Debbie will retire on September 30. She recently spoke to Coverage about her career and reflected on 38 years with Farm Bureau.

 

Tell us a little bit about how you grew your agency.

My business has grown primarily because I pay attention to my clients and keep in contact with them other than when I have my hand out for the premium. One thing I’ve always done is acknowledge when a client had a special life event like had a baby or got married. And I’ve always sent birthday cards to the whole family. I’ve had many experiences where a little kid would run up to me in the grocery store, grab my leg, and say, “Thank you! Thank you! I got your birthday card and loved it.” One of these kids told me, “I know I’m always going to get a birthday card from grandma and you, but grandma’s always has money in it.”

 

Any contact with clients other than when it’s time to pay is important. For example, the Farm Bureau picnic has always been a big event for us in Power County. It’s a social event that our clients always look forward to. For those who aren’t involved in farming, it’s one way they feel they are getting something back from the Farm Bureau membership dues they pay every year. The picnic was in the city park, and we would serve anywhere from 600 to 900 people in an evening and have a really nice dinner. Del Monte would do baron of beef, we would have baked potatoes, fresh corn that had just been picked and cleaned, peas and potatoes, and fresh fruit. Clients felt like this was a way for them to socialize with other Farm Bureau members as well.

 

We’re a small community, so I’m frequently called upon to support schools and special events. I always tried to sponsor or work with a child of one of my clients. I always wanted to do business with people who did business with me. So I would sponsor certain events - athletic events at the school, senior projects, buying 4-H animals at auction, those kinds of things.

 

Being a knowledgeable resource to clients is also important. People really don’t understand the concept of multiline insurance, what it really means. You are helping people with decisions like, “What’s the right liability limit?” or “Do I really need an umbrella policy?” Insurance is a very complicated subject. I guess my teaching background from training – especially the training that I did for the company – helped me make each client interview a kind of learning experience for them, giving them examples of how the coverage would pay and benefit them. And that sold an awful of insurance for me.

 

When I was doing training for the company, I tried to impart how important it was to include certain kinds of coverage when someone asks for the lowest possible premium. Minimum liability wasn’t really what they wanted because it didn’t give them the kind of property damage liability they really needed. So for a few dollars difference – once people understood how it would pay out – then they would of course always go for the better coverage. It was just a matter of helping clients understand a really complicated subject.

 

I’m used to the face-to-face interview, meeting with almost all of my clients annually every single year face-to-face. That’s a big job when you have 50 to 60 renewals each month. People still want that face-to-face contact, and they aren’t necessarily the type of people who will go online to get a quote, make a change, or make an appointment.

 

Do you have any advice for agents who are just starting out?

You have to be visible, you have to have a presence in the community. I’ve always felt like I needed to have personal contact with individuals. My American Business Women’s group is a perfect example. I could do great networking, but my sole purpose was not selling them insurance. I was just basically building my leadership skills through the years that I spent with that organization, going through chairs and becoming the president. It’s the same with the ISU Alumni Association. You are present in your community without the sole purpose of selling a policy.

 

I also think you need to pay attention to your continuing education, not just meeting the minimum requirements to keep your license, but to go on and get some of the designations. It also helps to belong to a professional organization like the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors. You need the exposure to people who are not only in your organization, but in the community in general, and also meet other insurance professionals so you can network with them.

 

Looking back on your Farm Bureau career, what stands out?

Mike Long, who was an agency manager, played a big part in introducing me to Farm Bureau and getting me involved as an agent and finally signing a contract. Mike actually worked in the marketing department before becoming an agency manager. Mike and I went to parochial school together, so we knew each other since the third grade. I’m still a very good friend of his wife, Meg. But Mike passed away when he was very young, and I sure miss him and his sense of humor. I remember one trip that Mike, Vicki Williams, who was the assistant to the vice president of marketing, and I made from Pocatello to McCall. It was a laugh-a-minute kind of thing. So you remember those special people who made an impact in your life.

