Ohio’s Wallace & Turner: Turning 150 During a Pandemic

What’s the secret of longevity for an insurance agency, or really any business, that has been in operation for 150 years and shows no sign of slowing down?

“At the end of the day you take care of your clientele, you provide the best expertise you can, and you do it with the absolute utmost integrity and put their interests first,” says Patrick Field, co-owner at Springfield, Ohio-based Wallace & Turner Inc., which is marking its 150^th year in business in 2020.

“Both P.J. and I come from families that were in the insurance business long before P.J. and I were ever around. That has a lot to do with it, this lineage I would say and paying attention to that,” he said.

For Field and his partner and co-owner at Wallace & Turner, P.J. Miller, growth and perpetuation are both goals and challenges for the agency.

“We’re working all the time … on bringing in new people, on educating them and teaching them, and hopefully they have the same passion that P.J. and I do,” Field said.

One of the best pieces of advice he received as a young agent was to practice patience, Field said. That’s something he would pass on to newcomers to the industry as well.

“It holds true in the insurance business and in life – patience. Just simply patience,” he said. As an agent there are many times when you don’t write an account the first time around. Sometimes it takes visiting the account several times. Sometimes it’s just a matter of timing. “I tend to be somewhat of an aggressive, outward person and I have had … a lot of opportunities where I had to learn patience,” Field said.

150 Years and Counting

The coronavirus pandemic has put a damper on any big plans the agency had to celebrate its sesquicentennial milestone, but in some ways it has created growth opportunities for Wallace & Turner, Field says. “There’s a lot of people whose businesses have been very adversely affected. … Businesses have shut down … people have had time to analyze their own financials, pay more attention to them, look at their expense. Insurance is in the top five of expense, so I think it’s created for us opportunities for additional unseen growth.”

Miller, who serves as the agency’s vice president and chairman of the board, said there had been plans for celebrating the agency’s 150 years in business, particularly in connection with Springfield’s arts organizations and summer arts events. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic those plans have been put on hold. With people fearful of the contracting virus and many losing their jobs, “we didn’t want to come across like everything’s great … and yet the rest of the nation is reeling,” Miller said.

Those 150 years of hard work are not being ignored, however. The agency has always been a big supporter of arts organizations and other nonprofits in the community, and that tradition is being incorporated into the recognition of the agency’s anniversary.

“We’re going to take inventory of those organizations that we regularly annually contribute to, so we’re going to keep up with our donations and contributions in that way,” Miller said.

In that vein, the agency also is giving each of its employees $150 to contribute to the nonprofit or charitable organization of their choice.

“Wallace & Turner will only do as well as the community it serves does. So, it’s our responsibility and obligation to try and do what we can to help the community,” Field said.

“P.J. and I were raised fortunately in very philanthropic families. The silver lining right now is the fact that our agency, our people, most of our people are on nonprofit boards now, or have been. They understand the value of what the nonprofit in our community does. … We take to heart to the nonprofits that take care of this community. We put our time in it, our employees time in it, our resources in it personally and agency wide. We feel the return merits the investment … even if not we’d still be making the investment,” he added.

An Insurance Legacy

Through their forebears, Field and Miller have deep insurance roots. Their fathers, and in Field’s case, grandfather as well, were in the insurance business. Their fathers were leaders in the agency that is now Wallace & Turner, and Field’s grandfather was one of the founders of Cincinnati Insurance Company. The agency retains a strong relationship with that company today, Miller said.

For Field, it was a given that he would follow in the insurance tradition. “I got what’s called the weekly insurance lecture whether I wanted to hear it or not. Growing up, when I was 10 years old, 12 years old, I knew about the agency’s successes and failures,” Field said.

Miller, on the other hand, had not planned on an insurance career. “My father purchased an insurance agency that actually was in the building that we’re in now. … He bought the insurance agency … and then went out on his own and built up his agency. [He] asked me if I had any interested and I said probably not,” Miller said.

In the end he was convinced, however, and joined his father’s agency, starting at the bottom. “Around 1994 our agency sold to Wallace and Turner. … The following year I became a partner and the rest, as they say, is history,” Miller said.

Including Field and Miller, Wallace & Turner has 17 employees. In addition to its Springfield office, the agency has an office in the nearby town of Urbana, Ohio, a location it opened last year. Urbana is an agricultural community that also has a significant manufacturing presence, Field said. “We’ve always done business there and it was a great opportunity for us to grow.”

Though it hasn’t been a seamless, bump-free experience, Field said the coronavirus pandemic has not significantly changed the way the agency operates. While most employees have stayed home, Field has been working from the office. In addition, one other person has spent half days in the office.

He said the previously developed a disaster readiness plan developed by P.J.’s wife, Lisa, the agency’s office manager, and has been put into use during this time of office closures and work at home scenarios. “Frankly, we figured it would be something in the Midwest like a tornado. … Our disaster plan that we prayed we wouldn’t use has come in very handy,” Field said.

Unusual Risks

One of the most unusual, but interesting risks, he’s had to find coverage for is the collection of artworks by the singer Tony Bennett, P.J. Miller said.

Bennett brought his collection to Springfield and showed it in a gallery “when he was performing at our local performing arts center. Tony is quite the artist. His art was in New York City and my dad was involved at the time. The art had to be insured from the time it left New York City until it got to Springfield and then for the return trip,” Miller said.

For Field, it’s automobiles — very fast ones. “A friend of mine got very significantly involved in Indy car racing. And I wrote his Indy car,” Field said. With race cars “you can write everything you want in the standard world of insurance including the race car until the race car … enters a certified racing facility.”

Once it enters that facility, even if it’s a trailer, “if you want coverage at that point — for the actual physical car – you have to go to surplus lines. For a while we did that.” But with a race car worth $1.2 million, the cost becomes prohibitive. His clients finally decided to self-insure the car when it’s in the race, in practice or in the racing trailer. “It’s still a good piece of business for me because I write several bits and pieces of their teams,” Field said.

Gone Fishin’?

Even more than his love of automobiles, Field loves fishing.

“I’m in 20 tournaments or so a year. If I wasn’t in the insurance business, I’d be professionally fishing every day,” he said.

Field backwater flats fishes for tarpon in Southwest Florida, he said. “The fish usually weighs 90 to 200 pounds. If I’m in water that’s above my waist, I’m in too deep of water. I flat fish. I see these fish two football fields away from me.”

Field was in the Fort Myers, Florida, area at the time it was last hit by a hurricane. He stayed through it, but once was enough. “I’ll say it like this: I did it once I can say I did it.”

Miller also likes to fish but acknowledges he’s not on the same level as his business partner.

“Patrick knows more about fishing than I do by a long shot. I’m an amateur and he’s a professional,” he said.

However, they both share a love of Florida, and Miller would be just as happy to be a “beach bum … which isn’t a specialty but I’m really good at it.”

Topics Florida Auto Ohio COVID-19