Responding to a demand for long-term care insurance, the Baton Rouge office of Bankers Life and Casualty Company is planning on adding more than 50 agents to the staff by the end of the year. “We’ve got 27 agents now, and a year ago, we had six,” says Raymond LeCompte, branch manager since August 2007. LeCompte has pushed the office to market long-term care policies, which cover the costs of home health care or assisted living centers. “It takes a tremendous amount of money to keep people out of nursing homes,” he says.
Over the course of 2008, the Baton Rouge branch went from 131st companywide in terms of selling long-term care policies, to 21st. Chicago-based Bankers Life has an office in Lafayette and plans to re-open a metro New Orleans office that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina, as well as establishing new locations in Shreveport and Alexandria. “We’re targeting Louisiana people for these jobs,” LeCompte says.—Timothy Boone
