Amalgamated Life Insurance Company, a leading provider of comprehensive insurance solutions, announced the appointment of Ray Moore as sales executive, Voluntary Worksite Products. Moore will be marketing Amalgamated Life’s voluntary worksite products across the U.S. Southern Region. He brings over two decades of senior level, specialized sales experienced in employee benefits and a proven track record in driving substantial revenue growth within the financial and insurance industry. His broad skills, which range from value-based selling, market trend analysis and contract negotiations to account management, team management and development, proposals and presentations, will be instrumental in his new role.
Prior to joining Amalgamated Life, Moore served as vice president, Field Operations and Sales at Employee Benefits Systems, Inc. (Houston, TX), where he managed the full scope of lead generation, client relations, and effectively driving new business development. As part of his sales leadership, he routinely made high-level presentations before large corporations and monitored all product training to assure a strong sales focus.
Moore’s career also included roles as regional vice president at Transamerica Worksite Marketing (Raleigh, NC), where he managed operations, served as the liaison between field and administrative staff, and established and maintained broker relationships. He also served as director, Employee Benefits with FinCor Solutions, Inc. (East Lansing, MI) and assistant vice president, Sales and Marketing with Bankers Security Life (Arlington, VA).
Moore’s advanced education includes Business Management and Marketing studies at Texas Christian University (TCU). He is ACA Certified from the National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU).
Amalgamated also announced that Bruce Van Ryn has joined the company as a sales executive, Voluntary Worksite Products. Van Ryn will be marketing Amalgamated Life’s voluntary worksite products in MI, IN, WI, MN, SD and ND. A results-driven executive, Van Ryn brings over 25 years of senior level experience in insurance and benefit sales, as well as an entrepreneurial background having led his own marketing firm specializing in sales lead generation.
Van Ryn most recently served as a senior benefits consultant with Grand Companies (Grandville, MI), where he provided consultation, enrollment and employee benefits solutions to brokers and clients. While there, he leveraged technology, communications and on-site support to effectively address enrollment challenges. He also conducted various educational presentations to brokers, employers and employees to convey the financial security and peace of mind that cost-effective insurance products provide.
Van Ryn also served as district sales coordinator with AFLAC (Columbus, GA), where his accomplishments included achieving annual sales quotas and Leadership Conference sales goals and writing the most new policies in the Michigan District in 2015. Additionally, his career included his role as district general agent for Colonial Life & Accident Company (Columbia, SC). As President and CEO of Van Ryn Associates, Inc. (Grandville, MI), a marketing firm he founded, he helped manufacturers in the marketing and sales of their products through nationwide distribution networks.
Van Ryn holds a Bachelor of Arts, Business Administration from Calvin College.
Further, Amalgamated announced the appointment of Howard Gertner as sales executive, Voluntary Worksite Products. Gertner, will be marketing Amalgamated Life’s voluntary worksite products in CO, NV, UT, MT, WY, NE, ID, MO and AZ. He brings a proven track record spanning almost three decades in voluntary worksite, insurance and related offerings. His achievements on behalf of former employers include successfully building market share in underperforming territories, and increasing sales of worksite and voluntary product through direct sales to employers and broker distribution channels.
Directly prior to joining Amalgamated Life, Gertner served as vice president of Sales at United Group Programs (Denver, CO), where he built powerful relationships with brokers, consultants and national strategic partners to sell the company’s medical benefits programs, coverage plans and worksite ancillary programs. Other recent positions held by Gertner include his roles as sales representative with Reliance Standard Life Insurance (Denver, CO), where he implemented open enrollment meetings that consistently achieved 90 percent enrollment numbers, and agency development manager with Colonial Life & Accident (Sunrise, FL), where his responsibilities included building and strengthening broker relationships, as well as overseeing 10-15 sales agents and driving their sales success. In addition to these positions, Gertner has held several other sales executive and management roles with various insurers and health plans
Gertner holds an Associates of Arts and Sciences in Zoology from Santa Fe College.
