Purpose Life insurance salespeople are hired to pursue the best interests of life insurers on the one hand, the salespeople are also expected to pursue the best interests of customers on the other hand. However, the best interests of life insurers are not necessarily consistent with the best interests of customers. This study aims to investigate the influences of interest conflicts on the life insurance salespeople’s ethical attitude and ethical intention by focusing on the role of ethical leadership and ethical training. Design/methodology/approach Four types of interest conflicts are studied. Questionnaires are administered to a total of 757 full-time life insurance salespeople. Data analysis is performed by using analysis of variance tests and partial least squares regression. Findings The main results indicate that the types of interest conflicts change the life insurance salespeople’s ethical attitude and ethical intention. Moreover, ethical training could make the life insurance salespeople become more concerned about the interests of customers, but not the interests of life insurers. The results also challenge a belief that ethical leadership and ethical training will often have direct, consistent and significant impacts on the ethical attitude and ethical intention of life insurance salespeople. Originality/value Interest conflict is an important issue in the literature on financial regulation. The potential for life insurance salespeople to behave unethically has also received extensive attention by researchers. This study provides clarification of the relationships among interest conflicts, ethical leadership, ethical training and ethical decision-making of life insurance salespeople. This is the first study that analyzes the relationships. The results of this study may provide some contributions to the relevant literature.