Mark Helms Insurance & Benefits

Experience

I started with families

I began my insurance career as a life insurance agent, sitting down with people and working out what they actually needed. Twenty-five years later that is still the part of this job I like best.

I learned it from the inside

Management roles at a major carrier's home office in New York, then two decades with national companies including Voya, Colonial Life, and Chubb. I know how these products are built and priced, which means I know when one is worth what it costs.

I work with owners and professionals

Much of my career has been spent on business insurance and employee benefits — key-person coverage, buy-sell funding, and the programs that keep good people on staff. For entrepreneurs and professionals, personal and business risk are usually the same conversation.

I am independent by choice

I am not captive to any one company. I work with more than 20, so what I recommend depends on your situation and nothing else.

For individuals and families

Coverage you buy for yourself, explained without the jargon.

Life insurance

Covering a mortgage, replacing income, or handling final expenses. Term and permanent coverage, priced across multiple companies.

Retirement income

Annuities and income planning for people who want a portion of their money doing something predictable.

Medicare supplements

Turning 65, or unhappy with the plan you have. I compare across carriers and tell you where the differences actually matter.

Supplemental coverage

Accident, hospital indemnity, and critical illness coverage for the costs a health plan leaves behind.

For business owners

Fifteen years on the carrier and brokerage side of employee benefits, working for you instead.

Voluntary & worksite benefits

Employee-paid accident, hospital indemnity, and critical illness. Real coverage for your people at no cost to the business.

Owner & key-person coverage

Key-person life, buy-sell funding, and executive bonus arrangements that protect what you have built.

Compliance support

Help navigating the requirements that come with offering benefits, from someone who has spent a career inside them.

How I work

We talk. A phone or video call. You tell me your situation and I ask a few questions.

I bring you options. Real quotes from real companies, with my recommendation and the reason behind it.

You get covered. I complete the application for you and send it to you for your approval and electronic signature. I then work with underwriters to get your policy issued. From there, I am your advisor for policy reviews, changes, or just to answer questions.

Free policy review

Most people buy a life insurance policy once and never look at it again. Rates change, health changes, and families change — and the coverage that made sense fifteen years ago may not be what you need now, or you may be paying more than you have to.

Send me what you have, whoever sold it to you, and I will tell you plainly whether it still fits. If it does, I will say so and that is the end of it. There is no cost and no obligation.

Request a policy review

Mark Helms, independent insurance advisor

About Mark Helms

I started out selling life insurance for Equitable, which is still the best training I could have asked for. It taught me that this business is about sitting across from someone and understanding what they are actually worried about, not about products.

From there I spent several years in management at Equitable's home office in New York, then moved to the group benefits side with Marsh & McLennan. Over the next two decades I worked with some of the largest carriers in the country, including Voya, Colonial Life, and Chubb, building benefits programs for employers of every size.

Twenty-five years in, what I do now pulls all of that together. I work with individuals and families on life insurance, retirement income, and Medicare, and with business owners on the coverage and planning decisions that come with running a company. I have a particular emphasis on entrepreneurs and professionals, whose personal and business finances tend to be tangled together in ways generic advice does not address.

My approach is holistic rather than product-first. That means looking at where you are actually exposed — income, health, longevity, long-term care — before talking about what to buy. Sometimes the answer is that you are in good shape and do not need anything from me. I would rather tell you that than sell you something.

My family and I live in Tulsa, my adopted hometown and one I promote every chance I get. Outside of work you will usually find me on a golf course, at a ballgame or a concert, out walking the dogs, or somewhere outside with a book and some music going.

Straight answers about life insurance, retirement income, business protection, and Medicare.