Show Notes
On this episode of Nuance, Case interviews Carl Canaparo, CEO of Pinnacle Brokers Insurance, about the powerful intersection of faith and the insurance industry. Carl shares his personal journey in the insurance sector, workplace challenges, and balancing work and family life. They also discuss how Christian values influence ethical business practices and the vital role insurance plays as a societal safety net. Carl’s insights can help all of us pursue deeper mentorship, integrity, and compassion, as well as embrace a Kingdom-centered mindset in our everyday jobs.
Episode Resources:
Pinnacle Brokers Insurance – https://pinnbrokers.com/
Nuance is a podcast of The Collaborative where we wrestle together about living our Christian faith in the public square. Nuance invites Christians to pursue the cultural and economic renewal by living out faith through work every facet of public life, including work, political engagement, the arts, philanthropy, and more.
Each episode, Dr. Case Thorp hosts conversations with Christian thinkers and leaders at the forefront of some of today’s most pressing issues around living a public faith.
Our hope is that Nuance will equip our viewers with knowledge and wisdom to engage our co-workers, neighbors, and the public square in a way that reflects the beauty and grace of the Gospel.
Learn more about The Collaborative:
Website: https://wecolabor.com/
Get to know Case: https://wecolabor.com/team/
Episode Transcript
Case Thorp
It usually starts with a storm, a roof ripped off by wind, a family suddenly without a home, a business forced to close. And while emergency crews rush in, someone else shows up more quietly. The insurance adjuster. A call is answered, a check is written, and the long road to rebuilding begins. Most of us don’t think about insurance until we need it. But when we do, it becomes one of those invisible threads that helps hold the fabric of society together. Behind every policy is a kind of trust, a bet on human responsibility, resilience, and the idea that we’re not meant to face hardship alone. And that idea, well, it’s deeply biblical. Proverbs 27:12, the prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it. There’s wisdom in preparing for what may come. And Proverbs 21:20 reminds us, precious treasure and oil are in a wise man’s dwelling, but a foolish man devours it. Planning ahead, saving, protecting, it’s all part of faithful stewardship. So today we’re going to talk about what does it look like to be a person of faith in the insurance industry? How does this vocation serve the common good and at times not so much. What does it teach us about how risk is managed in the public square? And how might Christian conviction turn even the most behind-the-scenes roles into acts of service and love? Joining us today is friend Carl Canaparo, a long-time leader in the insurance world who believes that what we insure reveals what we value and that those values can reflect something far greater than the bottom line. Carl, thanks so much for being with me today.
Carl Canaparo
You’re welcome. Thanks, Case, for having me.
Case Thorp
Well friends, you should know, Carl’s one of the coolest people I know, partly because of the time he gets to spend in Europe. Man, you’re over there all the time. You just came back from a trip. Tell us about it.
Carl Canaparo
Well, so my mom came from Italy, my dad was a first generation from Italy, which means I have cousins and uncles and aunts and everyone else and I really care for people and I want to see them as much as I can. So we just got back from a three and a half week trip. It was a lot of fun. We went to three countries. Amazing.
Case Thorp
And what cities?
Carl Canaparo
Barcelona, the island of Ibiza, south of France in Montpellier, northern Italy near Genoa where Christopher Columbus was born.
Case Thorp
Yes, okay. Well, one day I’ll live your life. Well, to our viewers and friends, welcome to Nuance, where we seek to be faithful in the public square. I’m Case Thorp, and please like, subscribe, and share these episodes so that others may enjoy. So, Carl Canaparo is a seasoned insurance executive with over 30 years of experience, having specialized in sectors such as healthcare, technology, manufacturing, and real estate. In 2018, he sold Pinnacle Brokers Insurance Solutions, a boutique property and casualty brokerage in Walnut Creek, California, and still retains leadership in the firm. A graduate at the University of California, Berkeley, is also active in nonprofit work and Christian ministries to assist the underserved and vulnerable among us. He and his wife, when they’re not in Europe, reside in Winter Park, Florida, and have two grown children, Giancarlo, who is with the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC and Nicholas, a sea captain. Okay. Heritage Foundation is pretty cool, but a sea captain… Do you maybe never know where in the world Nicholas might be?
Carl Canaparo
That’s correct. Let’s see, he went to 38 countries in a year and a half, so yes, my son can be anywhere and everywhere, and as he says, it’s not an adventure unless something goes wrong.
