While in elementary school, Heath’s parents, John Ritenour and Valli Ritenour started an insurance agency called Insurance Office of America. After finishing his higher education, Heath Ritenour joined the company as an agent and later took over the CEO position in 2008 and Chairman in 2018. Since he had indispensable knowledge of the industry prior to taking over its leadership, Heath has taken the company to higher growth levels: It is now the US’s eleventh largest privately-owned insurance company. IOA Company has a charitable arm led by Heath that gives back to the Central Florida community by sponsoring sporting events, contributing to funding drives, and doing various charity activities.

Being a cancer survivor, Ritenour understands the pain of those suffering from this chronic disease, making it a personal responsibility to offer his support in any way he can. Even with the company’s outstanding achievement, this doesn’t mean that IOA has had no challenges. Just like any other company, IOA was affected by the covid-19 pandemic, affecting its revenue income. At such hard times, premiums rates have to change, and has thus taken his time to educate both consumers and producers on instances premiums have to rise or go down.

One of the factors that, according to Heath Ritenour, determine premium rates is reserves earnings. Since a company can only invest its reserves in bonds because the investment is liquid and less volatile than stock market investments, returns on investment are relatively low. This forces companies to ask for higher premiums to compensate for the lost earnings. A natural disaster is also another factor that makes companies raise premiums since it affects many clients. The increased cost of repairs attracts higher premiums. According to Heath Ritenour, though the auto insurance business finds it hard to make money, the increased cost of repairs has led to companies asking for more premiums from customers.