American Income Life Reviews and Complaints

A friend from who I had not talked to in a few years called me up and offered me a job interview at his company, dress professionally. I was looking for a job and was excited to go. I was back in school after doing security overseas for a few years. I didn't have much direct sales experience, and have never interviewed for a sales position before, so I wasn't sure what to expect, and when I got there, I wasn't sure if this "unconventional" interview process was standard for sales positions. Regardless, I have 7 years of waiting tables, which is definitely sales and customer service related, so I figured why not. It was really odd though.

I got there, and there were maybe 30 - 40 people already there, dressed well. Gave my resume to the administrative assistant... who looked like he was probably a sales agent or manager. Waited a short time for the "interview," which was 5 minutes long. I shared my interview with another prospective employee. It seemed very odd to share a job interview with someone else. The interviewer kept stressing that we needed a positive high energy attitude, and that they only intended to hire maybe 20 of the prospective employees there (this number later changed to 15). She explained the interview process will consist of that 5 minute interview, then a big 2 hour seminar, then a third phone interview later. In the seminar, the product we'd be selling was sold to us, then they went into crazy detail about the compensation we'd get. They kept pushing us to take notes, and it felt like they were trying to imply that they were definitely watching us to make sure we had the qualities they wanted. All the employees there seemed super happy and cheerful and friendly and excited the entire time, and kept talking about how much money they made. It kept being stressed that hard work is necessary to succeed (yes, I know thank you), and it felt implied that if you didn't succeed it was definitely because you didn't work hard. Kept saying how loyalty and hard work was important. I decided not to close off any opportunities so I stayed for the seminar and gave a loud testimonial as to why I felt this would be a good fit for me and what attracted me to the job, tried to seem eager and happy, but I was skeptical. One guy started getting choked up, almost cried when it came to be his turn to speak about his interest. Said he felt that this was where God intended him to be. The speakers had a placid smile, nodded and said "great!" Lol. Some of the prospective employees who spoke actually sounded very professional, I wondered what they thought about it all.

I felt like I was at a cult initiation.

Anyways, the compensation works like this if you're interested in hearing about it:

We were there to sell insurance to various unions' members. They stressed that there'd be no cold calling or anything.

If we sold 4 plans a week, we'd get $725 that week. A $300 weekly bonus was also promised.

2 plans = #175

After a few months you could expect to be promoted and you'd receive +5% pay, and you'd supervise 1-3 people, making a small commission off of what they sell.

Each promotion seemed pretty much like this. Slight increase in pay (I'm guessing pay refers to your commissions, as there is no base salary), and an increase in how many people you supervise, getting a commission from their sales. Seemed similar to those multi-level marketing meetings I kept getting invited to in college, except I wasn't selling energy drinks.

As mentioned before, no base pay, all commission. You also had to pay around $200 for training for a state license. I read elsewhere that other people paid up to $6-700 at this company for that license. I immediately wondered who was making profit off of this training and licensing procedure... I'm guessing the company. I'm very wary of companies that require up front training costs, I used to do some modelling, and there were many scam agencies that would appeal to your sense of vanity, charge you money up front for photos and model training, and would leave you high and dry without any jobs. I got the impression that this was similar, except instead of appealing to your dreams of modelling internationally and being super handsome/beautiful, they were appealing to you being a super duper professional, working hard, making money and calling shots haha. If you look online there is also a youtube video of "What a AIL house party looks like." Flashy cars and big houses and hot girls. Okay.

A number of people left during the seminar, the speakers did not try to stop them or anything. After the seminar was over, maybe 20 out of 40 people were left. I talked with my friend briefly, caught up a little bit, then he went back into business stuff. I remember him being a pretty good guy, so I wanted to give him the benefit of a doubt. It seemed like he was a bit brainwashed or something, everyone working there did. It felt like I was being sold a job, and they were trying to make me feel like I was trying really hard to get it. Anyways, I thanked everyone, and told them to have a nice day. Then I went home.

I got called 3 times by them later that night for my 3rd interview, didn't pick up the first 2, 2 voicemails, thought it was interesting they'd be so eager to call me. I picked up, conversation went like this:

Her: "Hi XXXX! This is YYYY from AIL! Wanted to talk with you and follow up on a few things from the interview!"

Me: "Hi, YYYY, thanks for calling. I think I might not be interested in taking the job at this time, but I really appreciate your time and consideration!"

Her: "You might not be interested, or you are not interested?"

Me: "I'm not interested, sorry."

Her: "Well, actually you weren't one of the people we chose, but we wanted to get your feedback on our interview process!"

(Ok, lol, then why did you call me 3 times, and double check that I wasn't interested? Don't lie to me lady, you offered everyone who went to the seminar a job, hahaha).

My impression was that everyone working there had super fake try-hard attitudes because they felt like they needed to to be successful,and if they didn't have an ear to ear smile plastered on their face, they were a *** lazy person with a bad attitude. They probably worked super hard and gave their all to the company, realized they're not making much money, start complaining about it, watch everyone else get super cliquey and hostile towards them, leave the company super angry and disgruntled. I imagine when they leave, the managers would tell the other employees that they:A) Didn't work hard enough or want it bad enoughB) Just weren't a good fitC) Maybe say negative things about them to get people to doubt their character.

I get the impression from forums online that the company is intentionally structured to promote MASSIVE turnover. Hire a TON of sales agents at no cost to the company (profit to the company since you have to pay for training), get them to do all the work of driving around and recruiting, sell a few plans and quit when they realize that they're not making money and they're being used. I see other employees online that give testimonials about how awesome the company is, and they are also slightly disrespectful to the people who disagree, telling them that they are obviously lazy and that "not everyone can be a super awesome businessman like me." I notice a lot of the posts that are defensive of the company are copied and pasted from forum to forum, and sometimes are pasted twice in the same thread! Former employees have said that they forced employees to go around posting these things, and that other people in the company inflated their ratings on various websites intentionally. This seems clear to me from my observations. I'll say this now, I intend on pasting the review of my experience on many other sites, because it seems to me that this is a pyramid scheme scam intended on bilking people who are not familiar with actual insurance sales jobs.

My advice to you people is to stay away from this place. If you work there currently, GTFO if any of this stuff rings true to you. Thanks for reading, and good luck to you job searchers out there!