12 Questions to Ask Before You Sign With Any IMO (and Where the Answer Is in the Contract)
Ownership, renewals, releases, comp, chargebacks, leads, fees, training, recruiting. Twelve questions, each with the document that holds the answer.
The question agents ask each other more than any other is five words long: "Thoughts on working for company ?" The answers are loyal, bitter, recruiting or all three, and almost none of them quote a contract. These are questions from agents like you, and this is the checklist behind them. This post does not review any IMO, FMO or agency. It gives you the twelve questions those arguments are really about, and tells you which document holds the answer, so you can check instead of ask. This is general information, not legal advice; have a contract you do not understand reviewed before you sign it. Ownership and renewals 1. Who is the carrier paying? If the carrier pays the organization and the organization pays you, you are on a licensed-only or assignment arrangement. That is not automatically bad, but every other answer below depends on it. Look for the words "assignment of commissions" in the agent agreement. 2. Are renewals vested, and from what date? "Vested" means the renewal is yours even after you leave. Find the vesting schedule. If the answer is a percentage that rises with years of service, write the numbers down. If the answer is "you own your book from day one" and there is no schedule in the document, ask where it is written. 3. Can you take your carrier appointments with you? This is the release question, and it produces more anger than any other topic agents raise: 12-month waits at one organization, six-month lockouts at another, releases denied to agents "personally trained" three years earlier. The release policy should be in the agreement. If it is not, the carrier's own transfer rules apply and those are usually a period of no new business with the old hierarchy; Brokers Alliance's guide to IMO releases walks through the mechanics. Compensation 4. What is the comp level, and what is it a percentage of? Agents compare 40%, 70%, 90% and 120% contracts as if they were the same unit. They are not. A percentage of target premium at one carrier can pay less than a lower percentage at another. We show the arithmetic in Why a 110% Contract Can Pay Less Than a 100% Contract . 5. Are you paid advanced or as-earned, and who carries the chargeback? An advance is a loan against future premium. If the client stops paying, someone owes it back. Find out whether that someone is you, whether the organization can offset it against your renewals, and whether they can hold renewals as security after you leave. One agent described that exact situation: renewals withheld against future chargebacks, with no clause he could find. Read the offset language before you need it. 6. How do you get promoted, and who decides? "The guidelines say X but your upline controls your promotions" was a recurring complaint. If advancement depends on a person's approval rather than a production number in writing, know that going in. Leads and costs 7. Who owns the lead company? If the organization sells leads to its own agents, that is a second revenue line on top of your override. Not necessarily a problem, but you should know the lead vendor and the upline are the same business. 8. What does it cost to be here? Platform fees, CRM fees, contracting fees, licensing reimbursements that are actually loans. Ask for the full list in writing. Free is fine. Undisclosed is not. Support 9. What does training actually consist of? Ask for the calendar, not the adjective. "Daily calls" and "field training" mean different things; find out which one you get and who runs it. 10. Will you be asked to recruit? The second-largest source of frustration is agents who joined to sell and were told to write down thirty names. If you want to produce only, ask whether the comp plan or the promotion path penalizes that. Verification 11. Can you see the organization's numbers? The best advice we have heard on this: "have your new upline show you their business and production metrics; many people in this industry lie, numbers don't." Ask for placement rate, persistency and average tenure. An organization that tracks those will show you. 12. Does the contract say what the recruiter said? One agent's suggestion is to paste the agreement into an AI assistant and ask "do I actually own my business if I sign this?" You do not need AI for that. Read the agreement with questions 1 through 8 beside you and mark each answer. Anything the recruiter promised that is not on the page is not part of the deal. For agency owners: answer these before you are asked Every one of these questions is also a recruiting advantage for the organizations that can answer them. AgencyView gives an agency a hierarchy where each producer sees their own book, their own commission splits and their own carrier statements in the CFO Center , and where overrides are configured as numbers, not promises. If your answers to questions 1, 2, 5 and 11 are already visible to your agents inside the platform, the question never has to be asked. Our FMO Guide covers how overrides and commission tracking work across a hierarchy.
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