pay for more and more and more and yet see rates increase and commission decline. Plan on being asked to do some pretty ridiculous things, like Child ID events and manning a booth at the county fair or the boat show or wherever people might congregate. Or my all time favorite, being told to distribute annuity door hangers in freaking snowstorm. My managing partner never had a bad idea in all four years I was there, no matter how ludicrous it was, and I was dumb and eager enough to believe him. Don't go into any life insurance career unless you have six months of personal expenses in the bank, $10K to spend up front on marketing and an assistant to call people and set appointments, intend to spend 10-20 personal hours a week on calling prospects, don't mind hearing "no" from people who clearly need your help, don't mind ruining friendships over insurance sales, and really want your life to revolve around building your practice and nothing else for the first three years.
