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Insurance Sales Agents

US occupation · SOC 41-3021

Job titles people report: Insurance Agent, Insurance Broker, Insurance Sales Agent, Sales Agent, Sales Associate, Sales Representative, Underwriting Sales Representative

Pay and outlook

Median annual wage, May 2025
$62,280
Half earn more, half earn less
Middle half earn
$46,870 – $96,950
25th to 75th percentile
People employed, May 2025
479,100
Wage and salary jobs (OEWS)
Projected change, 2025–35
+3.3%
Growing slower than all jobs (0% to under 3.5%)
Openings a year (projected)
43,100
New jobs plus replacing people who leave
Typical education to enter
High school diploma or equivalent
BLS
  • All figures are for the United States as a whole. Pay varies a lot by state and city.
  • Wages are for everyone working in the occupation in May 2025, at every career stage. They are not starting salaries or figures for new graduates.
  • Growth and openings are BLS projections for 2025–35. They are estimates, not promises. Openings include jobs that open up when people retire or change occupation, not just new jobs.

What the work involves

Sell life, property, casualty, health, automotive, or other types of insurance. May refer clients to independent brokers, work as an independent broker, or be employed by an insurance company.

Main tasks

  • Customize insurance programs to suit individual customers, often covering a variety of risks.
  • Sell various types of insurance policies to businesses and individuals on behalf of insurance companies, including automobile, fire, life, property, medical and dental insurance, or specialized policies, such as marine, farm/crop, and medical malpractice.
  • Explain features, advantages, and disadvantages of various policies to promote sale of insurance plans.
  • Perform administrative tasks, such as maintaining records and handling policy renewals.
  • Seek out new clients and develop clientele by networking to find new customers and generate lists of prospective clients.
  • Call on policyholders to deliver and explain policy, to analyze insurance program and suggest additions or changes, or to change beneficiaries.
  • Confer with clients to obtain and provide information when claims are made on a policy.
  • Interview prospective clients to obtain data about their financial resources and needs, the physical condition of the person or property to be insured, and to discuss any existing coverage.

Description and tasks from the O*NET® 31.0 Database.

Getting in

Typical education to enter (BLS)
High school diploma or equivalent
Training once hired: moderate-term on-the-job training
O*NET Job Zone 4
Considerable preparation
Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

Interests it suits

The strongest of the six O*NET interest types for this occupation, highest first. The short glosses are ours.

  • Enterprising: leading, persuading and making business decisions
  • Conventional: organising information, records and procedures
  • Social: helping, teaching and caring for people

Fields of study that lead here

From the federal CIP–SOC crosswalk, which links 1 programme to this occupation. A link means the programme prepares people for this kind of work. It doesn't mean the programme is required, or that it's the only route.

Business

  • Insurance

Find colleges that fit you with our matcher: choose Business at the Major step.

Where many students take business

Ordered by the field's share of degrees awarded times undergraduate enrolment (College Scorecard), among colleges with at least 1,000 undergraduates. Online universities are included. It's a rough measure of how big the programme is. It says nothing about quality. The share counts every programme in the field, not only the ones linked to this career.

Related careers

Related occupations from the O*NET database, in its order.

← All careers

Sources

This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. CollegeMatcher has modified all or some of this information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. O*NET 31.0 Database · CC BY 4.0

Changes: we show the core tasks in the O*NET database with the highest importance ratings (up to eight, in that order), the top three O*NET interest types by score, and shortened Job Zone names. Titles, descriptions and task text are unchanged.

Wages: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Projections, typical entry education and training: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections 2025–35. Fields of study: NCES and BLS CIP 2020–SOC 2018 Crosswalk. All public domain. OEWS · Employment Projections · CIP–SOC crosswalk