What an insurance sales agent costs in the US
The wage BLS measured across 479,100 jobs, what an employer pays on top of it, the pay in every state, and which of the job's core tasks already show up in AI use.
Medians for the whole US. Your own cost depends on where you hire, the benefits you offer and the hours worked.
- Median wage
- $62,280
- Hourly wage
- $29.94
- Loaded per hour
- $37.29
- Middle half earns
- $46,870 to $96,950
- Jobs in the US
- 479,100
Wage × 1.2455 for benefits and payroll taxes, from BLS.
An insurance sales agent in the US is paid a median $62,280 a year, $29.94 an hour, across 479,100 jobs. With benefits, a small employer pays about $77,570. Of its 10 core tasks, 2 showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026, and in 1 of those Claude mostly did the task rather than assisting.
The work, task by task
The 10 core tasks O*NET lists for insurance sales agents, most important first, and how each showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026. The bar splits those conversations between Claude doing the task and Claude helping a person do it.
- 01Customize insurance programs to suit individual customers, often covering a variety of risks.
- 02Sell various types of insurance policies to businesses and individuals on behalf of insurance companies, including automobile, fire, life, property, medical and dental insurance, or specialized policies, such as marine, farm/crop, and medical malpractice.
- 03Explain features, advantages, and disadvantages of various policies to promote sale of insurance plans.Claude.ai: 33% did the task, 67% helped
- 04Perform administrative tasks, such as maintaining records and handling policy renewals.
- 05Seek out new clients and develop clientele by networking to find new customers and generate lists of prospective clients.Claude.ai: 71% did the task, 29% helped · API: 100% did the task
- 06Call on policyholders to deliver and explain policy, to analyze insurance program and suggest additions or changes, or to change beneficiaries.
- 07Confer with clients to obtain and provide information when claims are made on a policy.
- 08Interview prospective clients to obtain data about their financial resources and needs, the physical condition of the person or property to be insured, and to discuss any existing coverage.API: 99% did the task, 1% helped
- 09Contact underwriter and submit forms to obtain binder coverage.
- 10Select company that offers type of coverage requested by client to underwrite policy.
2 of 10 tasks appear in the Claude.ai sample of the Anthropic Economic Index for May 2026, and 1 more only in its sample of API traffic, where businesses run Claude inside their own software. A task without a row had too few conversations for Anthropic to publish, which is not the same as none. Shares are of all sampled Claude.ai conversations, so small figures are normal: under 0.01% of every conversation that month was about this occupation.
Pay by state
The median annual wage in each state and DC, and the same wage fully loaded. District of Columbia pays the most, $84,530; New Mexico the least, $45,180.
| State | Median wage | Fully loaded | Middle half | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $65,510 | $81,590 | $47,740 to $103,100 | 7,430 |
| Alaska | $50,500 | $62,900 | $49,800 to $72,140 | 540 |
| Arizona | $61,560 | $76,670 | $48,040 to $79,740 | 11,870 |
| Arkansas | $56,720 | $70,640 | $40,950 to $79,830 | 4,580 |
| California | $76,120 | $94,810 | $49,370 to $104,860 | 41,160 |
| Colorado | $68,730 | $85,600 | $49,360 to $100,600 | 9,530 |
| Connecticut | $74,840 | $93,210 | $53,600 to $103,320 | 5,230 |
| Delaware | $46,710 | $58,180 | $45,160 to $76,990 | 1,220 |
| District of Columbia | $84,530 | $105,280 | $60,460 to $126,750 | · |
| Florida | $59,790 | $74,470 | $46,010 to $79,420 | 47,560 |
| Georgia | $61,850 | $77,030 | $45,980 to $99,430 | 18,030 |
| Hawaii | $64,170 | $79,920 | $57,930 to $79,440 | 1,070 |
| Idaho | $58,510 | $72,870 | $47,740 to $94,860 | 3,200 |
| Illinois | $64,280 | $80,060 | $46,780 to $98,370 | 16,360 |
