Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan’s
Risk Management Industry Club introduces
the next gen-eration to the wide scope of insurance careers
By Maura C. Ciccarelli
Photography courtesy of BGCSM and NAAIA Foundation
In May 2023, 15-year-old Aniya H. stood with her business partner, Sherry K., under the bright stage lights, waiting to pitch their insurance agency idea, All Pets Allowed, to four industry professionals in front of an audience of family and friends.
If they won the Shark Tank-style competition with their words, persuasiveness, business-building skills, insurance industry knowledge, and creativity, they could win up to $3,500 to invest in their own agency or another business.
“It was pretty exciting, but I was actually kind of calm,” says Aniya, who is now a 10th grader at Detroit’s Cass Technical High School. “I was really focusing on the presentation and making sure I had all the information in my head to represent it well.”
The event was the capstone project for Aniya and other interns in the Risk Management Club of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeast Michigan (BGCSM). The workforce development project paid student interns $10 per hour for a total of 180 hours over the 12-week program to learn the fundamentals of creating and operating their own insurance agency. Second place winners would get $750 and the third-place team would receive $500.
Aniya’s team researched the value of pet insurance for area prospects and built a model providing medical coverage, including a first checkup for free, for all types of pets. After going through the results of their SWOT analysis, they presented detailed, realistic estimates of their needed start-up expenses, which would include an office, staffing positions and costs, supplies, and other essentials. Then, one of the sharks said he would invest $300,000 in their company for a 17% return. While this was not a real offer, it was a Shark Tank-like endorsement of the strength of their business model.
What was real was that the All Pets Allowed team aced the judging panel’s grades, winning them first place, which was “surprising and exciting,” says Aniya, who learned about the program from a flyer at her high school. “I was pretty interested because I saw it was about careers and I had an opportunity to make money as a team.
“It was also really different than the other clubs, like fashion and E-sports, which I wasn’t interested in. I didn’t really know what it was about at first, but I definitely came to like it.”
How the program works
The Detroit-based BGCSM’s industry clubs provide paid workforce experience for young people interested in learning about careers in risk management as well as in fashion, urban planning, sports, E-sports and entertainment.
Risk Management Industry Club interns are judged on their creativity,
persuasiveness, business model, communication skills, and insurance knowledge,
as they compete in a Boys & Girls Clubs Shark Tank-style competition.
Begun in 2020, current industry professionals introduce interns to all aspects of the risk management industry. Their capstone project is to create their own agency model with a specific coverage niche for the Shark Tank competition.
“We want our interns learning the most current knowledge in the industry,” says Sonya Draper, executive director, talent & innovation, for BGCSM. “We want to expose them to all the right information and vital careers.”
Along the way, interns learn about personal and business finances, including developing a budget and setting up a checking and/or savings account during the orientation session if they wish. The ultimate goal is to prepare them for a successful financial future, including homeownership.
“We’re putting them on the path of financial security,” Draper notes. “They also learn that insurance revolves around every sector of business, learning the tangible skills they can use in any sector, including establishing and building customer relationships.”
“You can see the confidence build from the first day to the last. By the end, they were getting up on stage and winning money.”
—Kevin Clary
Vice President, Risk Management and Premium Audit
Amerisure Insurance
Aniya says she liked gaining a broader perspective about the insurance industry, which she initially knew nothing about. “I liked the interaction between the guest speaker and the students,” says Aniya. “We learned a lot [through] that.”
Plus, she says she enjoyed learning how insurance applies to different industries—knowledge she hopes to use as an entrepreneur.
An innovative workforce program
Kevin Clary, vice president of risk management and premium audit at the carrier Amerisure Insurance, is executive sponsor for the Risk Management Club. He leads classes two days a week, with other professionals teaching on the remaining days.
The curriculum features sessions on auto insurance, homeowners and renters insurance, small business insurance, cybersecurity, and life and health.
The program started out with Amerisure and volunteers from the Sterling Insurance Agency (now Insured Partners) developing the initial lessons. The following year, Whitnee Dillard, executive director of the nonprofit Invest, brought in an expanded insurance curriculum. Note that Invest, originally founded in 1970 at Hollywood High School by Independent Insurance Agents of Los Angeles, is now a stand-alone nonprofit staff administered by the national Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (IIABA).
