Today we’d like to introduce you to LaToya King.
LaToya, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
As I look back over my life, I appreciate every struggle that I have had to endure. Without opposition, I wouldn’t be the strong woman that I am today. In 2014 when I first became an entrepreneur, it was one of the best feelings in the world to be my own boss after being in retail management for many years.
In 2016 I started to experience many setbacks and obstacles that I had to overcome that sent me into a deep depression. By the Grace of God, I was able to bounce back from all the struggles with resilience. It’s so much more to my story, but I will start from the beginning of 2020
January 1st, 2020 after many inconsistencies in my prior business I decided to close due to personal issues and just go back to work for a company I left to pursue my own business. I felt like I needed to take a break from entrepreneurship and just focus on getting mentally healthy so that I could come back stronger and better. So after working for a year, I decided to leave and pursue a business again but wasn’t 100% sure what I wanted to do. So late one night, I was up meditating and praying to God to show me what did he want me to do? I asked him to lead me to a business that was more purposeful so one day, I decided to update my LinkedIn page, and the next day, I had a recruiter from Farmers insurance that sent me a message telling me that they were impressed with my background experience in being an entrepreneur and retail management of 29 years.
So the first time I ignored the message, I let a month pass and I had five more messages from this recruiter so, at that time, I started researching the company and I loved everything I was researching about this company. What stood out to me the most they had been around for 90 years and they were big on working in the community. I was like this must be a sign from God that I needed to respond to this email and set up an interview. I interviewed with the recruiter and I loved everything she explained to me about becoming an Agency Owner that same day, I had a whole plan on the different events and activities I wanted to do in my community. All I could think about was what can I do for the underprivileged people in my community and educate them on the benefits of having life insurance and how I could help business owners since I am a small business owner myself.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
My journey to pursing my insurance licensing was very challenging I started this journey on February 18, 2021, I took my Property & Casualty exam four times before I finally passed. During this whole process, I was asking God for wisdom, strategy, discernment, and understanding because I wanted to make sure I was making the right choice to go into the insurance industry. I didn’t want to do anything that wasn’t in God’s will. The first two times I failed the P&C exam and failed, I had become a little nervous because I had to wait three months before I could take the exam again. Instead of dwelling on the failure, I decided to go ahead and study to prepare for my Life and Health. I took the L&H exam and passed the first time, after passing that exam, I felt better about the path that I was on. When I made plans, I thought that my plans were supposed to happen on the deadline dates I had planned, but this process has totally made me realize that I can’t put time on God. I had to get out of God’s business and just continue to walk every day out in FAITH and to trust his plan for my life.
Well, on July 13th, I took my P&C test and failed again for the third time, I thought well I needed to study a lot harder because if I didn’t pass this exam that meant this endeavor wasn’t for me. Well on July 15th, I took the exam again and passed the fourth time that was one of the happiest days of my life. After persevering through this exam, my recruiter from Farmers was so impressed. God used me to help other agents that were struggling to pass exams to become an agent. The perseverance opened up another opportunity for me to help others. I would advise you to seek God and consult with him in everything you do and always trust the process and give God the Glory for bringing you through.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
As a Farmers Insurance Agent, my goal is to empower individuals and families by educating and serving them with compassion to maintain peace of mind about securing their families’ future and legacy. We specialize in Life, Auto, Homeowners, Business Insurance, and more, but I am very passionate about life insurance due to my personal experience of having loved ones that didn’t have life insurance and we, the family had to be left with the responsibility to pay for the burial. We made it happen, but we took money from our immediate household to bury a family member.
What sets my agency apart from others is our love and heart for our community. My main focus for my Agency is to reach the underprivileged communities to educate them on the benefits of life insurance setting their family up to be able to afford to pay for more than just burial expenses and setting families up for financial stability after death. Our main focus is to give our clients peace of mind. The last thing you want to do when burying a loved one is to have worry about how you are going to be able to afford to bury them. We want to be able to assist you by sitting down with each client to understand what their needs are and to explain the coverages. We don’t want to just write a policy and send you out of the office we want to educate you on the benefits and the coverages.
We schedule in-office one-on-one face-to-face or Zoom video appointments whatever the client is most comfortable with.
We also love giving back to our community by monetary donations or volunteering in our community service projects.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
One of my goals for The LaToya King Agency is to host various events that cater to the family unit to encourage healthy relationships, marriages and secure their family’s legacy. We will also have monthly raffles/giveaways and Webinars.
Contact Info:
- Email: lking1@farmersagent.com
- Website: https://agents.
farmers.com/lking1 - Instagram: @lking_agency
- Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/latoyakingagency
Image Credits:
Headshots Amir Leon of Amir Leon Photography and Group picture that I will send later and Jennifer Jenkins of Ela’s photography for the pictures of the couples
