Rich Bales - Independent Insurance Agent

Call Website

Rich Bales - Independent Insurance Agent Helping business owners and homeowners make confident insurance decisions—by understanding risk before buying coverage.
(3)

Rich Bales helps business owners and homeowners protect what they’ve built through a modern, process-driven approach to insurance. Insurance should not be rushed, reactive, or reduced to price alone. Too often, people don’t find out their coverage is wrong until a claim exposes the gaps. Rich works differently—starting with clarity, not quotes. For business owners and clients with layered exposures, Rich uses a structured risk review process to uncover hidden gaps, stress-test existing coverage, and ensure insurance actually aligns with how a business or household operates in the real world. For others, the right solution is simplicity, efficiency, and reliable protection—without unnecessary complexity. Regardless of size or scope, the goal is the same: clear understanding, intentional coverage decisions, and long-term confidence in the protection in place. Based in Iowa and serving clients across the Midwest, Rich works with individuals, families, and business owners who value clarity over convenience and strategy over transactions.

09/24/2026

I have goldfish memory.

The big stuff sticks. The little stuff is gone about five minutes after I walk out of a meeting.

So the second it's over I dump all of it into my phone. Their kid's name, or whatever they were stressed about that week.

Then a week later I follow up and mention it, and people go, "Wait, you actually remembered that?"

I was listening. I just didn't trust myself to remember it.

Pretty sure most of us have the same goldfish problem. What's the one thing you always forget?

09/22/2026

My first year in this business I had almost 400 coffee meetings.

I don't even like coffee that much.

Realtors, lenders, CPAs, financial advisors, business owners, anybody who would sit down with me. I made a deal with myself that I'd book one or two every single day, and until they were on the calendar I wasn't going home.

I wasn't pitching any of them. I just wanted to know why they were good at what they do. My thinking was that if I could take one thing from each person and actually use it, I'd end up pretty dangerous.

A lot of the people I still talk to every week started as one of those coffees.

I still don't really consider myself a coffee guy, though. What's your order?

09/21/2026

Nobody grows up wanting to be an insurance agent.

I sure didn't. From the time I was a kid I was dead set on being a doctor. I committed to it and went through that whole process.

Then I stumbled into medical device sales, and life has a way of showing you something you didn't plan on and making you decide.

Not exactly the big flashy job ten year old me had in mind. It turned out to be the right one.

What did you want to be when you were a kid?

09/16/2026

Early on, most of what I wrote was home and auto, and the only number anybody looked at was the price at the bottom of the email.

Then the wind and hail changes rolled across the Midwest, and our phones filled up with people who had just found out their roof wasn't fully covered on their old policies.

Yes, this was an an opportunity for us to grow our business, but it was also something that really identified a pain point many people had with the current insurance buying process elsewhere. So I started jumping on calls at five and six at night to walk people through their quotes. It was the right thing to do. It also meant I was on the phone instead of at dinner, and that trapped feeling came right back.

A friend in a completely different industry showed me a screen recording app. I started recording a video for every quote, walking through it line by line, and I could knock out ten of them over lunch. People watched on their own time.

The feedback caught me off guard. Adults who had bought insurance their whole lives telling me they had never understood what anything on their policies actually meant. And most of them picked better coverage once they actually understood it.

I got my evenings back, and they got the explanation they should have had all along.

Anybody else ever fix a work problem mostly because you wanted to be home for dinner?

A group of us did the "Welles" workout this morning.Welles Crowther was 24. He traded equities on the 104th floor of the...
09/11/2026

A group of us did the "Welles" workout this morning.

Welles Crowther was 24. He traded equities on the 104th floor of the South Tower and he was a volunteer firefighter back home, and he carried a red bandana with him everywhere.

When the tower was hit he found the stairway that still worked, carried a woman down seventeen floors on his shoulder, and then went back up and did it twice more. At least a dozen people got out because of him.

None of them knew his name. They just remembered the man in the red bandana.

He didn't come home. He was 24 years old.

An hour in a gym is not bravery and I'm not going to dress it up as one. But doing something hard on purpose, with guys who showed up to do it with you, is a decent way to spend a morning like this one.

Never forget. 🇺🇸

09/08/2026

You can tell what time of year it is in an Iowa town by where the cars are parked on a Friday night.

I grew up in Pella. First grade through the graduation cap.

The thing I didn't appreciate until I had my own kids is how much of a town will show up for something that matters to absolutely nobody outside the county line.

Nobody's getting a scholarship out of most of it. That was never really the point.

The point is that a couple thousand people all decided the same Friday night was worth being in the same place for.

We're in Des Moines now and my girls are still little, so we're a few years out from being the family in the stands. I'm looking forward to it more than I expected to be.

What's the thing your town shows up for?

09/03/2026

Long weekend coming up and I am already bad at it.

I have a rule that my phone goes on airplane mode when I pull into the driveway after work. Most days I keep it. Three day weekends are different, because there is no driveway moment, just a stretch of days where the work is technically not happening and my head has not agreed to that.

I get restless by about day two and everybody in the house can tell.

The girls could not care less what is on my calendar. July wants me to make doodles, and Vienna wants to be carried everywhere like a small tyrant. That is the entire itinerary and honestly it is a good one.

I do not think I have this figured out. I think I am just aware of it, which is not the same thing.

Anybody actually good at shutting it off for three days? What do you do?

08/26/2026

I don't know how to teach my kids to work for something they don't actually need.

That one's been rattling around for a while.

We do make the girls earn things. Helping around the house, sticking with something long enough to actually get good at it. Not because we need the help. Because I want them to feel the gap between wanting something and having it.

But there's no real stakes to any of it. Nothing they want is something they need at this stage in the game.

So the line lives somewhere in the middle, and my wife and I waffle on that. Some days I think we're too soft. Other days I think I'm making a five year old fold laundry to solve a problem she doesn't have haha.

Honestly no idea if I'm getting it right.

If your kids grew up comfortable and turned out hard working anyway, what did you actually do?

July starts in the “big kid room” today.Last night she told us she was excited and nervous at the same time. We laid the...
08/24/2026

July starts in the “big kid room” today.

Last night she told us she was excited and nervous at the same time. We laid there and talked about how you can feel two things at once, and how nervous doesn’t cancel out excited. It usually just means the thing matters.

I see so much of myself and my wife in her. I feel both of those every single day.

The difference is she says it out loud at five.

Crazy how fast it’s gone. Bittersweet.

I’m so proud of who she is. Most of that is her, and the rest belongs to Jaclyn and the home she’s grown up in.

Have a great first day, July. ❤️

08/18/2026

The most useful twenty minutes of my week happen at a kitchen table with everybody's phone in another room.

We eat dinner together nearly every night. Nearly. Some weeks fall apart and we don't get all of them.

It is not a Norman Rockwell situation. Half the time it's a two year old redistributing her dinner onto the floor while a five year old tells a story about school that has no ending in sight.

But it's the only stretch of the day where I actually find out how everybody is doing instead of assuming.

I don't take it for granted.

What's the one thing your family does that you'd fight to keep if somebody tried to take it off the calendar?

Address

5700 Merle Hay Road
Johnston, IA
50131

Telephone

+15159789143

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Rich Bales - Independent Insurance Agent posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category