Good Neighbor Podcast: Union
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Residents of Northern Kentucky! Based in Union, KY....The Good Neighbor Podcast helps the residents of Northern Kentucky get to know local business owners as people. We allow the business owners and influencers in NKY to tell the stories of how they started their business and why. We hear about their families, their personal interests and why they love living in and serving resident of Northern Kentucky!
Good Neighbor Podcast: Union
Navigating Insurance with a Personal Touch: Jeff Martin and Sami Went's Journey at Wethington Insurance
What happens when a logistics expert and a banker team up to run an insurance agency? Meet Jeff Martin and Sami Went, the powerhouse duo steering Wethington Insurance in Walton, Kentucky. Listen as they recount the agency's journey from its inception in 1985 by Bill Wethington to Jeff's leadership takeover in 2021. Jeff reveals how his experience at Toyota molded his approach to the insurance business, while Sami shares her transition from the world of banking to becoming a dedicated insurance agent. Together, they prioritize customer service, offering a balanced mix of commercial and personal insurance lines with a keen eye on serving contractors, habitational properties, and light manufacturing clients.
You'll gain valuable insights into why maintaining an honest and human touch is crucial in the insurance industry. Jeff and Sami candidly discuss the importance of transparency and how it contributes to building trust and ensuring comprehensive coverage. They tackle the challenges of insuring youthful drivers and the common mistake of not disclosing all drivers within a household. By fostering open communication and asking the right questions, they strive to safeguard clients from claim denials and unnecessary expenses. Through their stories, discover how addressing difficult topics head-on can provide peace of mind and lead to better outcomes for everyone involved.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Mike Murphy.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Charlie. Yes, I am Mike Murphy, host of the Good Neighbor Podcast. We are a podcast here in Northern Kentucky. We focus on local businesses, the owners, the influencers in town, kind of like the movers and shakers, the people that keep our northern Kentucky community rocking and rolling. Two people that I have with me today in the virtual studio are Jeff Martin and Sammy Wendt. They are the people that operate Weddington Insurance there on Main Street in Walton, Kentucky. Many of you know them, Some of you don't, but after today more of you will know them. So, with that being said, Jeff Sammy, welcome to the show. Thank you for having us.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2:So Weddington Insurance, how long have you guys been in business?
Speaker 4:So a gentleman by the name of Bill Wellington. He started the agency in 1985. And then you know, basically he was always in Northern Kentucky partnered with some other agencies and by the end of his career I had purchased the agency from him in 21. At that time it was just basically me and two other employees. And then he semi-retired and only does Medicare insurance now and we do property and casualty, which is your typical auto home business insurance. So that's the portion of the business that we do and he's no longer involved in that part. He just does the health insurance side.
Speaker 2:Okay, so, jeff, what is your background, in particular before coming into taking over at Wellington there? So?
Speaker 4:I was in logistics at Toyota in Georgetown right out of college, and then about 17 years ago is when I started working for Bill Logistics at Toyota in Georgetown right out of college, and then about 17 years ago is when I started working for Bill.
Speaker 2:Logistics Sounds exciting, yeah so exciting.
Speaker 4:That's what I thought I was going to do for a living. That's what my dad, did I just once. You were into it. I didn't enjoy it, so I took a chance, started selling insurance and it worked out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we all end up where we're supposed to be. I fully believe that, right, and by all accounts. I mean, you know, jeff, you and I have not met until today, correct? I know you by reputation and people have always said nice things about you, right? Somebody that I do know is Sammy. Now, sammy, you and I met maybe a couple months ago, but you've quickly made an impression on me because, um, you are what should I say? You're kind of a firecracker of a person, not shy. You're fun to be around. You represent Wellington very well.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you.
Speaker 2:So why don't you give us a little bit of your background? How did you come to end up where you are today, at Wellington?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I was in the banking world after I graduated from MKU and it didn't take long for me to realize I was not really meant to be in the corporate world, and so I actually got started at state farm and I believe 2016. So I started there, got licensed and then shortly after that I went into the independent insurance world and kind of like what Jeff said. I got into it and didn't really think that almost nine years later I would still be an agent. But here I am.
Speaker 3:So I got good at it and now it's kind of one of those things where everything's just like second nature and it'd be hard to see myself doing something else yeah, well good, I'm sure your clients appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Uh, you've been here a while and hopefully you're going to be here for many, many years to come. So, um, when we look at wellington I know you guys are personal lines, you're business lines Do you do both equally? Do you have a propensity more for one or the other? How is the agency set up?
