000-000-0000 · 9:00am - 6:00pm weekdays
Six people, one office
Small enough that you will speak to the same person twice, and that the person who placed your policy is the one who reads your renewal.
Principal · licensed broker
Dermot opened the 61st Street office in 2004, after eleven years inside two carriers where he spent most of his time reading the wordings that the people selling them had not. He holds both New York licences and will tell you which one he is using before you apply. He is the person who decides that this agency will not write something, and he would rather say that on the first visit than find out at a claim.
Personal lines manager
Maricel runs the car, home, renters and co-op side, which in this neighbourhood means she spends a great deal of her day explaining garaging addresses and why the same driver costs a different amount four blocks away. She is very hard to talk into quoting minimum limits for somebody who owns a house, and she will show you the arithmetic rather than argue about it.
Commercial lines manager
Nadia handles the shops, restaurants, trades and offices along Roosevelt and Queens Boulevard. She reads the contract before she quotes the policy, because the insurance requirements a general contractor or a landlord imposes are usually the thing that decides what you actually need, and they are usually longer than anybody has read.
Claims advocate
Gustavo reports the losses, chases the adjusters and escalates the ones that have stalled. He is careful about the line he does not cross: he will document, quote the wording and argue that a denial is wrong, and he will not negotiate your settlement figure, because that is a public adjuster's licence and he does not hold one. He will tell you when you need one.
Life, disability and Medicare
Sunita does the products that are sold with the most urgency and need it the least. She starts every Medicare conversation by explaining that New York lets you in all year with no health questions, which removes the deadline, and she does the needs arithmetic on life cover before anybody sees a product name. She has talked more people out of permanent policies than into them.
Service · certificates · renewals
Kevin issues the certificates, processes the endorsements and works the renewal list a month before anybody's renewal. He is the reason a certificate here usually takes under an hour, and also the reason it will not say something the policy does not — he checks the endorsement before he prints, every time, including at half past four on a Friday.
This matters more than it sounds. A producer paid on volume against a monthly number has a reason to recommend a move you do not need, a permanent policy where term would do, and a limit chosen for the commission rather than for the exposure. We are a small agency and the people here are not on that arrangement.
What that buys you is the boring version of this trade: somebody who will read your declarations pages, tell you the two things that are actually wrong, and then tell you the rest is fine. It is a less exciting conversation than the one you get elsewhere and it is worth considerably more over ten years.
Which hat we are wearing changes who we owe a duty to. New York licenses two different things. An insurance agent represents the insurance company; an insurance broker acts on behalf of you, the insured. A New York producer may hold both licences, and most independent agencies do, which means the answer to the question of whose side we are on changes from one transaction to the next. On every placement we tell you which capacity we are acting in before you apply, because it decides whose interests we are legally required to put first.
Bring the declarations page and we will read it with you
Send or bring the summary pages of what you already have — those two sheets are where most of the useful conversation is. We will tell you what we would place it with and what that would cost, what we are paid for doing it, and whether you should move at all. Quite often the answer is that your current policy is priced fairly and you should keep it, and that is an answer we give in writing like any other.