Case Thorp
Well, kind of like a wedding. I always tell the bride, something will go wrong and it’s okay. It gives you something to talk about for the next 40 Christmases. So, well, today, as I said, we’re gonna look at faith and work and perhaps looking at insurance as ministry. And Carl, you being such a man of faith, I trust to know that you look at insurance in a variety of ways, but particularly from a ministry perspective. So to have it been so successful over several decades. Talk to us a bit. How has your faith shaped the way you have done what you’ve done for so long?
Carl Canaparo
Well, good question. I think we start shaping our own vision of how we would like to see our life unfold. I want to be sensitive, by the mistakes or perceived mistakes of other people. So I worked for a number of large brokerage firms. I saw people and when I say brokerage, that means insurance brokerage. I sell various products. Our company sells various products for other insurance companies. And I think what I saw done at some of these larger firms where employees were just widgets, never having had a, never being given an opportunity to perhaps better their lives. They were really slotted into a position and that was all. I thought I could do something different. And so, and why is really the question. And I think it goes back, it really does go back to my faith. I mean, at the end of the day, we are here to serve the Lord in whatever capacity we happen to be. Mine happens to be insurance from a vocational perspective. And how do you do that? Well, you meet the needs of the people who first work for you because we then have to serve people downstream, our clients. And if we’re not serving our employees, and when I say serving, that means going above and beyond, giving people opportunities where they may have an equity position in the company. So if something happens, as an example, I sold my company, but my company had eight owners. In addition to that, we were able to give away another money to 30 other people that would never have received anything. You bring, if you love people and you bring them along, the journey with you, and they start asking, what makes you different, Carl? What is it? What is it about your vision that somehow is different than the next person? And I think to that end, I use that, I do use that as a ministry, as a way to witness the love of Christ towards others.
Case Thorp
Well in the faith and work conversation there’s certainly, as you articulate, you exercising godly values, biblical convictions for the benefit of all. But then I go up to a 30,000 foot level and I think about the fact the insurance industry is reliant upon the sin and brokenness of this world, right? I mean if we didn’t have disasters, hurricanes, business debacles, poor health, then there wouldn’t be a need for such a thing. And so I guess in some way, insurance has its virtuous side, a way that folks can pool money together to be a benefit. Have you ever thought about it in that way?
Carl Canaparo
Yeah, yeah, actually I have and I think you’ve given a good summation of it. There is, again, there is a tool. It is available to people and that tool has, wears all kinds of faces, life insurance, business insurance, workers comp, health insurance. You know, it’s easy to throw stones at it, but I think at its core, the fact that it is there to help mitigate risk, potential disasters, I think is a really beautiful thing. We live in a fallen world. Are there people who want to use it to, you know, to their own specific means or whatever? Yes. But yet I think we can look to it. And again, most people don’t study insurance. They need people who they can consult with. Tell me about this. Tell me about that. And, I think, again, focusing on what the primary goal of my life is, which is that of being an ambassador for Christ, then I’m a fairly trustworthy person. Am I sinless? No. Do I have ulterior motives? Yes. Do I get up every morning and pray, Lord, guide me today? Yes.
Case Thorp
So when I teach in various settings our Gotham Fellows course or our Orlando Fellows, in fact tonight I have the Arts Fellows, but I will illustrate heaven when things are fully restored and we are living in a sinless, beautiful existence with God. Isaiah 60 illustrates heaven being a big city in which great commerce and activity take place. So I will ask, will we have locksmiths in heaven? Because locksmiths are essentially what we need because of being in danger and being at risk of being harmed. So will we have insurance, Carl, in the New Jerusalem?
Carl Canaparo
It’s already there. That’s what’s so amazing. That’s what’s so amazing. I think, you know, not knowing what it will be like and knowing that I’m going to have a myriad of aha moments, I don’t think I’ll have to lock my door at night if in fact I’m even given whatever room the Lord decides to give me when I’m there with Him. I like where your thoughts go, Case. Wow, that’s deep. That’s good. I had never thought about that. I never thought about that. Okay.