Founded in 1943, Amalgamated Life Insurance Company has since grown into a leading provider of comprehensive insurance solutions operating in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The company provides competitive group products including term life, medical stop loss, disability and specialty drug cost management, as well as voluntary products such as accident, accidental death and dismemberment, critical illness, dental, disability, hearing, ID theft, legal, portable term life and whole life, among others. Since 1975, Amalgamated Life Insurance Company has consistently earned the “A” (Excellent) Rating from A.M. Best Company attesting to its strong fiscal position. The Company is a member of the Amalgamated Family of Companies which also includes: AliCare, a third-party administrator; AliCare Medical Management, a medical care management firm; AliGraphics, a full-service printing and graphics firm; and Amalgamated Agency, a property and casualty brokerage. For more information, visit: www.amalgamatedlife.com.
Intimate Relationships
It is impossible to imagine a more personal or intrinsic relationship than the historical and demographic reality of the Baby Boomer generation and the sale of insurance. Those born between 1946 and 1964 have dominated our sales thinking and defined our sales success. Stephen Moses vividly described the Boomer phenomena 20 years ago as a social and economic pig passing through a python. We have built our products and our careers on first the frequent cry of “the Boomers are coming!” to an almost complacent acceptance of their presence providing the natural and normal source of almost all sales conversations. Time marches on and we are beginning to experience a serious buying shift in insurance acquisition style and the utilization of available technology.
The question must now become what does that mean to those grappling with long term care/chronic illness risk abrogation? What can still be accomplished for those who wish to help apply the available financial planning finishing touches to those Boomers beginning to exit, stage right? What new and improved planning strategies can be utilized for those Gen Xers (born between 1965 and 1980) beginning to assume a firm position at center stage? How can we prepare for those Millennials (born between 1981 and 1997) beginning to enter the insurance acquisition market from stage left that are almost exclusively immersed in the evaluation and acquisition of insurance via non-personal technology?
The one immutable truth that we all agree upon that lies at the heart of successful sales is personal experience with caregiving. I have no interest in joining the argument of whether altruism or self interest makes more sales. I would be remiss however in not suggesting that buying decisions reviewed after the fact may reflect more classic cognitive dissonance about making wise financial decisions and less open admission about personal contact with the financial and emotional cost of caregiving.
We would all now acknowledge that the shortest distance between a conversation about the need for extended custodial care and completing an application is a direct and personal experience with the problem itself. In one of my first columns I declared that if you find the caregiving story you find the sale. Fifteen years ago I worked with the SOA and LIMRA to conduct a producer survey asking very experienced producers what they thought controlled sales success. Their number one choice was personal experience with caregiving. At that same time the AHIP Buyer—Non Buyer Survey was reporting that those who bought said their number one reason was to protect personal assets. You may have noticed over the course of that extremely valuable ongoing longitudinal study that the truth about caregiving has also begun the bleed through in the data. The point is that a buyer after the fact may say they did so because they, of course, make wise financial decisions, while the more accurate truth may be based on their involvement in the care of the Greatest/Silent generation (born between 1923 and 1945).
As has been frequently suggested in this column, the most universal and prevalent conundrum that faces all Americans is the certainty that most of us will require some level of remedial care assistance and that the great and vast majority are unprepared for that eventuality. What must concern us is where those caregiving responsibilities by generation will fall most heavily. The current situation finds the primary recipients of care among the Silent Generation with informal care being provided by Baby Boomers and formal care being provided by Gen X. The inevitable progression of time is however beginning to reveal a new and perhaps even more challenging future. Frankly, as that proverbial pig begins to exit the snake, we must be able to accommodate and hopefully more successfully address a dramatic shifting of roles. The primary care recipients will become those same Boomers we have tried so hard to protect for the last 20 years. (Me!) No one can argue that those who did acquire some form of insurance, even if flawed, imperfect or inadequate, are far better off than those we were unable to reach. The brave new world that is emerging shifts the Gen X to the role of informal caregiver (my children) and the millennials into the mushrooming formal care provider market (my grandchildren).
No one can deny that we are at a pivotal time in our market. If ever there was a time to reflect on what we have learned it is now—praying we do not repeat our past mistakes while attempting to accommodate and embrace a growing plethora of product choices. The fuel for future sales success is and always has been our understanding of caregiving and it’s direct impact on the progression of evolving caregiving roles and responsibilities. The burden of caregiving does not fall evenly or fairly across the generations. Empathy and compassion for that truth should continue to guide our future.
Other than that I have no opinion on the subject.