SPECIALTY LINES: PROFESSIONAL LIABILITIESTECHNOLOGY: INVESTMENT IN TECHNOLOGY INCREASES AGENCY’S CURRENT, FUTURE VALUE

YOUNG PROFESSIONALS: EMPLOYEE RETENTION/ SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?

AGENCY OF THE MONTH:

FAMILY ENVIRONMENT REMAINS, MORE THAN 100

YEARS LATER

AGENCY OF THE MONTH:

FAMILY ENVIRONMENT REMAINS, MORE THAN 100

YEARS LATER

ALSO: A GUIDE TO B CORPORATIONS

18 ROUGH NOTES

AGENCY OF THE MONTH

But the family environment remains, more than 100 years later

A MOM AND POP SHOP GROWS UP

AGENCY OF THE MONTH

But the family environment remains, more than 100 years later

A MOM AND POP SHOP GROWS UP

20 ROUGH NOTES

“We take a holistic approach with all our clients,” Senior Vice President Mike D’Altrui says. “Our goal is to take care of any and all of their needs for risk management, mitiga-tion and transfer. We recognize that people are busy and don’t want to be bothered with a product that, when you think about it, is something that they never want to have to use. We work with them to find the most cost-effective way to deal with their risk management needs by showing them what they are paying for and why we have recommended the package of coverages. We do the shopping for them, pointing out why the cheapest route is not always the best.

“In the process,” Mike continues, “we point out that we can help them with all aspects of their insurance needs, including personal lines if we’re talking with a commercial lines customer, as well as life insurance and employee benefits. We’ll sometimes start with a client who wants our help with just one coverage. And we’ll do that, because we know that once they see what we can do, they’ll eventually come to us for all their needs and look to us, as most of our clients do, as their trusted advisor.”

President Warren Beyer notes that the “way we treat our clients grows out of the way we treat one another. There’s a lot of love. Every person at the agency wants to help their fellow employees and their clients, and the clients can feel that. When they call for any reason, they are greeted warmly and can talk to a person that they know and trust.”

The source

One of the most important services that Conover Beyer offers is knowledge. “While we have worked very hard at providing the best claims service to our clients,” Mike Sullivan points out, “we found that our risk intelligence was one of the key ingredients that made us indispensable to our clients. And nothing served to bring that home more than Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

“... we know that once [clients] see what we

can do, they’ll eventuallycome to us for all their

needs ... .”

—Michael A. D’Altrui

“The way we treat our clients grows out of the way we treat one another. There’s a lot of

love.”—Warren G. Beyer

22 ROUGH NOTES

“Like many of our clients, we were knocked out by the storm, but our people were either here or working from home or Starbucks, responding to calls from clients whose homes and businesses had been devastated by the storm while still dealing with the fact that, for many of our staff, they had their own claims problems to deal with.

“We’ve prided ourselves on being paperless, but we couldn’t be then,” Mike continues. “We had no power so we wrote everything down on paper

and contacted our carriers by what-ever method worked, trying to get claims paid as quickly and fairly as possible. And even though the power was out, we had people in the office to respond to those clients who walked in to tell us their stories. We’d write everything down and start working on their claim. Or sometimes, we just listened. Even people who hadn’t had a loss wanted to know what was hap-pening. They were in shock and often worried about whether their jobs

would be there if their place of employ-ment was destroyed.”

“Even after the claims were paid and rebuilding had started,” Mike D’Altrui continues, “people were com-ing to us to learn about what they could do better to protect against future storms. We put on seminars at our office concerning flood awareness and what people needed to do to miti-gate against future losses as well as getting the right amount of flood cover-age. We worked with a Realtor partner to show people what had changed since Sandy regarding flood maps. There’s a lot of nuance to flood coverage, and we worked with our clients to cut through the details of what’s covered and what isn’t. And we’re still doing that. There remains a great deal of concern about future storms.” (And rightly so. As of this writing, Hermine is off the coast of New Jersey and moving slowly. Not a good thing.)

Personal power

Although commercial lines is responsible for 70% of the agency’s $6.5 million in revenue, personal lines, which accounts for 20%, remains an important and growing focus for the agency. Mike D’Altrui points out that “while a lot of personal lines business comes from the community or from commercial lines

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9LVLWLQJ�D�%D\�+HDG�+DUERU�UHEXLOW�DQG�UDLVHG�KRPH��0LFKDHO�$��'Œ$OWUXL�VSHDNV�ZLWK�=DUULOOL�+RPHV�3URMHFW�0DQDJHU�5LFKDUG�-��=DUULOOL�DERXW�post-Sandy recovery.

OCTOBER 2016 23

customers who want us to handle their personal lines needs as well, we all are active in expanding that business and have formed relationships with impor-tant centers of influence like Realtors and car dealers. We’ve had a lot of suc-cess with that over the past couple of years. Private passenger auto is grow-ing at a phenomenal rate.

“And we have the people to keep that effort moving forward. We have a dedicated personal lines sales force. This has allowed us to go on offense in that arena, and we’ve gained signifi-cant name recognition.”

Mike Sullivan says that effort is aided by the firm’s involvement in the community. “We do a lot of network-ing, getting involved in the Chamber of Commerce beach party, organiz-ing a race that attracts about 2,500 people and benefits local sports and local charities. We’re involved in pretty much any event in our town. People know us, and that leads to a lot of referrals. But we also do telemarketing and mailers. You have to have as many feelers out there as possible.”

Art concludes that another strength of the agency is its strong relationships with its carrier partners. “As inde-pendent agents, we live in the middle between carriers and insureds,” he points out. “Our job is to find the best product for our clients and to do that, we need to have carriers that will listen to us when we explain what our clients want and need. At that same time, we have to answer any risk-related ques-tion that our clients ask, and we’ve built a knowledgeable staff that can do that. We have people who have been here 20, 25 and even 30 years, and they’ve continued learning all that time. Their knowledge base is second to none. And that translates to respect from our insurance carriers. Our sub-missions rise to the top of the pile.”

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Mike Sullivan adds that the suc-cess all stems from the fact that the 50-plus insurance professionals at Conover Beyer are like family. “They’re treated with respect, and we have fun together. During the summer, we close early on Friday so people can be with their family and enjoy the beach. We’ve been recognized by NJBIZ magazine as one of the best places to work, and it shows. Everyone here recognizes that his or her actions reflect on the family’s reputation and acts accordingly. One of the standing sayings around here is

that ‘Warren has six children, five from his marriage and number six is the agency.’ His door is always open. Your voice is heard no matter where you sit.”

Conover Beyer is “built to last,” says Mike D’Altrui. “We’re not for sale. In fact, quite the opposite. We’re look-ing to acquire those smaller agencies that are looking for a solution to their perpetuation needs.”

This commitment to independence is one of the principal reasons Rough Notes is proud to recognize Conover Beyer Associates as our Agency of the Month. Q

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