Lately, I've become more interested than usual in the reasons why insurance producers do what they do.
I've always had a fascination for the minute details of other people's lives. Even before I became a journalist – one of the only professions where it's socially acceptable to ask people probing personal questions – I would voraciously read biographies and memoirs. Often, I'd think, "Wow, I didn't know that," or, "That explains so much."
So it's not exactly surprising to me that I should begin probing into the motivation behind our readers' career choices.
This month, we talked with a producer who runs a succession planning firm that his father started more than three decades ago. He became involved in charitable planning with his clients primarily because of his father's philanthropy upon his death – his planning resulted in several scholarship funds and other memorials being set up at places that meant a lot to him, such as his high school alma mater and the National Cathedral.
In March, we'll be running a feature story about a long term care specialist who's thinking outside the box with his business and seeing tremendous results. That 30-year-old agent began selling LTCI after seeing what his family went through with his own grandfather's long term care event. He was also motivated after a friend around his age suffered an accident that left him disabled. That friend carried no disability, and no long term care insurance.
For the past couple of months, I've been collecting interviews from other producers to learn how they came into the field. Specifically, these agents came into long term care insurance from other fields. One was a teacher and a nonprofit development officer. Another had her own housekeeping and pet-sitting business.
