A New York State of mind

Rough Notes, May 2001 by Hanavan, Brett

Young agent T.J. Derella has his game face on, most of the time

Derella's dad was a role model-just like many dads. He happened to work in the insurance business. At first-just like many sons-young TJ. didn't want to follow exactly in dad's footsteps.

Today T.J. divides his time between the love of his insurance career and his wife and children. That's okay. His family comes first. His career is an important second priority.

T.J., who was born Thomas J. Derella, was educated at Bronx's Fordham University, graduating in 1987 with a liberal arts degree in political science.

Then-Derella went to work for Equitable as a sales representative, moving to Colonial Cooperative in 1988. Colonial, along with its entities, is a small, regional insurance company. During his early years with Colonial, "I did everything from shoveling snow to paying $400,000 claims for them," Derella says. He stayed with the Colonial until 2000, working in various management roles. These roles included commercial and personal lines underwriter, marketing manager, underwriting and marketing manager, and finally vice president of insurance operations.

Today at age 35, Derella runs his own managing general agent and wholesale company, Kingstar Companies, which he started in November 2000. Based in Kingston, New York, Kingstar writes mostly commercial lines business and represents AIG, U.S. Liability, Fairfield, Republic Western and Lancer, as well as other companies.

"Now my agency employs five people, and my primary job is to keep our retail production sources, which is about 200 brokers, happy from both a product and customer-service point of view," Derella says. "Additionally, I am responsible for adding new companies to our product portfolio and looking for 'niche' products that can help the producer base-- especially during the recent hardening of the New York insurance marketplace."

Derella expects Kingstar Company to write $4 million to $5 million in commercial business in 2001.

Kingstar's operating objective is to provide a broad spectrum of sound insurance products, with stable pricing, while maintaining high levels of service to its brokers and policyholders. It emphasizes building long-term relationships with clients, brokers, and carriers. The five employees that currently make up Kingstar have all worked together on the company/managing general agent side of the business for several years. Kingstar's targets are smaller to medium-sized risks located in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. Typically these mostly "underserved" markets are at the lower end of the premium spectrum. And as Derella adds, they "subsequently, have not been given the proper level of attention that they deserve from their carrier or managing general agency."

Kingstar's management identified a market segment that consists of predominantly mercantile (retail and wholesale operations) service companies, hospitality companies, and artisan contractors. A typical customer is categorized as entrepreneurial in nature, employing a few people that the owner has typically known for a long period of time. Often this is a family business or the entrepreneur is self-employed.

The most frequently purchased coverage through Kingstar for these risks is either a commercial package policy (CPP), or a business owners policy (BOP). Derella often rounds out the package to this target with professional liability, employment practices liability, commercial automobile, inland marine, workers compensation, commercial umbrella and/or an equipment floater.

Derella's aspirations are driven by his background and family heritage. His father, who was a life insurance general agent for Guardian Life Insurance Company, thought insurance would be a good place for his son to start a career.

"Unfortunately, my dad passed away during my first year in the business, so he never got to see what I have achieved in my career. Fortunately, my mother did," TJ. says.

Speaking of his move into the insurance field, TJ. observes: "I knew early on that this business was the right one for me. It allowed me to be creative and use common sense to my advantage. It also allowed me to use my energy to create something of value for other people. I learned insurance was a career choice to be proud of"

Early in his career, Derella quickly came to understand the value of involvement with insurance trade associations. The networking and knowledge they provided would take him far. Derella said the associations at first were a way to meet people with similar career paths and create professional relationships. After joining the Young Insurance Professional Network (YIPN), he discovered that it helped him to learn from other young professionals and to share his successes and failures with people who were sharing similar experiences.

He went on to serve as YIPN's president and acted as the Tri-State (Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York) chairperson before moving on to the Professional Insurance Agents (PIA) of New York Board of Directors. Today he serves on the PIANY Executive Committee and chairs the Industry Liaison committee.