 

Another person who was very influential was John Gold. He was a district manager at the Clark Street office when I first started with Farm Bureau. The building is still there. It was next to a brokerage firm where Mark Buckalew worked. Mark had a long history with Farm Bureau because his dad, Don Buckalew, was Farm Bureau Insurance’s CEO for many years. But John Gold was one of those bigger-than-life kind of managers. He had classic sayings. He was stern and expected an awful lot out of you as far as production, but he was kind of like a big teddy bear. He made you feel very welcome and a part of the family. So there have been quite a few people like that who made impressions on my life.

 

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your life outside of work.

I grew up in Pocatello from about the age of four. I went to St. Anthony Catholic School (not the reform school) through the seventh grade, then to Franklin Jr. High. I graduated from Pocatello High School in 1973. I attended Idaho State University where I majored in sociology and minored in business. I worked full-time at the Pocatello Public Library and Mr. Steak restaurant while attending college full-time.

 

I started in the insurance business with Mutual of New York in 1977, and was the first female agent they hired in Idaho. I sold only life insurance for the first four years. The next two years I had an independent brokerage firm and worked mainly in group life and health. Mike Long approached me to become a Farm Bureau agent in May, 1983.

 

I was the Director of Education and Training for Farm Bureau from 1987 to 1995, in the old office at the top of Center Street, and then in the old Block’s building. My classes were known as “Flandro Tech.” Only about a quarter of the current agents who came through my training are still with the company. I’m very proud of the fact that several of the agents who attended my training went on to become top agents. Of course, they did all the hard work to build their book of business.

 

In July, 1995, I returned to personal production and took over a part of Curtis Coman’s book of business in Power County. Over the past 27 years, I’ve grown the book of business from about $600,000 to $1.7 million in premium.

 

My husband, Ted, and I live at Seagull Bay on the American Falls reservoir. We have a beautiful, five-acre spot right above the Seagull Bay Marina. So it’s like going home to a resort every night; it’s just a beautiful spot. We’ve been there 33 years now, and we’ve raised llamas and labs the entire time we’ve lived there. Now we’re down to only one llama, Callie, and a golden doodle named Don Juan.

 

We have seven grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.

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We have the greatest neighbors. We considered ourselves to be those city kids who didn’t know anything about farming and, believe me, my clients have been very patient and willing to work with me and teach me about the farm equipment, crop rotations, and the different types of farm management techniques. It’s been a lot of fun learning those kinds of things. I used to teach the insurance section for the farm business management program and Idaho State University every year at their vocational-technical school. We’d spend three different sessions going through all of the different types of insurance; it was a great experience for them and for me.

 

We’ve also done midget car racing. We raced all over the western United States for ten years and loved it. We won a lot of races and it was really a lot of fun. When you have a 1,000 pound car with about 300 horsepower, it goes pretty damn fast. My husband would do all of the mechanical work and setup for each of the different tracks. We mainly raced on asphalt rather than dirt tracks in Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, and California. Then we had the drivers - four different drivers over a ten-year period. I was the Idaho Midget Racing Association “Pit Boss,” running the race time ins and setting the race line ups. It was a lot of work, and sometimes the travel was long when you were going to Portland or Phoenix.

 

I’m also known for my ginger snap cookies from my own Hilda’s Bake Shop. I love to cook, bake, and garden.

 

What are your retirement plans?

I plan to get ahead of the weeds at our ranch, expand my garden and flower spots, and write a children’s book with a llama theme.

 

Any final thoughts about retiring?

I’ve had a great career mix. I got to be in the Home Office doing the training and helping new agents get their careers started. Then I also got to go back to selling. I was able to help our clients make some difficult decisions sometimes, to provide them with a very good product. I’m very proud of our Farm Bureau package policy. I think that has been our marketing edge the whole time I’ve been an agent; it’s set us apart. It’s going to be hard for me to retire because I’m so close to the majority of my clients.

 

Retirement is going to be a real adjustment for me because when you’re an agent it’s 24/7. I mean, you don’t really have time off unless you basically go out of the area or even out of the country. We used to go to Mexico once a year and go deep-sea fishing, and that was about the only time you could totally shut it off and not be available to your clients.

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It’s been a very good career. It’s treated me very well. I’ve invested a big chunk of my life with Farm Bureau and our clients, and it’s been a good experience.

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