Richard ‘Big Daddy’ Salgado’s turf: Life and disability insurance for sports stars

Kevin Lyons

Richard “Big Daddy” Salgado has never played one snap in the National Football League. He is not an NFL owner or a coach. He is not a sports agent. But he means as much to some NFL players as any owner or coach.

Salgado sells disability and life insurance policies to some of the games’ biggest names, including Larry Fitzgerald and Reggie Bush. His company, Coastal Advisors LLC in New York, has clients on 25 of the NFL’s 32 teams.

The Wall Street Journal gave Richard “Big Daddy” Salgado this title: “An Insurance Man to the Stars.” Photo credit: William Hauser

And his reach extends beyond pro football. He has several clients on pro hockey and Major League Baseball teams, and has even written policies for several high-profile media personalities such as Fox Sports’ Michael Strahan (a former NFL football player) and Jay Glazer, and ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Salgado is not your typical insurance salesman. The Wall Street Journal called Salgado “An Insurance Man to the Stars,” recalling when New York Giants co-owner John Mara needed to shake hands with Salgado for luck before every game of the Giants 2007 Super Bowl championship season.

But Salgado acknowledges he never could have imagined his life would turn out this way after his college playing days were over. He was a 6-foot-4, 350-pound offensive lineman with no prospects of turning pro. After his college playing days were over, he moved to Pittsburgh to help care for the ailing father of Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Neil O’Donnell. While there, Salgado met some people in the insurance business and a career was born.

“I thought I was going to be a football coach because they said the worst players made the best coaches,” he says. “But I ended up doing this, and it’s just been great.”

Salgado has been featured in Sports Illustrated, in the Wall Street Journal and on Fox Sports, to name a few media outlets. Recently, he took time to talk with InsuranceQuotes.com.

InsuranceQuotes.com: Tell us about what it was like when you first got in the business.

Richard Salgado: I was actually terminated from my first job, with New York Life, because I missed the introductory meeting. I thought when I got the job I was supposed to start networking, so I went to the Pro Bowl in Hawaii to meet players. When I got back, I had missed a big dinner and got fired. It was the first time I’ve ever been fired. Then I worked at AXA. The whole time I was selling life and disability policies.

InsuranceQuotes.com: What do you tell young athletes and young people about the importance of disability and life insurance?

Salgado: Athletes never think about needing insurance because they don’t think they’ll get hurt or lose out on their income. I’m friends with the agent of the hockey player who just passed away (28-year-old New York Rangers forward Derek Boogard), and for the longest time we would say we need to sit and talk, but nothing happened (before Boogard’s death). Kids don’t think they’ll get hurt. And sometimes a tragedy makes people think. Right after (NFL player) Sean Taylor died (of a gunshot wound in November 2007), NFL player Jeremy Shockey called me up and wanted to get his insurance needs taken care of right away. You just never know when you are going to need insurance, whether it’s life or disability.

InsuranceQuotes.com: You played college football at Maryland with former Steelers quarterback Neil O’Donnell and have been around pro athletes all your life. Who was the first notable person you ever wrote a policy for?

Salgado: It was a guy named Marvin Washington (NFL player for the Jets, 49ers and Broncos from 1989 to 1999). He was playing for the Jets at the time. We’d been friends. I explained to him what I was doing, and it went from there. And then the next guy I had was (NFL Hall of Famer) Ronnie Lott. He wanted to protect some of his assets. That was a big boost for me.

InsuranceQuotes.com: How did you get the name “Big Daddy?”

Salgado: A teammate gave me the name. And that guy was bigger than me, 6-foot-9, 350 pounds. The name just stuck, and people call me that everywhere I go.