Sales & business development · Leading & Selling
Insurance agent: what the job actually is
Helping people and businesses work out what could go wrong and what it would cost, then selling them protection against it.
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The work
What this job actually is
- Selling and servicing insurance: working out what a person or business needs to be protected against, finding a policy that fits, and helping when a claim has to be made.
- There are two worlds with different licences. General insurance, such as car, home and business, is licensed through the Registered Insurance Brokers of Ontario. Life and accident and sickness insurance is licensed through FSRA, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario.
- Brokers work for brokerages and arrange coverage with a range of insurers. Agents often represent one insurer. The work feels similar to the customer and different in who you answer to.
- A lot of the job is explaining things people would rather ignore: deductibles, exclusions, what happens when something goes wrong. Your honesty about what a policy does not cover is the whole value of the job.
- Renewals and service are most of the work. You will hear from clients at the worst moments of their year.
A Tuesday
What a normal day looks like
Not a good day or a bad one. The ordinary version, which is what you would actually be living.
- 8:30 — Open the renewals list and check which policies are expiring this month.
- 9:00 — A client calls about a car accident. They are shaken, and you start the claim before you start explaining.
- 10:00 — Quote a home policy for a young couple buying their first house, going through each question and what it affects.
- 11:30 — Phone a business owner whose coverage no longer matches what the business now does.
- 12:30 — Lunch, answering one more question from the car.
- 13:30 — Compare three insurers' quotes for the same commercial client. The cheapest is cheapest for a reason, and you find it.
- 15:00 — Paperwork. Every conversation about coverage has to be recorded in case it is questioned later.
- 16:00 — Study for the next level of licence or a continuing education requirement.
- 16:45 — Follow-up calls to people who got a quote and have gone quiet.
Honestly
Who loves this, and who should not do it
The second list is the useful one. Nearly every careers page leaves it out, which is why nearly every careers page reads like an advert.
- You are happy to explain a complicated thing patiently and as often as needed.
- You are comfortable with a job that is partly sales, as long as the sale is honest.
- You are good at keeping a long list of people and their needs in your head.
- You can be calm and kind with someone who is having a bad day.
- You want a job that you can enter without a university degree and build from there.
- You dislike selling. For many agents, pay is partly or mostly commission, and your income depends on the clients you win and keep.
- You do not like exams. Licensing involves them, and RIBO's Level 1 exam has a pass mark of 75 out of 100.
- You do not like repetition. Renewals, quotes and explaining deductibles come round again and again.
- You are uncomfortable giving people bad news about coverage. Telling a client that their claim is not covered is part of it.
- You get uneasy with regulation. Both licences come with rules about conduct, record-keeping and continuing education.
The route in
How you actually get there in Ontario
Finish high school
Job Bank says completion of secondary school is usually required, and that employers typically provide and require insurance industry courses plus on-the-job training. Both insurance brokers and agents are regulated occupations in Ontario, and Job Bank names FSRA as the regulator.For general insurance: the RIBO Level 1 exam
RIBO's Level 1 exam is three hours long with 100 multiple-choice questions, and the pass mark is 75 out of 100. It is offered through the Insurance Institute of Ontario and the Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario. You can write twice with each provider, and after two failures there is an eight-month wait with that provider. RIBO's pages describe Level 1 brokers working under the supervision of a Principal Broker.Move up through the levels
RIBO has three licence levels. Level 2 brokers still work under supervision but with more independence and complex commercial work. Level 3 allows a broker to manage a brokerage's operations and compliance, and to act as a Principal Broker.For life insurance: the FSRA licence
Life and accident and sickness insurance agents are licensed through FSRA after completing a national qualification programme, and the agent is generally sponsored by an insurer. FSRA's own pages block automated reading, so check fsrao.ca for the current requirements before you plan.Consider a college programme
ontariocolleges.ca says Ontario insurance programmes cover insurance principles, sales, underwriting and business law, offer credits toward the Chartered Insurance Professional certificate, and support licensing requirements. Many include co-op placements.
