Ted Tafaro's job is way cooler than yours.

He actually makes insurance look interesting, even to thoseoutside the business.

Tafaro, president and CEO of Exceptional Risk Advisors inMahwah, N.J., insures high-end professionals—anyone from areal-life surgeon to an actor playing one on television.

“There are very few files on my desk you would look at and notknow who they were,” he says.

Tafaro, 43, tells a story about his three young kids having nointerest in his job, until they heard about a certainsuperstar.

Then they had questions. Though impressive to his children,celebrity status is all just part of another day at the office forTafaro.

But the coolness factor hits him as he drops names on acolleague, he says. “Their faces light up, and then I kind of getit,” he says.

Tafaro founded Exceptional Risk Advisors in 2006, after workingin the business for more than a decade. Echoing most otherinsurance guys, Tafaro says, “You’re either born into insurance orfall into it by accident.” Tafaro is part of the first group. Aftergraduating from Gettysburg College in 1991 with degrees inmanagement and economics, he started underwriting reinsurance for acompany his father started.

But after more than a decade, Tafaro thought he could make acareer of narrowing in on sophisticated-only cases. He was right.And he loves every second of it.

The Lloyd’s of London Cover-holder is responsible for managingvarious underwriting authorities at Lloyd’s that exceed $75 millionper individual risk.

“I certainly believe with my hand on my heart that I have thebest job in the insurance business,” he says. And it shows.

Both he and his company have earned all kinds of accolades: In2010, Inc. magazine recognized Exceptional Risk Advisors asone of the country’s fastest growing privately held companies. In2008, NJBIZ named Tafaro one of the “Top Forty Executives Under40.”

Despite the stress the insurance business has incurred over thepast few years, Tafaro’s business has been a success. Its revenuehas averaged $8 million in the past two years.

And starting a business amid a recession wasn’t as crazy as itsounds. “We’ve been very fortunate,” he says. “While we started thebusiness from scratch, we had an experienced team that reallyhelped build a fantastic business. “There’s still a need, at theend of the day, to underwrite and market something people want tobuy,” he explains. “Plus there’s a void in the marketplace, andthat makes it easy.”

It sounds easy coming from a guy who called for the interviewduring his day’s “break”—an hour-long hike. Easy also isn’t howsome might describe working with celebrities and athletes, whosevolatile personalities and careers often make headlines. But toTafaro, there’s an obvious need for dedication and protection tothis group, and he fulfills it.

Sounds like a guy you might trust with your life, right?

The business of Ted Tafaro

Tafaro built his company on a niche market—he says he’s only gotfour competitors nationally, all of whom have their ownstrengths.

“The business we’ve built isn’t able to translate to smallpolicies and a lot of transactions,” he says. “We’d prefer to workon the bigger, more sophisticated policies. That’s our value. Thelower end of the market is too open for commoditization. No one’sgonna appreciate saving 75 bucks on a $750 policy.”

And it’s more involved than just insuring a celebrity’slegs—though he’s done that. “A [celebrity’s] accountant mightapproach us and say, ‘XYZ entertainer makes $10 million; she’s 36years old, she has no disability/income protection, so how do we dothat?’ If she’s a musician and her hands are injured, she can’twork.

“The second side is protecting exposures—everything fromdisability to a TV producer looking to protect their star fromtheir runaway series,” he says. “In the entertainment and sportsbase, there’s an increased focus on liability protection anddisability.

They have a very compressed career—football players only have acouple years and most entertainers don’t make it more than adecade, if they’re lucky,” he says.

“They have a compressed amount of time to make a lot of money,so it’s imperative for their advisors working in that space thatthey adequately protect them.”

Though some of the policies might sound over the top, whenTafaro describes it, it makes sense. The company has done all thebody-part-insurance requests the general public reads rumors about:They’ve insured a woman’s breasts for a million bucks.

They’ve insured hands and legs. “You name the insane request,we’ve done it,” Tafaro says. “Some are scary sounding but stillvery legitimate.”

