Banner Life Insurance Sales Contest Results

From 6/1 – 9/1, there were 9 of us were competing for a Mac Book Pro sponsored by Banner Life Insurance.

For full contest rules, click here: 2013-Sales-Contest-Banner.

Banner Life donated a 13′ MacBook Pro to the winner (announced below!).  2nd place is a set of steak knives (think Glengarry Glen Ross).  3rd place…well you don’t want to know what 3rd place gets.

Points were earned for each submitted application (not app taken, but application submitted to underwriting), with a total of 10 points possible per application. Points are awarded based on the premium amount, with 1 bonus point available if the carrier chosen is from our sponsor, Banner Life. Points are awarded as follows:

• 6 points for the application for a case up to $500

• 7 points for an application up to $1000

• 8 points for an application up to $2000

• 9 points for an application up to $3000

• 10 points for an application over $3000

Results from 8/3 – 8/31 (final 4 weeks) are below.


We’re all using aliases to prevent being “Google Searched” as we don’t want any clients or even personal friends knowing our business.  Not to mention ruthless recruiters bothering us.

Norfolk’n Chance had a great month submitting 40 applications for $47,327.  That’s an average of 2 applications per day – great hustle!

Oprah Winfrey came out of nowhere with $44,128 submitted on 19 applications.  Well done Oprah, way to finish up the contest!

Howard Stern kept his hot streak by submitting $29,332 on 33 applications and also had the most Banner Life Insurance applications with 8 apps submitted.  Howard secured the contest win with this solid month (more on that later).

My Boy Blue broke $10k submitted  and everyone else had decent months.

Contest Winners

Here are the FINAL contest results from 6/1 – 9/1.

1st place goes to Howard Stern who crushed these last 3 months.  110 applications for $185k!  That’s an average premium of $1682 per app.  Just ridiculous.  He absolutely deserves the Macbook Pro  by leading in premium, applications and Banner applications (21).

Howard Stern outworks any online agent I know.  You want to know the crazy thing?  He’s only been selling life insurance online and over the phone for less than 1 year.  He figured out how to market life insurance online and hasn’t stopped hustling.  I spoke with him a couple days ago and he took a $6k simplified issue app from his car on a 1 call close.  That pretty much sums up his work ethic.

2nd place goes to Norfolk’n Chance who earns the set of steak knives with 109 applications (1 shy of the lead) for $95k in submitted premium.  I know the set of steak knives is a bit of a joke, but you know what’s not a joke?…$95k in submitted premium.  I’m sure any independent agent in the country would love that result.  Well done.

3rd place goes to My Boy Blue who submitted 56 applications for $61,443.  Thats a fantastic 3 months and you’re the lucky winner of a framed photo of Nic West.  I’d use it as a dartboard..but hey, that’s just me.

I was in a personal competition with Chris Huntley from insuranceblogbychris.com.  Chris (Hurricane) owned me by submitting 33 applications for $69k to my (Victorious Secret) 14 applications for $27k.  I unfortunately had to give up on personal production a few weeks in the contest – my production was solely off of referral business where I had to write the applications since I was the one being referred.   I gave up production because I had too many marketing projects being neglected and needed to shift my focus to those as they are the most crucial things growing my business right now.  More leads = more $.  I’ll share these on future blog posts, so make sure you’re subscribed to my email list!

Also, make sure you check out Chris’s contest hub page for the contest as well – lots of good real-life training on his weekly updates.

I just want to thank Banner Life Insurance for sponsoring this contest and Pinney Insurance for hosting it.  We submitted exactly 100 Banner Life Insurance applications and it wasn’t hard at all to recommend them with their competitive rates and market positioning.

Final Thoughts

The unique thing about this competition is  all the production is sourced by independent life insurance agents and their own online marketing efforts.  These guys are generating their own leads online and not relying on outside sources for leads.  They are in control of their own destiny.

Combined, we did close to three quarters of a million dollars in 3 months from our own self generated internet leads!  I bet if we did the competition the same time next year, production would double since we’re all growing our marketing efforts.

A lot of agents think the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) is a very lofty goal since only the top 5% of agents in the country obtain that status.   To secure MDRT status, you need $91,000 in commissions for 2014 qualification.  Every single agent in this competition is on track to easily make MDRT, thus being in the top 5% of agents in the US.  In my opinion, hitting MDRT is easy once it clicks that our business is all about marketing and you’re actively marketing every day.  All we’re doing is replacing face to face prospecting with online marketing.

In some agent’s minds this is the way life insurance will be sold in the future (online and over the phone), but we’re all doing it right here…right now.  I applaud everyone in this competition for being forward thinking, believing in their capabilities to market online for life insurance and having the guts to invest in your business.

For those that are sitting on the sidelines and interested in jumping in, every single agent started just where you are today.  The winner of this contest was a face to face life insurance agent 1 year ago…and he submitted $185k in 3 months from self-generated online leads.

Remove those limiting beliefs holding you back and get in the game!