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One of Wayne Hungate’s clients, a woman who was struggling with a debilitating disease, confided in him about the difficulties she was facing. “I just listened to her for quite a while,” Wayne says, “and then asked if I could pray for her.”

While prayer probably isn’t a tool most agents think to use when helping a client, for Wayne it’s second nature. Before becoming a Farm Bureau Insurance agent in 1994, Wayne spent two years in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada, attending Bible college, studying theology, and preparing for a life in the pastoral ministry.

“I’ve told people many times that I’m still in the ministry,” Wayne says. “It’s just that the vehicle the Lord chose for me wasn’t behind a pulpit, it was insurance.”

The path that led Wayne to insurance began with a baptism of sorts, 25 feet below the surface of the Salmon River.

DOWN TO THE RIVER

Back in 1994, besides working as a singles pastor at Deer Flat Church in Nampa, Wayne was also guiding white water river trips on the Salmon River. One day, after guiding a group of college students down the river, Wayne saw a sheriff’s car go by. “I went to see what was going on,” Wayne says. “A truck had gone off the road and rolled into the river. I told the officer I had my scuba gear with me, and he told me to get in the water, quick.” At this point the truck had already been in the water for about ten minutes. “I was getting geared up when a friend of mine came up to me and said, ‘Wayne, it’s my dad.’”

Wayne dove in. The river fought him every inch of the way, but he managed to find the truck sitting on the bottom of the river. “I searched the cab, didn’t find him, and came back up.” One of the deputies gave Wayne another 15 pounds of diving weights, and asked him to go back in to look for the body. “I’ve done a lot things in my life, but that’s the most I’ve ever been beaten up – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.”

At this point in his life, Wayne had been divorced twice. “I was saved after the second divorce, but I told God that if I was ever getting married again, he was going to have to find her. He’d have to bring her to me and put a sign around her neck.”

After Wayne surfaced at the end of his search, he made his way, exhausted, back up to the road. “And there was Teri,” Wayne remembers. Teri Pfost was one of the students in the college class. “She’s standing there with a group of about 30 people, and it looks like there’s this spotlight on her. I walked over to her and told her I thought I was going to cry.” Teri gave Wayne a hug and said, “It’s okay to cry.”

That was on a Friday night. When Wayne returned to the parsonage for the weekend, he looked in the mirror and said, “God, what are you doing? I think I love this girl.” Wayne picked Teri up from a softball game that weekend and told her he loved her. “She said she loved me too. We’d never been on a date. We had a wedding date set that week.” Teri and Wayne have been married for 26 years now. “I’ve been very blessed,” he says.

Teri’s dad is Don Pfost, who at that time was a Farm Bureau agent [and later District Manager] in the Nampa area. Don introduced Wayne to Elbert Luhr, the district manager in Caldwell. Wayne interviewed with Elbert, took the tests, and was hired as an agent on July 1, 1994.

A GOOD SHEPHERD

It didn’t take Wayne long to realize he hadn’t completely left behind his ministerial duties of providing support and comfort to those in need. “Way back at the very beginning of my career, I had an 18 year-old girl who ran a stop sign at 2:00 in the morning and was killed. The parents called me for help. They were wondering if there was anything on the insurance that could cover the funeral. They were going to have to put the funeral on a credit card.” Wayne was still unfamiliar with the policy provisions, so he called the adjuster. “The adjuster explained that our auto medical portion could be used for a funeral. I called the parents back and told them. 25 years later they’re still grateful for that.”

Wayne has also had the difficult task of helping the families of suicide victims. “One year I had five. You have a biohazard when a suicide is in a car or house, and we have coverage to take care of that.”

Fires have also called Wayne’s compassionate qualities into play. “Five years ago, we had a huge range fire over here called the Soda Fire.” [The Soda Fire burned 280,000 acres southwest of Boise.] Wayne, who is also in the livestock business, sprang into action as a good shepherd. “I got a hold of my sons and we wound up helping haul cattle out of the fire areas.” Wayne and his adjuster, Tom Powers, drove through the scorched rangeland to reach one of Wayne’s clients. “We pulled up and my client came riding up on his four wheeler. He’s a big guy, probably 6’ 3” or 6’ 4”, 300 pounds – a tough old rancher. He walks up to me with tears rolling down his cheek and says, ‘Wayne, I’ve been out shooting my cows. Some of them are burned so bad they’re just standing there and can’t move.' He was just heartbroken.” Wayne could sympathize with his client because he’s also a rancher. But what really made all the difference in the world to these ranchers, Wayne says, “was the way the claims department and Steve Johnson responded to the claims. We don’t do these things for good press, but those salt of the earth people, those ranchers out there, they knew Farm Bureau was there for them. We took care of them.”

To which he adds: “But what we get to do as agents – if we’ve done our job correctly – is bring back a sense of security when everything is falling apart.” Wayne also believes that “your reputation grows because of claims.” He admits this sounds bad, but then explains. “It’s all theory when we sell that policy; it’s all what-ifs. Until there’s an accident, until there’s a fire, until there’s a claim. And then how I stay involved as an agent is what makes the difference.”

