I’ve spent the past 15 years in the group health insurance market, and to this day, have never met anyone who dreamed as a child of becoming an insurance agent. There is no college degree that directly sets someone on a path towards selling insurance either. You either stumble into an insurance carrier or you’re born into it. This is how my journey began. I can’t imagine doing anything else.
I personally stumbled into my current occupation. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Liberal Studies back in 1993, my goal was to become a school teacher. My father was an elementary teacher for over 50 years and I loved the fact that school teachers worked for about 9 and 1/2 months and then took a 2 and 1/2 month summer break…or so it seemed. I loved kids and felt like I was gifted at communicating on their level, so teaching was natural fit for me.
What I didn’t know (or was oblivious to at the time) was the countless hours that teachers work, how little they get paid, and how much of their own money they spend on materials that school districts don’t provide. I slowly learned this over a ten year teaching career. Don’t get me wrong. I was happy to have a steady paycheck and great benefits, I had fantastic support from parents and colleagues, and thoroughly enjoyed the idea of making a difference in the lives of kids. At the end of the day for me, however, the long commute, the pressure to achieve, and the politics involved in public school education far outweighed the compensation and the time off. After 10+ years of teaching 1st and 2nd grade, I decided I was ready to do something different.
A close family friend of 30+ years, suggested that I get my Life License so he could train me to work in the financial services industry; the plan being that I could come work for him in the Financial Services Division of Arrowhead Credit Union. So that’s what I did. I got my Life License and was set to get started in a whole new career. Unfortunately, that was when my friend informed me that the credit union was making some changes and that we needed to wait.
Here I was, newly licensed, but not sure what to do. I began looking into other avenues where I could use my license. It was then that I stumbled onto an organization called The National Association for the Self Employed. This company had insurance products that were designed for business owners who had no employees. They helped individual business owners that were not eligible to participate in the group insurance market.
It was at NASE that I got started in the health insurance industry and I learned how to sit down with a prospective buyer and sell insurance. It was there that I learned to listen and discuss the needs of the customer so that I could help them identify an insurance solution that met those needs. I’ll be the first to tell you that the NASE product was a niche product and was no where in line with traditional insurance products, but it was the platform I needed to get started. I knew I wouldn’t stay with them long, but was grateful for the opportunity to learn.
Maybe a year and a half later, my friend from Arrowhead Credit Union reached out to me and suggested that he introduce me to his colleagues at Sawyer Cook Insurance, the insurance division at Arrowhead Credit Union. I wasn’t even aware they had an insurance division, but nevertheless, I agreed to meet them. Long story short, it was a good fit and I went to work for them as an Account Executive.
I spent the next three years learning the individual and group health insurance market and developing solid professional and business relationships throughout Southern California. It was during this time that I established relationships with the insurance carriers that do business in California and began learning how to sell their products to both individuals and business owners. Along the way, I met carrier reps, General Agent reps, and other brokers, all of whom make up the community of people that serve individuals and businesses all over our state. Most of these people are still my colleagues today.
I parted ways with Sawyer Cook in 2006 due to some family challenges, but decided I wanted to continue building upon all I had learned. One of the carrier reps I had the privilege of working with, contacted me about a job opening at her company, Aetna. I didn’t have any carrier experience, but I’ve always been pretty good at sell myself, so I applied for the job. After interviews with the Sales Director and the Area Manager, I was sure I had won the position. Sadly, they decided to hire someone else who had a lot more experience working with brokers. I assumed that meant that it was back to the drawing board for me. Little did I know that the person that was offered the position, decided not to take the job. That is when things really changed for me.
Working at Aetna was fantastic! Aetna was one of the market leaders in California. They have great products and were priced to sell. It was my job to educate brokers on how to sell our products and then support them in their sales efforts. This was a great opportunity for me to put to work all that I had learned about selling insurance and marry it to all that I knew about teaching others. During the six years I spent working for Aetna we built one of the best sales teams in the country.
All good things must come to an end I guess though. With the passing of the Affordable Care Act, lots of changes began to happen in the market and the landscape for outside sales teams began to change. This was the first of a few hard lessons that I’ve learned along the way. In the insurance industry, everyone is expendable. It doesn’t matter how good your sales team is or if you’re one of the top sales reps in the country. Businesses make business decisions all the time and sometimes that means “reorganizing” your business model or structure. I left Aetna in 2013 and was back looking for an opportunity.
As it happens, another carrier in my region had been looking for a new sales rep for a few months. Timing is everything as they say and another good friend introduced me to the management team at Blue Shield of California. There’s a lot to love about Blue Shield besides their name recognition. In California, Blue Shield is a non-profit and the only carrier in California, that I’m aware of, that caps their earnings at 2%. Anything over that amount they return to their customers. I met some awesome people at Blue Shield and got to work alongside my friend who had been my Blue Shield rep when I first started in the industry.
As I’ve stated multiple times, the insurance industry is always changing and carriers are always trying to adjust to those changes. As it turns out, after 2 years with Blue Shield, they were ready to reorganize their business structure and reduce administrative costs. Having been one of the last hires on the sales team, it was only logical that I would be one of the first to be let go. Back pounding the pavement, another colleague notified me that she had left her position at one of the General Agencies to take a carrier position and put in a good word for me with her former company, Dickerson Employee Benefits.
When I sat down to interview with Dickerson, it was less like an interview and more of just a discussion about our industry and the territory I work in. Dickerson has always had a reputation of being a family run business that was very loyal to their employees. This was a good fit for me and I looked forward to trying something new in the industry. General Agencies support brokers and work with carriers to place group business. The biggest difference is that they work with all carriers, where as a carrier rep, I only worked with one carriers products.
As a General Agent, I worked with brokers who had experience selling health insurance, but there are many who weren’t. Perhaps they were commercial agents who sell Worker’s Comp or General Liability Insurance, but wanted to be able to provide health insurance products to their clients. I would partner with them and sell their clients group health products just like I did as a broker when I first started.
After two years at Dickerson, it was time for me to move on. It didn’t take me long to decide that it was time to take everything I have learned over the past 15 years and put it to work serving businesses and individuals in my own community. I was ready to be my own boss and to try to create my own opportunities. I was ready to open my own agency. So, in July 2018, I started So Cal Employee Benefits, a health insurance agency designed to help business owners and individuals in Southern California (San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties) find insurance solutions that best meet their needs and fit their budgets.
It’s funny how life can take you full circle sometimes. I’m glad that’s how it’s worked out for me and I’m here ready to help!
