Stay Tranquilo - Escaping Cuba to Building an Empire | The Journey of Univista Insurance CEO Ivan Herrera

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

In this episode of Cafecito y Croquetas, we sit down with Ivan Herrera, Founder & CEO of Univista Insurance, to hear one of the most powerful immigrant success stories in Miami.From escaping communist Cuba and attempting to flee by raft, to working construction on his second day in America, Ivan’s journey is a testament to resilience, faith, and the American Dream. With just $40,000, Ivan and his wife launched Univista—today one of the most recognized insurance brands in Florida.☕ In this episode, Ivan shares:His emotional journey escaping Cuba and starting over at 23 years oldHow working in construction, car sales, and real estate shaped his entrepreneurial mindsetThe moment he risked it all to start Univista Insurance during the 2008 financial crisisThe importance of faith, family, discipline, and building a legacyPowerful advice for young entrepreneurs and immigrants seeking opportunity in America🚀 Whether you're an entrepreneur, immigrant, or someone searching for purpose—this episode will move you, inspire you, and remind you of the power of hard work and doing good.🔔 Subscribe for more interviews with founders, innovators, and leaders shaping the future.Stay Tranquilo. Stay Inspired. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Good morning and welcome back to another episode of Cafecito and Croquettas. Today we're joined by Ivan Herrera, who we're going to be able to share his story, talk a lot about the success that you've had, especially with your company in Univista Insurance, and be able to give yourself a platform to help people that maybe want to start a business of their own. So thank you so much. Good morning. Thank you for having you. Absolutely.

We're very happy to have to be here. but get it and be started with the story that was that tell us a little bit about you know

where you came from yeah I know Havana Cuba was here home a little town South Havana the name is Al Qizer

very small town nobody knows where it is and I grew over there and you know there was the

very very humble city where I'm very poor you know I'm the first kid of my parents my parents that we was

they grew up in Cuba one is from a Havana the other that side of Havana the other is from the Occidental part the Oriental part of Cuba is a name

Port of Puerto Padre is a Puerto de Mar, and Puerto, the town is surrounded by water. It's a beautiful town, and they went to study in the university. They met each other, and they got married, and we was living in Al Quesa. There's not too much to say about the town, because there's a, but I grew all there, until the age of 23 when I came. I studied biology in Cuba. When I graduated, I came to the United States.

My grandfather was a political prisoner, and we applied for a visa, and we came here. Oh, wow. When you were there in Cuba, what was the state of Cuba like with, obviously, Fidel coming into power? What was that era like in Cuba? Well, remember, you got nothing. In Cuba, you got no right.

You had no clothes, you had no shoes, nothing. But when you are, when you born there, you don't realize what happening. Right. The problem is that in 1980 was the big exodus in Marillo, where a lot of Cuban, like more than 200 Cubans, came to Miami. And then at that time, at that time, I was seven years old. I didn't know what was happening, but some of my friends in the classroom, they disappeared. And where they are, you cannot even talk about it.

So they was here. They came here, the parents brought them here. But the same people that get out on that, because they was against the government, They was political prisoners. They want freedom. Then they had the opportunity to go back when I was 16 years old. And they was heroes. So there was the one with the financial power to buy anything, to buy food, to buy clothes.

And I say at that age with 15, 16 years, I say, there is something wrong here in this country because those people, nobody wants them here. And then they are heroes when they come. They was the one that can pay for gasoline. They can pay to go to a restaurant in dollars. And at the end of the day, I say, there is something wrong in this country. So I tried to escape by the ocean to the sea. I couldn't do it. They cash us.

And then we applied for the visa that I told. you about political prisoner and that's how we came here. And how old were you when you tried to escape? 23. So it's 23 and then that same year? No, no, no, 21. 21. Yeah, 201.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, my grandfather and both his brothers escaped Cuba for Bote, a raft. Yeah, a raft. Yeah, a raft. We built a raft, but to me happened something that I have never heard about it. We was like six people on my town. I was the youngest one.

