From left are Flegal Insurance Chief Financial Officer/treasurer/agent Rob Stiles, Personal Insurance Department Manager/agent Brad Denton, President/agent Lane McKown and corporate secretary/agent Wil Stiles.As Rossville's Flegal Insurance starts looking forward to its centennial next year, the practice is getting the celebration started a little early.
The insurer was recently named a 2016 Best Practices Agency. Flegal Insurance has two locations: one in Rossville and the other in Summerville.
This year, 1,790 agencies were nominated to participate in the study. Flegal was one of 400 firms that submitted full data, according to a press release from Reagan Consulting. After all the submissions were scored and ranked objectively on 33 performance factors, only 254 agencies scored high enough to be included in one of the study's six revenue groups, qualifying them as a Best Practices Agency.
If 100 years in business doesn't signify Flegal as an industry leader, perhaps the plaque recognizing the agency as an official Best Practices Agency will.
Flegal began as Brokering Fire Insurance in Rossville in 1917. The company changed hands many times until 1923, when Mack Beavers bought the agency and named it Beavers and Lemon Insurance. His daughter Myrl Beavers joined him as part-owner in 1925. She later married Bob Flegal, who joined the company in 1940 and eventually took over the company and renamed it Flegal Insurance, before selling it to Bob Stiles in 1970.
Similarly, the company changed locations around Rossville many times, until 1990 when it set up shop in its current spot next to the John Ross House.
Stiles took the company from $400,000 in premiums to $17 million in premiums. His sons - Chief Financial Officer/treasurer agent Rob Stiles and corporate secretary/agent Wil Stiles - now run the company along with their first cousin, Flegal President/agent Lane McKown.
The company recently brought on a new team member: agent Catoosa County's Brad Denton, who is the Personal Insurance Department manager. He has 16 years' experience in the insurance and financial services industry.
"We handle life, home and auto including motorcycles, RVs and boats too," said Denton. "We have access to a tremendous variety of top carriers that provide exceptional claims service with competitive rates and excellent claims service. We can match a client to a company that tailors to them. All policies are not created equal."
The business's foothold in the community doesn't end there.
"We are very civic-minded and supportive of local schools," Wil Stiles said.