Do not buy into their franchise! - Agency Owner Brightway Insurance Employee Review

Horrible carrier appointments. I feel scammed. As an agency owner I depend on my carrier appointments. Their website promises all of these carrier appointments but I did not get a single name brand carrier! In addition, they gave me carriers that only take on high risk clients. Which meant catering to my family, friends, neighbors was next to impossible. You can only "email" every department there except for Agency Support and Tech support. I was never told this!! There were alot of horrible things I found out after I started my agency. I can technically email amazon too, I don't need to pay a franchise fee for that!!! As soon as I opened the doors to my agency I got hit with a huge surprise bill from them. It was never clearly communicated with me that all of these pass through charges would start accumulating and pushing me into debt way before I opened my agency. I was shocked when I got the bill, and they threatened to cancel my franchise agreement if I didn't pay!!! Meanwhile there is no way to call that department. All I can do is email them, and continue to get automated messages from them. Just horrible. They have something called AMS 360. This is like some kind of software from the 90s that is the backbone to your agency!!! You need to know AMS 360 inside and out to get paid, plus this software is very expensive. I don't know how products like AMS 360 even exist in this cut throat technology world we live in. If I were to do it all over again I would start an independent agency and buy into an association that has bargaining power with the carriers. You just need to belong to a large association and you can get carrier appointments that way. You don't need to buy a franchise with them! Getting carrier appointments by yourself is next to impossible but its very possible when you're represented by a large association. I have been to hell and back with this company.