Case Thorp
Not all vocations have to serve both ages and I’m certainly glad that we have insurance for this age. Okay, so as much as I appreciate insurance in my life and the laudable side of your work, let me push a little bit. Let me challenge. In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray, give us this day our daily bread. Let me read this passage out of Matthew 6. Jesus says, therefore I tell you, don’t be anxious about your life, what you will eat or drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” So as a pastor, when I preach, I’m often trying to help people let go of their worries and fears for tomorrow. But yet, I mean, insurance is all about managing risk and focusing on those future disasters. So, how do you reconcile this Christian call to trust in God’s providence with the very products you sell?r
Carl Canaparo
Now, you ask a good question. I think I would almost throw it back to you and say, you know, what value is there in a widget? A lock on a door, why do we worry about that? And I think my retort would be twofold. Insurance in general is a product. We all don’t have the same amount of faith in the Lord. Some of us are fully embracing of our work, where we are and where we are going. There are other people who you’ve heard say, Lord, I believe in you, help my unbelief. And I think that insurance kind of spans the bridge between where are you in your faith and what might help you be less anxious, as an example. I don’t sell it, but people buy life insurance. And they buy life insurance, term life insurance, and then within five years when they know that they have enough money, they kind of dump it. They don’t think about, well gee, could it help a ministry? Could it help somebody when I pass on? Or maybe when I don’t pass on. Maybe I just cash out something. I can help people who are not successful in business, who find it hard just to get from one day to the next. So the Lord has blessed our family, so the way we work our income is 10% off the top without even questioning goes into various ministries that we support because those people, the money that we make also has a purpose in furthering God’s kingdom. It might not be the insurance in and of itself, but the fact that we do earn a living more than we need and there are those people that do not have that capacity or they’re trying. And so what happens with the success that we’ve had at our company, we are able to help others. And that’s how I look.
Case Thorp
Mm-hmm. that’s wonderful. I really like that idea of continuing your term. Life insurance is a benefit for others. I’ve got it and when my children are of certain age, I’ve thought, well, I’ll stop needing to invest in that. But it’s what, 27 bucks a month? And to think how much it, you know, I’ll…
Carl Canaparo
I mean, no. You must have bought that when you were 11 years old, but that’s another story.
Case Thorp
That’s right. Well, I joke that to my kids, I’m like, look, I’m worth far more dead than alive to you. You’d be loaded. You’d be loaded without, Interesting. Interesting. So is it true? This isn’t really on topic, but you can pretty much insure anything. What’s the craziest policy you’ve ever written?
Carl Canaparo
I said that too. I’ve said that.
No, no, no, I like that. I haven’t done too many esoteric policies, but kidnapping ransom is amazing. It’s like you wanna buy it before you go to certain cities around the world. I mean, you could be taken just like that, and your family doesn’t have that kind of money. So yeah, so I would say that, I mean, keeping in mind, in movies, not even that, musicians, they insure their hands, they insure their feet.
Case Thorp
Okay, it’s not concept one’s reputation.
Carl Canaparo
It’s very different, it’s very different. But yes, so there are, you can pretty much insure anything. The question is, right? But you can, you can.
Case Thorp
I need to insure my humor. I don’t know if that’s possible.
Carl Canaparo
You have to put a value around it. You have to that value and then you can share it.
Case Thorp
My goodness. Yeah. Yeah, I’m no Nate Bargatze for sure. For sure. Well, Carl, talk to us about a situation at work where faith required you to either take a stand against the prevailing winds of the moment or what did that look like?
Carl Canaparo
Gosh, there’s a good one. Okay, so here’s one example and as much as we want to be Christ to the people around us, not everybody thinks like us, acts like us. And as you might imagine, in today’s society, the Christian faith sometimes is under attack. And we had a colleague of ours who we’ve been very generous with on so many different fronts and we hold everybody accountable with our organization. And when we held this person accountable, they immediately went to an attorney and came back and on it’s called employment practices liability. We were hit with a not a lawsuit, but it was a demand letter, et cetera, et cetera. And we prevailed. The hard part here is I really do love this person. I know their issues and I could just as easily said, cut them, let them go, we don’t need this, this is, but we didn’t, we didn’t. I think what’s hard is the company wanted to just assume jettison and they listened to me and we kept this person on. We all have faults, we have bad days, sometimes we have bad years. And again, would the Lord give up on you? No. Would he expect us to do the same thing? Yes, there are points where, you have to make strong decisions where you’re saying, Lord, this one’s yours. You’re going to have to help this person on its next journey because we can’t. It’s too difficult. I have an obligation to protect my staff if I hurt my staff because of actions of others. So that’s a tough one. That’s a real tough one. I’ve gone through a number of lawsuits, not necessarily employment practices, and those are the toughest. That’s where the rubber meets the road. The question is, where’s your faith at that moment? Where is your faith? Because it’s just easy to seek revenge and other things and that’s not what it is. When the Lord says, give the other cheek when they slap you, that can be taken in a lot of different ways and you know I’m going to take it at face value as much as I can.
