Lifestyle Business

A CUT ABOVE

Spotlight on The Forza Insurance Group

By Molly Golubcow

AS CEO AND CO-FOUNDER OF The Forza Insurance Group, John D’Angelo has been delivering outstanding voluntary supplemental insurance for 29 years. In addition to decades of leadership and experience, D’Angelo impressively placed $125 million in voluntary benefit premiums for blue and grey collar clients from labor unions (local and national) to other large employer groups. In 2015, the Atlantic City native moved Forza’s East Coast operations from Florida and New York to his hometown. The move solidified D’Angelo’s industry presence since he has been servicing Atlantic City casino employees for the last 25 years.

What is Voluntary Supplemental Insurance?

Whether full-time or part-time, employees working for a company or union participating in supplemental benefit plans, can elect to add on to his/her benefit menu. Supplemental options, ones that fill gaps that union and/or employer benefits do not cover, vary. For example, traditional voluntary coverages may include Medical and Hospital Gap, Accident, and Life Insurance, just to name a few. In addition, Forza, who partners with leading national insurance providers, developed non-traditional benefit options such as Telemedicine, Wellness, Life Style Benefits, and Identity Protection.

What Makes the Forza Team a Cut Above?

From an operations standpoint, Forza may be small, but definitely mighty. The company prides itself on realizing large deals while maintaining a stellar reputation. D’Angelo explains how Forza’s compact team has been able to move forward with such success, “This allows us to be nimble and move quickly to address and adopt to opportunities without layers of bureaucracy. Additionally, our proprietary “state-of-the-art” enrollment and benefit design technology. Finally, relationships — our business’ foundation is built 100% on solid relationships that have been earned over time.”

How Can the Forza Team Help You Prepare for the Unexpected?

Forza lives by their mantra; “Success means being prepared for the unexpected.” At no time has this concept hit home to so many people at one time. The COVID pandemic impacted, directly and indirectly, over 85% of Forza’s clients — many who are essential workers on the front lines. D’Angelo and his team had to adapt quickly without warning. By continuing to work

remotely, Forza continued to serve their clients in tough times. D’Angelo feels “blessed” to have been able to not only serve clients in dire need during the pandemic, but also keep 100% of his workforce paid. “We deployed technology and equipment to our rank and file employees’ homes to support this initiative while adding dedicated self-serve, agent assisted websites.”

How Does Forza Insure and Ensure the Community?

In addition to providing supplemental benefit options to thousands of employees and their families, The Forza Group believes in helping those in the community needing a hand. As the CEO, D’Angelo sets the example as a dedicated volunteer and fund raiser for organizations such as The Schultz-Hill Foundation, Johnny D’Angelo Annual Scholarship for Local Music Students, Atlantic & Cape May County 200 Club, The UFCW 152 Scholarship Fund, CASA, The Forza-John Devlin Family Youth Winter Coat Drive, The Tara Miller Foundation, Atlantic County Toys for Kids and Atlantic County ARC. During the COVID crisis, Forza Group established a UFCW Covid-19 Relief Fund across five states to help feed and support UFCW front line Super Market Workers. In addition, they also provided meals for the three Atlantic County area Hospitals, AC Police and AC EMT workers during the early stages of the shut-down.

D’Angelo talks about the importance of helping those in need in and around his community, “It was crucial for us to help local restaurants who survive on week to week cash flow and had been devastated. We made a habit of over ordering for staff and family, buying gift certificates, and moreover, placing massive orders for the groups we were targeting to help and feed.” n

The Forza Group — Custom Benefit Plans Built Through Relationships

During the Pandemic crisis we have supported over 100,000 valued workers through our UFCW clients from New England to Delaware, in addition to the NJ State Correction Officers.

Voluntary Supplemental Benefits

Underwritten by the nation’s top rated, best in class insurers

Part Time Employee Benefits

Help enhance employee retention

Life Style Benefits

Options to meet the needs of a changing workforce

Customized Retiree Program

Reduce Core Health and Welfare Costs

Rather than offering a generic list of voluntary benefits to your workforce, let The Forza Insurance Group create a custom plan that truly reflects your workforce.

Our goal is to eliminate the burden and complex administrative duties from the human resource area / health and welfare fund administrators, and to create cost containment. Here’s how we do it:

Paperless Efficient Enrollment Save valuable human resource time The Forza enrollment platform, a cloud based paperless enrollment technology is user friendly, quick, and accurate.

Customized Communications At no additional cost We execute a diverse communication strategy to keep everyone educated, informed and comfortable with their choices.

BenefitSelect Delivering innovative voluntary benefit solutions more quickly. Forza’s exclusive product evaluation tool, BenefitSelect, determines “Best in Class” voluntary benefits by: • Carrier • Plan design • Pricing • Claims paying Our goal is to save you time by showing you only the most relevant offers.

