Agent Profile: Looks Can Be Deceiving for Overachieving Long Island Producer

We’re going to begin the profile differently this time around and play a little interactive game together. Read each of the following descriptions one by one, close your eyes, and take mental note of the type of person and attributes you envision for each: insurance producer, healthcare worker, rock star, and devoted father.

How many of you imagined the same personal appearance and traits for all of these? It’s likely that very few readers pictured the living embodiment of Hilb Healthcare Producer Michael Elefante.

But we all can agree that it takes hard work, passion, and dedication to be successful at any one of those vocations. The enigma that is Michael Elefante has achieved success in all four—with decades left to conquer any other challenges that could be well within his broad purview.

Fast Tempo

Growing up a three-sport athlete in the town of Farmingdale on Long Island, New York, Michael had already developed an eclectic range of interests going into his teenage years. He studied hard in school; participated in soccer, lacrosse, and basketball; taught himself how to play both the guitar and the drums; and was on the lookout for the right career path to a future in healthcare.

“My neighborhood had about 15 kids close to my age—we spent our days playing whiffle ball, hockey, basketball, you name it,” Michael said. “So you could say I was a competitive youth and always looking for a challenge. And going through high school, as a social person, I knew I did not want to end up in a career working behind a desk staring at a computer screen all day. I wanted to work with people, preferably in healthcare. So, after attending a career fair and leaning on my long-term interest in biology to pursue a pre-med degree, one biological sciences program stood out to me amongst the others.” 

It was cardio-respiratory sciences that appealed to Michael, and he applied and was accepted to Long Island’s Molloy University, a health sciences college predominantly for students who were enrolled in nursing school or a pre-med–related program.

“This particular program was for a two-year degree and I could join a hospital and make a good living right out of college. And if I wanted to go on and complete my pre-med studies and go to medical school, that was an option too. The coursework was similar, so I said to myself, ‘Let me do this and if I don’t love it, I can finish pre-med instead.’”

Almost immediately upon entering the cardio-respiratory sciences program, Michael found out what it takes to be successful in the field.

“It was a grueling schedule and class load, but it was so interesting, I embraced it. I was taking 18 credits a semester, splitting my time between classwork and clinical rotations. Then, when the summer came, I was working 40 hours a week in the hospital learning how to do different procedures and take care of patients. So I got a lot of hands-on experience during college that prepared me for my first job as a respiratory therapist when I graduated.”

That first full-time job was offered to Michael following his 21st birthday—from the hospital he did his last rotation in before getting his degree.

Simultaneous Rhythms

“I was probably the youngest employee at the hospital. When I got there on my starting date, they handed me a pager and an assignment of patients to go see, and told me I was covering all calls to the emergency room. I worked 13-hour shifts from 6:30 PM until 7:30 AM, including on holidays and weekends. The trick was to keep my mental acuity sharp during those hours of the night. I found what worked for me was to pick the brains of my coworkers in the department—the physicians in the emergency room and the intensive care unit, as well as the nurses and physician assistants—and absorb as much information as possible, a recurring theme for many hospital workers. I was part of the trauma team and the cardiac team. We were the department that did intubations during trauma and cardiac arrests, and managed any patients on life support. It was all critical care and following processes for treating respiratory diseases and disorders.”

Michael spent the next 14 years “drinking from a fire hose,” as he put it, and enjoying the fast-paced work and rewards it brought.

“There is the tragedy side of it, where I had to become comfortable with the idea of death and discontinuing life support. But you’re also doing extremely rewarding work. When a patient comes into the hospital in a critical situation, and your time to act on it is literally now, you have to assess a patient quickly and make an often difficult decision about what you’re looking at—whether it’s reading labs, deciphering a patient’s history, viewing images on monitors, or evaluating chest x-rays, for example. Processing so much information and making a fast, informed decision was a skill I strengthened over time. And there is no better feeling than when you’re able to watch a patient who came in critically ill, with a small chance of surviving, being wheeled out, or even walking out of the hospital on their own, weeks or months later, and knowing you took part in helping restore that person.”

The conversation segued—into a completely different direction—when asking Michael what his next career move turned out to be.

“Well, I should probably first tell you that the whole time I was a respiratory therapist, I was also a professional musician.”

Yes, you read that correctly: a professional musician.

“I was pursuing a music career at the same time,” Michael said. “As I took on more of a senior role at the hospital, I was able to set my schedule in a way that I would load up on six 13-hour shifts in a row, and then be able to have a week and a half off to go travel with my band and play in different cities and states around the country. We were like a mainstream pop-rock band, and were fortunate to play gigs and open for bands like Incubus, Fall Out Boy, and the Goo Goo Dolls. So for about 10 years we toured, recorded albums, and got to share venues with some of the biggest acts in the world. It was fun, really fun.”

Now normally, this kind of a statement would be the appropriate time to do a mic drop—but that’s just not how Michael rolls.

Perfect Harmony

“Being a professional musician and working as a respiratory therapist, I eventually came to a turning point. I was in my mid-thirties and feeling sort of burned out from traveling and working long nights—I began thinking to myself, ‘I need to look for a change—I need a new challenge.’ And I’ll tell you what, insurance wasn’t even on my radar the day before I took a job in it.”

As Michael searched for opportunities outside his usual comfort zone while continuing to work as a respiratory therapist, he decided to once again tap into the resources of a career fair. Almost serendipitously, Michael met Gabrielle Lamb, who at the time was Vice President of PriMed Consulting, an insurance agency based in the New York tri-state area. 

“We discussed medical malpractice insurance, and it intrigued me because I have all this experience. When she elaborated on what the producer role was—meeting with doctors and people who run medical practices—it was like having an epiphany: I can speak their language! I know how to read a chart; I understand disease processes; I can review a claim; and I know about best practices and procedures, and the inner workings of a hospital or doctor’s office. But what I didn’t know was how to sell insurance. I had no sales experience whatsoever.”

Gabrielle saw a sales diamond in the rough and invited him to interview with PriMed. During the interview, Michael realized that all he had to do was draw a connection to the transferable skills he sharpened while in healthcare.

“I reached back into my time as a respiratory therapist and explained that a big part of my job was talking about really sensitive issues, and being as transparent as possible with the facts to help guide families into making very difficult decisions—but the right decisions. So, I felt I can use those skills in meeting with doctors to show them I understand what challenges they face in the medical field and that I could help guide them in making important decisions for their practice or hospital.”

Impressed with his reasoning, Gabrielle offered Michael a producer role and sponsored his license training and exam.

“Right away, I started hitting the phones, but soon found I was more successful getting in my car and knocking on doors and visiting doctors’ offices. I closed a fairly large account seven months into it and had already grown my book past what I projected for my first-year goal.”

A couple years later in 2016, PriMed Consulting was acquired by The Hilb Group—a national middle-market insurance company growing rapidly through targeted agency acquisitions—and things only got better.

“There really was no pain in the acquisition process,” said Michael. “I continued to do business as usual and didn’t feel any change. And whereas PriMed was more regional, with Hilb Group we’ve become one of the leading national brokers.”

To this day, Michael feels right at home in his role as a producer for Hilb Healthcare.

“I love the inherent challenge of sales and being a producer. You get what you put into it, and the results show. But when everything is said and done in my professional life, nothing compares to my biggest achievement of all—my kids. My favorite job in the whole world is being a father to my 15-year-old boy and seven-year-old girl. They are my engine. They’re what makes everything go for me.”