I was in a university. And we built the boat in a very rural area where we never proved the boat in the water. So we built it, the raft. We built it. And here in United States, and I learned that here, when a vessel have two engines, one of the propellers rode like this. and the other like this they are counter clock

yeah counter clock yeah one with the clock and the other counter clock so we didn't know that

and we picked the wrong propellers so we stole that one and we was coming backward so oh my God we're like we're never going to get there no

no you cannot come backward because at the beginning yeah that's okay but when the wave get three, four feet, we're going to think. So we went to the shore again. We put the boat there and we hide on the trees and everything.

And then the border patrol of Cuba devised. They saw the vessel the raft. And then they destroyed. They ate our food, they drank our, you know, everything that we had and that fell. And two years after, we applied for the visa. The same year we applied for the visa and two years after we came to the United States. That's amazing. It's a testament to obviously how bad things were and are in Cuba that you felt no matter what was going to happen we needed to get out there.

Yeah, listen, to live in a communist government. or you cannot call that communists or socialist. That's a criminal government. Like the one in Venezuela, like the one in Nicaragua. To live there is a tissue, but as a human being, you don't want to learn the way that I learned how bad they are. You know, around the year 1989, 1990, there was the socialist Europe

side collapse so there was nothing there was no food, there was no I had my actual wife was my girlfriend, I had to see her in the university crying because she was hungry and that's hard. That's hard, yeah. And I didn't have shoes, I had to

go to the university the whole year with one pair of shoes or boats votes and that's in order to understand because there is a lot of young people

that they dream they have that romanticism like the Democrats on the on the yeah on Washington and everything

that they dream about social and communists that's not a that's not a regime that they just like power they just love money but not to work

or doing anything for the people themselves. Yeah. No. We know because we lived it, right? I'm third generation Cuban, and I hear the stories, you know, that my grandfather coming over here, not even knowing how to swim and coming on a raft.

Like that tells you everything about how bad it was, but it was also the opportunity now that coming into the states and saying, hey, we don't have anything, but we're going to figure it out. And it, that's, That's it. Like this is the opportunity to do that. When I came, I came in 1996. Remember, this technology we have today with the cellular and everything, we didn't have it.

I had a beeper. So the opportunity that the people have today to do FaceTime with the family, I live behind my grandparents, my aunt, my uncles that I have never seen again. So it's hard. you leave everything, your friends. That's something sad what is happening today in Cuba. And at that time, today is worse. Right.

Today, there's no medicine, there's no hospital, there's no education. There is nothing. I know you are very proud of your ancestors or your parents, your grandparents, and they tell you the story because I do. to my kids. I have three kids. But one thing is what they tell you. Another thing is to live there. That's hard.

Sometimes I dream that I'm living there, and I'm building another raft to come over here again in my dream. Wow. That's incredible. Well, here you are today, and you've done amazing things here in the States and in Miami. So you come into the States at 23 years old, and I know it was basically a brand new start for you, right?

You did a little bit of work and like small jobs and a little bit of the total. I work, I start working in construction. The second day that I was in this country, we gave seven, seven relatives, my grandfather, my uncle, my brother, my mom, my father, and my wife, my actual wife, no kids at that time. Right. So next day I went to work with the same clothes that I'm the same shoes that I brought from Cuba. And since that day, I haven't stopped. I work, I was working in construction. You're laughing, but I. No, no, no, no, no, no. I believe it at all. It's crazy. No, I love to. Today I love because a friend of my father went to the house and he told me to my house to pick some letter that, remember, at that time, every communication was letter, pictures. Right. You know, and we brought a letter for everybody here in, from, from. the town, our town, and the guy told me, no, I'm a superintend,

superintendent. Superintend from a construction company that today we do business together. That's very small. Yeah, and he told me, I thought, can I work there? Yeah, but he's hard. It doesn't matter. So he told me, you're going to be labeled. I have a title already, so I'm labeled.

Yeah, so I went there and he's the job was to take out all the garbage, all the she wrote, the do rock, everything that is inside the house when they do, they cover the walls. Yeah, no, no, when they cover the, you cannot imagine how the garbage that you have to take out out of the houses like that. Oh, wow. And throw it away in another place. And that was my job when I came here. And I had never worked that hard. And at nine, my wife was telling me, hey, wake up, you're crying. I didn't know.

I was crying. I have a pain in my arm in my arm. I didn't know. Yeah. Then I went to work for in air conditioning. Then I went to work for delivery. Then I started working in a bank. Then in a hospital, I want to become, because I graduated from biology in Cuba.

