Insurance company specializing in Medicare plans got its start in Onondaga County in 2008. It’s now thriving in Fulton
By Stefan Yablonski
It’s all about helping people.
Ballard & Associates has been around since 2008.
“I started in Baldwinsville, moved to Cicero in 2014,” said president-broker-owner Aaron Ballard.
“I grew my business, worked a lot in Oswego County when I was living in Baldwinsville. I went to people’s homes and helped them with their Medicare,” he added. “And then, when I realized how many people I had here, I decided to move my office here. Everybody knows everybody — it’s a
really good community.”
Getting started
He has been in the insurance business in 1993.
“I’ve been visiting people’s homes for 30 years. I used to work for just one company. But, of course, when you are captive to one company you can’t really give the client the best service. Years ago, I had to try to sell somebody a $20,000 life insurance policy when they really only needed $5,000. I just couldn’t do that. So I decided to get my own business and became a broker. Now I can market other companies to give people the best coverage for them.”
He purchased a vacant lot at 215 S. First St., Fulton and built an office. Between the land, building and the parking lot, he has more than $600,000 invested. Signage alerts drivers that it is not parking for the post office. “Everybody parked here for the post office for years,” he said. “We have got to let them know this is a new building, a new business.”
There are two units in the building.
“October first of last year is when we opened here. We fully opened the doors. We’ve been building it for about a year and a half. We just closed our office in Cicero and moved here — and since then we have had to double the space.”
He had thought about renting the other half of the building, but decided to expand and use it for his business.
He said he hopes to have the other part of the building done later this summer. It will feature more offices and meeting rooms.
“We have three people working here right now in this office including me, but overall we have 75 agents — they are all over the place. We help people with their health insurance, their prescriptions, final expense, life insurance and things like that,” he explained. “We’re all about ‘life, health and wealth.’”
They don’t worry about car insurance and home owners because it is too competitive of a game out there, he said.
Instead, the company assists clients with Medicare Advantage, prescriptions, final expense, dental, vision and hearing.
“Our main focus though is Medicare. That is our big focus — anything doing with health insurance,” he said. “We like to be the only face in Oswego County that people can come to whether they have diabetes, cancer, heart disease — no matter what, we have a plan for them.”
Helping people save
“I like helping people save money. With normal insurance, the more you sell them the more you get paid. But here you can sell them a plan that doesn’t cost them anything and the insurance companies will pay you. So you can take the commission out of the way and you don’t have to worry about trying to sell somebody something they don’t really need,” he said. “There are a lot of people in Oswego County that are on fixed incomes, low incomes. There is inflation going up, prescription cost increases, the price of eggs is going up. The last thing they need is a big bill for insurance because their income is not going up.
“So if we can get somebody from a $45 co-payment to $15 or if they are on the wrong prescription plan, we can move them to something better. The insurance companies pay us; it doesn’t matter we aren’t going to steer them to just one company. Everybody wins. I can look in the mirror and feel good about myself.”
He grew the business and now has an office in Albany as well as in 20 or so different states.
“This is our headquarters here in Fulton. I just have a liking to the community,” he said. “Everybody needs somebody that they can trust and being right here I figured you can just come and look me in the face and know that ‘this guy is going to take care of me’.”
