News

Happy New Year! Tuscano Agency had one of our best years ever, and I don’t just mean premium volume or profitability. We grew our relationships, our presence in our core states, and I believe we have a better sense of direction and a strategy that will help us reach our goals. Before I do anything else this year, I want to thank all of you for believing in the Tuscano Agency and making us into a strong regional wholesaler.

Every year around this time, I get together with my independent insurance agent to review our policies & coverage. Afterwards we go for a long, long lunch and catch up personally. And since I have a really smart agent, I try to pick his brain about what he sees going on in the marketplace. As usual, I came to an ah-ha moment when he stated that the market is not hard or soft – it is shrinking.

My friend went on to say there are fewer traditional independent businesses (of the Main Street variety), which means he feels that there are fewer commercial accounts to market to. Many of what we consider traditional businesses – restaurants, gas stations, auto part stores, even retirement homes – are being bought up or replaced by national or regional chains. I’ve been thinking about this all week and I still cannot get my head around all of the implications this has for our economy. One advantage a franchise has over an independent is ‘Just add water’ and poof, you have a business.

Here’s a good example. I made a very early run to the airport this morning to drop my daughter off, so I stopped at Bob Evans afterwards to grab breakfast and kill some time. After I ate, I went to the checkout to pay my bill, but the manager manning the checkout was nowhere to be found. Normally this would really aggravate me, however when he finally made it to the counter, he apologized in such a way that I just knew that his customer service training was coming through. I think this is one very large advantage that chain restaurants have over independents. Open a franchise in the hospitality industry and most of the time you have access to incredible resources including uniform standards of customer service as well as high-end training resources.

As an independent business owner you and I have a huge burden to build our own customer service training tools from the ground up. Sometimes we fail at training or bringing a new employee on board. Plus, as we grow, it gets easier to trip up. However, I promise you this, as the leader of the Tuscano Agency, I am more committed to providing exceptional customer service than seeing how big Tuscano can get.

Next year at this time when I write this letter I hope you will be able to reflect back with me and agree we are getting better at doing the things that make your life easier! Tuscano is committed to being a growing, independent, regional MGA that you can come to with the confidence that we can help you take care of your customers.

In 2015, let’s all make new friends but keep the old, one might be traditional and the other BOLD!