| Indiana | $61,360 | $76,420 | $48,850 to $94,710 | 10,440 |
| Iowa | $60,140 | $74,900 | $45,770 to $82,080 | 6,840 |
| Kansas | $60,370 | $75,190 | $46,800 to $103,980 | 6,360 |
| Kentucky | $60,880 | $75,830 | $46,260 to $81,000 | 6,210 |
| Louisiana | $55,440 | $69,050 | $43,480 to $79,540 | 7,100 |
| Maine | $62,920 | $78,370 | $49,920 to $78,860 | 2,240 |
| Maryland | $58,300 | $72,610 | $45,170 to $79,700 | 5,700 |
| Massachusetts | $79,300 | $98,770 | $72,850 to $109,390 | 9,940 |
| Michigan | $61,900 | $77,100 | $47,890 to $88,390 | 12,160 |
| Minnesota | $78,640 | $97,950 | $59,940 to $104,170 | 10,010 |
| Mississippi | $47,930 | $59,700 | $37,420 to $78,080 | 3,210 |
| Missouri | $58,990 | $73,470 | $41,960 to $81,960 | 10,030 |
| Montana | $62,040 | $77,270 | $50,110 to $83,200 | 2,090 |
| Nebraska | $61,590 | $76,710 | $48,300 to $93,740 | 6,160 |
| Nevada | $49,100 | $61,150 | $42,060 to $65,380 | 4,200 |
| New Hampshire | $74,370 | $92,630 | $54,330 to $102,310 | 2,320 |
| New Jersey | $81,640 | $101,680 | $60,060 to $124,460 | 11,370 |
| New Mexico | $45,180 | $56,270 | $36,500 to $71,000 | 2,200 |
| New York | $78,110 | $97,290 | $55,810 to $125,350 | 22,420 |
| North Carolina | $58,710 | $73,120 | $43,980 to $78,430 | 20,540 |
| North Dakota | $71,220 | $88,700 | $57,400 to $96,540 | 1,460 |
| Ohio | $61,260 | $76,300 | $47,290 to $81,040 | 16,250 |
| Oklahoma | $47,920 | $59,680 | $38,360 to $77,580 | 5,310 |
| Oregon | $61,680 | $76,820 | $48,230 to $85,440 | 5,370 |
| Pennsylvania | $73,370 | $91,380 | $48,870 to $100,350 | 19,390 |
| Rhode Island | $79,930 | $99,550 | $61,210 to $123,080 | 1,700 |
| South Carolina | $61,350 | $76,410 | $44,990 to $94,850 | 8,220 |
| South Dakota | $71,990 | $89,660 | $57,870 to $99,600 | 1,870 |
| Tennessee | $57,120 | $71,140 | $44,710 to $77,360 | 7,610 |
| Texas | $51,180 | $63,740 | $39,740 to $83,460 | 47,060 |
| Utah | $61,230 | $76,260 | $45,960 to $95,070 | 4,620 |
| Vermont | $70,720 | $88,080 | $60,900 to $82,980 | 730 |
| Virginia | $60,520 | $75,380 | $46,380 to $80,590 | 9,480 |
| Washington | $61,040 | $76,030 | $48,570 to $85,900 | 10,500 |
| West Virginia | $45,480 | $56,650 | $34,280 to $75,260 | 1,430 |
| Wisconsin | $79,450 | $98,950 | $57,080 to $107,990 | 7,860 |
| Wyoming | $71,830 | $89,460 | $54,780 to $99,550 | 850 |
The same benefits ratio applies in every state, because BLS does not publish benefit costs by business size for each state. The middle half is the 25th to 75th percentile wage.
Where the numbers come from
Every figure is copied from a public file. The only arithmetic is the loaded cost: the wage times 1.2455.
- Wages
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, occupation 41-3021 (Insurance Sales Agents). Annual figures are the hourly wage times 2,080 hours, as BLS computes them, so they already include pay for paid leave.
- Fully loaded
- BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (2026 Q2), private businesses with 1 to 49 workers: $37.64 an hour in total compensation over $27.88 in wages plus $2.34 in paid leave gives 1.2455. Paid leave sits in the denominator because the annual wage already pays it.
- Tasks
- O*NET 31.0 core tasks for 41-3021.00, the ten most important by their importance rating. A few occupations list fewer core tasks.
- AI use
- Anthropic Economic Index, release of June 2026, conversations from May 2026. "Did the task" is Anthropic's automation share, where the user directs Claude to do the work; "helped" is augmentation, where the user works with Claude to learn, check or iterate.
- Not measured
- What a particular business pays, and whether an AI system can do a task well. The AI figures count conversations about a task, not jobs replaced.
This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. AI use data from the Anthropic Economic Index by Anthropic, under CC BY. Wage and benefit data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
What would an AI system cost for this work?
Put $77,570 beside the running cost of a system doing the tasks above, with the build counted in year one.
BLS wages May 2025 · O*NET 31.0 · Anthropic Economic Index