Fourth Generation Insurance Marketing Organization
Chooses Integrity to Build on Family Legacy
 
DALLAS – April 14, 2020 – Integrity Marketing Group, LLC (“Integrity”), the nation’s largest independent distributor of life and health insurance products, today announced it has acquired The Brokerage Resource, an insurance marketing organization headquartered in North Carolina. As part of the acquisition, Sam Corey, III, will become an owner in Integrity. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
 
The Brokerage Resource is recognized for their knowledge and experience in the life and health insurance space. They are experts in the ever-changing senior healthcare marketplace and are a national leader in Medicare Supplement insurance. As such, they hold advisory positions on numerous national committees. The Corey family has worked in every facet of the insurance business, from underwriting and knocking doors to administration and owning an insurance company.
 
“Across four generations, the Corey family has made a significant impact in the insurance industry, and we are honored to have been chosen as the platform of choice to help The Brokerage Resource’s next phase of growth,” said Bryan W. Adams, Co-founder and CEO of Integrity. “Integrity is excited to continue partnering with great companies such as The Brokerage Resource, enabling us to expand our footprint to serve more consumers who need our services now more than ever.”
 
“By joining Integrity, The Brokerage Resource becomes part of an organization that is revolutionizing the industry, all while focusing on serving more Americans,” said Sam Corey, III, President. “Once I sat down with the Integrity team, I was so excited to learn about economies of scale and the fact that I could run my own organization while benefiting from the resources available. It all made sense, and I knew that I had to be part of what was being built.” Sam further explained, “We are a family business and now we get to be a part of a bigger family.”
 
“In times like these, being part of a strong partnership with diversity and scale is more important than ever before. By joining Integrity, you’re able to diversify and grow at a faster rate with more resources behind you,” said Sam Corey, Jr., Founder of The Brokerage Resource. “We are so much stronger with Integrity than alone on an island as an individual agency.”
 
The Brokerage Resource retains focus on strengthening its agent network spanning 50 states, all while building carrier relationships that take advantage of Integrity’s best-in-class capabilities. This includes support in compliance, human resources, IT, marketing strategy, social media, operations, and access to exclusive products, including compliant electronic enrollment technology for Agents to use. All employees of The Brokerage Resource are immediately eligible for company ownership through Integrity’s Employee Ownership Plan.
 
“The importance of a strong partnership and collaboration cannot be underestimated in today’s world,” said Raymond C. Richard, Managing Partner at Integrity and Co-founder of The Pinnacle Benefits Group. “As part of Integrity, The Brokerage Resource gains the ability to scale and diversify its product offerings, which leads to faster growth and greater breadth in the marketplace.”
 
While experiencing triple-digit growth across the platform, Integrity plans to continue to expand their partnerships in the life and health insurance industry as well.

About Integrity Marketing Group 
Integrity Marketing Group, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, is the leading independent distributor of life and health insurance products focused on serving Americans. Integrity develops exclusive products with insurance carrier partners and markets these products through its distribution network that includes other large insurance agencies throughout the country. Integrity’s almost 1,000 employees work with over 250,000 independent agents who service over 5 million clients annually. In 2020, Integrity expects to help insurance carriers place $2.5 billion in new premiums. For more information, visit www.integritymarketing.com.
 
Media Contact:
Jamie Stum, Public Relations Specialist
ThomasARTS
press@TA.com
714-702-0486  
 
Partnership Inquiries: 
Eric Pederson, Vice President of Business Development 
Integrity Marketing Group 
eric.pederson@integritymarketing.com 
866-650-1857

​Samuel C Corey III
Managing Partner
 
Sam is a Managing Partner of Integrity Marketing Group and President of The Brokerage Resource where he leads day-to-day operations. As a fourth-generation insurance professional, you can say insurance is in his DNA.
 
Sam pivoted to the family business to work side-by-side with his father, in 2003 after having had a successful career selling high purity gases and publishing an international magazine.
 
Sam became sole owner of The Brokerage Resource in 2017 focusing primarily on Medicare Supplements, but also expanding product lines and drastically growing life and annuity production with the skilled and experienced team at The Brokerage Resource.
 
