State Life Insurance Examinations May Be Too Hard

Leslie Scism:

Primerica Inc., which has the country's largest life-insurance sales force, had another strong recruiting year in 2010: About 230,000 people signed up to become agents.

Another number also stayed strong: the drop-out rate

About 80% of Primerica recruits don't actually become insurance agents, often because they flunk state licensing exams, according to filings and interviews. That's a problem for the company, which, more than any other insurer of its size, depends on agents to sell policies. As the number of Primerica agents has declined over the past four years, so, too, have sales of life insurance.

So Primerica recently came up with a novel solution: Make the tests easier. It asserted to state regulators that the exams aren't only too hard in some places, but might also be racially biased, putting African-Americans and other minorities at a disadvantage.

Posted by jimz at April 26, 2011 2:03 AM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas