Accounting, finance, and insurance
If you want to go for a job in the field of insurance as an agent or broker, here is the information specific to this employment sector.
Nature of the work
The insurance agent, depending on the company he represents, will offer potential and current clients life insurance, home insurance, automobile insurance, or business insurance services. He uses his sales and solicitation skills to develop new customers and uses his abilities to build customer loyalty. He must answer customers’ questions and reassure them about their concerns.
Main duties
The agent must sell insurance products adapted to the needs of potential clients. He answers the calls, takes the required information, determines the needs of the person, and advises the client on the possibilities available to him in terms of protection. He must close the sales and take care of the terms of payment. The broker must also follow up on files and ensure renewals with existing clients.
Essential qualities
To work as an insurance agent, you must be persuasive, attentive to the customer, have excellent communication, sales, and interpersonal skills, and have a keen sense of customer service. You must also have a good knowledge of spoken and written French and being bilingual is an asset. Good knowledge of computer tools, and ability to work in a team, and learning ability are also required.
Required training and access to the profession
To become an insurance agent and broker, you must have obtained your college diploma or an attestation of college studies in damage insurance. You must then obtain a personal-lines damage insurance certificate from the Autorité des marchés financiers.
It is possible to pursue university studies to obtain a certificate or a bachelor’s degree in insurance and financial products and a master’s degree in risk management.
Professional evolution
With years of experience and a well-filled client portfolio, it will be possible to become the main contact for a firm. The broker and agency may also become a cabinet director or found his own by buying an existing portfolio.
Four questions about the profession of general insurance agent
Self-employed, the general insurance agent sells contracts and monitors them. At the head of an agency, he must also manage a team.
The insurer must be able to establish a relationship of trust with its customers.
Rigor, a sense of business, a taste for entrepreneurship, these qualities are essential when you want to become a general insurance agent.
How to become an insurance agent?
In theory, no diploma is compulsory for this profession, but in practice, a baccalaureate + 2 is the minimum required. At bac + 2, the BTS Assurance and the DUT Legal careers bank insurance option are the basic training. Students acquire the necessary knowledge in management, economic and legal environment, customer relations, communication, etc.
However, commercial profiles are particularly appreciated: BTS Operational commercial management, Negotiation, and digitalization of customer relations or DUT Marketing techniques are then well suited. After a bac + 2, you can specialize in one year, in professional license (bac + 3) insurance, marketing… At bac + 5, several possible courses, at the university, from the license to the master via the law sectors, economics, management, marketing, sales… or in a business and management school (baccalaureate access + 2, upon selection).
An MBA (master of business administration) general agent entrepreneur manager of insurance has just opened, accessible to bac +4. Whatever the sector followed, this professional must follow a specific training of at least 600 hours – provided by a company or an approved organization – to obtain the professional card, necessary to exercise.
Cost of studies: free in a public establishment, €300 to €1,300 per year in a private establishment. At university: €170 per year for a bachelor’s degree, €243 for a master’s. In business school: up to €9,000 per year. Remunerated in apprenticeship.
What are the recruitments?
572 general agents were appointed in 2017; 673 in 2018, and 629, from January to September 2019, according to the National Federation of General Insurance Agents’ Unions.
What are the salaries?
Self-employed, the general agent receives commissions on the marketing, monitoring, and management of contracts. The compensation is very variable. In general, he does not earn less than €2,500 net per month and his income can reach €5,000.
What are the required qualities?
To practice this profession, you need relational qualities, to be attentive, to have empathy. It also requires availability and responsiveness. You have to be open-minded, be rigorous, have a sense of organization. A taste for entrepreneurship and a sense of commerce is essential. The general agent must also be able to manage his team.
