Agent Profile: Pennsylvania Pro Stands Firm on Work-Life Balance Beam

You can’t buy back the time you didn’t spend with those you love.

For Alera Healthcare Liability (HCL) Team Senior Vice President Christey Beckert, taking pay over loved ones has simply never been an option. Not once, but twice, Christey’s income has taken a backseat to her desire for personally fulfilling work and family time during her insurance career of more than 20 years. What’s ironic is this commitment is juxtaposed by her belief that your ability to earn income is your most important asset.

Clear as mud? Well, keep reading and everything will soon make a whole lot more sense. Sometimes when you’re confident in your skillset and motivated by family values, taking a step back financially can actually lead you two steps forward to success and happiness.

Mount

Growing up the oldest of four in Western Pennsylvania, Christey was already developing her talents by leaps and bounds when she was six years old.

“I was an all-around gymnast as a kid—I did all the events,” Christey said. “We had a lot of strength training. We’d start every practice with 1,000 jump ropes, 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and then practice each event three hours a night for most nights throughout the week. We’d travel around the state for regional and state competitions. It really helped me build a great work ethic over the years, and it was just a wonderful thing to be a part of a hard-working, high-performing team. Such a fantastic group of children that I established friendships with. I still keep in touch with several of the girls to this day.”

In high school, Christey also ran hurdles, was on the cheerleading squad, and consistently brought home straight As on her report card; basically, a well-rounded overachiever. And even though these feats were foundational for shaping her future success, it was a natural trait she leaned into the most.

“By the time I got to college at Penn State, I still had no idea what the future held for me. I was always a very social person—talking to people comes easily to me—so I thought I might do something that involved that. After taking some college courses and ruling out things I couldn’t see myself enjoying, I realized being in business was what I wanted to do and I decided to become a marketing major.”

But, as many of us insurance professionals know, things don’t always go as planned when entering the working world fresh out of college.

“Penn State has a great business school, so recruiters from all kinds of companies would come there looking for graduating students. I ended up taking a district management position, as opposed to a marketing job, that I was offered from a representative of a prominent supermarket chain.”

For the next six months, Christey went through an intensive training program with a manager of the busiest retail store in the area.

“It was a grueling process, but I learned so much. I grew so much in six months. I learned about doing inventories and audits, employee scheduling, overseeing pricing and stock control, enforcing safety policies, and so on. Most importantly, though, I gained experience in managing people. I was given a district of four stores to manage and was responsible for 50 to 60 employees at any given time. I was required to go to each store at least twice a week, which were anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 hours from home, so time management was key.”

All this may sound tough for a recent college grad in her early 20s, but raising the bar is an innate part of Christey’s character.

“The company was doing well, and I was able to help them open more stores in Pennsylvania and even write a manual for the new hires. I loved managing people and getting to know all my employees. I felt like I had a good relationship with them and they trusted me. It was a neat experience. I made a lot of good friendships there with my peers.”

All along, Christey had been dating her future husband, whom she knew since grade school, and was planning their wedding and looking to start a family. Eventually, the 65–70 hour work weeks didn’t fit into those plans.

“I decided it was time to make a change from retail management and retail hours. I wanted to switch to something more closely aligned to my interests in marketing and business.”

Swing

One fateful day Christey came across an ad in the newspaper for an insurance sales position from a company that sold voluntary employee benefits—but it would mean starting back at square one with a commission-based job and a much smaller salary.

“I still can’t explain why I made such a drastic decision at a time when we were already making significant life changes with the wedding and wanting to have children. Looking back, it was kind of crazy—it literally would cut my income in half! But I took a chance with the mindset that sales would be good for me, so I applied and interviewed because it seemed like a great opportunity with eventual upside potential.”

Two weeks later, Christey was an employee of the insurance company.

The way they operated was a senior salesperson would visit various organizations and sell the idea of having a voluntary insurance program for their employees, who could pick and choose specific benefits that appealed to them. Then, another salesperson like Christey would come in and sit with the interested employees and finalize the sale of those benefits.