Where this comes from: RIBO — Level 1 entry-level broker exam · RIBO — Licence levels · Job Bank — Insurance agents and brokers: requirements in Ontario · ontariocolleges.ca — Insurance programmes
The money
What it pays in Ontario
Job Bank's own figures, quoted rather than summarised, with the period they describe — so you can tell how old they are and go and check them.
- $21.63
- Low (hourly)
- $30.22
- Median (hourly)
- $51.28
- High (hourly)
Ontario, NOC 63100. Reference period 2023-2024, last updated by Job Bank on 19 November 2025. Wages vary a lot by region inside Ontario and by how long you have been doing it — the low figure is roughly where you start, not what the job is worth.
Where it is heading
The outlook for the next three years
Job Bank publishes a three-year outlook for every job in every province. It is the closest thing to an honest forecast, and it moves, so read it as a weather report rather than a verdict.
Good4 out of 5 stars
- Employment growth will lead to several new positions.
- A moderate number of positions will become available due to retirements.
- There are a small number of unemployed workers with recent experience in this occupation.
What that rating means: how many openings Job Bank expects in Ontario for this kind of work against how many people are likely to be looking — not whether it is a good job. A “limited” rating means more competition for each opening; it does not close the door, and it can change before you are ready to walk through it.
- 36,200
- people work in this job in Ontario
- 56%
- are women (48% across all jobs)
- 23%
- are self-employed (15% across all jobs)
Source: Job Bank — Insurance agents and brokers job prospects in Ontario (NOC 63100). Outlook updated by Job Bank on 10 December 2025; read by us on 5 October 2026.
Before you leave school
Things you can do now
- Take business, maths and any course that has you talk to a customer, such as a co-op placement in an office or retail.
- Ask your parents or guardians to show you, with names removed if they prefer, their car or home policy, and find the deductible and one exclusion.
- Ask a local brokerage whether they take co-op students. Insurance brokerages are in almost every town.
- Practise explaining something complicated, such as how a game's rules work, to someone who has never played, in two minutes.
Test it
Do this before you decide anything
Reading about a job tells you almost nothing. This is designed to be done alone, this week, for free.
Read a real policy and explain what it will not cover
About 60 minutes- Find a real insurance document: a home, tenant or car policy summary at your house, or a sample policy that an insurer posts publicly.
- Find the deductible, the limit and at least two things that are excluded. Write them out in plain language.
- Explain it aloud to a friend or family member in two minutes, without jargon, and ask them what they would have bought.
- Notice whether you liked finding the catch, or felt you were being sneaky.
What it tells you. If you enjoyed finding what the policy really said and explaining it fairly, you have the heart of the job. If the exclusions felt like fine print you wanted to avoid, or explaining it felt like pressure, a job that is partly commission and always about bad outcomes will wear you down.
Better than any article
Questions for somebody who does this job
Most people say yes to a teenager who asks good questions. These are the ones that get real answers rather than encouragement.
- “Are you a broker or an agent, and what is the difference in your day?”
- “How are you paid, and what was it like in your first year?”
- “How hard was the licensing exam, and how did you prepare?”
- “What kind of claim conversation is hardest?”
- “How did you find your first clients?”
- “What would make you hire a teenager for a summer job?”
Could you own one of these?
The part other career sites never mention
Yes, in time. Brokerages are often small, locally owned businesses, and a Level 3 licence allows a broker to manage and be responsible for one. It takes years of experience and the licence first, and you carry the compliance and the cost of keeping clients.
Not sure this is the right list to be reading
Start from yourself, not from the job.
Future Finder is free, takes about ten minutes, needs no account and stores nothing. It will tell you which kinds of work you lean toward, and which of these pages are worth your time.
Parent of a teenager weighing this up? Career coaching for teens gets them talking to people who do the work, anywhere in Ontario.
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Wages and training requirements change. Every figure on this page is linked to the body that publishes it, and the review date above says when we last checked. If you find something out of date, tell us and we will fix it.