"QUIT TRYING TO SELL SOMETHING AND TAKE CARE OF PEOPLE."

Sometimes this means helping clients with accidents not covered by Farm Bureau. “I had a client who had a FedEx truck hit his hay retriever truck. It flipped over, there was a fire, he was injured, and the insurance was with a big national company. It took a solid year and I don’t know how many phone calls and emails from me, until we finally got it settled for them. And it had nothing to do with Farm Bureau, except that they’re my clients.” A sign Don Pfost hung in the Caldwell office neatly summarized both this incident for Wayne and the way he feels about being an agent. The sign said, “Quit trying to sell something and take care of people.”

Wayne tells the following story as an example of this philosophy in action. “I just wrote a policy for a doctor that I graduated from high school with. He didn’t care about the price. He was interested in the coverage, but his main questions were, ‘Tell me what happens if I have a claim. Who do I talk to? How is it taken care of?’ And I was able to tell him, You talk to me. I set things up. I bring in the adjuster. I meet with you, and we walk through the claim together.”

REAPING WHAT YOU SOW

Besides his individual clients, Wayne also cares about the communities where he does business. “Because we live in a small community, Marsing and Homedale, we’re involved in a lot of stuff. We support the Lions Club, the rodeo, the Cattlemen, high school sports, there’s a disaster auction that we’re a big part of, and a fireman’s crab and steak feed.” Wayne and Teri have also attended a local high school’s cake auction the past six years. “We go there to buy the first cake sold. If we get the right guys there, they’ll run me for a while. I think we spent six or seven hundred dollars for last year’s cake.” One of Wayne’s PAs just signed up to coach the Homedale high school’s volleyball team. “She was wondering if that was a good thing and I said absolutely, it’s a great thing to give back to the community.”

In a proverbial example of reaping what you sow, the community has given back to Wayne for his stewardship. “A high school teacher recently apologized to me when he came into my office and sat down. He said, ‘I should have done this a long time ago. I’ve seen how you support our community, and now it’s time for me to support you.’ And we wrote his insurance. I can think of multiple occasions where something similar happened.”

A GIFT FOR BUSINESS

But Wayne’s gift for business ventures isn’t limited to writing insurance; he’s applied his talents over the years to become an accomplished entrepreneur. “We’re down to two other businesses right now,” Wayne says. “Our livestock operation has about 100 head of commercial black cows. We keep the cows and sell the calves after we’ve raised and weaned them.” His third business is a custom haying operation he runs with his three sons. “We cut, rake, bale, and stack between three and four thousand acres of cutting, so we’ll do between 15 and 16 thousand acres in a year. Our home and shop is the world headquarters for Hungate Custom Hay.”

Up until a few years ago, Wayne was still guiding white water rafting trips on the Snake and Salmon rivers. He also had an outfitting business. “For about eight years, we guided bear hunts in Unit 14 north of Riggins, and deer, elk, and antelope hunts in Unit 40 in the Owyhee Mountains.” Wayne says he doesn’t know what all this ambition says about him. “Teri said something about ADD or ADHD.”

FAMILY

Teri and Wayne have three sons, Drake, Cole, and Chad. “Drake is married to Whitnee and Cole to Bree. Chad married Savannah on May 17; they have a three year-old boy named Cody. We have two grandsons from Drake and Whitnee. Declan is nine months old, and Jaxon was just born at 5:03 AM on May 20, ten weeks early. Jaxon and Whitnee are both doing well, but Jaxon will be in the ICU for about a month. But we’re loving this grandparent thing.”

Wayne says that he and Teri “love to travel.” Wayne has been scuba diving since 1988. Each of his sons were scuba certified when they turned 10. “We’ve made – I think now – 10 diving trips to Hawaii with the boys. They love to go diving over there.” Some of Teri and Wayne’s other favorite vacation spots include Vancouver and Victoria, Canada, and Cancun. “We’re ready for this COVID-19 deal to be over so we can travel.”

COWORKERS

Retirement would allow Wayne more time to travel, but it’s not part of his near-term plans. “We were already familiar with conducting business online when the pandemic hit. I’ve been working remotely for over a year with one of my PAs after he moved to Texas to go to chiropractor school, so that hasn’t been a problem. Also, I can’t say enough good things about Laura [Johnson] and Kellie [Trout], my CSRs.” Laura has been working with Wayne for 17 years. Kellie worked with Wayne until she had kids, then came back when her kids were older. “Those two girls are crucial to us staying above a 95% customer retention rate. They are amazing. As long as I have a good staff like them, I figure I can be here until I’m at least 70 years old.”

AN ANSWER TO PRAYERS

This passion for his insurance career showed through at a talk Wayne gave to a high school senior economics class. “The teacher said, ‘It’s very evident you’re passionate about your career.’ And then she asked me what it was about my job that I liked.” Wayne had to think about it for a minute, and then he answered, “I’m the one who’s there in the bittersweet moments when the house burns down, when there’s a car wreck, when people are vulnerable and they’re scared. If I’ve done my job correctly, I bring some security and hope to what they’re going through.”

Which, for many people in these situations, could be the answer to their prayers.

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