Ron P.

When Ron P. became the district manager for Farmers Insurance, he began using Burke & Thomas in an unusual way: he brought the firm into his office to educate his agents about insurance law. The practice was such a success that he continued to partner with the firm even after he left Farmers Insurance to become state director for Smart Choice in 2007. Throughout the partnership, Ron and his insurance agents continually trusted Burke & Thomas to represent clients and personal acquaintances. When Ron himself was involved in an accident in 2010, he knew who to call.

“When I was a district manager for Farmers Insurance, I would bring Burke & Thomas in to talk with and educate my agents so that my agents became true risk managers and not just policy peddlers. Burke & Thomas got them informed so that they could tell clients why we protect them. John and his staff did such a wonderful job that when I became the state director for Smart Choice agents in January of 2007, I continued to bring them into meetings to talk to and educate my agents.

Burke & Thomas taught us the importance of selling the right coverages, because they know insurance. Companies like Progressive and Geico love selling the state minimum because the risk to the insurance company is very small – but they put their consumers at risk because they don’t have the right coverage. It’s the greed factor of corporate America. At Farmers, I always strived to be the best and train my agents to be the best, and that meant teaching them to sell the proper coverage. Price is important, but good coverage is more important.

Burke & Thomas has helped me throughout my whole career to train agents to do the right thing. At Farmers, we had the highest retention rates because people were happy not only with the service but with the knowledge of the agents. When I went to the independent side, I was the fastest growing state director because the agents believed in what Burke & Thomas was telling them, and the clients could see the difference in what we were bringing to the table.

John and his staff were also always there to assist clients or agents themselves if we ever needed professional law services. My agents used Burke & Thomas many, many, many times. When my own daughter was hit by a gal without insurance in Rochester, MN, I got in touch with Burke & Thomas right away. They came in and saved the day. She ended up with neck problems, but John got her to the right medical people and we got her well and got a fair settlement. I was involved in a car accident in January of 2010; again, I called Burke & Thomas and they came to the rescue. I also sent my sister-in-law to Burke & Thomas after she was involved in a car accident this weekend.

Being in the insurance agency, I’ve worked with a lot of lawyers. There are many unscrupulous lawyers out there – all they care about is suing and getting their third. They don’t care about the people. But Burke & Thomas really care about their clients. The first thing they do is to make sure you get to the right doctors. A lot of attorneys just want to go out and file the lawsuit to get injury damages, but the big thing with Burke & Thomas is, “Let’s get you well. Let’s get you to the right people. Let’s get these injuries fixed.” The number one thing they’re concerned about is getting people well. In the 15 years I’ve been referring people to Burke & Thomas, I’ve never had a person call and say, “Why did you refer me to him?” They always call and say, “Thank you for referring me to that office”.”