Case Thorp
I’m curious if you have experienced what I’m about to describe. I feel like over the course of my career there are more and more individuals when, as you say, disciplined or terminated from employment that will turn right back around and threaten lawsuit when, especially from an employer’s perspective, there’s just no ground to stand on. And it just seems like it’s becoming a cultural norm and it worries me.
Carl Canaparo
Yeah, I agree with you. My daughter-in-law is in international employment law. We hear it all the time, we see it all the time. We see it in our business too. Again, I came from California before I got to Florida. I wanna say there’s more attorneys than dogs in that state. So they’re on every street corner, so it’s very easy to find that. But again, I think it’s more of…Where is the Lord in their lives? The less of the Lord they have, the more that they see themselves as a center of the universe, and we all know that social media kind of promotes that, it’s all about you, then you will have more of these things. I think it’s just, you know, it’s just an offshoot of where we are. However, that’s not to say that you’re supposed to sit back and just let it happen. There are still those people who are fighting, wanting to do the right thing. Yeah, so far we’ve prevailed in most, sometimes we don’t, because why? It’s less expensive to go ahead and pay and get out of the suit, even though it might not be right. It’s not right, but it’s cheaper. And it’s like, that’s so sad. But again, it does happen. Yeah, interesting, Case. You bring up a number of things. As you can see that, you know, our discussion transcends just insurance. It is about people. It’s all about people. And the question is, what’s the situation? And what are we doing to further God’s kingdom in whatever situation? This weekend, I drove by your home region, Jekyll Island, on my way to South Carolina, and listened to a dear friend of mine who is in a very high position in a company that’s worth billions of dollars. All we did was listen to how much he’s struggling. Doesn’t matter the business.
Case Thorp
Well, I imagine since you’re ordained to the insurance industry, you get to be in a lot of hard conversations with a lot of business leaders. Particularly as they’re stuck between risk and what they have cash flow wise and you can really speak into their worries and their fears besides what your products can provide.
Carl Canaparo
Yeah, I’m with you. I think you need credibility. But I ran, you know, again, I took a risk. I started my own company after having worked for a number of companies. And we had wonderful success and we were able to sell it. And we still work there only because, you know, I look at my work as my ministry. This is my platform to love on people, to share the love of Christ. And I can’t see myself doing something else right now. Yes, I could be in Europe, etc, etc. But again, the question is where am I? Where do I have the most influence? And here I am listening to CEOs who control the lives of many many other people And so if you hit the right people you actually are helping more than just that one person.
Case Thorp
What will people tell their insurance broker that they might not tell someone else?
Carl Canaparo
Yeah, that’s a good question. In some cases, well here, let me take a step back from that. What happens oftentimes is the fact that they’ll reveal their health situation with me before they tell me why. And those health, the older we get, the stress really manifests itself in a lot of different ways. I do sometimes hear a confession. “I haven’t paid my payroll taxes in two years, I’m gonna go to jail.” I’ve heard others where “I have to go for surgery, they’re gonna remove my colon. They’re gonna have to reconstruct me.” My role is to be a confidant, but my wife’s my confidant. Why? Because I love her. And the question here is, if they love you, they will trust you and be able to share things. I do not want to be a subject matter expert devoid of what my mission and my calling is, and that is to love people and to serve them.
Case Thorp
So true and so many miss that. They miss that and that’s why we’re motivated by what we do. I imagine there have been younger individuals in your organizations up and through the years. What sort of responsibility or role do you take as a mentor?
Carl Canaparo
Now you’re talking about the fun stuff. So we’ve been hiring lots of people and you know what’s interesting, Case, I’m turning 65 in two years and I’m wondering how did I become a mentor? How did I become this age? I haven’t done anything, I just kind of hung around. But it is amazing the influence you have.
Case Thorp
It really is.
