Yasmin González, InsurB
"My name is Yasmin González and I am CEO and founder of InsurB. I’ve worked in the industry for 15 years and I got my license when I was 18.”
“I wanted the name InsurB to convey being yourself, being secure, being confident, being your own. To me, insurB means opportunity. It means freedom. It means courage. We focus on small business owners and when small business owners come in, they don't even know that they're small business owners. They have an idea, they have a plan, but they don't know how to execute it. InsurB has given me the opportunity to help those individuals start and grow their companies. They used to depend on having to work for someone else, on the hours of work that someone else gave them. Now they're deciding things for themselves, for their family, and for their employees.”
“I always tell them, if I grow you grow, we all grow. That’s why we're here—to help our community and their families. We have a community garden—last year, we fed over 200,000 people. We want to continue to have that growth within our garden because it resonates with the growth of the business. To me, if the garden is doing well, I feel that we're doing well and everyone gets a piece of the garden. There are a lot of people who are unable to get fresh fruits and vegetables; for us to be able to offer that is a blessing. We make it a priority to help the individuals that need it and make sure that it's available to anyone.”
“For us, being healthy emotionally, spiritually, and physically is very important. We all have our families, we all have our issues, and we're able to talk about them without any judgment. Work is stressful. Home is stressful. And that's not the workflow that we want. For example, last year, one of our employees got sick with COVID. And we were still able to get her paid. I'm thankful that we had the opportunity to do that.”
“COVID has been difficult. Having to see people on zoom and not being able to hug them. It's hard. It's really hard, especially within our Latino community, because that's how we are—we hug, we dance, we laugh, we eat together. For us not to be together last year… it was a very hard time. And we did lose a lot of clients because they weren't able to keep up with their insurance. They weren't able to keep up with their business. Unfortunately, a lot of them did have to close. And that was very sad because it wasn't just that I lost commission or whatever. No. That family lost so much of what they had worked for. And it's hard for you to get centered back to your business, back to your company, when you know that your family is struggling—physically, emotionally, everything. And I'm just very happy that we still have our place open. Even though there was a moment that I thought we were not going to make it, we're still here, we're still here. We're making it work.”
“My mom instilled in me at a very young age that if our community continues, then we continue. I always struggled in school, in math, and in subjects like that. But when it came to my community, I was all in. The people that I help, in one way or another, also help me—it's a circle of one helping another. Even though we're not a rich, wealthy family, we are rich in our community and what we have to offer.”
Photos by Kelly Logan.