The Forza Insurance Group specializes in the customization, implementation and administration of supplemental and voluntary employee benefits for employers and unions.

Call today to talk to our experts. 844-365-5230

marketing@forzainsurancegroup.com forzainsurancegroup.com 1616PacificAvenue, Suite200, AtlanticCity, NJ 08401

Fly fishing for pike

ZEN AND THE ART OF FLY FISHING

Get lost in this magnificent sport of patience and comradery.

By Dennis Hayes

No, I haven’t converted to Buddhism and I’m certainly not claiming to have mastered fly fishing. What I am doing is borrowing a line from Robert Pirsig’s novel, published in 1974, for the title of this article, but it seems appropriate. Whenever I talk about fly fishing, I mention how Zen it is. I’ve fished since I was a little kid, growing up in Belmar, NJ; my house being only steps away from Shark River. We fished for everything we could, and spent hours doing it. But, it wasn’t until I took up fly fishing that I would find myself lost in the action.

When I mentioned fly fishing to people, they typically conjure up an image of some guy standing in knee deep water, wearing a hat and fishing vest, false casting the fly line with the sun shining and

a light breeze blowing; like a scene out of A River Runs Through It. Fishing takes you to places with some great scenery that makes for some majestic photos, but a lot of the hiking that is part of fly fishing is spent walking in ankle to thigh deep water that’s rushing past you. I don’t care if you use felt soles or cleats on your boots, the rocks are slippery. The physicality of it all takes its toll on your body. That’s where the Zen comes in; you’ve been concentrating on everything you’re doing, and you don’t notice the impact on your body. You get determined to find that spot, to make that cast, to see a nice big “bow” or “brownie” take the fly and tighten your line. It’s not until your day is done that you realize you’ve bruised your hip, or that your shoulder is on fire from casting, or that your feet are killing you. Some species of fish jump, some run, some are fighters, and some feel like you’ve snagged a piece of lumber. But, once you’ve got them, you lose track of me. My friends often refer to my fish moments as a “walk-about”, borrowing a line from Crocodile Dundee. A few years ago, I was ambling along just clearing the brush with a big smile on my face and feeling satisfied, when my friend Grady exclaimed to me “you’d better have a broken arm or something ... the boys are pissed!” The boys had wanted to go take a dip in the hot springs that day and I was an hour late. My Zen moment walk-about had used up time we had to make it to the springs. Rabbit (we all have nicknames) wouldn’t even look at me. I’m Chief, by the way. The Zen had done its part. I felt great about the day. My friends were angry, but they’d get over it. I had a great time on the water.

We’re all guilty of it, once you’re into the fish, nothing matters. Of course, it’s quite possible that while you were into the fish, your buddies haven’t seen even the slightest hint of a fish, except maybe for a sixinch fingerling that barely bent your rod.

That’s what it was like on our latest trip to CO, fishing the Taylor River. My day was the fingerling, while Rabbit and Grady had found their spots. Rabbit hadn’t caught a fish in days, but he found it that day and landed his big one; a nice rainbow that did a little tail dance before being netted. I’ve never seen him smile so big. It was his day, but it was Grady’s trip this year, with half a dozen fish each day.

JD couldn’t join this trip until it was half over, so he was still finding his rhythm. Bones, Mugsy, and I were consistent with a couple of fish here and there

The author, Dennis Hayes, at Bear Creek Trail in Colorado Photo by Ray Redstone

Rabbit with a brownie trout fresh-caught Photo by Dennis Hayes

A beautiful Rainbow Trout from the Taylor River Photo by Ray Redstone every day. The Kid couldn’t make it this year. Business issues or something. Life gets in the way sometimes.

And it isn’t all about fishing. I met these boys in college. JD and the Kid were my roommates. The others were constant visitors to our apartment or couch surfers. They’ve all known each other since high school or earlier. Our trips to Colorado are an annual pilgrimage. Usually, we arrive by midSeptember and our are tents are pitched at one of the many campsites we’ve found throughout the state; Palisades, Rosy Lane, the Matterhorn; all at elevation, so it can get a little chilly. We’re usually up with the birds but wait until the sun emerges from behind the mountain when the fish start to rise before hiking the water. Breakfast could be an apple or maybe steak and eggs. It depends on the day, the mood, or how much libations we shared the night before.

We drink some coffee while we talk about our escapades, what’s hatching, what fly worked yesterday, or what size leader to use. Grady warms up the truck and we all check to make sure our phones are charged. Not only for communication, but more importantly to ensure you can take a photo of the big catch when no one else was around. We head out to the river to see what the day brings. I can’t wait for September. n