Standing in the gap — With Che Norman

Early in Chinyere “Che” Norman’s insurance career, she worked with a female client who was living one of every future retiree’s biggest fears.

Norman said the woman, who was retired, was eating cat food because she didn’t have enough money for nutritious groceries. She also was paying $200 monthly for her Medicare supplement and prescription drug plan. Norman reviewed the client’s financial situation and moved her to a zero-premium Medicare Advantage plan.

“Now she had an extra $200 a month to buy healthy food,” Norman said. “This was when I started to realize how much helping someone with their insurance would affect the other areas of their lives.”

Norman is Georgia regional manager with Advocate Health in Atlanta, and she has worked in the Medicare space for 17 years.

Her work with Medicare clients began when she was a recent college graduate, working in an assisted living community while planning to attend law school. A member of her church told her his brother was starting an insurance agency focused on the senior market.

“He said he knew I worked with seniors and told me, ‘I know you would love this,’” she said. “I met with his brother, and I never looked back.”

Norman said her work in the senior market fulfilled her desire to be an entrepreneur while helping others.

“Soon after I started working in this area, I saw that I could help people with so many things in their lives by starting with their health insurance,” she said. “The insurance business really called to me. I was all in, and I realized I could pivot in different ways in this industry if I needed to.”

Eventually, the owner of the agency where she worked expanded his offerings to include life insurance, and Norman expanded her knowledge base as the business expanded. She soon acquired her securities license.

“We continued to elevate our offerings to clients,” she said. “I went from Medicare and small policies such as final expense life insurance to working with clients on all of the components of their financial lives. I wanted to make sure they were efficient on the health insurance side, and that led to more financial planning business. I wanted to help folks invest their money better.”

As Norman helped more clients find the best Medicare coverage for their needs, she branched out into helping them with issues such as Social Security maximization and making sure they had the right life insurance in place or positioning some of their funds in annuities when appropriate.

She also began to attract younger clients and helped them with their life insurance and financial planning needs.

The 24-hour rule

Eventually, Norman had the opportunity to move to the corporate insurance space, where she would manage other agents. But before she made that decision, she implemented what she calls her “24-hour rule.”

“I’m the youngest of three children in my family, and I’m the youngest of my maternal grandmother’s 39 grandchildren,” she explained. “I was born with a lot of opportunity, a lot of support, a lot of help. But even though I see myself as having lots of opportunity, I’m also an analytical person. In my younger years, I would make decisions quickly, and I saw it would trap me. So I realized it’s OK to step back and give myself time. I don’t have to be reaching all the time.

“Because if life is abundant and you have lots of opportunity, you really can sit back and receive. So for 24 hours, I need to think it through. This helps me to settle in on the decisions I make, instead of making quick decisions and second-guessing myself later.”

In those 24 hours, Norman determined the career switch was right for her.

But after about five years, she moved to Advocate Health, a field marketing organization, where she helps onboard and train agents. She has been with Advocate since 2022.

Making the move to coach

In the meantime, Norman made another career move and became a life coach in addition to her work in the insurance business.

In 2019, she started Tha Bridge, a financial accountability coaching company that aims to help people bridge the gap between who they are now and the life they desire. She said life coaching is a natural offshoot of her work in training and mentoring agents.

“When you are training and onboarding and teaching agents, you are leading from the front,” she said. “With coaching, I’m able to lead more from the side or from the back and watch someone figure things out on their own. You give someone space to grow, to feel comfortable, to feel nurtured and to feel safe. You talk to them about their money, how to plan for the future, what options they have. And they’re more open and are better equipped to make decisions they can stick with.

“I lay it out for people and give them the space to chose the best route. And I coach them throughout it all.”

Norman said she chose Tha Bridge as the name for her coaching business “because it’s me standing in the gap.”

“If you can get who you are and understand your opportunity, then you can get to what you think you want as far as lifestyle and as far as money,” she said. “Once we do that life coaching around who you really are and what you say you want, you may be inundated with looking at the lives of other people reaching for things that aren’t even naturally in your trajectory. But when you give people space to really get into who they are, out of that can be a more authentic financial plan, life plan and evaluation.”

Starting SOBA

Norman has worked with community cooperatives in the Atlanta area for a number of years. Her experience in that realm brought her to the attention of Thomas Priester, who she had met some years previously through their work in the insurance industry. Priester started KORE Financial, a brokerage firm in Atlanta that works with individuals, families and small-business owners to protect and grow their wealth through life insurance.

“He had tried to start some insurance groups in the past, where members would champion collaboration and connectivity over competition,” she said. “But we found too many situations where someone had a winning strategy or found a new market but was afraid to share that information with someone else. We all are driven to be so competitive. I think competition can be a good thing, but hyper-competition can kill careers and kill relationships.”

Norman said Priester approached her about starting a group of Black insurance agents and agency owners connecting and sharing best practices. “He knew I had a feel for community and I wanted to see us win as a Black community,” she said.

The two launched the Society of Black Agents in December 2021, and it has grown to 1,000 members.

SOBA provides training through webinars and calls, access to interviews with industry leaders, and digital marketing content to attract more clients, in addition to connecting its members with industry peers.

“We wanted to build up a force of individuals who trusted each other, who knew their craft and who are experts in their space,” Norman said. “But we also wanted to create a space where newer agents can come in and quickly attach themselves to folks who want to see them win and who know how to help them win. A lot of times, Black professionals really struggle to fit into the mainstream version of who they should be.

“With SOBA, it’s the opposite. We provide support, connectivity and guidance so someone can thrive in this industry on their own terms. We champion our cultural differences, and we know our power. And we know that when we work together, we create more opportunities.”

Those opportunities extend to those outside the industry, Norman said. “We find there are so many people — mothers, fathers, grandmothers, young adults — who are interested in being better with their finances and then understanding that insurance is a foundational piece of all this. It’s all about leaning into the power we hold and affecting our community from a powerful place.”

Food as medicine

Norman enjoys travel, riding her electric bike and spending time with her extended family.
She also is serious about health and wellness.

“My family is really strong about health and wellness and about not necessarily running to the doctor for all our needs,” she said. “I am passionate about using your food as medicine. My sister is an herbalist, and I grew up with a father who is vegetarian. I love cooking real, whole foods.

“When we talk about wealth, we talk about health. And I believe we often miss that component of letting food be your medicine, and I would like to see more of a conversation around that.”

Susan Rupe is managing editor for InsuranceNewsNet. She formerly served as communications director for an insurance agents' association and was an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. Contact her at [email protected].