Pros
They are a mutual life insurance company
Cons
You are really just a Life Insurance Salesperson - If you want to be a well- rounded advisor to your clients then this is not your place. But if you want to be seen as the "Life Insurance Guy" to all of your closest friends, this may be your place. But even so, look around for better companies because they are out there. You pay for everything. It is almost impossible to become profitable in your business with all of the expenses they sadlle you with. Phone, Rent, Forced Assistant, Copier, Furniture, All Meals, All Travel Expenses to Company meetings, etc.. Trust me, it adds up! They want you to believe that paying for all those expenses is in the clients best interest because it keeps the companies overall expenses low, therby raising dividends. But there are at least 3 other companies that pay for most of things and have a higher Dividend? Makes you wonder... There is a reason they were voted as a best place to launch a career and not maintain a career. Once you realize what other companies are out there, you will leave. This is a captive company- which means if you ever decide to leave them and move to another firm, or start your own firm, you do not keep any of the commissions you earned. They keep them all. Most other companies allow you to keep your renewals when you leave because you have earned them! Its a scam. career agents do not transfer their practice to Northwestern Mutual Life for a reason. You will not find Anyone who came from another Insurance company to nml, all the agents over 5 years started out there and now cannot leave because they would lose all their renewals. You can never use your own business name, you will always be representing an insurance company and you will find most potential clients are not as open to talking to you about anything other than Insurance. The training is terrible. There is very little product knowledge taught and all of the Senior Advisors that come in to talk to you just want you do joint work with them, then take half your commissions and your clients when you leave the company because your clients are actually the companies clients , not yours! They tell you its your own business to run, but dont buy into that! They dictate everything and treat you like you are a child. If you choose to opt out of their daily, weekly, and monthly time-wasting meetings, you are ostrasized and they will try to force you out. You must drink their kool-aid. They are a Direct Recognition Life Insurance Company- Research this before joining. You may want to be with a Non-Direct recognition company for your clients benefit. Most people there dont even know what this actually is.. Dont be fooled by the initial compensation models they give you, that only takes into account if you have an upper-class family to intitally sell-to and they always show you the highest models.Also- be Careful of their Mutual Selection hiring process as everything they say is a "canned" speech and not unique to you, even though thats the way it may sound. Bottom Line: If you want to just be a Life Insurance Salesperson, this may be an option for you, but still there are many other better companies with better priced products, much smaller expenses and higher commision rates out there. If you want to be seen as a well-rounded advisor to your clients and not a Life Insurance Peddler, this is not definetly not your place.