Still, there are requests that surprise even him. Earlier thisyear, Tafaro got a call from a company that put all theirhigh-level execs on one flight, including their founder and theirCEO—their entire c-suite, he says. Just one airplane ride wasinsured for a cool $100 million.

A different ballgame

Exceptional Risk Advisors—comprised of 16 employees and 1,500unique policies—focuses on three main groups: athletes,entertainers and the c-suite.

"Each one has its pluses and minuses," he says. As far as what'spopular for other brokers trying to get into the biz, that's aneasy one. Guys grow up wanting to be professional athletes; whenthat doesn't happen, they often want to work with sportsfigures.

“So many people approach us and say they want to be in sportsinsurance,” Tafaro says. “But it’s tough, and it’s dominated by aselect few brokers who are really good at what they do.”

Dealing with athletes, as well as their sports agents and theirdemands, can be tough. “It’s a really intensive labor market,”Tafaro says. First of all, it’s extremely risky. “There’s a realshort shelf life—could be only three years,” he says.

There also are different economics for different sports.

But for sports players, insurance is obviously extremelyvital.

After all, an athlete’s greatest asset is his ability to playhis sport. So disability insurance is the most critical form ofinsurance any player can own.

For Tafaro, personally, insuring athletes ruins the fun of afavorite pastime. “It’s definitely taken some of the joy out ofwatching Sunday football when all I’m doing is worrying aboutsomeone getting hurt.”

The executives

"If we're being totally honest, pound for pound, we preferworking with the c-suite," he says. There's an obvious reason forthat, being that those policies last years. Unlike celebrity statusor a sports career, execs usually don't have a short shelflife.

Plus, there's a clear need for insurance for executives, whichsometimes they don't see—or maybe just don't have the time tosee.

"Fewer business owners are protecting their biggest asset—theirbusiness," he says.

These are people, he says, who "are making millions andmillions—bonus compensation, stock shares—but the reality is,[their benefits] fall dramatically short.

So they look to supplement their long-term disability andindividual disability with high-limit disability that will moreaccurately support their income levels.”

Usually, 60 percent of their incomes are covered. “In this dayand age, it’s more commonplace to maybe not insure their entirevalue, but they’re certainly looking to ensure cash compensation,”he says. “There’s a whole new level of focus on the marketplacetoday in respect to board level succession planning and CEOsuccession, and we’re seeing a renewed pickup of buying both lifeand disability insurance.”

But it’s still a complicated matter.

“It’s not happening in every company but we’ve certainly seen anoticeable uptick in companies having that discussion.”

That may be in part due to high profile CEOs like Apple’s SteveJobs, who died last October. “The high-profile nature of some ofthe losses that have occurred over the last few years have broughtthe issue to light, and then there are regulatory factors that haveput CEO succession squarely on the shoulders of the board ofdirectors.”

“If I’m an employee, I’m looking to protect my liability, andinsurance is one mitigating way to do that. It doesn’t solve theproblem but it helps facilitate it if it does happen.”

A tough sell?

Voluntary benefits, any broker can tell you, can be a tough sell,and that could be especially apparent whenit comes to disabilityprotection. There's the common belief that it's not going tohappen, so why bother insuring against it?

The truth is, Tafaro explains, death is a certainty. Disabilityisn't. So Tafaro has the leg up.

“It’s a pretty easy sell. If their base plan provides $25,000 amonth and their executive needs a total of $50,000 a month toprotect a million dollars’ worth of income, the incremental spendof another $6,000 to cover that risk—there’s not really much of adiscussion; they are just going to do it.

“In a lot of respects, it’s Selling 101,” he says.

“It’s getting it to the right people, asking the rightquestions, uncovering the need. Do they have a desire to solve theproblem? Then it’s about you presenting them with a solution.”

Still, you have to get them to see that they need and want asolution. The most difficult part of selling insurance, Tafarosays, is education.

One key to success is persistence. “They think, ‘Yeah, that’s agreat idea,’ then they go back to what they’re doing.” “You justneed to migrate them over,” he says.

“They’ll take a sip of the Kool-Aid and like it, and thenthey’ll keep drinking.”