I want to become a doctor here. but one day I went to buy a car and I asked one of the salesmen how much they were making and they was making three times what I was doing in two jobs. So I applied there and then they told me that I was overqualified to sell cars because I was working in a hospital and then that's the same week. The salesman who saw me the car told me, listen, They cleaned the house. They fired everybody from the management team.

So there's a new management team. I encourage you to come over here again, and I apply again. And since that day, when the guy interviewed me, he told me, what you used to do? Don't worry about it.

If I don't sell, you fire me. But I discovered the sales world. Right. And I was the top producer for four years, very close to here, Braem Honda. Oh, okay. Yeah, a very reputable.

Dillagee, I learned a lot. I always say that I went through two universities' process, one in Q and another selling cars for four years, and that helped me a lot because I learned about sales. I learned about insurance. I learned about financials. So when I, my four years, I had my real estate license. Then I went to sell real estate.

I did great too. But if I was selling a car, I had to insure. if I was I was selling a house I had to insure so I love insurance so I said the best product that we can sell is after the real estate crisis I went to to the school and I got my license and since that day then we bought the name of Univista for

$40,000. Wow. Wow. $40,000. That's incredible. We start me and my wife we started on that on that. It's funny right because it's like the the trajectory that got you to where you are today, right? It's a little bit of the car sales. It's the construction where you learned hard work and then you learned sales. Even that you don't know where God and life is taking you through, you are learning. And every single sometime, we complain because we have, yesterday I have a very hard day, for example.

but that that's maybe the lesson that you are learning from God, from life, and that's what you are going to use in your future. Yeah. So I learn about sales and I learn

in order to sales, you have to have used to sin. Selling with honesty and then have a good product. When you have that and in the insurance, business after selling cars, after selling houses, it's a product that you cannot touch.

You don't have to storage. You don't have to, you are selling the promise that when you custom has a problem, you're going to be there for them. Absolutely. It's good sale, but you can't sell anything if you don't have a good product, right? And I think that's key. No, there are people that sell about products, but it's not you're not going to do a career about it.

Exactly, exactly. Because, yes, to your point, people can get away with selling, I won't say the word, but garbage. right? That's true. And the reality is you have to, it's not sustainable. Exactly. You know, I sell, today I sell to the same people that I sold cars, I sold the houses.

And then to the same people that I sold the houses and cars, I sold them insurance today. They believe in you. You have to be a brand out of your name, out of your reputation. Absolutely, absolutely. So tell me, you started Univista, right? You said you purchased it for $40,000. What year was that? That was...

2009. In the middle of the crisis of the real estate. Wow. Look at that. Now talk to me a little bit about that process of being able to grow, right? You said, hey, I'm going to do insurance, but not only did you start insurance and selling, but you built a very big company through it. Yeah, to grow a P&C, a property and casualty insurance agency is hard, but I have my license

of life and health insurance. Okay. And I was knocking doors. I was making over half a million dollars knocking doors on seven. Then I told my wife one day, I found myself in a very bad neighborhood here in Miami, selling a policy. And I had to run to my car, get my watch, put it in my pocket, and told my wife, listen, we are doing great, but we have three kids. We have, if something happened to me, it's not going to be funny for you. So we need to do something so the customers can.

come to our office, call to our office, and not me after the customers. So we did it. We bought the name. It was three brothers, the name of Univista for $40,000. And then we started me and my wife. We bought a corner for $300,000. We bought a little building in Flagger and 58 Avenue. Okay. I remember that I took my mom that night to have dinner and showed them to my parents. the building and my mom told me that the oldest building in Miami. That was true.

But, you know, I have other plants and we fixed the building. We put our logo. I realized that none of the agents at that time insurance agents, they was proud, they was not proud to be an insurance agent. So I realized that. And I say even that we was losing money, because everything that I was making on life and health, I was putting on, re-investing on the, on the, and the project of Univista.

So I realized, and I told my wife, if we can do this, the, we, uh, uniform the name, we have a logo, we put our colors out there. We identify ourselves like, like, like, like, something different. We are going to, we are going to do something different with the insurance business in Miami. And that will happen. Exactly what happened. Wow. And I started the business. When I started the business, remember, I was coming from the real estate business. I had 10 property paid, 30 property paid in full, some commercial, some residential. I had money in the bank, and I had my credit card in zero.