Carl Canaparo
I’m just loving it. This one kid just moved from Florida to California and I’m guiding him and he’s asking me all kinds of questions. I ask where are you going to church? He’s like, what? I said, where are you going to church? It’s like, you know, and he’s starting to go to church now, which is great. I mean, a believer, but remember, they’re 25, 26, I gotta do work, I gotta do work. He’s like, no, your mind, body, spirit, what are you doing? What are you doing? And so that’s the part that I like. You know, I’m able to share the experiences of my life, but at the same time, you know, being able to mold a vision for them that embraces and encompasses their Christian faith in their life, my, that is like, that’s what floats my boat. In fact, I was on for an hour and a half with a guy that’s, he’s not, he’s, I don’t know, maybe he’s 15 years younger than me, but I’ll tell you, I realize how powerful my words are in terms of encouraging him and building him up. I could just as well use my words to tear him down, but I won’t. It’s not my role. It’s not my role.
Case Thorp
Mmm. And a lot of people miss that there are those relationships all around us. Even if you’re in your 20s, well, there’s college and high schoolers that are hungry for that next stage. OK, take us however many years ago that was. You just said your age. So I guess 40-ish or so years ago, you’ve got this young Carl Canaparo with hair on his head, right?
Carl Canaparo
Yeah curly, my gosh, wow.
Case Thorp
So if you’re listening, need to know Carl is like Mr. Clean. Smooth, eight ball head there. Okay, did you go into the insurance agency industry right out or did it take you a while to land here?
Carl Canaparo
That’s an unfair question, that’s hilarious. My mother would say, so my mother was the first generation, all right, she came from Italy, and all her friends, kids, sold life insurance. Carl, you need to sell life insurance. Heck no, Mom, there’s no way I’m…So I wound up going, well, just it was too simple. Come on, I’m a college grad, am I going to go sell life insurance, no way. I had no, there was no, you know, I got through college with the skin of my teeth, but at least I got through. And I went into finance, and after a while I was part of a Bible study, and I was gonna be promoted to Dallas, Texas, I didn’t wanna go. So the question really was, what do I do and this accountant at a Bible study I was part of it was called CBMC, the Christian Businessmen’s Committee. I was 25 years old and neat organization, neat organization. I don’t think it’s around anymore but introduced me to somebody within insurance and it was more sales and at that time it was I’ll sell anything to anything, just anyone. just, is it a job?
I had our first child. What a motivator, Giancarlo. So I took the job and here we are over 30 years later. And I was, by the way, I was an Italian literature major, just so we have that straight. We’re not a business major here. I focus more on people than I do on, you know, the technology. I was able to hire people who were trustworthy, who had my back so that I knew what the vision was. It’s interesting what happens.
Not many are given a vision. Once you have a vision and you can really share that, people will join you. People will come on board. I think we, you know, and I think that’s so vital. We look at the Bible and we see various prophets and we say, I can get behind that guy. Man, he had that kind of struggle. Dang, I can do that. I can get through that, right? And I think that’s ultimately what happened is it wasn’t so much the business as the vision. And the more you can paint a vision for people, I don’t know, just, the Lord blessed it year after year. And you know, I’m considered a risk taker. I think I’m just considered a faithful man in my own mind. And doing that, you know, gets me here, got me here.
Case Thorp
So, I mean, if you’re an Italian author, you gotta paint the vision. So maybe your Italian literature benefited you more than you realize. Now, surely you read books in Italian or did you read Italian authors in English?
Carl Canaparo
No, I read the Divine Comedy, all three books in Italian. I was required to read them in Italian. Was that very good? No, no. I’m not gonna get into too personal, but I’m gonna leave it at this. It was 1982, I was an Italian literature major, and the University of California, Berkeley had to graduate males as well as females. And I would say that my major was 90% females, so somebody had to, I fit the slot. So there you go.
Case Thorp
Okay. You’re affirmative action. You’re product of affirmative action. Okay, talk to us about your marriage. You and your wife make such a lovely couple together and I’ve enjoyed her company. How many years married now?
Carl Canaparo
Thank you, 28 and a half. I want to say 30, but 28 and a half.
Case Thorp
Okay. And tell me about bringing work home, leaving work at work, how you… I know some will struggle with the very leadership skills that allow them to flourish at the workplace. Aren’t necessarily those that allow them to do well at home. Paint a picture.
