There are many reports about American Income Life. While I cannot speak for the company as a whole, I can speak about Sabrina Lloyd & Assoc., and her agency. Many complaints have been from people who have yet to for the company. I was with the company for over 9 months, and this is a sample of what went on:
1) Sabrina had forced me to pay $150 a week in "management fees" to her. At first she had said this was to pay Marcelo (our quality control manager, who ironically has sub-par retention himself) to assist us in policy work with things such as policy ratings, bank account changes, etc. While we were on the field writing business. Then as more and more policy work started to fall on our shoulders (around early October), I had asked why we were paying the $150/week. She then replied for office supplies such as leads, oral kits, application paper, etc. She had threatened saying if I, along with another manager, would not pay office fees I would have my management contract rescinded. She had blatantly lied about where the fees were going.
In addition to this she had said that all managers pay office fees to her, when in reality only GAs and MGAs in her New York office paid them. Even though I was an SA, she still had made me pay them. Also as an agent I was paying the fees thinking it was helping my policy work, when in reality it was just to help her keep her office afloat. I was promoted offically to SA in Sept but I first time I wrote her a check was the last week in July.
2) Many times she had forced several of my applications that should be considered a trial application, she put it through. For instance I had received a $215 about 5-6 months ago, and both the applicants were clearly overweight (right at around a T-12 rating), I told Sabrina to trial everything, but she insisted it would be okay, and lo and behold the husband was declined, and the wife got a hefty rating. This is just one example, and since numbers are the result, my decline percentage is abnormally high because of business that should be trialed, but sent down as a regular app anyway.
One day I went to New York City, her husband had told me that, "just get a check, it doesn't matter if it falls off. That's why we have Marcelo (our quality control manager for CT). We just need your team to see you cranking out big numbers because then they will be doing the same thing. The more you write, the more they will."
3) For our manager Christmas party, her secretary in New York (Karolina Debak) had suggested that we get her and her husband Robert tickets for the two of them to go and see a Jay-Z concert. Furthermore she said all of the managers should pay $100 to be able to cover the cost of those tickets. Come January, someone in the office had mentioned that the money was used to pay for our Christmas Dinner Party! I went online and found out that the tickets for two people second row center were less than $500 total for both people. We had about 15-20 managers who had contributed, thus a total of $1,500-$2,000. Where did the extra money go?
4) Moreover, I am not sure if this is the practice of just Sabrina Lloyd & Associates, or all of American Income Life/National Income Life, but because we are 1099 status, there are certain restrictions on what she can/can't do. Going directly to the IRS website (http://www.irs. Gov/businesses/small/article/0, id=99921,00.html), the only thing that she can do is, and I quote, "right to control or direct only the result of the work and not the means and methods of accomplishing the result." On a weekly basis she holds mandatory sessions where we must come into the office as well as go into New York city every Wednesday for 10 minutes to drop off our business that week. She even says we are not allowed to take the train, we must drive.
5) Her husband Robert ran the Connecticut office, and even though he has no position in the company, and no insurance license he would train us on setting appointments, recruiting, how to present in the home, etc. Every night we would have to report our numbers to him not Sabrina. On top of that, he is illegally in the country without papers! I'm sure no company would want a illegal person working for them, and especially without their knowledge or consent.
6) Recently she made me write a letter to the company as a response to a complaint from another manager. The purpose was to say to that everything in that letter was false. Although Sabrina never said it directly, there was a pressure that if I didn't write this, I would lose my job. Therefore in fear of losing my job I wrote the letter. What I initially wanted to say was that I had no part in what took place. But Sabrina made me say certain things to save herself by reading my certain sections of the letter and having me write a specific rebuttal for that section.
7) She held illegal practices by telling me it would be okay to pay for one specific policy to reinstate it. To cover this up, she had told me to tell the client that we would waive all of the premiums necessary on top of the company's three month waiver policy. I didn't believe this was ethically right, and thankfully when dealing with the client it had never come to that. The client had paid for the policy and everything worked out. But this raises the suspicion that many other policies by her are handled as such. How you do one thing is how you do everything.
8) Back in January, our office in Connecticut had a manager's meeting. After about an hour or so, she had come to the conclusion that my girlfriend and I could no longer have a relationship if we were both going to be managers. Sabrina was not going to have two managers in the office in a relationship. Either we would be managers and no longer be together, or we would be both agents or one agent, one manager, and be able to continue the relationship. This decision was not based on any professional or production level, but was more personal than anything. Ironically she and her husband are together running the office.
9) Finally, as a manager when we bring on a new agent, we are to code the agent by field training them, have them watch us do a few presentations, and giving them some of our business. On numerous occasions, I would give a code to a new agent even if he/she was not in the home. An Sabrina would make me tell the client that the new agent would be taking care of the policy so when someone from the office calls, and mentions the name, tell them that everything is fine, when actually the new agent was never in the home to begin with. I'm assuming she did this because the company requires a certain number of codes each month, and if she does not fufill that quota, the company charges her for recruiting leads. Also perhaps she gets an additional bonus for each code? Regardless this is not right.
This is just a shout out to everyone who works for her to only be fair to let you know what will happen after a couple months on the job. Anyone thinking about working for this agency, you decide. She doesn't have a single person working for her who has been there more than a year and a half. Hmmm.
She will blame everyone but herself for the failures, and take the glory when the time comes.
"When a hunter goes on a hunting trip he brings two things. His dog and his gun. The dog is there to find the rabbits, and the gun is there to shoot the rabbits. What happens when there are no more rabbits? Well, good luck to the dog."
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