From the day she was born, the insurance industry has been a way of life for Kathy Bishop.

As a teenager, Mrs. Bishop helped out at her father’s insurance business, Profit Plans LLC, which opened in Chattanooga in 1963.

Mrs. Bishop, 58, is now the vice president of marketing for Profit Plans, currently located in a renovated house in the Fort Wood neighborhood.

“My official position is vice president of marketing, but in that capacity I wear a lot of different hats,” she said.

In recognition of her many talents and contributions in the industry over the decades, Mrs. Bishop was named Insurance Professional of the Year by NAIFA-Tennessee, the state chapter of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors.

She received the award in May during the group’s annual state convention held at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. The state chapter has about 1,500 members in 18 local chapters.

“She has been in the insurance industry all her life, her and her family, and she’s just done really outstanding service and dedication to the industry and the company, Profit Plans,” said Cathy Balkcom, executive director of NAIFA-TN.

The award was presented to her in an unconventional way. Mrs. Bishop’s husband of one year, Bill Bishop — whom she thought was out of town — surprised her at the ceremony by presenting the award to his wife.

“I was stunned,” she said, recalling the moment she saw her husband step up behind her on stage.

While she grew up around the insurance business, Mrs. Bishop, the oldest of eight children, initially worked in medical records. She went to work for Profit Plans in 1986, following a divorce. Her three children were young and she needed a job and wanted to go back to school to finish her degree.

“I needed a job that was an 8-to-5 job and my dad needed somebody part-time to do computer illustrations, which very quickly turned into a full-time position,” Mrs. Bishop said, referring to the process of generating various insurance plans for the company’s clients. “I have done just about everything there is to do.”

In addition to rearing three children and leading a successful career at Profit Plans, Mrs. Bishop found the time to complete a degree in business administration at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. In that time, she served as the first woman president of NAIFA-TN and currently is National Committee-person for NAIFA-Chattanooga.

These days, she focuses much of her work at Profit Plans on long-term care planning and has received specialized training on that aspect of the business, which she said has grown tremendously in recent years.

She also would like to one day return to school for a degree in marketing. She said she has gotten a lot of opportunities to do seminars and other related activities she finds interesting.

“I am very very fortunate in my career, and I never thought it was going to end up like this,” Mrs. Bishop said. “I guess nobody chooses what their life is going to be like, but this (job) has been just so much fun and it really has given me a lot of opportunities.”

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