Carl Canaparo
I love that question. All right, so here’s what’s very interesting early on in our marriage. Why are you working? Why are you doing this? Why are you doing, why are you coming home? There was one year we saved up enough money and we got to go to Hawaii. It was over the Christmas holiday. January 1 is a busy day for me. A little less so today, but it was a very busy time. So we went on that vacation for the very first time in Hawaii and my kids never saw me. Lynette and the kids were out on the beach and I was negotiating in the hotel room the whole time. So, but my wife is my partner. She has allowed me to work. She knows that my working allows us to then travel, visit family, see the world, which we love to do, take our children with us, which was neat, I think we were able to allow our children to see the world because of my work. I mean, when we’d go to Europe at 10 o’clock at night, I’d get on the phone, I’d be there till two in the morning. That’s the way it worked, but that’s fine. It allowed us, there is nothing that says, you know, that we have to work from eight to five. My parents, you know, they worked around the clock. We had friends, my parents had friends where, husband and wife would work and the husband had three jobs, three jobs. So I consider it and I think that our vision is such that we’re very content with what we have. We have, it’s so much easier than our ancestors had. So, you know, it’s interesting. Over time, we just accepted the fact that this is for me how it works. My wife, Lynette, was a ballroom dance instructor and she would work at night. You know, I would take care of the children, things like that. So I think it’s just a give and take overall.
Case Thorp
Now, I think I know the answer to this question, but is the R word in your vocabulary, it’s not in the Bible, the R word being retirement, is that around the corner for a man like Carl Canaparo?
Carl Canaparo
I’m not certain. You want to define it for me? Does that mean I have fewer clients? No. I mean, perhaps from this, from my current chapter and this current company? Absolutely. There’s no question. But it doesn’t mean I can’t hang a shingle and do something else. We look at ministry. My heart is moved when I see people in need.
Lynette sees that. We were able to go to the Dominican Republic just recently and hang out at an orphanage and we are going to fully participate financially with some of the girls we saw. I mean, you know, so yes, retirement per se, no, because you’re right, it’s not in the Bible. Again, it’s my soapbox to share Christ. What’s the next soapbox?
As long as I see another soap box, then I’ll go to that soap box and pop on that and do the same thing. We can’t stop. We can’t stop. I mean, think of all the souls that could be lost or the lives that you cannot, you do not touch. It’s like, no, we’re supposed to touch lives. Can you imagine if I got to heaven and someone’s sitting there going, so what’d you do for me? And I say, got a lot of money in the bank, baby. What do you think of that?
Case Thorp
Yeah, yeah. Mmm, played a lot of golf.
Carl Canaparo
Yeah, that’s, yeah, it’s not gonna resonate. It’s not gonna resonate. We really, so good question. I’m very excited about whatever the next chapter is. I’m, you know, I’m always thinking about it and yeah, there’s so many people that just need somebody to come alongside them. And that does not mean, by the way, the needy are also CEOs. They are in an emotional void in their lives. They’re struggling like everybody else just because they’re Alpha females and males doesn’t mean anything. So they need Christ, too.
Case Thorp
Yeah. Well, at The Collaborative, we’re always pushing this idea that one’s vocation is not that for which you get paid. Yes, you have your job, and for some, their job aligns with their vocational call in life. But what you articulate there is that larger vocational call, whatever the soapbox might be. So I’d encourage people listening to, especially if you’re in the third, third of the thirds, there’s still a soapbox. There’s still a soapbox. Our senior pastor will say, look, don’t just waste time on the golf course and collecting shells in those later years, but continue to lean into whatever God’s call might be for you. So what sort of insights over the course of your career have you seen across the insurance industry, in particular to where it has not blessed the common good? Where have you seen the insurance industry turn inwardly or selfishly away from the people business?
Carl Canaparo
Yeah, that’s a good question. You know, I think that when people want to do something for their own personal greed, and I want to be sensitive, I would say that. So I work in the healthcare field, of course. Tangentially, I also help various health plans. And at my age right now, I’m getting inundated by Medicare Advantage plans. Sign up for this, sign up for that. And you know, I insure these. I insure the small ones. You know, I hate to say that I look at some of these plans and I realize they’re just not good for seniors. They’re just not good. And yet there are those salespeople that want to look beyond that and say, I need to make this sale, so therefore I want to do something. You know, I read the paper every day. Look at, right now, one of the cultural issues that we’re dealing with is wanting to cut Medicaid. You know, you hear that all the time. The unfortunate part is the grand populace doesn’t understand how much is being wasted in that space. The greed of certain insurance companies have taken the propensity or the preponderance of the money and it went to profits not for taking care of people. I see that dark side and it’s sad and I have to pray for that because it’s, that, Case, all I can tell you is it really hurts me.
