Insurance Agents Form Company That Employs Disabled Veterans in Insurance Careers

While unemployment in the U.S. has been high – and remained high – for several years now, it's no secret that some groups have been hit harder by unemployment than others. While some contact center work has been coming back to U.S. shores because of escalating costs abroad and negative public perception of offshoring, there are some groups who haven't benefited...yet.

Two insurance agents, Gary Trippe and Jim Pender, recently launched a company called DVIC, or Disabled Veterans Insurance Careers. The two hope to provide disabled veterans with employment in insurance positions.

“We initially started out thinking about hiring disabled people, and the genesis of that idea was that in the electronic age where we live, when you think about it, disabled people have some opportunities through those systems that they have never had before,” Pender told Insurance Journal.

“As we explored that, we were encouraged by friends from Chubb to concentrate on the military veterans and make sure that we got that piece right.”

Unemployment remains high among veterans, particularly those returning from drawn-down missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. For those among these veterans who are disabled, the obstacles are even higher.

“[A]s we got more into dealing with the subject of these heroes and heroines who are coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, the way we fight our wars today, we realize that there are thousands of them, and there’s a place for them in our industry, some of them,” says Pender, who is a Vietnam veteran. “We think we can offer them meaningful careers, and if we can do a good job of that, we’re going to be a full buffet of issues before us,” he said.

DVIC's goal is two-fold: to provide disabled veterans with the training and technology they need to work from home, and to provide insurance companies with a network of trained insurance sales and customer services representatives.

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