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Each year since 1993, IIABA and Reagan Consulting have studied the leading agencies and brokers in the country. We salute these firms for their participation in this year’s study and congratulate them for their outstanding performance. Harold W. Wells & Son, Inc. are honored to be on this list. View a PDF of the complete list here.
Do lazy days really pass slowly in the Southern climes? Not at Harold W. Wells and Son, Inc., in Wilmington and Southport, North Carolina. The fast-growing, family-owned agency—one of the largest in its region—takes its commercial insurance and employee benefits customers into the cutting edge of 21st century health plan design, introducing them to consumer-directed health plans, wellness and other strategies designed to reduce their costs and improve the vitality of their employees.
The agency was founded in 1920 by Harold W. Wells Sr. Since the 1960s, Harold W. Wells III and Calvin F. Wells have grown the business. Hal and Steve Wells lead the sales programs in employee benefits and commercial lines, respectively.
Harold says the agency began to market employee benefits in the 1970s with a handful of brokers working double-duty as commercial property/casualty producers and providing health insurance and other employee benefits coverage as an accommodation to their insureds. Like other property/casualty agencies at that time, the agency handled the annual renewals for health insurance, group life and ancillary benefits, but provided little in the way of consulting services and claims management.
In 1990, however, the agency created a separate employee benefits department and began to build the technical expertise to support more sophisticated employee benefits programs including self-funding, contracts with third-party administrators and outside health management firms.
The division now markets a full line of employee benefits products and services, including traditional group health plans; new consumer-directed health plans (CDHP), group life, dental and disability coverages. The agency also recently launched a voluntary benefits division to provide worksite marketing/ supplemental benefits products through payroll deduction.
“As the employee benefits business became more complicated, we realized that we would have to become more sophisticated in our ability to service the unique problems of clients and provide year-round service for their employee benefit needs which involves a lot more than managing annual renewals,” Hal says.
Hal, vice president of employee benefits, says that the agency “has been very sensitive to our insureds’ concerns over their rising employee benefits costs and their need to provide a quality benefits program for their employees. We are doing everything we can to help them ‘stay the course’ in meeting their obligations but also providing opportunities for their employees. This involves not only leading them to new products and services but also creating good, sound relationships with carriers that can provide the resources our insureds need.”
Today, the agency has about 65 employees in two offices, with 12 employees in the employee benefits division. While commercial property/casualty insurance dominates the business mix with about 50% of revenues, employee benefits account for about 25% of revenue, about the same level as personal lines.
For more on this article visit www.roughnotes.com/rnmagazine/2008/october08/
September 14, 2007
Published for Members of IIANC
Independent Insurance Agents of North Carolina
Phone (800) 849-6556 Fax (919) 821-3172 www.iianc.com
Editor: Natalie A. Simpson
Seven IIANC Member Agencies Named 2007 Best Practices Agency
Harold W. Wells & Son, Inc. is one of seven IIANC member agencies which have been named as a Best Practices Agency for 2007. Harold W Wells & Son – Southport and Wilmington Agencies are nominated to participate in the 2007 Best Practices Study. The annual Best Practices Study originated in 1993 as an initiative to help independent agents build the value of their most important asset, their agencies. By studying the leading agencies and brokers in the country, the Big "I" hoped to provide member agents with meaningful performance benchmarks and business strategies that could be adopted or adapted for use in improving agency performance, thus enhancing agency value. Today, the annual updates continue to provide important financial and operational benchmarks, and the study is recognized as one of the most thoughtful, effective and valuable resources ever made available to the industry. Visit www.independentagent.com to learn more about Best Practices.
August 30, 2001--In 1920, Harold Wells, Sr. was a bank officer, running an insurance program the bank offered its customers. He recognized the opportunity that insurance presented, and started his own company-one that exists today as Harold W. Wells & Son, in Wilmington, NC.
The agency, which has been recognized in the September 2001 edition of Rough Notes magazine as Marketing Agency of the Month, employs 55 people. Agency officials say growth has been steady for the last few decades, and that they've enjoyed revenue growth of 15 percent a year for the last five years. The agency has branch offices in Leland and Southport, which had been offices of an agency Wells acquired in 1998. The Leland office serves as a center for smaller commercial accounts.
In the mid-1970s, Wells got involved in niche marketing, which allowed the agency to expand its territory into the entire eastern part of North Carolina--a move that proved to be key when nature decided to intervene.
Wilmington is located on the coast and, prior to the agency's move into niche marketing, most of its business was in coastal counties. In just four years, Wilmington sustained five direct hits from hurricanes. Bertha and Fran hit in 1996, Bonnie in 1997, and Dennis and Floyd in 1999. What had been a competitive market suddenly became problematic.
The surge of storms was unusual, but it served as another impetus to examine the agency and its future. "We were always looking for ways to work smarter," said Harold Wells, III, agency president. "We wanted to make certain that our agency remained independent and continued to grow and prosper into the future. In order to accomplish that goal, we needed to constantly stay ahead of the curve.
"In October of 1999, we sent our sales manager, Jim Roberts, to a 'Dare To Soar' seminar, a two-day event presented by Roger Sitkins and several of his private clients," Wells said. Jim came back from the meeting enthusiastic and convinced he'd been shown a better way to manage an agency. But it meant retraining the agency's producers to operate in a different way.
The agency implemented other changes designed to help it prosper. These include moving the agency toward commercial growth through referral business only, focusing account executive efforts on larger accounts, and organizing the large commercial lines staff into teams. (For details, read the full article, on page 18 of the September 2001 Rough Notes magazine, or online at www.RoughNotes.com)
They say when one door closes another opens. The old phrase holds true for Harold W. Wells & Son Insurance, which is capitalizing on the relocation of its former neighbor, The Red Dignette. When the furniture store began making its plans to move its showroom to The Galleria in Wrightsville Beach in February, the insurance compay saw an opportunity to expand its office at 1 N. Third St. and purchased the building to the north. View a PDF of the article here.
©2009 Harold W. Wells & Son, Inc.
