My roommate is an insurance agent and apparently they have a policy where if someone who bought a policy through an agent cancels or doesn't renew for any reason the amount of that premium is subtracted from their pay. This hasn't happened to her yet, but it has happened to some of her teammates and they are basically in the red so to speak.
They have to sell x amount of premium each month to reach goal and if they don't they only get the base pay which is not even close to being a living wage.
For example, let's say that goal is $60,000 for the month and you have $20,000 worth of cancelations (either people who change their minds shortly after buying their policy or choose not to renew for whatever reason) the agent then “owes” that company the $20,000. So to make up for that, the agent would then have to sell $80,000 in premium to make goal. This can keep compounding depending on how many more people change their minds or don't renew.
Some of her teammates are still playing catch up from these “lost sales” and it's not even guaranteed that they'll come close to making goal even before that since they take more than just sales calls. So agents can end up “owing” the company as much or more than goal and basically never be able to catch up, letting the company pay them bare minimum. Oh, and if they miss goal too many times they can potentially lose their job.
This seems skeezy as hell. Is this even legal?
My roommate and I are in Utah, but the company operates in Arizona, Nevada, SoCal, Montana, Wyoming, and Alaska as well