People ask me this a lot, so let me just answer it directly: why did I go through eight agencies in sixteen months?
It wasn't one thing. It was industry changes that shifted how an agency could operate almost overnight. It was pay structures that sounded generous in the interview and read completely differently once I saw an actual commission statement. It was contracting issues — which, more often than not, just come with the territory in this business. There's a lot that has to happen behind the scenes before you're even allowed to sell with a carrier, and that process doesn't always go smoothly, no matter how good the agency is. And it was payments that showed up late, or in a couple of cases, just stopped altogether because the agency shut down entirely — it happens more than people realize. I remember one stretch where I waited two weeks on commission I was already counting on for rent and other bills that were already late — and it just never came.
Is that common? Not necessarily. Most agencies aren't out here doing this. But it's out there, and it happens more than people expect going in.
Here's something that doesn't get talked about enough: a lot of bad agency matches don't happen because someone made a bad decision. They happen because there's no real place to actually search — you end up going with whatever shows up in the handful of spots people post openings, and you take what's available because you need a job, not because you did anything wrong. When you're job-hunting and the rent's due, "available right now" starts to look a lot like "good enough," even when it isn't.
That's not a character flaw. That's just what happens when the only tools available are a job board and word of mouth, and the clock is running. I didn't always have the luxury of being picky, and I don't think most people starting out do either.
I want to be honest about something, because it matters: not every one of those eight agencies was a bad agency. A few of them just didn't fit my ambition — different pace, different culture, different ceiling than what I was looking for. That's not a red flag. That's just a mismatch, and mismatches are normal. You're allowed to leave a place that isn't a scam and isn't mistreating you, simply because it isn't where you're supposed to be.
The agencies that actually earned a red flag were the ones with real patterns — money that didn't show up when it should have, terms that shifted overnight and suddenly became my problem when they never should have been, commission that vanished into a vague explanation. Those are different from "this wasn't the right fit for me." One is a business being dishonest, or at least careless in a way that lands squarely on the agent. The other is just life.
Sixteen months of agency-hopping is not something I'd wish on anyone starting out in this industry. It's exhausting in a specific way — not just the work itself, but the constant recalibration, the re-learning a new system, a new culture, a new set of promises every few months, never quite settling in long enough to actually build something.
Sales itself is already hard enough without that on top of it. It's long hours. It's consistency you have to manufacture on the days you don't feel like it. It's turning "no" into "not yet" and objections into an actual conversation, over and over, all day. Nobody hands you that. You build it.
What actually got me through it wasn't just the money, though. It was starting to genuinely understand and believe in what I was selling — the peace of mind a policy actually gives a client and their family when something goes wrong. Once that clicks, once it's not just a script anymore but something you actually value, it gets a lot easier to keep showing up on the hard days.
And then, undoubtedly, you see your earning deposit — and the long, dedicated hours make sense too.
People go into sales — real sales, not a hobby — because they want to make more than the average person makes doing something else. That's not a secret and it's not something to be embarrassed about. If that's you, then getting paid fairly for your time and effort isn't a nice-to-have. It's the entire point.
Here's something worth being cautious about, even when it doesn't come with any of the problems I just described: a big, flashy commission percentage is not always what it looks like. I've chased that number before, outside of my eight-agency stretch, and it worked out fine as far as actually getting paid — no late checks, no missing commission. But it's something I've always been told to watch for, and I understand why. The agency with the loudest commission pitch doesn't necessarily have any issue with payment at all. What's more likely to be thinner is the stuff that's harder to put a number on — a culture that isn't as supportive or as vibrant, training that isn't as complete or as well-oriented. It's not something to avoid outright. It's something to be aware of, and not make a habit of chasing on its own. A stable, fun, genuinely caring environment with solid — not flashy, just solid and reliable — pay is worth more than an extra few bucks per policy at a place that can't offer the rest of it.
That's not a minor lesson. That's the whole reason this company exists.
Once I started in sales, I knew I wasn't going back to an average paycheck. I think most agents who've been doing this for a while would tell you the same thing. There's something about controlling your own income — being the one who decides what this month looks like, whether you push harder or whether you take a week off for your family — that's hard to walk away from once you've had it.
I love this industry. It has real flaws, some of which I just spent this whole post describing. But it's changed my life, and I've watched it change a lot of other people's lives too, once the fit is right for them.
My goal here isn't to scare you off insurance sales, and it isn't to sell you on it either. My goal is to bring awareness to something I genuinely believe in, and to try to hand someone else the kind of opportunity that was handed to me when I needed it most.
My niece has a saying she likes to remind me of: "sharing is caring, uncle." She's right. That's really what this is.
Curious how we actually check for the things that made those eight agencies so different from each other? Read our vetting process. Or if you're ready to find an agency that fits — not just one with a loud pitch — request info, it takes two minutes and costs you nothing.
An agency that fits, vetted by the agents who work there. Two minutes, no cost to you.