“Hey Lenny. Tell me about yourself.”
Fair question. I am an independent Chartered Life Underwriter. I review every application personally, I carry coverage myself, and if you do not need a policy I will tell you that. Here is the honest version.
- CLU Chartered Life Underwriter
- BSBE Univ. of Kentucky, 2000
- NPN 19046937
- Licensed FL · OH · IN
- AgAdvisor · N9URK
I started this work because of what I almost didn't do.
In 2000, I walked into an insurance agency with a question about cash value life insurance. The agent didn't know the answer and didn't try to find one. I walked out without coverage. My family paid for that unanswered question in substantially higher premiums for years afterward.
When my wife went into emergency surgery in 2019 during a high risk twin pregnancy, I was sitting outside the OR with a work policy and a very clear understanding of what it meant to have paid for coverage that had never been thought through properly.
I earned my CLU in 2024, two years into running this practice, partly to answer that agent and partly because the families I work with deserve someone who did the coursework most agents skip.
The twins came 8 weeks early.
"In 2019, our twins came 8 weeks early and both spent several weeks in the NICU. Not only did I learn a lot about life, but I also became an expert in how insurance keeps lives running during the most difficult life changing events.
There is no doubt the birth of our twins was the happiest day of my life. But with mama and the boys needing serious medical care, I was really fortunate that we had Lawnwood Hospital to hold our hands and treat us like family."
— Lenny Burton, CLUNICU Awareness Month, 2025I had the right coverage because I eventually got it right. Not because anyone walked me through it at 23. That gap is part of why this site exists.
What I have. What I believe. What I actually do.
I started in property and casualty insurance in 2019. After the twins, I moved to life insurance full time. I earned my CLU in 2024. The Chartered Life Underwriter designation is the highest professional credential specific to life insurance and requires graduate level coursework in taxation, estate planning, business insurance, and advanced underwriting concepts.
My twin boys each have a $50,000 policy with a guaranteed insurability rider, started in infancy. My house is paid for. I am building toward a practice known as the agency that helps people have a plan and a foundation for their family's future.
The American College of Financial Services
P&C first, life insurance full time
Applications reviewed personally in all three
Education
I review every application personally. Every one.
When someone fills out the quote form, I see it. When an application is submitted, I look at it. If something needs a conversation, I have one. If it moves through cleanly, I stay out of the way. You have me on the back end, not a policy handler optimized for a quick sale.
For declined applicants and high risk profiles, that involvement is more active. I do pre submission underwriting work to understand which carriers have favorable guidelines for a specific condition before any application goes anywhere. One case required three years of documentation coordination with a carrier's underwriting department before a policy was approved. I kept working it.
For standard applicants, the process is straightforward. Quote online in about five minutes. I review it. If your health is good and the application is clean, the policy moves through. You do not need to talk to me unless you want to.
If you do not need it, I do not want to sell it to you.
Life insurance is not right for everyone at every point in life. A single person with no dependents and no debt may have zero need for coverage right now. I would rather tell you that than write an application and collect a commission you did not need to spend.
Every conversation starts with a professional needs analysis. We look at your income, your liabilities, who depends on you, and what the gap would actually look like if you were gone. If the honest answer is that you are already covered or that coverage is not the right tool right now, I will tell you. You decide. I just run the numbers honestly.
The policy pays when it should. I make sure it does.
The most common thing people say after they get covered is that they wish someone had told them how this works sooner. The second most common thing is that they thought the claims process would be a fight. For life insurance, it is not.
"When I walked through the door of the funeral home with their claim paperwork, which meant they no longer had to worry about paying the funeral home or anything else, it made everything really easy."
— Lenny Burton, CLUThe family with a policy grieves and tries to get back to life. The family without one worries about money, and what to do. That contrast is the whole reason this practice exists.
Resources written from a CLU's desk, not a content farm.
Everything on this site is written from the same position: a licensed agent who works every case personally and has nothing to gain from steering you toward the wrong product.
RELIEF Calculator
A six component framework for calculating your family's actual coverage need. Takes about three minutes.
Life Insurance Through Work
What group coverage actually covers, what it does not, and the decision most people get wrong.
After a Decline
Why declines happen, what the MIB records, and what to do next. One carrier saying no is not every carrier saying no.
Life Insurance With Diabetes
Most standard carriers say no automatically. I know which ones say yes and what they need to see.
Life Insurance Glossary
Plain language definitions of every term a life insurance buyer is likely to encounter.
Sources and Citations
Every quote, statistic, and legal reference used in articles on this site. Verified before publication.
Where to read more, watch, and connect.
I write and talk about life insurance from a parent's perspective. If you want to see how I think before we talk, start here.
Put in an application and let me do some work.
Online quote takes about five minutes. I review every one. If your situation is straightforward, it moves through cleanly. If it is complicated, that is what I am for.