Speaker 4:Yep, so the makeup of our agency is about 55% commercial lines and about 45% personal lines. Okay, but then the other number of that is there's probably twice as many, maybe three times as many, personal line clients. It's just the premium size is smaller compared to the commercial line.
Speaker 2:So when a business comes to you, I mean what category within the business side of things is kind of your bread and butter or specialty, if there is such a thing?
Speaker 4:Yep, there absolutely is a thing. So we do a lot of habitational, like apartment buildings, rental type properties, a lot of contractors the half of our commercial lines book is somehow contractor based, either if that's the mechanicals, like your hvac or plumbers, all the way to the concrete contractors, to the guys that roof your house. Um, that's a lot of our commercial line stuff. We do a lot of light manufacturing, um, and then we rent the everyday typical strip mall type shop. Just somebody that rents a space sells whatever product they're selling. Everybody has to have insurance so we're able to rent anything.
Speaker 2:So do you have people walk in off the street just saying, hey, I need car insurance, I need a quote, I need we don't have a lot of walk-in business.
Speaker 4:I need a quote, I need we try. We don't have a lot of walk-in business. I would say 90% of our business is just referral base from current clients. Good, or other circles of influence that we have set up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm sure happy clients, happy customers, are happy to send their friends and family to you.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. So. You know we approach it a little bit different than like your typical state farms or all-state type agencies. We're very customer service-based. We make ourselves available to people almost any time of the day. We both have our cell phone numbers on our business cards, so we're not passing out 800 numbers. We're not doing any outsourcing of customer service at all. You get Sam and I when you become a client of ours.
Speaker 2:Okay, good, because that can be frustrating. I mean, personally, I know I've called about, well, any number of things having to do with my policy. You don't think about it, you don't care about it, until you suddenly are forced into a situation where you have to care about it. And when you care about it, you want immediate answers. And if you get some sort of call center from who knows where and you're leaving a message and nobody calls you back, for hours, those hours are spent biting your fingernails, maybe doing a little bit of cussing. So to have to have humans going to bat for you and running interference for you and answering all the important questions, that that's vital, that's important you know when it comes.
Speaker 4:Basically, the only time you really need us is if you're changing something or if you have a claim, and there there actually is a lot of professional advice when it comes to those kind of things. So it's the insurance seems easy, but it's really not. There's a lot of moving parts to it. The industry is changing a lot on what's covered, what's not covered and how you cover it properly. So that's why it's important that you talk to somebody that knows what they're doing, like us, okay.
Speaker 2:So, the human touch, um, we've talked about that and to carry on that topic, um, I know that, uh, you guys are. You know you have families, you're married. So, if we get a little personal, what does that side of your life look like? So, jeff, we'll start with you. Are you married? Do you have kids? What's going on there?
Speaker 4:Yep, I'm married to my wife Ashley. We just celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary back in October. She actually works in the agency. She's not an agent, but she does a lot of admin work almost all of our marketing, just things that Sandy and I don't necessarily want to do or have time to do. She picks up that slack for us. I have a soon-to-be 8-year-old son who goes to Walton Verona Elementary and a daughter who is in kindergarten at Walton Verona Elementary. She just turned six a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 2:Very good, Sammy. How about you? What's going on in your world?
Speaker 3:My husband, john and I. We've been married for six years and we live in Dry Ridge and I have a stepdaughter, Adelaide, who is 14, going on 15. So Jeff and I kind of have a little, you know. I'm coming into the office morning. I'm about you know what they have to look forward to as a teenager every week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, sammy, you went to high school with my daughter.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:And so whenever anybody says, you know female age 14, 15, I know what that means.
Speaker 3:So yeah, yeah, you did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are tender age A lot of emotions running wild.
Speaker 3:It's fun. At the same time, though, you just you relate to them differently than when they're a kid you know, but we get along well. We have a lot of fun together.
Speaker 2:Well, good, and another thing that I think of when I think of Sammy is her musical talents. So, Sammy, I've seen you in video playing guitar and I've seen you in person playing ukulele.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:And I've heard you sing. You have a beautiful voice.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. So you've put that talent to good use in promoting the agency, haven't you?
Speaker 3:Just a little bit.
