Balancing career & family

Rough Notes, Jan 1999 by Boone, Elisabeth

A young Agent makes "quality time" for both

You're 33 years old, a serious, goal-oriented independent producer with a highly successful career and a principal in the well-known regional agency where you've worked since 1989. Between October of 1997 and October of 1998, you booked combined property/casualty and life/health commission of $712,000. Monday nights find you at the office well past midnight. You're also married, with three children age 5 and under. Obviously, you're a workaholic who toils at the office nights and weekends, seeing your wife and kids only as you're rushing out the door each morning...or are you?

If your name is John Love and you're the director of a specialized business unit at your Virginia agency, you fit the above profile except that you know the difference (and draw the line) between working hard and being a workaholic. You meticulously plan your schedule to make the most of each working hour-and to allow plenty of time for family, church, and leisure activities. In fact, you seem to have it all: warm, loving family...challenging, rewarding career...rich spiritual life. How do you do it?

From loan officer to agent

Like many successful independent producers, Love didn't set his sights on a career in insurance. He put himself through undergraduate and graduate school at James Madison University, where he earned a master's degree in public administration in 1988. "I knew some of the things I wanted in a career, but not which industry could best provide them," Love observes. al had some degree of self-confidence but had not envisioned myself as a salesman." He accepted a job as a mortgage banking loan officer trainee for a major regional bank and after six months became a loan officer in Leesburg, Virginia. While holding that position, Love arranged refinance loans for some employees of Armfield, Harrison & Thomas Inc., a respected local insurance agency that will be familiar to many readers as the Rough Notes 1997 Marketing Agency of the Year. The employees mentioned him to the then-chairman (now retired) of AH&T, who recruited Love to join the agency.

"My first reaction was, `Insurance? No way!'" Love recalls. "I had the image of a life insurance salesman bugging people in elevators. Still, I respected the principals at AH&T enough to let them explain further." As he listened, Love says, he learned a lot he hadn't known about career opportunities in insurance. "The attractive aspects that led me to AH&T were:

the technical and professional challenges of a career in property/casualty insurance

a system where I could keep clients for a long time and develop meaningful professional and personal relationships

the opportunity to control my own success and, overall, my destiny (I found working for a large organization required too much nonproductive work and schmoozing to get recognized.)

the offer of ownership if I produced at a high level and showed management skills."

Love joined AH&T in 1989 as a producer. "After passing the P&C licensing exam, I followed a loosely structured training program that involved a lot of mentoring and learning as I went," Love explains. aI was not forced to pursue any particular niche or production area, and by the end of the year I began to get a feel for the types of clients I liked working with; the sizes of accounts and types of problems I could solve; and the pace of prospecting and proposal preparation I could handle." At the same time, he notes, "the mid-Atlantic technology industry was really gathering steam. I saw that the hightech niche was one in which there were no established agents, and many senior producers just didn't understand the technology products and services of our local companies."

Seizing the initiative

Love wasted no time stepping into the breach. "By the end of 1991 I was working exclusively on high-tech prospects, and my success really took off," he recalls. "I teamed with another of our partners, David Schaeffer, and we began winning a lot of new accounts by learning the technical aspects of insuring property and computer equipment, including in-transit exposures, understanding electronics errors and omissions forms, and the best classifications for the workers compensation and general liability exposures of hightech clients."

In 1995 Love achieved two key goals: He completed the requirements for his Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter designation, and he became a principal in the agency and was named director of AH&T Technology Brokers, a "priority business unit" (or PBU) that focuses on meeting the specialized needs of the agency's hightech clients. "The business model of a PBU is something David and I worked on a lot together, and it seems to have worked quite well, because our production and retention rates are above industry averages," Love observes.

A question of balance

Learning the insurance business...mastering sales skills...becoming familiar with the complex exposures of high-tech firms...studying for CPCU exams...and being a full partner in the rearing of three children age 5 and under-how does John Love manage this delicate balancing act, and why does he sound so happy and proud when talking about both his family and his insurance career?