Nicole Bienfang

I currently work with a company that specializes in serving folks who are either part of an association or group, or work for a union-based company. What I excel at is sitting down with people and educating them on financial literacy, because a lot of folks don't know anything about insurance - they've never had insurance before, no one's ever talked to them about it, and they weren't raised in a household that has it. I get on Zoom calls with them and talk about their goals and their dreams and the future they want to have for themselves and their family, and then we discuss what's the best fit for them and their goals. Even though the company has hired me, I'm still an independent contractor, so I get to set my own hours and determine how I do my work. I like that flexibility because I'm able to fit the job around my life instead of figuring out how to fit my life around the job. I can schedule doctor's appointments when I need them, run errands when I need to, and take an hour-long lunch versus trying to scarf down food in 15 minutes. I grew up in a working-class family in a single-parent household in Illinois, and when I got my license, it was a bit of a grieving process for me because I learned that about 96% of the hardships my family went through, and I went through personally in my adulthood, could have been prevented had we had the education and gotten the right insurance products. That was a devastating blow to learn, but it drives my passion for educating others so they don't face the same preventable hardships.