"...everyone would be doing it" This is a stupid argument I hear all the time from limited mindset people. There are opportunities like this and people getting rich on them every day! Most people believe in 9 to 5, that's why they are doing 9 to 5. These opportunities may seem "easy" at first but if you dig deeper there's a great amount of work and risk you have to be willing to take that most people are not willing to take.
Because it's not scalable to that amount, you can only work so much doing it. I spend roughly 25 hours a week doing it. Some guys hire sub agents but they take a 50 percemt cut of the premuim. I live in missouri btw. You can check the department of insurance website everything I do is licensed and legal.
You have to have a minuim net worth of 50k for the missouri department of insurance to approve you. You also need an insurance license and a law enforcement background or training. And a existing agent has to sponsor you for 2 years.
Yes it's a service, but it's a highly lucrative return. I know people will say if somebody doesn't show up you'll lose money. But thats not the case, we use information on defendants to decide the risk. We turn down almost 70 percent of bonds. It's no different then car insurance refusing high risk driver's. If we run at a 90 percent show up rate we profit. We actually are near 99 percent.
This is true, but for reason different then you think. Large insurance company's are getting involved in it. Some large investment firms are investing in these surety companies and are trying to squash the little guys like us that self insure. My state Missouri is very pro private bond, so it will be awhile before changes are made here. Also my state doesn't have bond for misdemeanor crimes, will only bail felony crimes. So we are trying to find a middle ground on keeping population low but also making sure defendants are under supervision.
Yes it's not really scalable. You can hire sub agents and cover more area but you lose out on premium. The max one person can make is about 150k per year. Like I said I have friends that use sub agents and make a lot more then me, but they are putting in a lot of work. I do have a friend that hired a agent to supervise all his sub agents and he is complety hands off and does well. Its passive income to him, he doesnt deal with any of the day to day operations.
Guess Geico and progressive are doing that also? We turn down over 70 percent of bonds. Also any large bond must be backed by property. Like I said we run at a 99 percent show up rate. At 90 percent you would break even. We have risk factors that are studied before any bond is wrote. It's not much different then life or car insurance. This year I wrote close to 1.4 million in bonds so far, I had 3 no shows 2 we located in less then 72 hours the third one is still running his bond was only 2k. The court will give me up to 2 years to find him or if he's re arrested by the police before they will do a forfiture on that bond. I know guys that have had 3 year stretches without a Forfiture. You have to do due diligence on everybody.
It can be very cut throat, Most of the bail agents in my state are getting old and retiring so there's an influx of younger agents getting in it. It's not easy to break into. You have to be sponsored by an existing agent for your first two years then your golden. Most are ass holes that don't want anybody in the business. But a few are very professional and willing to help the next generation get started and take over.
5 percent of the bond is the normal rate, as high as 15 percent for high risk. But every bond wrote has a third party indemnify, meaning when I write a bond their family signs a contract to cover any loss we have for recovery fees. So they are responsible for those fees. We credit check all cosigners, and a majority of the bonds are backed by collateral that can also be used to cover it.