Brokerage garners both national and local honours thanks to three generations of values

Sean McIlroy isn’t just following in the footsteps laid before him – he’s putting down his own and they stretch far into the horizon.

Sean’s grandfather Patrick, affectionately known as P.J., opened the family’s insurance company on Huntsville’s Main Street in the late 1960s, building up a clientele based on the values of honesty and integrity. Sean has had the pleasure of hearing many stories about P.J. from some of his clients who have remained with the brokerage through all three generations of McIlroys. “I’ve never heard a bad word about him. He was a strong, genuine soul who did a lot for the community. He held true to his values,” says Sean.

His father, Pat, was cut from the same cloth. “He’s my mentor and hero, a true gentleman. He taught me to treat clients properly, to laugh and cry with them – it’s not all business all the time.”

Sean has taken their lessons and translated them into his vision for a successful business – one that is both part of the fabric of the community and also competitive on a local and a national level, as evidenced by two awards that the brokerage recently received.

The first, a top 30 berth in Insurance Business Canada magazine’s Top Brokerages for 2016, shows just how far they’ve come in providing uncompromised options to local residents and businesses while retaining their small-town values.

It wasn’t just their numbers – client counts, client retention rates, new business development, and revenues – that contributed to the award. Donald Horne, Associate Editor of Insurance Business Canada, said in a release, “We assessed nominees on attributes such as innovation, client relations and strategic leadership. And to some degree, we looked at the character and culture inherent in a successful brokerage. Because at the end of the day, it’s easy to forget the importance of that human touch and the impact it has in today’s hyper-digitized world – especially in a client-focused service industry like insurance.”

“We’ve worked hard to become a more progressive brokerage,” says Sean. “Having insurance in a small town isn’t a compromise. You get world class service and first rate pricing. We use the latest software to find the best policies for our clients and we feel we can compete with anybody, anywhere.”

Part of their success, he says, is due to a much larger product offering and the willingness to take more risk. “We’ve expanded so that products you couldn’t get in Huntsville before – especially commercial ones – you can now. And we’ve insured more risks than we used to like manufacturing operations, resorts and hotels, and adventure recreation companies.”

Sean is proud that the brokerage has come full circle from its early years, and then some.

Initially it was just my grandfather. Now it’s myself and a staff of 10 professionals but we still have third-generation clients who took out insurance with him. It’s rewarding that we’ve been able to retain those clients and provide the service they came to expect from him, with products that meet their needs today.

And, like both his grandfather and his father, Sean is a strong supporter of the community he lives in. “We contribute a lot to the community in various forms – we’ve donated tens of thousands to the hospital over the last few years right down to supporting local hockey teams and public school bake sales. It’s very rare that we don’t contribute and when people choose us for their insurance, they just help to grow that community support.” The band Sean plays with, Big Sweet Lou, often does charity gigs, too.

That the brokerage also won their third straight Readers’ Choice Award this year is reflective of their clients’ satisfaction and appreciation for what they do. And they’ll continue to work hard to earn that appreciation, says Sean. “Those values of respect and integrity and honesty, they go hand in hand with our business. We are part of our clients’ lives and we thank them for being part of ours.”

705-789-5535 | www.mcilroyinsurance.com

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