Case Thorp
Right.
Carl Canaparo
You hear in the general population, you can’t cut Medicare, you can’t cut this, and it’s like, yes, but that’s only because no one’s wanted to reform it, no one’s wanted to really shine a light. Yes, there is the office of OIG, Office of Inspector General, who will come in and look. Not enough of them, not enough people actually looking at how it’s, and that’s hard, that hurts. That really hurts me, because I, you know, you can’t have a discussion with the populace. Remember, we speak, the media speaks in 30 second sound bites. How are they ever going to understand, you know, the way their tax dollars are being used for Medicare in a really bad way or Medicaid for that matter. So I pray for that.
Case Thorp
Mmm. It’s painful.
Case Thorp
Right. So many of the major industries are cracking in some ways, and that’s what motivates me in the work that I do to, as you say, keep it on the human level and the human business because it’s individuals that shape those institutions and repair those cracks and seek to bring about renewal and industries that care more for the common good rather than just the bottom line. And it’s needed, very much needed.
Carl Canaparo
We agree, we agree. It’s a good system. Periodically some bad players. But we find that everywhere. We find that everywhere. I read the paper, I see it, and it’s like, okay, Lord, we need to pray for that person.
Case Thorp
So if Nicholas comes home from an adventure on a ship and says, Dad, I want to go into insurance, what would you say?
Carl Canaparo
A couple of things. One, he has found his calling, so I would say no. He looks at it as this is a good, honest job. Pilot a ship around, load and unload product, I sleep at night really well. I don’t have guilt on my shoulders. I did bring Nicholas in, but keep it in mind, he’s an adventurer. Putting him behind a cubicle or anything like that would be not his calling, it would chop him off the legs. Now you have my other son, my goodness. Now that person, you know, we hired him one summer and the COO said we can’t let him go. I go, no, he’s going to law school, he has to go. So.
Case Thorp
Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, beyond Sons, the next generation. Why should they consider insurance?
Carl Canaparo
So very different than today. In today’s world, most people want to hop in, and I see it all the time, young people coming out of college want to go and sell software. Why? Because in one way or another, they’ve been enticed with fast sales real quick and they’re going to make a lot of money. Okay? And they equate money to a good lifestyle. It’s not until their first divorce or something happens, they realize that money, just making that money, isn’t the thing. So in insurance, there’s a couple of things. One, you meet a lot of people. Again, they have to be given a vision as to why they come in here. It’s slow, it’s slow growth, but it’s extremely steady. The people who make it in insurance are the people who just stick around. They have to have patience, there will be struggles. There’s struggles in everything. But I now have seen enough of a generation, two generations where most people wanted to hop into something they thought they were gonna make really quick money, really fast, and then realize, you know, insurance is a really good place to be. Really good place. It’s predictable. It is not, you know, it’s not up and down. It’s steady growth. It may be slow, and for some people it is fast. But it is a very, very good career. As you might imagine, it’s a big industry. So there are so many different avenues where a person can contribute.
Case Thorp
Well, you have contributed to our knowledge and our growth in the Lord, so thank you. I really appreciate your time. Appreciate your insights. So if folks wanted to learn more, what website could they go to learn about Pinnacle?
Carl Canaparo
Yeah, you’re welcome. I enjoyed the chat very much. So it’s www.pinnbrokers.com. So you can type in Pinnacle Insurance Brokers if you want. It’ll take you there too. Pinnacle Insurance Brokers.
Case Thorp
Okay. All right. Fantastic. Thank you, Carl. Well, thank you friends for joining us. Remember, please like, share, really helps us to get the word out. Leave a review wherever you get your podcast. Come visit us at wecolabor.com. Wecolabor.com for all sorts of content. Drop us your email and I’ll send you a 31 day faith and work prompt journal. You can find us also across the social media platforms. Don’t forget our other podcast, Formed for Faithfulness, a weekly 10-minute devotional for the working Christian that follows the liturgical calendar, drops every Monday. Well, want to thank our sponsor for today, the V3 Family Foundation. I’m Case Thorp, and God’s blessing’s on you.
