To any potential new hire with New York Life:
Please reconsider if you plan working for any agency affiliated with New York Life or in Oregon, which is called the "Greater Oregon Office" compromising Eugene, Salem, Portland and Bend, Oregon. While working for this company for over 2 years I watched several agents come and go like some kind of shopping mall retail experience resembling that of an 'Black Friday Special' sales event. I could not even count the number of agents coming and going within a years period out of the Eugene, Oregon Office... It had to be over 40 plus agents.in any case, what most individuals starting out will tell you is that they are coached to sell family and friends. This is true because a sales agent needs to start somewhere in the industry. However, this Greater Oregon Agency is purposefully making it their primary objective to glean agents for close family and friends to buy NYL products... And then going out of their way to get rid of these agents.
Why would I say this you ask? Well, because in my 8 years of experience I know that trying to make a business thrive has to eventually go beyond family and friends at some point. This Greater Oregon Office purposely withholds information about purchasing leads from the internet, and they intentionally make you buy their recycled leads off the internet they get for free for $40 per lead... Even if you don't want this lead. Throughout my entire employment with this company the managers were trying to not only glean family and friends from me, but they were trying to encourage agents to buy Long Term Care and Life Insurance they knew agents could not afford.
In addition, to this they had these "Carrot Dangling" weekly and monthly meetings where they would tell agents to sell a certain amount of life policies to receive $4,000 in bonuses for example. The managers would then tell agents to buy insurance on themselves to get the bonuses, which managment would say was a now brainer commission plus the bonus earned would be more than the underlying cost of insurance.in some cases, agents were encouraged to use their 401 (k) s from their previous employers to fund these policies or other money in their bank accounts.
Then later agents would stop paying on these policies and have to pay back New York Life the bonuses and commissions. This is just one simple example of the schemes used to get agents to make the office or agency look good and to make money.in some cases, agents would earn the bonuses legitatimately but then management would try figuring out a way to reverse the bonuses paid saying originally it was not earned. My question naturally was why then did you pay it out several months ago. The Greater Oregon Office Management was constantly manipulating, threatening and harassing agents to sell or buy products and in some cases like myself threatening my licenses and reputation.
The Greater Oregon Office Complaince Officer, Regional Manager and my Direct Manager regularly threatened my career in order to get me to stay with the company and produce. I tried resigning from this office twice because of the ridculous expenses associated with working for the company that just seemed to come out of no where without explanation and payroll deductions that were not disclosed or okayed by myself..in my view they were illegal. As an example, I worked from home and was frequently on the road traveling to clients homes... And Greater Oregon Office was charging me for monthly $5 or $10 water, $20 photocopies, $35 phone charges and cubicle space and internet. Why would anyone pay for this if they do not work in the company office? Furthermore, I was forced to pay all of these expenses before receiving my commission checks and I was paying for bottled water that sat in the office of a senior agent. His stupid assistant sent us monthly bills. If you didn't pay it the Regional Manager would get involved causing more stress in an already stressful selling environment.
Because there is so much that went on with this company I am going to highlight much of the rest. After resigning for the second time successfully by FEDEX and having a notorized document sent to this office to get rid of this job... The Compliance Officer and Regional Manager threatened to ruin my career and threatened to black ball me from the industry upon several occassions when and if I resigned. So they write a derogatory statement on my securities license more or less "Slandering" my good name and now I can't get hired at even a straight commission financial company. What a joke.in addition, to these managers doing this the Regional Manager had one of his loyal agents write a "Letter of Compliant" about my conduct using one of my clients.
Clients that were never damage let me just say that up front, because they earned over $100,000 on their investments. The 'Loyal Agent' had these clients sign a letter he drafted stating the clients did not know what they purchased as far as life insurance, that they were not told about charges and so forth. But when they had me investigated these management crooks did not realize what the clients had said, signed with me or that they even signed a personal check that said in the memo section "Variable Life Insurance. Noted with a Smiley Face." The "Letter of Complaint" stated they didn't realize they purchased life insurance, but yet they took an exam for it and cut me a check with all of this information on it.
These managers at the Greater Oregon Agency are corrupt and have ruined several agents lives financially and their licenses. I watched one agent lose his house, rack up one of his credit cards to $30,000 because New York Life kept messing with his pay and then later after he resigned which was in December to work for Wells Fargo. The Regional Manager continued to keep him employed 6 months later so he could receive a retention bonus for number of agents under management. This agent was working for Wells Fargo for 6 months before the Regional Manager asked him to resign again, then after resigning a second time they sent him to collections for over $10,000. This office had sent several agents these collection bills in upwards of $2,000 and over $10,000 to extort their licenses, because if they didn't pay the bill it would affect their VECTOR SCORE which affect the agents ability to be bonded with another firm or insurance company.
I witnessed forms of sexual harassment, threatening, intimidation among other elements of a hostile environment and it just seems unbelievable that a company like New York Life would do such things to their agents. My final experience with New York Life was that when I resigned from being on the road a second time sending a FEDEX of my notorized resignation... The Compliance Officer and Regional Manager called several agents and hire off-duty police officers telling agents I was dangerous and they were concerned about their safety to not come in to the office. I found this out 4 months later after the fact sometime in October from several agents that witnessed this event. I was completely shocked this had occured, but not terribly because the Regional Manager had also threatened my life at one particular point in April which is why I finally decided to do whatever it took to find another job and quit on May 17th.
The environment is so trecherous and so hostile with how management tries forcing money out of your commission checks, encourage agents to leverage themselve with their own retirement and so forth. It was time to quit, and to this vary day I look at some of the agents damaged by this Regional Manager, and it drives me further to go public with such events. One final note, be aware these managers don't want you to read your contract, nor do they want you to resign before the 1st of Januarary or June because those months help them get rentention bonuses of something like $1,500 or so per agent still working for them.
The agents after 3 years will not earn the managers as much money, which is why they are always hiring. When and if you leave the company sends mass mailing to your clients and newer agents get access to your clients information and try reselling your clients. This office generates more money by reselling your clients then sending you a bill for their cancelled policies... The company is a scamming and fraudulent company in my opinion. They will nickel and dime you until you are literally broke and in financial default. I have spoken with agents there currently that are intimidated to leave and cannot afford their office space yet are told they have to pay it or be sent to collections.
Folks these managers are allowed to do this and much more, because New York Life knows about it all trust me I have spoken with their compliance team in California which overseas this office upon several occassions. If this company treats its agents like this imagine what your getting when you buy their products nothing but screwing.
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