10 Young Agents Tell All: Meet Ashley Fitzsimmons

Ashley Fitzsimmons

Insurance Specialist
Fitzsimmons Insurance Agency, Inc.
Forest City, Pennsylvania

Age: 28
iPhone or Android? iPhone all the way
Favorite streaming service? Netflix
What’s in your earbuds currently? Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits. Just saw him in concert at MSG—so good!

What brought you to insurance?

It’s a family agency. I’m the fourth generation and the first woman agent. My grandmother worked here too, but she wasn’t licensed—she did a lot of the book work. So that’s how I kind of got roped into it. It’s funny because people would ask me in college, “Are you going to go into the family business?” And I was like, “Absolutely not, never happening, don’t even ask me that.” But it just kind of fell into my lap because somebody was retiring after 30 years, and they said, “If you could even just work for us for the summer until we can hire somebody, that would be great.” I ended up loving it.

What keeps you in it?

Some people say it’s a thankless job because everybody’s always so price-oriented and a lot of times you only hear the negative side of things—“Why did my rates go up?” “Why wasn’t my home covered?” But the handful of thank-you notes I’ve gotten make it all worth it. One instance that sticks out to me is when somebody’s cabin burned down. It was a secondary residence, but I knew the guy pretty well—I knew his kids, they came in all the time. I took Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and donuts up there when the adjuster was going to meet them. It was pouring rain that morning. Two years later, he still thanks me. I get teared up just thinking about it because I know that was traumatizing and I felt so bad. I just wanted to be there for them.

Role model/mentor?

My father and my uncle—they’re currently the agency owners. My dad’s the oldest of five and my uncle’s the youngest of five, and there’s a 13-year gap between them, so they’re like night and day. My dad doesn’t have a cell phone. He hates technology—he wants to do everything in person. He picks up the phone, he calls everybody at their renewal, he’s very people-oriented. And my uncle texts everybody, gets on the computer, wants to go paperless.

I’m kind of a happy balance between the two. Millennials like to do everything via the internet, cell phone, text message, email, and I’m kind of odd in the sense that I still want to go out and be face to face with a client. I want to build that relationship because I don’t want them to just be a number. I don’t ever want to look in a file and say, “Hmm, I don’t know who this person is.” I want to be able to say, “How’s your kid doing? How was his baseball game? How’s your dog?” I want to get to actually know the person.

Most annoying millennial stereotype?

That we’re lazy and entitled. We’re a small agency staffing-wise, so not only am I doing the producing during the day and then writing the policies and answering the phone and being a CSR, but then I’m staying after-hours to do the accounting and the book work too. And on top of that I think it’s really important to be involved in your community, so I’m on four different boards and I’m helping the current district attorney run for judge by managing her campaign. I’m also really involved with the Insurance Agents & Brokers of Pennsylvania’s Futures Program—we had our inaugural conference last September and a lot of people came out to that. I don’t have time to be lazy.

Millennial stereotype that fits you?

I think we’re more based on value. Trust me, I want to make money, I want to be able to have the funding and the ability to be able to do whatever I want whenever I want. But instead of taking a raise, maybe I’d rather put that money toward attending more conferences and making more connections. I’m not necessarily focused on making a ton of money. I would rather go out and experience things, and I’m fortunate enough to have a lot of doors open for doing that at my agency.

Next generation of consumers?

From an E&O perspective, I get a little nervous about finding the right way to document things with them. I’m seeing it a little bit now with people that literally won’t come into the office or pick up the phone and talk to us, but they want an agent. I’ve got so many texts in my phone that I have to screenshot and then email it over to myself, and there must be an easier way to do it—we just haven’t gotten to that yet because there’s so many other things going on. It’s great, it’s maybe more efficient sometimes than spending 35 minutes on the phone with somebody, but it makes me a little nervous—and that’s coming from somebody who loves technology!

Industry’s biggest challenge?

It’s a challenge to keep everybody from jumping ship and make them see the value in an independent agent. When you have a problem, you could call an 800 number and talk to five different people, or you could call Fitzsimmons Insurance and talk to me. But it’s hard to sell an intangible product. You don’t want to have to convince them after the fact. You don’t want them to ever come to you and say, “Oh man, I wish I listened.” You need to be passionate enough about it upfront that they realize, “You know what, you’re right—I do need this to protect my family and my future.”

This article is the fifth in a series that profiles 10 millennials in independent insurance, based on IA’s July cover story. Keep an eye on IAmagazine.com and upcoming editions of the News & Views e-newsletter for more insights into how young people are working to secure the future of your industry.

Jacquelyn Connelly is IA senior editor.