Speaker 3:I think I'm borderline crazy sometimes stuff that I come up with but um around this time last year I wrote a song about flow and progressive and last year I actually got an email from the CEO of progressive that it like got it got to her. So that was pretty cool. I didn't really expect that. I did email it to our progressive rep but I just thought he'd be like, oh that's cool song about progressive. Um, but I don't know. I again I been doing insurance so long. It's very easy to write a song about it because yeah I'm.
Speaker 3:It's like oh, grinch rhymes with insurance or whatever right, right.
Speaker 2:No, that that that side of you I've really come to appreciate. You're fun to be around, so I'm sure your clients appreciate it too. I try to be light-hearted.
Speaker 3:I mean I think that jeff and I are both kind of same way. Insurance is stuffy. A lot of people don't like insurance. So we just try to be very down to earth and like explaining things to people and you know, with that aspect of things like keeping it lighthearted and letting people know like hey, we're human too and we we want to keep things as fun as we can.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know you got to be brutally honest with people. Sometimes I mean, yes, it's a sales type job that we're in but you just got to be honest. Tell them how you tell people how it needs to be, how it really is. Yeah, I'm the trust in that's.
Speaker 2:That's the bottom line yeah, it is what it is, and people need to be protected properly and if, if they feel comfortable with you as humans, they're more apt to open up to you and share things, that um can make a big difference in terms of how you structure policies for them, absolutely can, and I don't think everybody realizes that like we.
Speaker 4:We basically we need to know everything about you. Um, that way we can. There's different things that you should do if you're in different situations, so be honest with your insurance agent.
Speaker 2:They need to know every single thing about you, so you're like a priest. But for insurance, correct, correct, we are therapists. We've worn a lot of hats over our careers. They didn't have enough coverage and it really was crushing to them. And likewise, maybe sometimes things happen where something bad happens to a client and you're like hey, no problem, we got you and here's why it's going to be OK. Any stories for us?
Speaker 4:Actually kind of two different, separate stories, kind of talk about youthful drivers. You know they're an extreme expense for parents when you have to add a youthful driver. A lot of times people will try to skate around it and not add them. But these insurance carriers have changed the rules Like basically, if there's not a listed driver on the policy, they're denying claims.
Speaker 4:And that's happened to our clients before. They've been in accidents and they covered the liability portion of it, which means they covered the person that their driver hit, but they didn't cover the damage to their vehicle, even though they had full coverage on the vehicle, because it was an unlisted driver in the household. So that's why we try to coach people got to be honest with us.
Speaker 4:That way we can fully protect you and at the same time I mean, this was actually a pretty recent claim we had all this rain two or three months ago. After that drought, a lot of sump pumps failed. You know, we had one carrier. The coverage wasn't on the policy. We added it retroactively and they covered the claim. So some carriers are like that, where they actually care about their policy holders and even though there was some miscommunications back and forth, they covered that claim for them and a huge thing you're talking several thousand dollar claim that they would have been out if they were not with that carrier.
Speaker 3:For us too. If someone calls us and they have a claim, we want it to be covered. We don't want to have this conversation like hey, remember when we talked to you about that underground service line coverage that was $50 a year and you said you didn't want it, and now you have a $5,000 claim. We don't want to have those conversations.
Speaker 3:We want things to be covered, so we do like. I feel like sometimes people probably think we're kind of nosy because you know, when they call in for something, a lot of times I'm asking additional questions to divulge more information, and but a lot of times the reason I'm doing that is because I'm trying to uncover something that could potentially be a claim denial. Is there somebody else in that? Like someone calls out a car, are there any other drivers in the household?
Speaker 2:Like I have to ask that question because we want to make sure that claims are being covered when something happens yeah, at the end of the day, I mean you guys are the ones that they should be calling to ask these questions of if they're unsure, if they should be filing a claim or I don't know. I mean you guys really are acting in their best interest. I truly fully believe that they don't have to feel like, if they call you, they're tipping their poker hand at you.
Speaker 4:We're not on record. We're here to advise you before you go on record.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of times people are worried about the money aspect of it. That's why they don't bring things up. Sometimes. Say there is another driver in the household, they think, oh, it's going to be more expensive. Well, unless that person has a horrible driving record, a lot of times they can actually help people and that's what they don't always realize is actually.
