There are four ways to write the word "fennel" in fennel beans, and the name around insurance agents in the industry undoubtedly far exceeds this number.
Whether it is the various "consultants" and "planners" that companies and practitioners call themselves, or the "sales department managers", "wealth supervisors" and "pension service specialists" who are widely seen on various recruitment platforms and recruitment information, even if Kong Yiji returns to Lu Town, it is difficult to sell them all to the children.
However, with the deepening of the transformation of individual insurance, the term "planner", which is more inclusive, looks more professional and has a strong technical flavor, is being favored by more and more insurance companies. Since some foreign-funded insurance companies have made this name either internally or claiming to be sporadically embellished, the whole industry has gradually blown the wind of planners and swept through the major well-known insurance companies.
In particular, represented by Taikang's "HWP Health and Wealth Planner", it has directly implanted its own innovations in a variety of services into the traditional agent operation, and has continuously created a professional concept that looks logical and mature, which not only became famous, but also made the industry feel as if it had touched a dangerous breakthrough.
As a result, during the same period, there were also "LPTC financial planners" and "Changhang partners" of CPIC Life Insurance, "IWP Insurance Wealth Planners" of PICC Life Insurance, and "Medical and Health Care Managers" of Taiping Life.
After entering 2024, China Life, Ping An, AIA and other absolute head planner projects have also been intensively launched, the first two are a real big brother, the latter is the "originator" of the mainland agent, and the new vane has been widely certified by the giants.
Before the first month of the Year of the Dragon, China Life couldn't wait to launch a new marketing model - "Seed Plan". On April 8, China Life's "Seed Plan" will be full moon, and Ping An Life's "Wealth and Health Insurance Planner" will be launched impatiently...
Even AIA, the old mage who sticks to the "NPA", "high-potential leader" and "financial talent", will quietly use the internal role of "pension planner", which will be launched in 2021, as a new recruitment project in 2024, and Taiping will collide with the name of "pension planner".
In addition to the top companies, planners have the same magic for small and medium-sized companies.
Among the small and medium-sized companies, Kunlun Health will launch the "Health Wealth Manager" in 2023, and the "Happiness Planner" will be officially announced by Happy Life in 2024... As for the third-party training programs such as "PWP Private Wealth Planner", there are countless of them.
All of a sudden, all kinds of planner projects came out one after another, as if they insisted on changing the word "agent" from "Cuihua" to "Vivian".
The planners are famous, and the awards are not small. Look at the introduction of these planner projects, "multiple certifications including Qingbei resumption courses", "7-figure light entrepreneurship support in XX months", "million rewards for standard assurance within X years"... How many people end up with real money, I don't know. However, the alumni of Xiaohongshu Shangqingbei who have resumed diplomatic relations are likely to be several orders of magnitude more.
It remains to be seen whether our planners will cash in on bonuses and income. However, colleagues on the other side of the ocean do have a lot of income.
Recently, U.S. News released its list of the best jobs for 2024, and the best jobs related to insurance are first and foremost actuarials, ranking third on the Best Business Jobs list with a median annual salary of $113,900, and then financial advisors, ranking tenth on the list with a median annual salary of $95,400.
Financial Advisor, does it look familiar? Yes, financial advisor, do you immediately think of the various planners above?
So, are financial advisors in the United States the same thing as our "planners"?
If individual life insurance agents become "planners" and can be ranked among the best jobs in the future, can we also encourage our children to become "planners" when they choose careers?
Now let's take a look at whether Lao Mei's wealth advisor and our "planner" are the same thing, and why is ours far from being the best job?
1 American-style wealth advisors earn $100,000 a year: undergraduate is the basic requirement, and CPA & CFA is the icing on the cake
It should be said that our "planners" are really not the same thing as Lao Mei's financial advisers, at least at this stage, they are still very different.
Let's start with the vulgar one, money.
With a median annual income of nearly $100,000, an unemployment rate as low as 1.7%, and 42,000 jobs in demand in the future, Financial Advisor's "high-paying and sunny" profession ranks 10th among the "best business jobs" in the United States.
Looking at it again, the name is both "finance" and "consultant", from divorce property arrangements to children's education plans, to pension medical care, all in the "job description" of Financial Advisor.
