La Praire values its extended family
If you find yourself in Janesville, Wis., stop by the office of La Prairie Mutual Insurance Company.
You might happen to see the hardest working woman in insurance doing what she loves most: entertaining children.
“Parents — they’re busy,” said Georgia Weis, manager. And she has a plan. As her staff, Dawn Stewart and Mary Schulze, help the parents with their insurance needs, Weis is in the back of the office with their kids, letting them play with the calculators and stamp the mail and other paperwork. “Everybody has to chip in to get the work done.”
An ongoing love affair with Grinnell Mutual
While Weis loves kids, she loves her work as a mutual manager even more. As a 37-year veteran of mutual management, she wears many hats — underwriting, marketing, claims, legal, and sales. “I’m never bored,” she says.
Weis also has long-tenured partners in the business. She and Schulze have worked together at the mutual since 1985. Stewart joined the agency in 2012. “We have a great time together at work! We truly enjoy all our clients and each other,” said Weis.
She may love her relationship with Grinnell Mutual most of all. In 1983, La Prairie Mutual was one of the first Wisconsin-domiciled mutuals to choose Grinnell Mutual as its reinsurer.
That choice has paid dividends for her company.
“They brought us into the 21st century. They help keep us going,” said Weis. “We have some big competitors in our backyard — they sponsor stadiums and have quarterbacks as spokespeople. But Grinnell Mutual helps us perform like those big boys.”
Weis values a laundry list of services offered by Grinnell Re — underwriting, loss control, co-op advertising, special investigations, and subrogation, to name a few.
“Extremely personal”
But behind every service Grinnell Mutual offers its customers, there is a person. And, over time, Weis says the people she’s worked with have become…not quite family, maybe extended family?
“Let’s call them cousins,” she says with a laugh.
She worked with Grinnell Mutual presidents Dan Agnew, the late Steve Crawford, Larry Jansen, and Jeff Menary. (Dan, if you’re reading this, Georgia says, “Hello!”)
“It’s special to me, the ability to be personal,” said Weis. “It’s how we do our business, too. It’s probably why we click with them. I can go to my underwriter and if it makes sense, they’ll do it. They truly care. They’re extremely personal. They are good to us.”
Weis, who also is owner of Weis Insurance Agency, has worked with a lot of Grinnell Mutual staff since 1981. She has found that Grinnell Mutual employees have a type: “They’re likeable. They give to community, they care about family, they have good values.”
The same is true with Dan Peeters, her Grinnell Mutual regional marketing manager.
She said his aggressive kindness — “like a pit bull” — won her over. They’re as likely to talk about his daughters as they are their next reinsurance contract. “I love him. He always leaves me laughing.”
The feeling is mutual, says Peeters.
“Georgia is extremely experienced and knowledgeable in both agency and mutual management, said Peeters. “She has an excellent sense of humor. Whether I am visiting her in person or talking on the phone with her, we always have a lot of laughs!”
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