This November, Susan Polk celebrates 50 years as a licensed insurance agent. Her company, Susan Polk Insurance, which has been a staple on the Central Coast for more than 40 years, has served more than 10,000 people in San Luis Obispo County alone, not including countless thousands of others across the state.
On July 1, 1971—the day she marks as the symbolic start of her career—Susan was given a certificate that allowed her to legally sell insurance. That day, the young, newly-married graduate from The Claremont Colleges accepted an offer to go to work for
Northwestern Mutual life, an insurance company in southern California. “They recruited me at a career day. I was full of the feminist spirit and was enchanted by the idea of working on commission-only, making what I produced and being paid what I was worth. It was an empowering thought,” Susan recalls. “When I was recruited and interviewed by other companies, they asked questions like, ‘What kind of birth control do you use?,’ ‘How soon will you start a family?,’ and ‘If you’re transferred, will your husband follow?’ Those kinds of questions were actually asked at that time! Northwestern Mutual didn’t ask any of those questions. It was like, you eat what you kill.”
Five months later, in November of that year, Susan officially became a licensed agent. She worked for a number of Los Angeles-area insurance companies for the next 10 years before she and her husband, Jim, began to look to the Central Coast for a better quality of life. In 1982, they relocated to San Luis Obispo.
Early on, Susan and Jim both sold insurance for a fraternal benefit society known as the Aid Association for Lutherans (AAL, known today as Thrivent), which had “territories” back then. A territory was typically served by one agent, but the young couple shared a territory of just 3,000 Lutherans. “There weren’t enough Lutherans to go around,” says Susan.
Susan noticed fairly early on that the people they served needed health insurance, but the AAL policy was too expensive for many of the members. Seeing the need, she rewrote them into Blue Cross Blue Shield and has specialized in health insurance ever since.
In 1988, she struck out on her own and opened Susan Polk Insurance Agency. Her first office was on Foothill Boulevard near Chorro.
Susan has been generously giving back to the Central Coast community as long as she’s been a part of it. Not only was she instrumental in bringing CASA to SLO County in 1993, but she’s been involved in dozens of social programs and nonprofits ever since, including: Children’s Health Initiative; Healthy Families; California Major Risk; Insure the Uninsured; and Access for Infants and Mothers; to name a few. “Every time there was a new program that helped people get insurance, I was the first agent to sell it or offer it,” she recalls.
More impressively—all while building a thriving local business and actively volunteering in the community—Susan and Jim found the time to spend four decades as foster parents. They would go on to adopt five children, whom they raised along with their four biological children.
Former SLO-business owner Ron Freeman has been a customer, employee, and friend of Susan’s for over 20 years. “She’s a true advocate in the very-difficult world that is health insurance. I have not seen anyone as committed to her clients and to solving their problems as Susan is.”
While preparing to step back, Susan isn’t quite ready to step down. Her daughter, Sonja, came on board several years ago and has been preparing to take the reins. “I’m learning from the best,” Sonja says. “I feel honored that I have this opportunity to carry on my mom’s legacy and look forward to continuing to serve our community in the same way she has for a long time.
“My parents have been strong, capable role models,” Sonja continues. “They changed the entire trajectory of my life.”
The truest test of a leader’s character is how well they can produce other leaders. The challenge of continuing Susan Polk Insurance’s legacy is a big one, to be sure. But Sonja—always her mother’s daughter—is up to the challenge.