The unlikely insurance agents. (2024)

As you can imagine, 2010 was a pretty tough year for me andmine. Between Mom passing and Dadpassing, I lost my job. Mom had no resources of her own and I wasn't going tosee her in a home. My father-in-law was a CPA and a child of a depression. His ducks were so in a row that you wouldhave thought a team of engineers lined them up as part of a MIT graduationproject. He had life insurance, long term care insurance, home care insurance,even a prepaid funeral.

So, I began desperately throwing my resume out on thestreet. You know how it is; you throw that thing out everywhere. I wasn't aboutto let my family go hungry. Furthermore, I had grown rather attached to my homeand thought I might personally miss eating.

As my job search continued, I was called by a life insurancecompany for an interview. (Well, they call it an interview but it was really asales presentation.) I came home sold and explained to my better half how wecould open our own business, help people avoid what we went through with mymom, and earn a good living all at the same time. Damn, I was excited!

So, like most people we set off to do research. Our bubble popped when we saw that thiscompany had a “B” financial rating and one of the highest complaint ratios inthe industry. Ok, all insurance companies have complaints. But a quick Googleon these guys showed us how bad it was. There was no way could I work for acompany I didn’t believe in.

Not to be deterred. I continued to interview with otherinsurance companies and ended up with three offers. One of those was with Farmers’ Insurance. We took Farmers’ offerfor many reasons. Matt Bennettwas one of them. Always positive and supportive, he seemed willing to help usevery step of the way as our district manager. In my estimation he had theknowledge and experience to do so.

Farmers’ philosophies were another reason. Farmer’s provides free educational courses toschools. They had just finished a “Thank a Million Teachers”program and offer many teachers and educationalresources free of charge. They encourage agents to get out and meet theircustomers. They also had a pretty good contract Etc. (I will refrain fromincluding the whole list.)

The last reason we joined Farmers’, and not an insubstantialone, was that during the interview process they didn’t ask us for a list of ourclosest two hundred friends. You see, our biggest reservation about becomingagents was that our friends and acquaintances would end up walking the otherway when they saw us in a crowded room. (Ok, not that this doesn’t happennaturally, but we didn’t want to exacerbate it.)

We are very gentle with our prospects, and even gentler withfriends, no hard sell stuff. We make sure our friends know what we do, and wehope they will trust us enough to allow us the privilege of reviewing theirinsurance. Rarely would we ask them directly. It’s a quandary because we knowthat no one will care for them or be more concerned for their interests than wewill. Yet you do not want to turn anyone off. It’s a delicate dance and we arestill taking lessons.

Thank you for taking a moment to get to know us. I am your author (blogger?) Barry Fidlow. Iam half of a dynamic duo. Together over the last five years, I and my wonderfulwife and business partner, Barbara have gone from being the most unlikelyinsurance agents to becoming #ProtectionPros.We invite you to join us in our journey by allowing us the privilege ofreviewing your insurance program. We would love to be your agents. Write us at bfidlow@farmersagent.com or Tweetus using the hash tag #ProtectionPros. You can also follow us on Facebook and, ifall else fails, there is always the land line 630-297-1407. We look forward totalking with you soon.

Building our agency one friend at a time,