Jennifer DeMello-Johnson, current BGCSM board member and former board chair, says the Risk Management Club idea evolved after the first club, fashion, was created. “This industry club was created to further augment other industry clubs, since every industry carries certain risks and exposures,” says DeMello-Johnson, who is now head of sales and growth, U.S. retail, at Acrisure, but was with Amerisure when the program was originated.
Much is on the line for presenters at the
Risk Management Industry Club’s competitions.
And much is to be learned preparing for them.
The long-term goal is to create a pipeline of diversified talent for the area’s insurance industry, she says, noting that insurance has long been a predominantly white male industry and that she can relate to the club members as a minority herself.
“Risk management protects the communities in which we serve. Beyond property and casualty and employee benefits, it’s important to educate our youth on services that can prevent cyberattacks, a reality they face in their day-to-day lives,” says DeMello-Johnson, who originally proposed creating the Risk Management Industry Club.
About 800 students apply for 15 internships for each session, Clary notes. Topics include not only the basics of job opportunities in the insurance industry but also basic professional business skills. On field trips, club members do risk assessment walk-throughs, including touring the Detroit Pistons’ practice facility.
“We’re putting [students] on the path of financial security. They also learn
that insurance revolves around every sector of business, learning the
tangible skills they can use in any sector, including establishing and building customer relationships.”
—Sonya Draper
Executive Director, Talent & Innovation
Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan
They also get to work with a prospecting coach, who developed a cold-calling script for the teens to introduce themselves to area business owners and ask for an appointment. During these sessions, Clary says the agency volunteers would hand out a gift card when an intern landed an appointment. The agent would go with the intern to meet with the prospect and tour their facilities to give them a real feel for being a producer.
One of the most important lessons, Clary says, was about networking. At the beginning of the program, he challenges interns to collect as many contacts as they can during the sessions, asking producers, insurance execs and other speakers for their names and phone numbers. “Teaching them that kind of stuff helps them be successful,” he explains.
“You can see the confidence build from the first day to the last,” he adds. “By the end, they were getting up on stage and winning money.”
Creating a talent pipeline
DeMello-Johnson says the program also partnered with Michigan-based Olivet College, which has a risk management school, to have the older students mentor the BCGSM interns—and to create a pipeline of diversified students for Olivet. In addition, agency volunteers from the National African American Insurance Association (NAAIA) also came to talk with the interns.
The BGCSM program appeals to Invest’s mission to create a talent pipeline, Dillard notes. “It was cool to see how creative the young people were about [seeing the need for] ‘insurance’ everywhere,” she says. “They focused on teen driving, pet insurance, and even cyber insurance. It was nice to see the creative way they put a spin on insurance.”
Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan was the inaugural recipient of the NAAIA Foundation’s Game Changer Award for its role in changing the lives of young people. Stacy Blackmon, National Vice President, Metro Services, for Boys & Girls Clubs of America (center), accepted the award at a 2023 foundation event in Atlanta. Also pictured are (from left) event keynote speaker Darryl Page, Vice President and Chief Culture Officer, Chubb Group; and NAAIA Foundation board members Whitnee Dillard, Executive Director, InvestSM and Diversity, Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America; Board CEO and Chair Ken Branch, Owner, Arial Insurance Group; and Jervis Hough, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Compliance Officer, Blaylock Van, LLC.
Even if interns decide they don’t want to go into insurance, DeMello-Johnson notes that they’ll still understand the necessity of insurance if they start their own business. Plus, they’ll learn how to make better decisions in their careers and increase the probability of their own success.
She adds: “More than anything else this has brought our insurance community together. Maybe out in the field we are competing, but when you come together in a nonprofit organization and you’re teaching our youth and creating a pipeline of talent, that is vital.
It’s ‘co-opetition’—we’re cooperating so we can bring something higher than who we are today into our industry. That’s so important.”
“In addition to increasing the diversity of talent for the industry, the other benefit is introducing these kids to people who can help them be successful,” Clary adds.
At the end of the day, Clary says working so many hours with the interns has created strong relationships not only within their groups but also with him and other insurance professionals. “I care about the kids,” he says. “I want them to succeed.”
For more information:
Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan
The author
Maura Ciccarelli is a freelance journalist originally from Philadelphia who now writes about business and more from the road full-time.
