The National African American Insurance Association (NAAIA) has announced two opportunities for those looking to start or advance a career in the insurance industry.

• NAAIA is offering five scholarships in the amount of $3,000 for higher education.  Established by NAAIA to honor its founder, the J.L. Tillman Scholarship seeks to encourage African-American students to consider careers within the insurance industry. The deadline for submission is October 1st.

This month, Fairway Mortgage and the Business Performance Center presented the webinar “How to Advise Your Clients to Get to the Zero Tax Bracket.” 

New York Life has named Robert Petrocelli, Founder and Managing Director of Petrocelli Financial Services in New York City and a loyal NAIFA member since 1979, as the 2021-2022 Chair of the influential New York Life Agent Advisory Board of Directors (ABD). The ABD, according to the company, “is an elite group of 16 agents who meet with the company’s executive leaders to provide their perspectives on corporate strategic initiatives based on their experience in the insurance and financial services industry and running among the most successful agent practices in the country.”

The Latin American Association of Insurance Agencies (LAAIA) holds its 51st Annual Convention August 11th - 14th at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, FL.  This year’s theme is “Upholding the Legacy.” The event is designed to offer informative educational sessions (many offering CE), valuable peer-to-peer networking, and opportunities to connect with industry partners.  The conference includes plenty of ways to connect outside of the educational sessions including a Happy Hour Meetup, a NextGen Game Night, Jazz Brunch, and then finishing up with a Domino's Tournament.

Eva Emperador and her family migrated from the Philippines to the United States in 1981. Her family started out in Sonneville, CA, she moved to various cities over the years, and now resides in Gilroy, CA. Eva began her career as a finance controller for various companies, managing budgets, profits, and loss for organizations in the food, manufacturing, and aerospace industries. After 25 years of success as a financial controller, Eva made the pivot into financial services. After meeting with her financial advisor, she was inspired to change her career path into the financial service industry in 2017.   

You can learn a lot about growing a successful life insurance practice from NAIFA member and NAIFA-Houston Immediate Past President Rick Demko, LUTCF, LACP, RICP.

As Director of Insurance, Demko is a key part of the leadership team at Centric Wealth in Houston, a NAIFA 100% Agency. He is also a past winner of NAIFA’s Four Under 40 Award, and you can read about his rise to success in NAIFA’s Advisor Today magazine.

Performance + Purpose is NAIFA’s signature professional development event featuring thought leaders and experts sharing their insights, knowledge, and experience. Breakout sessions will help you drive your businesses success along four professional development tracks: Sales & Prospecting, Practice Management, Technology, and Advanced Planning. This year’s conference, Aug. 17-19, is 100% virtual, and registration is open now.

Small and midsize businesses have many challenges in common when it comes to HR technology. In most cases, these challenges can be overcome by using a single human resource management system – sometimes called human capital management (HCM) system – that can:

Monique Fanfan, a native of Haiti who came to the United States to have her shot at the American dream, began her career in financial services working in a bank. She then went on to work for a financial investment firm out of New York and later she spent 15 years as an accountant.

Whether you’re an Olympics aficionado like me, or perhaps just a casual observer it is hard to miss Toyota’s Olympic ads featuring the tag line, “START YOUR IMPOSSIBLE.” I have to admit, several of these ads got to me a little bit, especially the beautiful story of a Paralympic swimmer’s adoption. These ads resonated not because of what I saw and heard, but because of how they made me feel. They reminded me of what it means to be human, and to care for others.