Pros
Gaining the valuable experience of what not to look for in a company and what type of leaders you should never work for.
Cons
Man oh man where to even begin talking about the company that is known for filling their customers mailboxes with hundreds of “junk mail” offers week… everyone that I have ever come across this company is either miserable or an absolute fraud. Insurance agents, travel agents, member service reps, even most of the managers/leaders are all miserable. I know managers/leaders that act all enthusiastic and happy on calls just for show, but outside of it all, are just miserable and have admitted it. Where does the frustration and misery come from? The leads that AAA Insurance provides their in branch agents are nothing more than a phone book of AAA Members who don’t want to be harassed about insurance. You’ll be gas lit into believing that these leads are the best thing since sliced bread, but any successful agent that has ever worked here will tell you that 99% of their business comes from anything but the leads that AAA provides you with. Even though agents find success outside of the leads that are provided, you will still be required to waste your time to work them and be harassed by management to make sure that the leads are cleared by the end of the day! It’s a bunch of freezing arctic tundra cold calls. Agents will only find success by going through outside sources. But don’t worry! All of the people that go online looking for insurance with AAA or start a quote online with AAA will get sent straight to a call center salesman who will sell them the cheapest policy (filled with errors) that they can whip up, and with coverages that don’t fully protect the insureds, because the call center sales team are just taught to sell no matter what sense they don’t have to service any policies/policyholders after the point of sell. You would think that a company would rather provide the hottest leads containing people actually shopping for insurance to an agent that is local and can build a relationship with them. But nope! They rather give it to someone hundreds of miles away who will never speak to that person again. And not to mention, if an insured gets a quote from a call center salesman, they get a discount that us local insurance agents in the office can’t provide on quotes! AAA insurance has one of the most strict underwriting guidelines that insures have to perfectly fit in order to provide a quote that’s even remotely competitive with other carriers. AAA hates to insure anyone that shows any tiny bit of risk. Things that wouldn’t even make sense will make a potential insured’s premium on a quote skyrocket to the point that you’re embarrassed to even tell them the price. Hooray! Yes, AAA agents can also broker out and sell insurance with other carriers! But hold your horses, because AAA will not let you write any business with these competive carriers UNLESS the insureds don’t qualify with AAA Insurance. This means, you have to punish a great potential client by restricting them a better insurance product that will also cost less for them. In addition, AAA will NOT give you access to bundle an auto, home, umbrella, etc. policies with any of the carriers that you can broker out to. This throws being able to provide potential insureds any sort of bundling discount out the window, making premium higher and higher. Also, an agent will have the option of having a salary of just a little higher than minimum wage and earn a small percentage of agency commission and not receive any pay for your renewals from your book of business, OR you can choose to go fully commission while receiving just a tiny bit higher of a percentage on those commissions and having the ability to earn money off of your renewals. The choice is yours! In addition, even though you will be hired as an Insurance Agent, you will also be required to also sell credit cards and memberships. And they will ask you to spend a good amount of time to focus on selling these products that will only add chump change to your paycheck and sacrifice your time from selling insurance (which is the grand majority of what an agent is paid for) just because we gotta boost our managers numbers for the year so they can win a trip to Hawaii! Not to mention, you got to hold an company event once a month that’s either during your valuable time trying to get someone on the phone for a quote, or thatntakes place after hours! It’s so worth it when everyone receives little to no return on investment of these “events” we are required to either come up with or attend! If you think you’re going to be selling life insurance as an insurance agent with AAA, well then you’re not wrong but it’s not your typical life insurance products that you would want to offer to anyone. It’s actually just a glorified “complimentary” product that members are offered for getting an Auto Quote with an agent, and the products are no where near as valuable or attractive as what a AAA Life Insurance agent can write for someone. You are still required to meet a life insurance goal for the year, and will only reach that goal by referring business to a Life Insurance Agent to help (little emphasis on the word “help”) you reach that goal. If you’re lucky that the person you referred to a Life Agent bought life insurance from them, then hooray, you just received another chump change boost on your paycheck and a small little dent in reaching your life insurance goal for the year! You’ll probably have a new face working right next to your desk each month because someone is always quitting and they will hire anyone that can find a way to obtain an insurance license. Most people that I have seen brought on board here quit during their training period or shortly after (because they sense the lack of training they will provide) or they will quit within a year because their eyes are finally opened up to the unorganization circus show and chaotic disaster that this company’s culture really is, and not the place that you thought it would be during the interview process. The agents that have worked here for +5 years used to have a great job, but each and every year, AAA will find a way to make it harder and harder on their agents to sell insurance, find joy within the work they do, and earn the respectable amount of money to provide their family with that they work so hard for. If you want to enjoy your job, make a meaningful impact in helping people out as best as you can with their insurance needs, get paid fairly for the work and time you put in, and feel like the company you work for really cares about their employees… then stay away from AAA. And to be completely honest, this is ONLY the tip of the iceberg of why you should stay away from AAA.
