Podcast | Business of Medicine | April 19, 2021

Disability Insurance During a Pandemic

With May being National Disability Insurance Awareness Month, we decided it was best to follow up on a podcast we did last year with our Disability Insurance expert, Blake Gillies of DI Concierge. We are also joined by Rick Mileham, Regional Vice President of Ameritas.

In this podcast, we will be discussing how the pandemic affected Disability insurance and underwriting process . We will also be discussing the future of DI and what is to come as we head out of the pandemic and back into normalcy.

Blake Gillies is the President of The DI Concierge
Blake Gillies is the President of The DI Concierge & Brokerage Director for Acacia Financial Group. Both are New Orleans based affiliates of United Wealth Advisors Group, LLC. He formerly held the title of Brokerage Manager for The DI Center from 2011-2018, serving predominately the Louisiana & Mississippi markets.

Blake is a 2010 graduate of Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama with a B.S. in Business Administration. During his college tenure at both Huntingdon College and Enterprise-Ozark Community College, Blake was a five-time baseball Letterman.

Blake is an involved member of the National Association of Insurance & Financial Advisors, serving at the Local, State and National levels. He is the 2020 NAIFA Louisiana President-elect, a NAIFA & NAIFA National YAT Committee Chairperson. He has been acknowledged for this service to NAIFA by being honored in 2016 as the New Member of the Year for NAIFA Greater New Orleans & Louisiana. Blake is also involved in the New Orleans Miracle League, with the K’s for Kids Foundation.

Blake married Brooke Schaffer in January 2018. They reside in Ponchatoula, Louisiana. His hobbies include hunting, fishing & spending time with their ever-growing number of pets.

Rick Mileham, Regional Vice President DI Sales & DistributionAmeritas Life Insurance Corp.

Rick is our Regional VP DI Sales & Distribution for the Central Region.  He has a 30-year career in the insurance industry, including 15 years as a DI/LTC Sales Representative with 2 of the top DI carriers in the industry. Rick brings to Ameritas a tremendous amount of knowledge, expertise, and experience in the design of multi-life and GSI executive plans as well as the ability to design, communicate and implement those individual plans.  

Rick focuses on DI and GSI solutions for all our field partners.  Because of his history working within GSI Programs, he can help producers uncover the opportunities for supplemental and/or underlying Disability Insurance and assist in choosing the perfect, unique income protection solution for you to present to your clients. 

Rick works with all Distribution Channels in the Central Region.  He is a graduate and former Division I-A football player at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and is married with 4 children.