BRONZE Best Agency to Work For 2016 – South Central: The Woodlands Financial Group

The company motto for The Woodlands Financial Group (TWFG), Insurance Journal’s pick for 2016 Best Agency to Work For — South Central: Bronze is “Our Policy is Caring.” And according to TWFG employees responding to IJ’s Best Agency survey, that policy starts at the top.

One survey respondent wrote that the company’s “owner has great integrity and leadership. He has a heart for helping agents and providing them with the tools they need to succeed.”

That same respondent added that TWFG’s leader “is generous with his employees … He is quick to take action when someone is in need. He has provided training and leadership opportunities for each employee.”

The owner and leader described above is Richard “Gordy” Bunch, who another employee said is “a true example of the word ‘caring.'”

Bunch started the company in 2001 with $10,000 in seed money. Today, TWFG operates nationally with more than 300 retail branches in 22 states, has nearly 3,000 affiliations with independent agents in 38 states, and is included on Insurance Journal‘s list of the Top 100 privately-held property/casualty insurance agencies.

With stats like that, growth clearly is another company policy, and one that its employees are quick to acknowledge.

One survey respondent put it this way: “TWFG is a growing company and has tremendous opportunities for employees to develop a career path in either sales, underwriting, claims, administration, or IT. Very few companies have such broad growth opportunities.”

Another wrote: “TWFG gives opportunities for its employees to have personal and business growth. This investment in its people has paid off and has shown to be beneficial.”

Still another stated: “I have been an agent for 24 years with the past 13 with TWFG Insurance Services Inc. The last 13 years have been the best. Gordy Bunch, the CEO, has provided excellent leadership and the company has grown by leaps and bounds.”

Bunch said he is “incredibly honored and humbled” by the Best Agency nomination, “especially since our employees are behind it. The people that work here are the company, and the great culture, the family atmosphere, and that sense that everyone here is behind you 100 percent, comes from their years of hard work and commitment. I couldn’t be more grateful and proud.”

While his employees praise his leadership qualities and business acumen, Bunch said going into the insurance business was not his initial plan. A decorated U.S. Coast Guard veteran, Bunch said the “running joke is that I got into insurance by accident or divine intervention. I was going to apply for a local city job, and the next thing I knew I was training to be an insurance agent.”

More than 20 years later, “I still love what I do. Not just the insurance business part of it — that’s the easy part. The part I truly love is creating opportunities for others to be successful, and to create great lives for themselves,” he added.

Many employees responding to IJ’s survey lauded the company’s practice of creating opportunities for others.

TWFG, one employee wrote, “has afforded me the opportunity to establish and grow an independent agency with access to markets that would not be available as a start up agency. TWFG provides the management systems, guidance to help you be the size of agency that you want to be and the tools to get there.”

Another employee offered this summary of why TWFG is the best agency: “We have great products but that is not what distinguishes us. Our willingness to care and help people is what truly separates us from the rest. We aren’t always the least expensive, but we don’t sell premium, we sell value. The value in having a personal agent that ALWAYS has the clients and the companies we represent best interest at heart.”