A dedicated family man, Sam and his wife Allison live outside Raleigh, North Carolina, have two children and have been married over 25 years. An avid fisherman and golfer, Sam can be found on the golf course or in the Gulfstream fishing with his compadres in his free time.

If you're not on Instagram, perhaps it's time you downloaded the app and joined the other 500 million daily users? That's right. And overall, according to Instagram, there are 1 billion monthly users on the digital image and video platform. If that doesn't make you scratch your head and say "Where have I been?" maybe this will:  over 50 billion photos have been shared since the platform launched in 2010. Brands are engaging with customers and clients on a daily basis, and that leads to more sales.

Instagram is where brands come alive with content. What do you share? That's easy! Pictures you've taken or curated, re-share customer content, videos, memes, quotes, there is no end to the types of content you can share. But keep in mind, you're promoting your brand, so think before uploading and pushing "Share".

There are several ways to share content on Instagram. On your profile or via Instagram Stories or IGTV. If you share content on your profile, people who follow you or those who follow the hashtags you use, will see your content in their feed. This is a place to showcase your brand and let viewers see what you offer. Be creative, have fun and let your personality shine. 

What are Instagram stories? Just like facebook, you can share content that only remains active for 24 hours. Haven't used Stories on facebook before? What are you waiting for? And you can cross-share on both platforms. Story content is typically content that you want to share that doesn't require a long shelf life. However, you can also promote content you've shared on your profile by sharing it to your stories as well. You can re-share content you see in your feed, and you can re-share content from other stories (if they're public and allow their content to be shared).

Business accounts are public. If you have a personal account, you can choose to make it public or keep it private for just your inner crowd.

IGTV is also a standalone app that allows you to upload videos of up to an hour in length. It's similar to YouTube. However, it's also integrated within Instagram. Short videos that are 3-60 seconds in length can be shared on your profile or in your story. If you share a video longer than that length it will automatically be uploaded to IGTV. The amount of exposure you can get from sharing on both your profile and in your story and with IGTV will help you grow your agency (brand).

Once you establish what and where you're going to share your content, be sure to incorporate hashtags and tag relevant people or brands in your content. This helps broaden your exposure. Hashtags are a way to find content and many users follow hashtags as well as accounts. Consider coining your own personal hashtag.

​Tagging accounts is different from hashtags. When you tag someone, you're mentioning them. It's just like when you mention or tag someone on facebook.

​Don't forget to add locations to your posts and stories as well. You'll get more eyes on your content that way. And viewers in certain geographic areas will be able to see your content if you add your location to your story. 

Insights. When you set yourself up with a business Instagram profile, you'll get access to all types of analytics to see how your content is performing, who is viewing it and the activity it's getting. This helps you tweak your content and your posting times. And speaking of posting times, now would be a good time to take advantage of scheduling platforms like Buffer, Hootsuite,  Later or SproutSocial to schedule out your content.

Once you've figure out the what and the where to post your content on Instagram, you now have to focus on the when. Yes, the when. There are preferred times to schedule out your content for maximum exposure. According to HubSpot, these are the best times to share on Instagram:

• Sunday: 10 AM – 2 PM
• Monday: 9 AM – 5 PM (Engagement peaks at 11 AM and 2 PM)
• Tuesday: 8 AM – 6 PM, *7 PM
• Wednesday: 5 AM, *11 AM - 3 PM
• Thursday: 5 AM, *11 – 4 PM
• Friday: *5 AM, 9 AM - 10 AM, *11 AM - 1 PM, 2 - 4 PM
• Saturday: 9 - 11 AM

​The heatmap below provided by SproutSocial indicates highest engagement times.

Promoting your posts (paid content) will get you even more exposure, and it's a good idea to think about carving out a little budget to promote certain posts that are important or that do well with likes and engagement. Again, you can promote your content on both facebook and Instagram which will give you twice the exposure.

Overall, sharing content on Instagram is yet another way to promote yourself and to get exposure. It's a free app and your posts can all be free, so why not take advantage of it?

By Carolyn Portanova