Rich Hinkle joined the life insurance industry in the early 2000s, becoming the VP of Life Marketing for the Producers Financial Group in 2002. In 2011, he joined Lincoln Financial Group as a Life Insurance Wholesaler and was a member of the Lincoln Leaders Club from 2012 through 2015. He then joined Saybrus in 2016. During his time with both Lincoln and Saybrus, Rich served as in-house Point of Sale at Edward Jones, earning their top life insurance wholesaler award, the Edward Jones Certificate of Excellence, seven times. Rich joined Insurance Design Network in 2019.

In the spring of 2017, Michael started his own BGA Insurance Design Network, LLC an AIN affiliate. While in personal production Michael was a life and qualifying member of MDRT and the court of the table. Over the past 40 years he has been active in his local Life Underwriters association. He is a past president of that organization and served at the state level of the Illinois State Association of Life Underwriters. Michael has been a presenter and speaker at Insurance meetings of his peers.

Michael entered the life insurance industry in 1973 with the Prudential Insurance Company. He joined Transamerica as a Life Brokerage Manager in 1979 and later joined the Larry Gordon Agency in Chicago, managing seven offices for the Gordon agency in Illinois and Wisconsin. In 1990, Michael started his own life agency MDS Insurance Group as a personal producer. In 1995, he joined the Hartford Insurance Company as a senior account executive working with wire-house brokers of Wells Fargo, Robert W Baird, Edward Jones, Smith Barney, Morgan Stanley, UBS, and RBC.

While at the Hartford he was consider a leading producer qualifying for their President club each year. After leaving Hartford, Michael joined IDA and has been an independent life broker providing life insurance products to wire-house brokers of Wells Fargo, Robert W Baird, RBC and Stifel.