A Rey of Hope in Sleepy Hollow

Two Daughters Follow’s in Dad’s Footsteps

If Frank Rey ever runs for mayor of Sleepy Hollow again, he’ll have a bit more time to devote to it than the last time he served.

“It was hard being a single agent. It was a lot more hours than I anticipated,” says Rey of building an agency and then mixing business with politics in this hamlet on the Hudson River. “I was the only licensed agent and needed to be here most of the time for anything to get done.”

The politics helped his agency gain name recognition in the community but he can’t say it increased his business. What has increased business has been the addition of two employees. Two of his four children, his daughters Laura and Linda, are now very involved in the agency.

“I know now when I’m away, business is continuing,” he said. “I feel like I can get on the highway in my motor home with my wife and know that business will continue.”

The reality of being a single agent, along with raising four children and staying active in the community, did not leave much opportunity for Rey and his wife to get away in the past. “Vacations used to be tough to do,” Rey noted.

Children return to town
But then Sleepy Hollow isn’t the type of place many people want to leave. This picturesque village of 9,200 people is the kind of place where children return to raise their families. “The same families are in the same houses on my street as when I was growing up,” said Linda. “It’s fantastic. It’s amazing how many people we grew up with and went to school with are now raising their families here.”

Sleepy Hollow used to be the site of a massive General Motors plant, which attracted Rey’s parents to the New York community. General Motors abandoned the plant in 1996. The town is still grappling with how best to develop the riverfront tract where the plant once stood.

Coming out of the U.S. Navy in 1966, Rey returned to Sleepy Hollow. He dreamed of joining the state police force but he was turned away because his vision wasn’t 20-20. Rey saw his way to sign up as a life and health insurance agent for Prudential and proceeded to build a steady book of business for the giant insurer.

When Pru first dipped its toe in the property casualty market through a relationship with a Kemper subsidiary, Rey added auto and home products to his portfolio. Eventually, Pru went into property casualty on its own.

He was traveling 25 miles away to a Pru office when he suggested to the company that he could be more productive if he had an office in Sleepy Hollow where he lived and where lots of his most loyal customers, including many from the town’s sizable Spanish-speaking population, did also. Rey and his daughters are bilingual.

Pru agreed. Rey still operates from that comfortable office in the house at the intersection of the town’s two busiest streets, although the firm just purchased a new building a few blocks away and will move in late summer.

Around 1983, Pru began re-underwriting and non-renewing much of its auto and home policies, which put Rey in an uncomfortable position with his clients since he had no other markets. “I was affected by it. It was hard. I had to spend a lot of time trying to protect them and relied upon the assigned risk plan,” he said.

It did not take long for him to realize that the assigned risk plan was not a permanent solution to his clients’ needs so he struck up a brokerage relationship with a White Plains agency that had the voluntary markets Rey lacked.

Then 1n 1984, Rey decided it was time to venture on his own. Getting life carriers was not too difficult but property casualty markets were harder to come by. He signed up with the cluster organization, Iroquois Group, which granted him access to some markets. Eventually, he was able to get direct appointments with General Accident, Progressive and others.

“It wasn’t easy because you’re splitting commissions. You spend a lot of hours so that things are done right,” Rey notes.

Since then markets have eased and the agency has solidified its carrier choices. “We have great relationships with our companies,” he said.

Little League and politics
Rey has always been active in the community, coaching Little League, serving as a volunteer firefighter and auxiliary police officer (he’s now a captain) and, of course, getting involved in town politics. He served on the town planning board and then as an elected trustee, which is similar to a councilman, before running for mayor at the urging of town residents who liked his stand on development issues. He won, serving as mayor from 1990 to 1994.

That his daughters are in Sleepy Hollow and involved in the family business is not a total surprise to Rey. “I always had a hope, an inkling that they would be interested in the agency,” he said of Linda and Laura.

His son, Frank, and his other daughter, Leslie, have their own careers outside of insurance.

“I was an accountant working for a company and trying to start a family and I thought I still wanted to work. So I asked my father if there was something I could do for him. I know he’s never really had strong assistants. It just kind of grew,” Laura said in explaining how she got where she is today.

Laura started out nine years ago answering phones and filing. After two years, she got her producer’s license and has been servicing and selling personal lines accounts ever since.

Linda used to work in the agency during summers and semester breaks from college, where she majored in business administration. She worked in Atlanta in marine insurance for nine years before coming home. She got licensed in life and health and securities and joined the agency to cross sell and provide marketing and community outreach.

“I was trying to get out of insurance. I wanted to be a meeting planner but the agency needed someone,” said Linda, who now plans meetings for the various community and business groups she serves.

Laura handles inside sales and service, while Linda enjoys getting out.

“We have both taken on the role that he was trying to fulfill for years by himself,” said Linda. “Between my sister and myself we sort of are what my father was all by himself. So Laura is working diligently in-house writing the business and expanding the business and I am the community reach out person and the marketing person.”

While she comes to it naturally, the outside role is also helpful in Linda’s field because the life, health and benefits business “isn’t just walking in the door.”

Working with family has its moments. “It’s harder to temper your emotional reactions because you just figure they’ll ‘get’ you, they’ll tolerate your true character in responding to something,” believes Linda.

When that happens, it’s usually no big deal. “There’s also a greater forgiveness factor if you do sort of over-react.”

In addition, in a family setting there’s a less negotiation required when trying to get things done “because there is more trust involved among us,” she added.

How does Dad view the sibling rivals? “They’re more aggressive than me,” Rey said.

His daughters have introduced change. They have upgraded the agency’s computers, created a logo, built a professional web site, and expanded the marketing efforts. Next is the move to a new office, and then there are plans to expand the commercial lines book, which now accounts for only about 30 percent of sales.

The “aggressiveness” is paying off. The firm is nearing $4 million in written premium, a development that pleases Rey after years of going it alone. “Without them, I wouldn’t have had the production we have now,” he says. He’s not sure whether he would have sold the agency if the growth had not happened but he does know it would have been worth a lot less.

His perpetuation plan now in place, Rey can look forward to more trips in his motor home and even some weeks in his new Florida condo with his wife and family. Where will the 65 year old agency veteran be in five years?

“I think I’m going to be here. Maybe I’ll take off a month here and there. But I’ll be coming back as long as they need me.”

He’d rather not be alone.