Health insurance coverage in the United States is slowly getting better. Data from the US Census Bureau show that, between 2020 and 2021, the number of uninsured people shrank by 0.3%.
There were 475,000 more children under 19 insured in 2021 than in 2020 – a modest success, but still a success.
The rate of ownership for life insurance, however, continued its downward trend. In a report shared by LIMRA, data reveals that, between 2011 and 2021, the number of people with life insurance in the United States fell by 63% to 52%.
Lack of knowledge is cited as one of the key contributors to the coverage gap.
Nicholas Ayala sees it a bit differently. “Middle America, which means the majority of people in the United States, are underserved by the big insurance companies,” he explains.
“There’s a tendency to go for the very few people at the top, leaving out plenty of people who need help getting their insurance.”
Never one to shy from a challenge, Nicholas Ayala decided to step in and contribute to the solution.
Growing a Small Solution to a Big Problem
He founded Priority Life in 2018 and grew it from a small company in Boca Raton, Florida, to a national brand with $30 million in sales in just two and a half years.
Since then, the Integrity Marketing Group acquired the company, which continued to grow under Nicholas Ayala’s guidance. The Priority Life Group now has well over $125 million in sales, and it’s not showing signs of slowing down.
“Insurance is a recession-proof business. That’s one of the things that attracted me to it,” Nicholas Ayala explains.
“We also learned it’s pandemic-proof, seeing how much we grew during the pandemic. We were just happy to be able to serve so many people and help them meet their insurance needs. Helping people protect their loved ones is at the heart of what we do.”
Priority Life’s types of insurance include Medicare supplement insurance, Medicare Advantage insurance, Under 65 health insurance, Final Expense insurance, Mortgage protection, life insurance, Indexed Universal Life, and annuities.
The company provides service to people in different age groups and circumstances through its various products, trying to fulfill different needs.
Recently, however, health insurance has been driving sales the most.
“We’re seeing a lot of people looking for more individualized plans on Medicare, too, or young folks who don’t want to go to the marketplace and want to do short-term health insurance,” Nicholas Ayala explains.
“It’s a big market – everyone needs health insurance.”
Side Hustle Opportunities – or More
There’s the other side to that coin, too. People might need health insurance but also economic opportunities and well-paying jobs. The insurance industry is, Nicholas Ayala believes, the perfect place to find those kinds of jobs.
That’s the other type of success he’s most proud of when talking about Priority Life Group. Even though the company doesn’t have tons of direct employees, it has trained and continues to work with thousands of individual broker agents. Most of them share their passion for insurance with Ayala, as well as an entrepreneurial spirit, and a desire to grow.
“I’ll never forget the first time I experienced this transformative power of the business,” he says. “We had an individual in the fitness world who made six figures, which is great. But he was tapped out. He couldn’t do it anymore. So he came to us and was making multiple six figures within a year and a half.”
That’s not the end of the story, though – the same person then decided to create a team, further improving their situation and eventually helping others walk up the same path to financial stability.
And the best thing about all of it, Nicholas Ayala believes, is that everyone can do it. Even though he was an entrepreneur in heart and mind, he didn’t know anything about insurance before he started the company. But he soon discovered just how far it’s possible to get if one puts the time and effort into it.
“You can’t teach someone how to play basketball like Michael Jordan if you don’t have that gift,” he says. “But anyone can learn the ins and outs of the insurance industry. And we have a systematic approach that we’ve developed for making people successful and doing it quickly.”
According to Ayala, success in the insurance industry looks like being one’s boss and being able to work wherever and whenever. A vacation trip can quickly turn into a business opportunity if that’s what the agent wants. They can also perform so well on a business trip that it turns into a vacation – entirely self-directed.
“It’s not a good fit for some people, and it’s necessary to let go of the nine-to-five, clocking in and out mindset,” he says.
“But we still get an incredibly diverse agent force from all walks of life, ages, and backgrounds. And they all appreciate the freedom they can acquire from working in the insurance industry.”
This article was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.