Jason Gerstenberger

Why I’m an independent insurance broker

I became an independent broker for one reason: I wanted to recommend products I believe in, from companies I trust to do right by the people I serve. A captive agent represents one company. Maybe it’s the best one for you, but that’s a one-in-thirty shot, and you’ll never hear about the other twenty-nine. I represent you. I compare the whole market, I show you any carrier I choose, and I’ll even explain the products I won’t sell and why. Every relationship I have starts with that clarity.

Licensing and experience

Jason Gerstenberger was first licensed in 2005. Before focusing entirely on insurance and guaranteed retirement income, Jason held Series 7 and 66 securities licenses while serving on a small team managing over $300 million in assets. Today his work is insurance only: life insurance, disability insurance, Medicare Supplements, and retirement income solutions like fixed annuities. His National Producer Number is 8616286, and it can be looked up anytime through your state’s Department of Insurance.

Why I do this work

I was a locomotive engineer until a fallen tree abruptly ended my railroad career. I rehabbed, became a financial advisor, and eventually had to step away from that too, because the same injury took both careers. I know what it means when the income stops and the bills don’t.

My mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was six. She had no disability coverage, and it destroyed her financially. Long-term care insurance could have saved her from a nursing home. She has been on Medicare since I was in elementary school. My father passed away unexpectedly from a stroke. A burial insurance policy I would have told him not to buy carried me through the weeks I couldn’t work and saved me from tremendous debt. I was the last person who would have recommended that policy, and the person who needed it.

I like sure things because every product I represent is protection for a scenario I’ve lived through. I started helping people with Medicare in 2005, and I began helping people with retirement income and annuities in 2006. A disability policy could have preserved my mother’s financial security, and mine. I believe in term life insurance because the little bit of money a term policy costs is worth the guarantee that your family is going to make it. And I believe in whole life insurance as a tremendous tool for wealth transfer, a way to pass on potentially tax-free money to the people you love.

My clients are family, and they get treated like family. Nothing I offer is one size fits all. None of it. So who I’m talking to changes the products we discuss. When I sit down with someone on Medicare or burial insurance, they get the same care I’d give my own mother and father, my grandmother and grandfather. When it’s term life, the same honesty I’d give my sister and my best friends. And when it’s disability insurance, I’m talking to my younger self, praying you’ll never need it, but knowing from my own life that it will happen to someone. There is no greater feeling in this work than getting someone the protection they needed at the price they needed it to be.

What I believe in

Seniors get targeted more than any other group in this country, and a big part of my job is making sure the people I serve never get taken advantage of. Not by fine print, not by confusion, and not by a sales pitch dressed up as advice. I walk through every detail, I answer every question, and the client decides.

Here’s the biggest thing I’d change about this business: the pressure to do more than you can. The biggest policy, the bells and whistles, the extraordinary plan you can tell your friends about. I believe less is more. The right amount of coverage, at a price that leaves room in your budget for the unexpected, is the policy that actually makes it all the way to the day your family needs it. A smaller life insurance policy leaves money free for living. A smaller annuity keeps more of your savings liquid. Every person is different and every situation is unique, so I will never push you to do more than you need. Doing what you need is perfect. For the people with the means to go all the way, sometimes getting it right means exactly that, and for them we can go all the way. But for most people who actually have to budget their money, our goal is to find the sweet spot: everything we hopped on the phone to cover in the first place is covered, at a price that’s less than you expected to pay, so long as we can help it.

The worst thing in this business is a person who knows they need protection, wants it, qualifies for it, and can’t afford it. My job is to move that person into the protected category anyway. That means getting creative: shopping carrier after carrier until I find the one offering the same protection at a price that fits. The coverage a family can keep is the only coverage that counts.

I believe in honesty, and sometimes honesty arrives as a blunt answer. That’s never rudeness. I just refuse to give you false hope, because false hope always fails you at the worst possible time. I’d rather you hear the plain truth from me in five minutes than learn it the hard way later.

How I work

It starts with a conversation, not a pitch. I want to know what brought you here, whether that’s turning 65 and facing Medicare, protecting your family with life insurance, guarding your income, or turning part of your savings into retirement income that lasts. We talk through your situation and what you want the money to do. Then I go to work comparing the market, and I come back and tell you plainly what your options are, what they cost, and which one I’d choose in your shoes. No pressure, no scripts. If what you already have is right, I’ll tell you that too. A good outcome for me is that you feel relieved, you finally tackled something intimidating, and you’d send your mother to me.