This seems to be a bit similar to the "planner" that is popular on various recruitment apps, WeChat groups, and even Xiaohongshu. Indeed, like "professions" such as HWP, IWP, PPP, etc., many years ago, financial advisors did not exist at all, and only a few institutions provided similar services.
In Lao Chenguang, financial advisors are either stockbrokers, working in community banks, or insurance salespeople. The rise of this profession is closely related to the development of social economy, after all, only when people have enough spare money in their pockets will they begin to consider the multi-channel allocation of assets.
Judging from the recent financial advisor recruitment requirements, most of them still require more than 3 years of work experience in the financial industry, and a bachelor's degree is the standard. CFP and even CPA and CFA are Plus, but in the current fierce competition, it is said to be Plus, but in fact, it is almost equivalent to the basic requirements.
Although it is always said that Personal Financial does not need such a deep knowledge reserve, considering that it often needs to be "backward compatible" in the service, that is, it can only be used flexibly if it is thoroughly mastered, and more and deeper knowledge is required.
Therefore, CPA, CFA and other "hard evidence" are also very necessary. Regardless of CPA, as far as CFA is concerned, passing the Level 3 exam can build a very complete financial knowledge map and framework for practitioners. What's more, its difficulty is not high for an undergraduate, and in financial colleges, students who study seriously can pass the exam, and it is not too much to put it in the requirements.
In addition, Financial Advisors are required to pass and register for the basic Series 7 and Series 66 or Series 65 qualification exams, which are very similar to the qualification exams in mainland China.
In terms of remuneration, the remuneration may vary depending on the business model, such as whether it is a consulting fee, an AUM-based fee, or a commission for the sale of products. However, 401K, health insurance and other American-style "five insurances and one housing fund" are basically given, and compared with the state of domestic agents who are almost "streaking", it is still a lot more stable.
At least from a practitioner's point of view, financial advisors are really good.
2 The current transformation of domestic individual insurance: seeking super experts in wealth management
Coming back to us, many of the "planner" projects in the current industry with the abbreviation of "XXP" may be inspired by the financial advisors of Lao Mei. As we all know, the intensive emergence of these projects is not unrelated to the "Xiaoice River" of the agent channel in the past five or six years.
Since 2018, the "clearing" of the individual insurance channel has lasted for more than 6 years, and the number of agents "killed" has reached more than 600,000, and by the beginning of 2024, the remaining agents are only 2.8 million. However, before the Spring Festival, another 100,000 were lost, -3.17% month-on-month, and the downward channel seems to continue to open.
The specific data are shown in the following table:
On the one hand, the number of agents continues to decline, and on the other hand, the per capita production capacity and per capita income continue to increase.
In 2023, the per capita new order production capacity of agents will increase by nearly 50,000 yuan, reaching 130,000 yuan/person. Judging from the sporadic data disclosed by various companies, the per capita income has also increased significantly, and the per capita income of individual company agents has exceeded 10,000 yuan under the empowerment of speculation and sales.
In the past earnings season, various "words" such as "the scale of high-performing marketers has increased significantly" and "the per capita production capacity has reached a new level" have also filled the annual reports of various companies and the reports of brokerage analysts.
As we all know, insurance sales have a strong long-tail effect. As for the people who sell insurance, the long-tail effect is more obvious, and it is the small number of people at the highest level who support the scale and growth of premiums in the industry, and the 6 million agents who have "died" in these years are obviously not among them. In other words, the increase in per capita production capacity and per capita income may be due to a small "denominator". And from wealth planners to financial and insurance planners, from health wealth planners to pension wealth planners, and even happiness planners... These are actually still insurance agents, but the planner titles under various permutations and combinations are like a hat on the head of a marketer, covering the true face of insurance sales under the brim.
Judging from the recruitment standards of these "planners", it is necessary to understand both insurance and law, from marriage and other legal and business consultations to property inheritance, from children's education planning to pension service arrangements, and the allocation of large categories of assets throughout the life cycle of the family unit is even more essential.
However, the insurance company is willing, and so are the marketers. Perhaps, the top obscure English abbreviation is sometimes a manifestation of professionalism.
3 Our "planner": more like a "panacea" sales
However, although our "planners" are required to understand inheritance and pension arrangements, as well as asset allocation, from the recruitment requirements, there are no common "hard evidence" such as judicial examinations, CPA, and CFA, and there are few requirements for medical background.
