Ryan lely/Sonoma Valley Sun
Karen van Kayne helps her clients with living trusts, life insurance, long-term care insurance and annuities.
After her husband died unexpectedly 17 years ago, Karen
van Kayne was left in Corte Madera with five children, including two-year-old twins. As a result, the family’s bank accounts were frozen and she found herself with almost no money to buy food, until an insurance agent walked up to her front door with a check. It had taken a while because he’d had to track her down through four changes of address. “The money saved my life,” van Kayne said. The agent was from New York Life, the insurance company she represents from the office she opened in March on First Street East.
Van Kayne had always loved Sonoma, and used some of the insurance money as a down payment on a house here. For 12 years she and a partner ran K&K Financial Consulting from that same office, specializing in agricultural mortgages. Then she realized it was time for a change, got her state insurance license and began learning the insurance business in New York Life’s Santa Rosa office. Now she sells life insurance, long-term care insurance and annuities in Sonoma, though her job, she says, is to educate. “An informed person will make the right decisions and doesn’t have to be convinced.”
She also helps clients create their own living trusts, which convey property to heirs without the expensive probate court process. Later this year, van Kayne plans to offer parents a free child ID program that will record fingerprints, dental records and other unique features that could help locate the child in the event of a custody dispute or kidnapping.
Karen van Kayne
New York Life Agent
414 First Street E., Suite 8
Sonoma
707.996.4555
kvkayne@ft.newyorklife.com
www.karenvankayne.com
