Connect
To Top

Meet Armando Paz Jr.

Avatar photo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Armando Paz Jr.

Armando, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My insurance career started on May 9th. 1984, encouraged by one of my best friends and room buddy at Ohio State. At the time, he was already practicing his law career and had opened up a Property & Casualty Insurance agency with his then wife at the time. Since he knew that I was contemplating a career change from Advertising and Commercial Illustration Design unto Law, he urged me to obtain my general Lines Insurance license so that:-” I would have an edge over my peers in Law School”-.

I went on to take my LSAT which I passed on the second try, but at that time, my father and an only true hero in my life were going into retirement age and needed me to make my studies or whatever-I-decided-to-do-with-my-life fruitful,.. and so. I decided to give the insurance industry a try. I started as an auto insurance Underwriter/Customer Service trainee with a local insurance agency and for a brief time afterward with Kemper Insurance, then obtained my General Lines 2-20 License on February 23rd, 1987.

I love to help everyone I come in contact with and saw a niche in the Business Insurance marketplace. Once again, thanks to the amazingly-wonderful and supporting parents that I had and my Dad’s contacts in the local Miami retail furniture industry, I knocked on business doors and little by little developed my client book of business. One of the things I quickly realized was the lack of financial protection, smart, astute and hard-working business professionals were exposed to, due mainly in part to being “pitched” insurance products in the old manner of”-My product is cheaper, better and will make you more money or protect you faster and better-approach. Yet, they were never asked how they were going to afford those products and services, let alone protect their families’ goals and dreams without protecting their ability to pay or fund for it all.

Hence, becoming an advocate showing the business world as well as families how to buy solutions to their problems, not just products, by protecting, saving and growing their financial lives’ work became my ‘Why”. Thirty-five years later, I know that my Lord and Savior had this in mind for me all along. I give Him ALL of the glory. On the individual or family side.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I’ll share this with you: A smooth road it has not been…but I wouldn’t trade the experiences and memories that I have in this business for nothing in the world. Leaving a career to start a new one was one of the most stressful events I have experienced. In the early years of my professional life, I had more doors shut on me than a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman.

For one, the learning curve at that time was somehow steep, since constant knowledge is something I have always thrived on. I wanted to learn as much as I could about all sides of the Financial Services industry: Life, Health, Property and Casualty and the Financial Services industry because I felt that I could bring more value to my clients if I was well-rounded in most if not all financial matters. Another influential factor was having that God-awful daily need of having a roof over my head, food in my stomach and gas in my car!

Through God’s Grace, I was blessed enough to meet people throughout the industry whom to this day have been great and influential mentors in my life. These pros encouraged me to become a specialist in two areas of expertise, and this has been both a blessing to me and the people I serve.

Another struggle I had, amidst many, was overcoming the negative stigmas that insurance and the industry, in general, have experienced for decades mainly due to consumer lack of knowledge, unscrupulous advisers, and past evidence of insurance company wrong-doings. I saw and experienced this more than I cared to when dealing with the subject of life insurance. I couldn’t understand how a client of many years would be threatened or scared to even talk about death without feeling that I was jinxing them. Here again, while shadowing some of my mentors, observing and listening to them, I realized it wasn’t personal. Life insurance was and still is being sold with far too much emphasis on the death aspects of the product, This leads to consumer resistance and procrastination because most people don’t want to talk about death or disability on an ongoing basis, thereby postponing these discussions for as long as possible. The results of “driving up the hearse” have damaged the reputation of the product and the industry at large for far too long.

I learned that people don’t want to be sold ANYTHING: They want to buy what, when, why and how they want to buy what they decide to buy and they don’t want to be scared or intimidated by the person who is there to “help them”. Asking them questions, questions, questions, shutting up to listen to them, taking careful notes of what they reveal, being polite and truthful all of the time and loving them where they were (and are) at this moment in their lives, will never fail someone who truly loves what they do and why they do it.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Our agency’s name is Diversified Employer Benefits, a Christian family-owned business. Jackie, my wife, my life partner, mother of my children and brain of our business, specializes, handles and manages our Group Health and Employee Benefits’ division. I run and manage the Financial Services division, composed of Life, Disability, Long Term Care and Worksite Individual Benefits.

I specialize in the main areas of the Protection component of our lives: Life, Disability and Long Term Care insurance. The two main areas of focus near and dear to my heart, are the Cash Flow protection component of our financial lives, aka. Disability insurance. and Life Insurance for the business and family sectors.

We are a small ” Mom and Pop’ company that 12 years ago, with God’s Grace and Blessing, set out to build a sizable book of business. We accomplished that and give Him All of the glory. Something wonderful took place In the process, and we fell in love with the true reasons for our success: Our clients, now great friends.

Having worked on both sides of the industry: the insurance company side and the agency side, in the Property and Casualty, Life and Health divisions or markets, is our competitive advantage and has helped us become well-rounded Macro-Manager advisers for our clients. We accomplish this using a holistic strategic approach versus one who uses a linear single-needs’ approach.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
To us, giving others far, far more in value than they have ever expected or paid for., whether in business or day-to-day living, is our definition of success. Oh, if I may add,..and don’t brag about it or flaunt it. In essence, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.

We as a team want to play a major role in helping every person we come in contact with, define their financial dreams and goals for their families and companies. How, you ask?

  • By helping them to uncover issues no one has done before for them,
  • By evaluating the challenges that threaten their financial lives,
  • By implementing strategies and smart choices at any time, no matter what the market or economic conditions may be present,
  • By focusing on the five critical components of finances: Protection, savings, growth, cash flow and debt.

With the end in mind, we help position their families, the staff they call their second families and their firms as a whole for a lifetime of possibilities.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said it best: -” Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great because greatness is determined by service”-.

Pricing:

  • Individual Disability Insurance for companies with 3 or more employees is offered at a 25% discount at no cost to the employer.
  • Long Term Care insurance for a married couple is available at a 30% discount through some insurance carriers.
  • Voluntary Worksite Employee Benefits, Life, Disability, Chronic Illness and Accident with 25% discounts for the employer and employees.

Contact Info:

Suggest a story: VoyageMIA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.

Related Items

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More in