Speaker 4:We're asking questions that could potentially save you money in a lot of situations too and you know we write for multiple insurance carriers there's there's carriers that are better suited for different situations for people we know the ones that are good for youthful drivers. We know the ones that are good for more mature adults. We know the ones that are good for certain types of property, where it was high value or you know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, different protection class, which basically means that there's no fire department or water, city water on your street, different carriage or, better, at different types of business. So that's why we ask so many questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and those of us that are, you know, not living in your world, we're ignorant to all of that.
Speaker 2:we need you guys to help us navigate that world and once we explain it to you, it's like, oh, I didn't think of that, like that kind of it's like a light bulb effect yeah, if I mean just in life, anytime you've ever put off an uncomfortable conversation, it's because you've built up this monster in your head that really doesn't exist. And then, by the time you're forced to have that conversation, you wish you had had it weeks ago, correct? Because, honestly, having that conversation is what kicks that monster to the curb. Kicks that monster to the curb and, yeah, colors look brighter and the smells are sweeter after you have the types of conversations that people need to have with you too, absolutely Okay. Well, our time's wrapping up here. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you think is important for people to know about? Silly songs about insurance should follow.
Speaker 3:Wellington Insurance's Facebook page. Follow us on Instagram, Even if you're not a customer. We'll probably make you smile.
Speaker 2:Yeah, You're kind of like a secret weapon for Wellington Sammy. Marking your word Marking your word. Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree with that. So tell us what's the, what's the website they go to if they want to reach out to you guys, our website is basically wwwwetheringtoninsurancecom.
Speaker 4:That's just the regular Web page. All of our marketing stuff is on social media, so just search Wetherington Insurance in Walnut, kentucky on Facebook or Instagram. Give our page a like.
Speaker 3:And if you like us, give us a review. Yes, we love reviews.
Speaker 4:We love Google reviews. Sammy also has a separate Facebook page that she posts on that are I don't know more funny, I guess, marketing things. And what's that one? It's Wellington Insurance. Sammy went.
Speaker 3:Sammy went. Wellington Insurance is my Facebook page.
Speaker 2:And then, sammy, do you want to shout yourself out?
Speaker 4:I'm a white-hearted making fun of insurance.
Speaker 2:I guess you could say, yeah, sammy has that kind of a mind and she's got I don't know. She just makes people feel happy. She's got the warm and fuzzies going on in a couple of the marketing groups I've seen her in.
Speaker 3:Good that's fine, that's what I'm going for. Sammy, you've got to marketing groups.
Speaker 4:I've seen her in, so, sammy you got to make it really fun.
Speaker 2:Sammy, do you want to shout yourself out at all with your music stuff? I mean, what's that? What's that look like? How can people connect with you in terms of some of your musical talents?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I go by Sammy Riggs. That's my, my maiden name, and you can find me on Facebook. You can find me on Spotify. I don't have any insurance songs released yet. Working on that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that's where you can find me and obviously, had I not taken those music lessons when I was young, I wouldn't know how to play guitar and ukulele and be able to write these songs about insurance. So, yeah, okay, well, good, thank you both for spending time with us today. I think this was a good conversation. I love the fact that you guys are here. You're welcome. You're very easy to find to people that are in Walton. You know they've probably passed by your building many times right there on Main Street.
Speaker 4:What is the address? Is it 50? 30 North Main Street, so 30. Ok, it was. It was built in a dentist as a dentist office in the 70s and then we remodeled it in 2021. And it's an insurance office now. It in 2021 and it's an insurance office now. So they painted the brick. It's very modern, looking in a historical district downtown.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it has a Weddington in big letters.
Speaker 4:Right across the front. It's a big plate glass window up there that has Weddington on it.
Speaker 2:Alright. Well, jeff and Sammy, thanks for spending time with us, and if people want to reach out to you, we've given them ways to do that. We're going to make sure that when we put this out there in the webosphere, that there's all sorts of trails leading back to you as well. So I wish you all the best, and you know we're recording this coming up on the holiday season, so I'll say Merry Christmas to you both. Happy holidays. I look forward to seeing you both again soon in person.
Speaker 4:You too, merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Speaker 2:So to everybody out there, this is the Good Neighbor Podcast. Everyone out there, be good to your neighbor Until next time. See you everybody, Bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor neighbor podcast union. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpunioncom. That's gnpunioncom, or call us at 859-651-8330.