What does an independent insurance agent mean?

An independent insurance agent refers to an individual insurance agent who signs an agency contract with an insurance company, does not participate in the marketing team and independently carries out insurance sales. Its essential feature is to break the hierarchical structure and not belong to the team.

Characteristics of independent insurance agents:

1. On the whole, independent individual insurance agents have the essential characteristics of independent exhibition industry and not belonging to the team. On the one hand, independent individual insurance agents can directly sign agency contracts with insurance companies and independently carry out insurance sales; On the other hand, independent individual insurance agents can directly withdraw commissions according to the premiums sold by agents, so it is unnecessary to develop insurance marketing teams.

2. Under the traditional assessment mechanism, only part of the commission accrued by the insurance company according to the premium is paid to the grass-roots insurance agents, part of which is shared by the insurance marketing team leaders and part of which is reserved as the team development allowance. Under the independent individual insurance agent system, it is equivalent to cutting off the intermediate link of "team" Grass-roots agents can directly agree on a commission ratio with insurance companies, and all commissions will be divided after the insurance products are sold and will not be taken away.

3. In the view of Wang Xiangnan, deputy director of the Research Center for Insurance and Economic Development of China Academy of Social Sciences, this is beneficial to grassroots insurance agents and can share more benefits. However, for the team leaders with good benefits, under the traditional mode, the main income comes from the "headcount fee" charged by the grassroots agent team. The notice makes it clear that independent individual insurance agents are not allowed to develop insurance marketing teams and employ no more than three assistants to assist in billing and after-sales service. This means that independent individual insurance agents can only get income from a single premium commission, but can't develop teams to collect "headcount fees".

4. Independent insurance agents in developed insurance markets such as the United States are "independent" because they have no hierarchical relationship and can represent several insurance companies at the same time. According to the contents of the Notice, China's independent individual insurance agents will belong to the category of individual insurance agents, and their "independence" focuses more on breaking the hierarchical relationship of insurance marketing, but does not emphasize their "independence" with insurance companies in business. In other words, an independent individual insurance agent can only sign a sales agency contract with an insurance company or an insurance intermediary company, and cannot act as an agent across institutions.