Last month, MetLife, Inc. reported it is in talks to sell its network of some 4,000 career agents to MassMutual.

Decades ago, MetLife’s career agency force had some 14,000 agents. At the time, many career agency companies employed large agency forces that sold to neighbors, friends and relatives, and prospected for new customers constantly—what people used to call the “kitchen table” approach. For the middle class life insurance target audience, people conventionally thought in order to get the husband to purchase a life insurance policy, they had to involve the wife since the assumption was that in the event of a premature death, she would be the surviving spouse. And in the ’60s and ’70s, fewer wives worked outside the home, rendering them potentially financially vulnerable should their husbands die.

One titan of the career agency era was Ben Feldman, a New York Life agent who plied his trade in East Liverpool, Ohio. He sold $1.8 billion in insurance policies from 1942 until the time of his death in 1993. He once held the world record for the most products a salesman sold by value in a career, a year ($100 million) and a single day ($20 million). Near the end of his career, Feldman’s annual commission totals were more than $1 million per year. At the time, only the entire sales forces of other insurance companies could equal these sales totals. When asked how he could sell such an intangible product as life insurance, Feldman responded, "I do not sell life insurance. I sell money. I sell dollars for pennies apiece. My dollars cost 3 cents per dollar per year."

It’s easy to deride the kitchen table sales era and the unsophisticated door-to-door approach. But according to LIMRA, sales of individual life insurance policies have dropped 45% since the mid-1980s, and about 30% of all American households have no life insurance at all—up from 19% 30 years ago.

Independent insurance agents should take note that the career agency force dropped to 145,000 in 2013, compared to some 250,000 career agents at the height of the career agency system, according to LIMRA. The primary reason for the drop in career agency system size is the expense of funding and training life insurance agents.

This decline in the career agency system creates huge opportunities for independent agents. First, many insurance companies provide most of their life insurance products through managing general agents (MGAs) and directly to brokers. MGAs like CrumpLife have dedicated resources to the independent insurance agency channel for help with proposals, presentations and underwriting. Because of HIPAA, agents are less involved in obtaining medical information during the application process and instead work with MGAs to bind cases. Independent agents can also partner with worksite marketing carriers like Aflac and Colonial Life to cross-sell their commercial insurance clients.

It’s troubling that so few people have life insurance. Despite working in the age of the Internet, life insurance still needs to be “sold.” Unlike the typically mandated auto or homeowners insurance, there is no requirement for life insurance unless it’s required for a mortgage.

Many of your property-casualty clients don’t know you sell life insurance. Be sure to remind them that you do.

Dave Evans is a certified financial planner and an IA contributor.