“It was new and exciting to me—learning about sales and insurance—and I became really passionate about several of the products I sold, especially disability insurance. When you think about it, if you lose your ability to earn an income, it takes away your standard of living and the rest of what you’ve got going on in your life. You can’t pay for things you need or want that you may have taken for granted before you lost your pay. So, it’s extremely important to protect it as your greatest asset.”

After three years, Christey hesitantly made the jump to the senior position, which threw her own income up in the air by changing it to nearly all commission-based.

“It was scary and almost counterintuitive to take that kind of risk when I was selling a ‘secured income’ product while my own income was unsecured. But I believed in myself and I always try to go with my gut feeling, so I just did it and it worked out very well for me.”

All-Around Score

Fast forward five more years and two daughters later, and Christey felt the time was ripe to, yet again, chop the income she had worked so hard to recoup over the years back in half.

“My territory had expanded to the point I was on the road too often and away from my family. I needed to seek a new opportunity, and if that meant taking a pay cut, so be it. You just can’t put a price on watching your kids grow up.”

In another bold move, she applied and was hired to fill an account manager role in 2005 for a smaller, family-owned agency in her hometown of Sharon, Pennsylvania. The agency mainly sold personal and commercial lines, but she was hired specifically into its Physician Services department to service medical professional liability (MPL) accounts. She also got involved in the quoting process and even sold policies when time permitted. In due time, the producer left to pursue another avenue, and Christey was promoted to his position.

“I was working with physicians and, of course, practice managers. And during that time, I felt like I was coming into my own with malpractice insurance. I was able to get contracts with some other carriers and keep growing our book. In Pennsylvania, we have a patient compensation fund called MCARE, which can be tricky at times. So, I learned a lot about that and just continued to expand my knowledge and enjoy every minute of it. MPL is a very specific, necessary product for doctors, and I felt right at home problem-solving for them whenever they needed my assistance.”

While attending a carrier meeting in 2011, Christey had a discussion with an agency owner who focused 100 percent on malpractice insurance with a fairly large book. Although she was happy at her current agency, malpractice was only a fraction of its book.

“I continued to have talks with the agency owner I met, and by this time, I now had a son in addition to my two daughters,” Christey explained. “And this gentleman was just a wonderful person. He said to me, ‘Look, I want you to come work for me, and we’ll work out the money. But the thing I want you to do is, I want you to work here, and also attend every single event your kids have and anything they have going on. You have to be there, and if you promise to do that, then I think we’ll make a great team.’ It was the greatest thing I had ever heard—too good of an offer for me to pass up.”

And there you have it folks: Passion for insurance and family focus paid off and triumphed over any concern about money for Christey.

By 2017, she was well established at the agency, helping the owner service his larger clients and building her own book of business. About this time, the owner was ready to transition out of the business and was comfortable doing so as he and Christey spent years aligning their goals for how to grow and manage the book and retain clients and their long-standing relationships.

After evaluating options for the agency, they decided the best move was to join Alera Group’s HCL Team managed by Jason Shah, MD, and Sapan Shah, MD. Jason and Sapan have a unique industry presence as they are both physicians focused solely on MPL. They also share the same philosophy as Christey about having a work-life balance, so they knew the partnership would evolve quickly—and it did. The agency owner spent a year helping with the transition and knew the business was left in good hands with her and the Alera HCL Team.

Today, Christey heads up the Alera HCL Team in its Western Pennsylvania office with clients throughout the Northeast and Midwest and has grown the partnered book of business an astounding 200 percent. She aspires to keep that endeavor going and collaborate with Alera Group’s agency partners on MPL submissions across the country. And now that she is an empty nester, Christey has some free time to work on obtaining her Registered Professional Liability Underwriter (RPLU) designation.

When all is said and done, she attributes her success in life to what matters most deep down in her heart.

“Many of my major professional decisions have been driven by family. I have so much to be proud of outside of my career. Our oldest daughter is 26 and married with two beautiful daughters—my granddaughters! My middle daughter graduated college and is doing a terrific job with her career. And my son’s 18 and moving onto college. My husband and I have our 30th anniversary coming up. My family has always been my main focus and the reason behind my career choices over the years. I think that if you keep that at the forefront of what’s important to you, things are always going to work out—no matter what.”