United American Insurance misled, untrained, contract cancelled Memphis Tennessee
Like so many I responded to a UA mailing looking for insurance professionals wanting to move into management. Probably bought the pig in the poke because I wanted to believe the program. However, did not have savings reserve to support family while building my client base.
Because I already had clients through another service I market and have a good reputation with them I was able to write policies based on that trust relationship. At the same time the "company leads" promised were often unqualified or totally bogus (person listed denied all knowledge of requesting an agent contact; leads received with no contact information; people totally uninsurable).
The promised "company training" was also non-existant. As an experienced corprorate trainer if I had run a program as it is run the way it was at my branch I would have been run out with the worst "non reference" possible in these politically correct times.
I eventually reached a point where I was facing foreclosure if I could not generate some reliable income. Still wanting to believe this could work I advised my branch manager I needed to pull back to take a "real job" in order to pay some bills so I could devote the proper attention to my insurance practice. During that time I began making the necessary arrangements to get business in the pipe for my return within 45 to 60 days of my temporary pullback.
The first week of October I received a letter from UA headquarters in McKinney TX that I had 30 days to submit "significant business" or face the possible cancellation of my contract. Since I was about to launch my return I anticipated no problem. However, the following week I received a letter dated 7 days after the first that my contract had been cancelled and that I was to return all company material. I was also to be listed on an industry black list for a "debit balance" that would allegedly impact my ability to find employment with any insurance company.
I fully expect the company faithful to jump to UAs defense. We weren't able or willing to make the necessary committment. We did not have what it takes. We weren't willing to work hard enough. I had the opportunity to watch more than a few "recruitment interview" with UA, and if you could get in the door and fog a mirror you were told you had that "special something" that could make you a STAR with United American. I talked to too many people with other branches that I know work hard and don't know the meaning of "quit" to buy that.
At this point I am looking at my legal options regarding improper termination based on the timing of the letters. True, TN is an "at will" state, but if conditions are spelled out be either party (i.e., 30 days to submit business to retain contract) the right to terminate at will is abrigated.
Intrestingly enough I recently received multiple recruiting e-mails from another Torchmark company. One group was for insurance professionals, the other for regional recruiters/trainers. I'm loathe to blow off the appointment (if they ever call me back) given the "income potential", but how long can you ignore the 600 pound gorilla in the room?
BTW, for those that keep pointing to the company's various ratings, let's keep this an "apples to apples" comparison. Those ratings deal with the ability of respective companues to pay claims, among other things, NOT with whether or not they treat agents/employees ethically. I am not prepared to say the products won't do what they are advertised to do IF the agent takes the time to educate him/herself on individual limitations.
As far as celebrity endorements of companies be very careful. Personally I was not aware of Paul Harvey endorsing UA and/or Torchmark, but a company called Asset Protection Group (APG) used to advertise on Rush Limbaugh's program, and Robert Wagner was their spokesman. The company is now under intense federal review, and may be in receivership, due to illegal conduct on the part of founder, one William (Bill) Reed.
I'm going to get off my soap box now, tho' this issue is not going to go away, I guarantee.
Daniel in Cordova, I would love to exchange war stories sometime, maybe we can join forces.
Ray and the Gang at UA #9 in Memphis, better get your ducks in a row, and tell the gang in McKinney we're coming for them like the Sioux at Teh Little Bif Horn.
see ya'!!!
David
Cordova, Tennessee
U.S.A.
3 Updates & Rebuttals
Daniel
Cordova,Tennessee,
U.S.A.
Isn't it strange?
#4UPDATE EX-employee responds
Tue, December 19, 2006
How come you guys are from the same region of the country as me? Wait, you guys are within a stones throw of me!
Why is that?
Doug
Millington,Tennessee,
U.S.A.
Got used by United American also
#4UPDATE EX-employee responds
Sun, December 17, 2006
I used to work for United American. After doing average at first in sales, I had to have some surgeries done. This caused me to have to cut back on my work time as I was trying to recover from my surgeries. At the same time, the good leads that I had been getting suddenly disappeared. I was left with leads in which the person had told them that they were not interested or the leads were disconnected/wrong numbers. Even when I had fully recovered from my surgeries, I still had horrible leads. I talked to my managers about it but nothing changed. With no luck on the leads, I started calling the small business leads. I even got a phone book and started calling businesses out of the yellow pages but I did not have any luck. I got the dreaded letter from the McKinney office saying that if I didn't post significant business then I would be let go.
With all of the bad leads that I was getting, I knew that I would not be able to make any sales so I started looking for work at another company. Altig ended up contacting me and set up an interview. I went to the interview but things seemed strangely similar to United American in both the interview process and their promises of great leads. So I started to do some investigating and Torchmark owns both Altig and United American along with a few other insurance companies.
In my research, usually what happens to new agents at the Torchmark companies is that at first they get good leads and they make some sales. Then after awhile the agent does not get any more good leads. The company then says that the agent needs to improve or they will be let go. The agent's sales don't improve because of the bad leads and the agent is let go. Now why would the company allow this to happen? So that the managers in the company can make a lot of money without doing much work. Once an agent does not work for United American any more, the agent does not collect the continuing commission on any previous sale. Now that commission goes to the agent manager, office manager, etc. so they get rich without doing any work.
I also looked at a list of agents at my office when I first started working for United American compared to when I got my letter from the McKinney office. Of the 40 agents that were there in October 2005 when I first started, there were only 8 who were still there by May 2006 when I got the McKinney letter. That means in a 7 month time span, 80% of the agents were no longer working for that office. Is there any other business where you see an 80% turnover rate in 7 months for an office?
I thought this had to be a rare situation and that was not true at other United American offices. I did more research and the average turnover rate for agents at United American is between 75 and 90% over a one year period. The few agents who stay around are the top notch agents who bring in most of the company's income but every now and then they will do them wrong just so they can collect that person's commission.
So I decided in June to not even try to make any more sales for United American because I knew that they were going to let me go. Sure enough they sent a letter saying that they had to let me go. Even though I had read where some agents that were let go were told that they had a debit balance, luckily I was not told that.
I went and turned in all of my materials and I thought that was the end of that. However in the past months, I keep getting emails or phone calls from different insurance companies wanting me to work for them. The one thing that all of these insurance companies have in common is that they are all owned by Torchmark.
The funniest thing is that I got a postcard from a place that wanted me to work for them because they needed two people to fill Sales Positions plus there was a management position available with them. It never mentions the name of the company, but it says that I can visit uabranch.com or I can call a phone number. The phone number is the number for United American and the guy's name beside it is my old office manager. So I guess by sending me this card, they want to hire me back even though I was let go for not making enough sales. How insane is that?
Finally, I did research on how United American has such "great ratings". The ratings that are used have nothing to do with how great the company is or how great the insurance is that customers are paying for. The rating is for Torchmark's financial strength meaning how much money the company makes. If you want to compare it to anything, Enron had great ratings based on how much money it made before it ran into its problems and went bankrupt.
Daniel
Cordova,Tennessee,
U.S.A.
That's What I am Talking About
#4UPDATE EX-employee responds
Wed, November 22, 2006
Unbelievable isn't it?
"At Will" is probably the only reason these knuckle heads are still around.
I know how it is. Even as a top producer I still was getting jerked around on residual checks.
I just don't know how they can get away with it.