Personal Lines Profiles

Roger Bouchard Insurance Inc.

p:Clearwater, Fla.

Owner(s)/principal(s): Rick Bouchard, Tim Bouchard, Ray Bouchard, Earl Horton, Sam Lupfer

2006 personal lines premium: $38.2 million

No. of personal lines insurers: 35

Roger Bouchard Insurance Inc., founded in 1948, operates four office locations serving the Tampa Bay market, a seven county region on Florida’s West Coast.

In the past five years, Chuck DeMola, vice president of Personal Lines and Small Commercial, says Roger Bouchard has grown its personal lines business through the acquisition of smaller agencies in Florida, the hiring of sales only personnel in each of its offices, account rounding, cross-selling and target marketing.

The agency offers real-time comparative quotes for personal lines customers for six different companies for auto insurance with one time data entry.

DeMola says what the agency likes best about personal lines is “being able to help people protect what is most important to them and the trust and relationships we have been able to develop with our customer base.”

What the firm likes least, he says, is having to “rewrite homeowners insurance for customers being non-renewed by their current carrier at significant rate increases. That in many cases causes a financial hardship for that customer.”

For Floridians, the lack of property/wind capacity with A.M. Best-rated carriers is the biggest challenge in homeowners, says DeMola. For the auto market, the biggest challenge is being able to place auto coverage with the same carrier as the homeowners, eliciting multi-policy discounts, he adds.

About 5 percent of Roger Bouchard’s personal lines business comes from personal umbrella products.

When asked to name three keys to the agency’s personal lines success, DeMola stated: total account sales; account rounding; and cross-selling within the agency’s commercial customer base.