There is no cookie-cutter approach. No guarantees in life.

1) No best time
2) Not too late
3) Yes a bit late, because people will question your experience.
4) About 20% of insurance agents make 80% of the total pool of income out there. The other 80% of agents make only 20%. That means only 2 in 10 agents make a lot of money, the other 8 need to fight for a small piece of the pie. If I ask you play russian roulette where there is a 80% of you dying or severely injured would you play? But don't neglect the 20%. High risk high reward, and high failure too.

Being an agent is no freedom. Selling is basically your day job. No such thing as freedom. Even MLM agents have no freedom. They advertise their job as 'being your own boss' bla bla bla but they work as hard if not harder than regular corporate employees. That's how they get to the top? You think you can shake leg and earn RM20k a month? HAHA!

I'll challenge you 1 by 1, feel free to rebut:
- Flexibility of hours - Yes but if you no work you no income? Money drop from sky? You will work like a dog.
- Be my own boss - No such thing. You are not boss. You're probably part of a bigger team. Your customers is your boss. You just a kuli serving customers
- Potential high income - Yes, every job got potential to become high income. Who says banking/finance cant get high income? Who says regular 9 to 5 cant get high income? Whats so special about your insurance job that only this industry get high income?
Passive income - Insurance not the only one with passive income. If you invest in a good stock or a portfolio of stock is also considered passive income. If you invest in the market is also considered passive income. You invest in a good property with high rental yield is also passive income.
Im giving you no bullshit answer. Whether you want to take it or not up to you. Good Luck.

So my questions is:

1) Is it best for fresh graduate to start working in a 9-5 corporate job first that offer stable income, or should I start with being an Insurance agent? Which is better?

Assuming a corporate Job starts with RM3,000 pay and a 4% increment per annum, 2 months bonus:
Year 1 (23): RM3000/ month, RM6,000 bonus
Year 2 (24): RM3120/ month, RM6240 bonus
Year 3 (25): RM3244/ month, RM6500 bonus
Year 4 (26): Assuming you get a promotion/ change job to Assistant Manager level, 20% increment: RM3,900/ month, RM7,800 bonus
Year 5 (27): RM4,056/ month, RM8,112 bonus
Year 6 (28): RM4,218/ month, RM8,436 bonus
Year 7 (29): Assuming you outperform KPI 10% increment, 3 months bonus: RM4,640/ month, RM9,280 bonus
Year 8 (30): RM4,825/ month, RM14,475

Insurance Agent:
Year 1 (23): Production RM5,000/ month, RM60,000 per year, 1st year comm 25%: RM15,000 = RM1,250/ month
Year 2 (24): Production RM7,500/ month, RM90,000 per year, 1st year comm 25%: RM22,500 + Year 1 comm RM15,000 = RM3125/ month
Year 3 (25): Production RM8,000/ month, RM96,000 per year, 1st year comm 25%: RM24,000 + Year 1 & Year 2 comm= RM4,000/ month
Year 4 (26): Production RM8,000/ month, RM96,000 per year, 1st year comm 25%: RM24,000 + Year 1, Year 2, Year 3 comm = RM24,000 + RM6,000+RM13,500+RM24,000 = RM67,500 per year/ RM5,625/ month
Year 5 (27): Promoted to Unit Manager with RM120,000 Direct group with RM96,000 Personal Production: Direct Group Overriding: RM18,000, Personal Sales: RM24,000 + Year 2- Year 4= RM83,500: RM101,500 per year/ RM9,125/month
Year 6 (28): Unit Manager with RM150,000 Direct Group with RM96,000 Personal Production: Direct Group Overriding: RM22,500 + Year 1 DG OR RM12,000, Personal Sales RM24,000 + Year 2 - Year5= RM89,000: RM123,500 per year/ RM10,300/ month
Year 7 (29): Unit Manager with RM180,000 Direct Group with RM120,000 Personal Production: Direct Group Overriding: RM27,000 + Year 1 - Year 2 DG OR RM27,000, Personal Sales RM30,000 + Year 2 - Year6: RM98,600: RM152,600 per year/ RM12,716/ month
Year 8 (30): Unit Manager with RM300,000 Direct Group with RM120,000 Personal Production: Direct Group Overriding: RM45,000 + Year 1 - Year 3 DG OR RM33,000, Personal Sales RM30,000 + Year 2 - Year 6: RM106,000: RM184,000 per year/ RM15,333/ month

I provide numbers from Year 1 - Year 8 for an average performer, *not the outstanding performer, commission assumption based on market average excluding production bonuses/ incentives.

2) If I work in a corporate job for a few years, will it be too late for me to start being insurance agent when I could already build a client base long ago?

If you are in corporate, you may choose to be a personal banker / relationship manager to build your future client base as well.

3) If I work as an Insurance agent and it doesn't work out, will it be too late for me to find a stable job since I don't really have any experience in banking or finance other than insurance sales. And I would have wasted all my time as an Insurance agent and go back to square one with basis salary.

If you are in insurance, you will be well trained to be a competent sales person, with the right certs and experience, I do not forsee a problem for you to land a corporate sales job. Corporate companies do hire seasoned sales agents to run sales for them, especially for experienced agents who are competent in the sales process.

4) What is the success rate of being an Insurance agent?

Success rate depends on a few factors:
1: Effort, how many people do you see per week, new relationships build, new cases opened. If you are willing to work hard with a steep learning curve, you may double my estimated $ above
2: Clientelle, how many prospects you have on hand on a monthly basis. If you can have the ability to regenerate your client list to a steady 50 new clients a month, you will be able to do a minimum RM120,000 production per year.
3: How long you can persevere without a salary, if you have a savings to lasts you 6 months and have minimal spendings, you are likely to be able to last through the most grueling stage. if you are a person with high commitment, it is advicable for you to build up the savings first.
4. Product Knowledge, just spend 2 hours to study 1 product. Focus on the best sellers which will be the top 4 - 5 products in the company. Total time spent 10 hrs. Read the write up, google the jargons, play around with different quotations.
5. Market, 1 RM30,000 case is easier than closing 10 RM3,000 case. If you have a good family backgroud or connections, you may be able to complete production targets more quickly. if you don't, it is your job to build up higher networth clients.

I see many agents succeed and fail, normally when the first 2 factors are managed well the success rate is 80%. If the first 2 factors are not managed, the failure rate is 80%.

Have you explore other options like real estate agent, or unit trust agent?

Why not real estate then ?

Actually, we do have a few insurance agents in these forums. wild_card_my is quite active, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind sharing his personal perspectives on this issue - from what I understand and if I recall correctly, he started off with a bank and then went into insurance: so TS might get a different view of both aspects.

If he gets this tag, hopefully he'll have time to chip in!

So these promotion-aspirants would do a recruitment spree - based on what I see, only about 1 out of 10 makes it and would last longer than a few years. People falter away after a while, never to be heard of again. It is not an easy job, and your recruiter may even mention this - "anything worth doing is not easy". But this applies to everything else, including your corporate job

It took me about 3 years with Prudential to buy my dream car. It was hard work and my style is different from most agents out there. As mentioned, I was a banker for quite a few years, so when I become an agent I was able to land on my two feet and started running; I didn't need any soft-skills nor sales knowledge training (not at beginners' level anyway), I only needed to learn about the products which are similar to the things I was already selling in my previous jobs. The bank made me who I am today, which tremendously helped, the same can be applied to corporate employees agents turned agents