InsureSource Agencies, LLC got its start in 1993. My father, who partnered with my mother in the insurance business for 45 years in Idaho and Utah, visited my home for one week. Our objective was to find an agency for sale. I had worked in the family insurance business and at an insurance company as an underwriter and marketing representative for three insurance companies. My father and I called fifty or more agencies inquiring if they were for sale. We set three appointments. One was well-established and was way out of our price range. Another struggled with financial and ethical issues. We didn’t want to touch that one. Then, we met with a gentleman who owned two offices, one in Aloha, Oregon, and the other in Cornelius. He gave me a chance to prove myself by offering me the newest and smaller of the two in Aloha.
The agency came with one employee. She patiently taught me the insurance agency business. It was different from what I was used to. Before, I dealt with agency owners and staff. I’d never had to work directly with the public. Over the next three years, I acquired the Cornelius location and three other smaller agencies and combined them under one common name. During that time, I studied market trends in technology and was proud to announce that my agency was one of the first to become completely paperless in September 1996.
The insurance industry has gone through many changes. Everything now is online and in the cloud. We learned during the 2019 pandemic that a physical office was unnecessary and decided in July of 2021, when the lease of the last of our five locations was up, that we would work from home. With our business data securely managed in the cloud and backed up locally, we can operate from anywhere on the planet that has internet. Many customers still want physical contact a brick-and-mortar location will offer, and we are happy to refer clients to those locations. Rarely do we have to turn anyone away. Most everyone has a debit or credit card and access to the internet with an email account.