Three years after, I had a loan, every single property had a loan. I had no money in the bank, and my credit card was full. remember that the last time that I used my credit cards there, we applied my wife and me for $17,000 each, and we used that to pay the employees. But I knew that I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and that was what we did. We follow. We are a very disciplined family. My kids are the same and everything. They work with me today. They are graduated from University of Miami, the little one. Nice. He's in Berlin. He's a Roving, he's a champion.

Wow. Yeah. You know, I think that I'm a very lucky human being. No, it's a testament that, you know, the well-rounded aspect of being a human, right? It's the success in business, but not only being the successful business. The balance is in Narisi. Oh, and I want to talk, you know, I want to talk about that, right? Because it is, you know, where one place you may succeed and you may succeed in business,

your family time may suffer and being a good husband and being a good father, right, because you've devoted so much time. So do talk to me a little bit about that balance. Well, you don't have a book to have a kid or to be married or to be, you know, and you have to do everything in just one life. I think that I came from Cuba

married with my wife. This next month we're going to be 31 years married. Yeah, congratulations. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. And we start having kids, and that's, remember, the last one, he's 15 years old. He worked in a different situation, financial situation for the family. But at the beginning, I was selling cars when my son, John, the first one, he came to the world.

I was selling cars. I was spending 15 hours, 16 hours selling cars. The four years, when his four-year birthday, I realized that I didn't spend time with him. So I told my wife, listen, I'd rather to make less money and have more time with my family than to spend my whole life doing this. Right. Because I had Ivanya, the second one already, and I didn't spend time with them. So I quit from the car business, making a lot of money, and nobody believed that it was. going to do that. I remember that

the manager of the store, he gave me a book and he told me, I'm not going to do anything in your office. I'm going to keep your office there for the month. If you want to return, you can come here. I went to this new war, and my wife started telling me, hey, Ivan, are you sure what you're going to

do? Because, yeah, you are selling houses, you have your real estate license, but that's hard because now the business is good, but it's tomorrow. So it was the whole week thinking about it and he gave me

a book to read that I encourage everybody to read it and maybe you know about it because for sure you read books and it is who moon my cheese who moved my cheese? Who moved my cheese? Okay, no I haven't read that. You should read it. I got to read that.

So I went I read that I'm not going to tell you what it is because after that when I start with my company I bought for the whole company, I bought one book of that, yeah. That's amazing.

I gave it to them. And everybody is, the feedback is very good. I'm going to give you one. I'm going to buy one. I'm going to give you one. I have some. Okay.

So. I'll give you a book for a book because I love to read. So, yeah, I went to, I went back, and there was, I didn't want to be in the dealership anymore.

and I went back to the manager to listen less empty my office I'm going to get everything from my office that is mine all my awards and everything and I'm not going to come back he told me I see you in two months I told him listen I have money in the bank

I have my property's paid already if I'm going to come back that all the love of my life because I appreciate what I did on the business and I love the car business because it teach me a lot, but I need time for my family and I told, listen, it's not going to be in two months, at least three years to come back when I spend all my energy, my money and my resources, trying to do another thing. So I went to real estate a degree and then the insurance, but for the question, it's hard.

It's hard to keep the balance between the family and the business, very hard. And then it doesn't matter if you have a small business or a big business. Today, I'm looking at that I have my two first kids working with me. Ivaniya is in charge of all the real estate. Johnny is in charge of Univita Medical Centers. And I see them sometimes I spend the week and this week I haven't seen them in the job. But we try as a family to be together on the weekends. and if not today we have a dinner in my house.

Amazing. That was what the agreement between us as a family. Exactly. To get together. That's the key right there. It's making the time, right? Because you can make all these excuses and say, oh, you know, we're just so busy.

You know, I have work and this and that. But if you don't actually say, hey, no, Wednesdays at 8 o'clock, we're doing dinner. Yeah. Just so don't make it. No, and they, they too, they have their own house already. I told listen once a week

you have to invite us to have at least dinner and they do they do. That's awesome. They cook and they What do they like to cook? Everything. They do pasta they do chicken, meat they do

both of them and my my daughter has a boyfriend that he cooked too he was my my son best friend and they started together.