It's a little weird, and it's not surprising at all.
Why?
From the perspective of the assessment standards of agents, selling more insurance policies and increasing staff are still the only two sources of income, and they are the few "experts" who are driven by sales.
It can be seen that even the Specialist of the Apple Store, in addition to the sales KPIs such as "selling iPhone", "selling Apple Care" and "developing enterprise customers", customer satisfaction also occupies a large assessment weight.
However, there seem to be two contradictions here.
The educational requirements for elite planners are not as good as those for selling mobile phones... This is the first point of contradiction.
Although the recruitment indicates that a bachelor's degree is a "principle", a college degree can also be "relaxed". It's not that you can't look down on college degrees, but the Apple Specialist that sells mobile phones next door is also mostly from the original 211 colleges and universities and double first-class universities. Obviously, insurance products are much more complicated than selling mobile phones, not to mention those wealth planning, asset management, pension plan design, etc.
Is it a salesman or a real expert? This is the second contradiction.
At present, the market emphasizes the identity of "tabula rasa" in the recruitment of additional personnel, and these projects seem to have become a basket for recruiting "tabula rasa". In addition to the core requirements of academic qualifications, there are two: historical income and potential customer list.
On the other hand, if they are all "tabula rasa", then planners who do wealth planning for customers will only have more training experience than customers. In addition, since it is a "general course" that spans law, business, finance and taxation, it has never required candidates to have relevant "hard certificates".
Does this mean that these wealth planner projects are just a cloak of "circle management"?
In fact, although it is not explicitly stated, it can also be found from the mouths of some executives that the positioning of "planners" by insurance companies is mainly "universal circle managers".
"Playing advanced circle management" and "hoping that agents can answer some simple professional questions from customers" is the expectation of a leading insurance company executive for this kind of project.
Our company will have professional training, XXP is actually the leader, and there is actually a professional team to be responsible for the overall planning. Gaoke can go to the meeting room in Beijing to receive collective services from professional experts in law, finance and other fields.
Speaking of which, do you already understand that our wealth planners and Lao Mei's financial advisors are completely different things!
4 Why can't we follow the FA path now?
The crux of the matter is that no matter what planner's shell is put on, our marketers can only sell insurance, or other derivatives based on insurance products.
Looking at the financial advisors of the United States, they can be basically divided into three categories: one is to charge management fees based on the scale of assets under management, which is common to charge 1% of the assets under management every year; the second is to collect commissions through the sale of various financial products; and the third is to charge consulting fees for providing consulting services.
Asset management, as the name suggests, is to manage assets for customers, which is more like the role of a fund manager; and the sale of financial products, is equivalent to "buyer", and the domestic Sales is basically the same, the difference is that it can sell funds, insurance and other financial products at the same time; as for the provision of consulting services, in fact, it is a "one-to-one" knowledge payment, which actually has a similar service platform in China, but it is relatively niche.
The "planners" under the command of domestic insurance companies are either constrained by the interests of external partners such as banks, or by the internal interests of insurance groups, or because the companies are not qualified to sell other financial products.
In short, it is impossible or difficult to sell all 2C financial products.
Since they can't provide customers with a global product, it is not surprising that the "planner" will show the prototype of the insurance salesman.
The skin does not have hair, and it will be attached. The inherent defects of the shelves greatly reduce the professionalism of the vision. Becoming a "jack-of-all-trades" salesman who knows a little bit about everything may be the "profession" emphasized in various current "planner" projects. Therefore, it is not surprising that our "specialists" are working in the direction of the "panacea".
However, it is true that for many companies, it is more realistic to invite people in first under the idea of circle management, have a reliable beginning, and get some actual premiums.
If you want spring and snow, you also want to be a Riba person.
As for the really professional things - "customer service" and "deep mining" or something, the company has its own resources to dock. That's probably what the company said during the induction training of various "planners".
Back to the question at the beginning of this article.
Do we encourage our children to be "planners" when they choose a career?
It should be said that no matter what name the profession of agent appears, it is only when everyone is willing to let their children do this job that the agent reform can be regarded as a real success.
Surrogate work is what makes it a really good job. At the very least, practitioners will no longer break the big defense for the phrase "selling insurance".