Good Neighbor Podcast: North Shore
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of North Shore
Good Neighbor Podcast: North Shore
EP #1 - Family Protection Plus LLC - Renita Ezell
Family Protection Plus LLC - Renita Ezell
(860) 205-5854
rezell@ailct.com
AiLife.com
prataagency.com
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Ewan Godfrey.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Good Neighbor's Podcast. Are you in need of resources to financially protect your family or loved ones? Surprisingly, one may be closer than you think. Today I have the pleasure of introducing your neighbor, renita Izzo, and she is with the Family Protection Plus LLC. Renita, it is great to have you here.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Juan. It's good to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:So, renita, can you tell us? We're excited to learn a little bit about your business. Can you tell us about your company?
Speaker 3:Sure. So I am a licensed life insurance agent. We work with American Income Life, which is a subsidiary of Globe Life, and so we basically provide products and services to help financially protect families for when the individual passes away.
Speaker 2:I see how did you get into this business?
Speaker 3:Oh wow. So I was looking, I guess, towards retirement, and a friend was urging me to really think about that and to make good use of the last 12 years of our working years, and basically it found me. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do, because I've done a little bit of a lot of different things, so I couldn't just say I'm this one person and so I would get overwhelmed. But anyway, I got email, phone call about this opportunity, and when I saw the presentation I realized that I had seen it a year before and had the same good feeling about it, and so I don't believe in coincidences. So I decided to take a leap of faith and pursue the next steps, and then that led to them offering me a career, and so I'm grateful that I still have an opportunity to work with and support families, which I enjoy doing 19 years in my previous job.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, beautiful. So what are some myths or misconception in your industry?
Speaker 3:Wow, there's quite a few and I'll probably just pick maybe the top three. One of the major misconceptions is that I don't need insurance because I'm young, I'm healthy, and that's one of the main reasons why you do need life insurance, because life insurance is cheaper the younger you are and usually younger people have good health and those are the top two criteriums that are used to determine the premiums and whether or not people can have access to insurance. So that's the best time to get it, because it is more affordable and you are healthy than you're almost certain to be approved. And then, if anything develops down the road, you have the coverage that you need. Plus, you can get riders on there that will protect you so that if you do develop any ailments or conditions, you can still add on to your insurance without having to prove insurability. So that's one.
Speaker 3:The second is that you know I have a health condition, so they're not going to insure me. And that's not the case because there are several insurance companies that will insure individuals with pre-existing conditions. So the best thing to do is to just submit the application. Now there are some conditions where, flat out, we can tell you I'm sorry, you're not insurable. But if that doesn't come up in the initial conversations, then submit the application and let underwriting do their work, and then there's three possible outcomes Either you'll be denied or you'll be approved, or you'll be rated.
Speaker 3:And rated is when, yes, they acknowledge you have a risk factor, a condition, but it's not bad enough to decline you. But because of that, we're going to either have to raise your premium or we're going to have to lower the amount of coverage. And those are the top two, and there's some others where people think that, well, I'm not married, I don't have children, so I don't need life insurance. But the point of life insurance is being able to protect your loved ones who are going to have to bury you, and so it provides protection for them because somebody's got to pay that expense. And so, even if you're not married, you don't have kids, you don't have assets, you want to get enough coverage so that your family members will be able to provide a wonderful home going for you without having to be financially burdened by that role and responsibility. So those are three of the major ones for me.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you Outside of work. What do you do for fun, renita Wow?
Speaker 3:outside of work, a couple of things I like to do. I enjoy directing church choirs. I also do voiceover on the side when I get requests to do that. Wish I could spend more time doing that, but it seems like some of the other things that I do, including real estate investing. I'm a landlord and I enjoy being an Airbnb host. Then I just finally picked up my electric bass again and so that was good to just kind of get that out there, and I will start making regular time to kind of have my own personal jamming sessions so that I can improve the skills there. So that's some of the things I enjoy doing. But when I want to do something that's really low key, I love being in the sun near water. Just give me a lounge chair, my snacks, pillow, magazines and I could spend the whole day just out in the outdoors.
Speaker 2:That sounds great. That sounds great. So let's change gears. Can you describe one hardship or life challenge that you rose above and can now say, because of it you are better and stronger? What comes to mind?
Speaker 3:I'm thinking this transition to this new role has been very enlightening and a learning process for me. The key word that would sum up this whole process for me has been surrender, surrender. And you know I came in. I came from a job 19 years where I kind of had a nice pasture that I could just be creative and I could come up with ideas for improving processes, making things more efficient, so on and so forth. So I kind of came in with that same mindset what can I fix? And I didn't like the script, the script. You know typos, and here I am spending time rewriting it. So that transition, so the word submission has been a great way to sum that up.
Speaker 3:And so I was kind of resisting the whole process. There are a lot of things that I didn't like, didn't understand, didn't make sense. But after a while, you know, that voice had to tell me you know we need to just follow the script, just follow the script. And I realized that that translated into another major area of my life as well and I had two areas and I had to really evaluate that. So it became a little bit easier with this whole transition into this new career, which is totally kind of out of my element when it deals with sales, but I'm an entrepreneur so I like that part of it.
Speaker 3:But that was the big lesson in this as far as just relaxing and and accepting a process that may not be perfect, but people are being successful at it. And then looking at other areas of my life that I have to adapt that same mindset, just follow the script. You may not understand it, but it's not for you to understand, it's just for you to do it. A big learning process in this these later years of my life. But I've seen some positive results from it and and even benefiting my marriage as well in regards to just the role of me and my husband, and so I'm grateful for that. So that's life is an ongoing challenge, ongoing process. You're constantly learning, growing and developing, and so I'm just grateful for this more recent level and lesson in my life.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Renita. Please tell our listeners one thing they should remember about Family Protection Plus LLC.
Speaker 3:Family Protection Plus LLC enjoys helping families. We enjoy educating families. We talked about some of the misconceptions and myths of life insurance, so it's helping to educate folks on what it really is, what it is not and what options are available for them. But we're compassionate. Customer service and doing what's in the best interest of the families is our focus. So it's not about the sale. It's about what's right for the individual or what's right for that family, and I think our integrity and ethics and our love for individuals and people allows us to be strong in that area.
Speaker 2:Okay, how can our listeners learn more about Family Protection Plus LLC?
Speaker 3:Individuals can visit our Facebook page, which is facebookcom slash. Family protection plus is a good place to start, and then they certainly can give me a call. The number is 860-205-5854 to learn more.
Speaker 2:Well, Renita, I really appreciate you being on the show. We wish you and your business the very best moving forward. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPNorthshorecom. That's GNPNorthshorecom, or call 857-703-9406.