Management Team

Management Team Bio's

Christopher Efthymiou, Founder & CEO HealthInsuranceGeeks.com

Chris Efthymiou is the founder and CEO of HealthInsuranceGeeks.com (HIG) and has spent the last 15 years building fast growing employee benefits brokerages. He started his career in the early 1990’s at Oxford Health Plans in New York City while it was one of the fastest growing companies in the United States. After Oxford, Chris was in very senior level sales and sales management roles in New York City at JPMorgan, and HSBC, until he joined the start-up team of HealthPlanOne in Southport, Connecticut (HPOne). HPOne is an online health insurance brokerage selling individual and Medicare health insurance plans. Along with co-founders William Stapleton and Brendan Shanahan, Chris and the senior management team secured an institutional series A round of investment Capital led by Pequot Ventures (Now FirstMark Capital), and Greycroft Partners in 2008.

Chris spun out the growing small group health insurance brokerage of HealthPlanOne, where he remains an investor, and re-branded the business HealthInsuranceGeeks.com (HIG). HIG focuses on the under-serviced market of micro and small businesses specifically on the East Coast.

In addition to running HIG, Chris is on the board of directors at Nexus Benefits Consulting, a middle market employee benefits brokerage in New York City. With his extensive employee benefits experience Chris is able assist Nexus with sales distribution, product, and internet advertising strategies.

Chris earned his B.A. from Saint Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania. He has brokerage insurance licenses for life & health, and property & casualty programs.

Chris is married with 4 small children and resides in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Joseph Cortelli, Co- Founder

Joe Cortelli is the co-founder of HealthInsuranceGeeks.com (HIG). His entire career has been spent selling and servicing benefit programs for small and mid- sized businesses. Joe considers himself keenly aware of what a small business requires from their insurance broker and that experience is the groundwork for HealthInsuranceGeeks.com.

Beginning his career processing claims and answering calls for Oxford Health Plans, Joe learned the business from the ground up quickly rising to Customer Service Manager. Shortly after, he made the transition to sales; selling and servicing medical accounts such as Doubleclick.com and Datek Online.

Joe became certified as an insurance underwriter at United Health Care, expanding his knowledge of employee benefits and broadening his expertise to include dental group disability and life insurance programs. Clients included companies such as JCrew and Hugo Boss.

In 2003, Joe was recruited by Aetna to continue selling the Aetna portfolio through "A" level brokers like Mercer, AON and Willis, playing an important part in the early stages of Aetna’s turnaround. In 2005, he was named by Aetna as the number one sales representative for group insurance cross sales in the northeast and was awarded the Pinnacle Award for outstanding sales in 2006, selling an average of $21 million in premiums per year.

In 2006, HSBC recruited Joe to help lead the expansion of its group employee benefits department. During his first 12 months he sold and managed $4 million of premiums. Shortly after, he was promoted to Practice Leader of the Group Insurance division and continues to manage HSBC’s benefit customers.

Joe earned his B.A. from Fordham University in Bronx, New York. He has brokerage insurance licenses for Life & Health, and Property & Casualty programs.

Joe is married with 3 small children and resides in New City, New York.

Erika Suhr – Client Services Executive

Erika comes to HealthInsuranceGeeks.com as both an entrepreneur focusing on brand development, customer service, and the overall client experience, and also a senior corporate manager. She is co-founder of EffieLane.com which is a rapidly growing children’s accessories site, and was also involved in the corporate travel business for years.

Erika’s former clients while managing corporate travel were Simpson, Thatcher, Bartlett and Cravath, Swaine & Moore, both top tier Law Firms in New York City, along with other brand name top-tier firms.

Erika is also the mother of 4 small children, and balances an aggressive lifestyle of managing her kids’ lives along with propelling HealthInsuranceGeeks.com in to a position as the best client services brokerage for small businesses in the United States.

Erika graduated from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, NJ in 1991 with a major in Psychology and minor in Marketing.