Yeah, that's a, I think that I've been lucky for having the kids and the family that have. And you talk about your kids a lot, but tell me the importance of how much your wife has been in the process. You know, she's been with you since the beginning when you were in Cuba to all the way to now, you know, 31 years. She's, I think that she's like the life of my life, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the guy, she's the one where she don't talk too much, but I know, by her silence, I know what happening and she educated the kids very well.

She is a very good mom, a very good person, very humble, you know, she keeps me organized, she keeps me on focus. She's a great person. No, that's amazing. And I think that's where the power of a partnership is, right? I think that as a businessman, as an entrepreneur, that's a very good advantage to have a good woman, a good wife, by your side. Amen to that. So before we wrap it up, right, we talked about a lot of different things, right? The lessons of the journey that you get, right? And you mentioned how God puts all these things in your path, and you may not know where. it's going to take you. But ultimately through this journey, what would be one piece of advice that you would leave to someone that wants to start a business or just live a very, what's the

word, hopeful, holistic lifestyle? There is, I think that there is a, and we live in Miami, and Miami is a very unique place. We have a lot of immigrants. And I interview them every day, sometimes they come from countries that they have no opportunity. I think that everybody today, they want to be, I'm worried about the future because today is hard to find somebody that everybody has a backpack full of dreams, but none of them want to work for them. I interview them. First thing that I can tell to people to immigrants is to learn English, you know, to go to school

or try to remember, I came from Cuba, I was 23, I was working, I couldn't go to, even that I went to Miami-day college to try to learn English. Miami is not helping me with that. So sorry about all you follow about my English. But what I can tell them to learn English, and once you do that, try to go getting better without trying to communicate at least, and then it's going to get better little by little. But prepare themselves.

It doesn't matter if you go to university or not, but learn, try to get something that you can learn today. The technology, there's a lot of fields that you can do in technology now with AI. I have a program, one of my best programmers, software developers, he learned by himself. Wow.

He's the son of a friend of mine, he was working in McDonald. I brought him to my company today. He's doing great. He's doing a lot of money, making a lot of money, and he learned himself, you know, about coding and everything. And you have here, you have all the information there, but you have to, it's like the person that wants to win the lottery, they wish to, he wanted to win the lottery.

He was asking God to win the lottery. And God wants to say, hey, do you part, buy the ticket? Exactly. Because everybody wants to do that, but they don't want to sacrifice. Amen. So see, everybody can dream, but not, if you don't do the work, the dreams. But there's a lot of, I think that every time that I see a young person like you, like your team here that they want to do good,

they are doing different things. I think that we have hope that people learn the importance of doing good. I always say that if people know the good of being good, people do it even for business. It's true. We are living in a jungle today. Yes, no, absolutely. And I think that's a great way to put it, right?

It's the business of doing good. I think that should be the foundation of everything that people do. And then one more question, being in Miami. What does a day in Miami look like for you when you're not working? Well, I would work. No, listen. I grew up in a little town where there was a beach. I used to fish since I was seven years old.

I was fishing without shoes, without nothing, just going to. to the beach in a little boat. I love the beach. I love boats. When I'm not working, I try to be, we have a property on the beach here in Miami Beach, and we have in Bahamas. And we try to be surrounded by water.

That's what we like. You saw it, me. The whole family and fishing. We're living in a paradise where everybody comes to be a tourist. We live here. But at the same time, you have to, because if you go through the whole process or if you live the way that Miami is fast, you know, parties, a good restaurant, you try to get on that life, it's going to be hard to be successful.

So you have, sometimes you have to quit something to get another. And I think that when you are young, you can do whatever you want, but when you get 35, 40, now you have to learn or to start singing about your future. Right. And your family future. Put the restaurants and the parties in Miami. Miami. I love, even I miss, now I came from Europe.

I own this trip to my wife for three years and we went to Europe. I miss Miami. Even that I was in a great city, we was a good restaurant, food. but I, like Liban of baseball players, I love, I love you Miami. I love Miami. Hey, Connie.

Much thanks. Thank you, Andre. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. A good conversation. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.