Brothers pick up where pop left off

Sporting a stellar 62-year record, Charles A. Page & Sons Insurance Agency is Terrebonne’s longest standing insurance agency.

A second generation of Pages, Robert and John, now run the company founded by their father, Houma native Charles Page.

Staying true to the business principles instilled by their father, the Page boys pride themselves on the company’s successful track record.

“To be successful, you have to have a set of beliefs and values that you instill in your employees just as our father taught us,” said Robert Page. “Our belief is that if you are honest and you do your job, you’re going to continue in the insurance business for years.”

In the early 1940s, few insurance agencies operated in the Tri-parish area.

Fresh out of the military, Charles Page settled in Chicago and earned his insurance license.

But the Windy City proved to be no substitute for south Louisiana. He returned to his roots in February 1946 and opened Charles A. Page Insurance Agency.

For the next 40 years, the elder Page was the sole proprietor. Upon his retirement in 1984, he passed the torch to his sons.

The shingle – or, actually, signage – outside reflected the change; the business was renamed “Charles A. Page & Sons Insurance Agency.”

By 1998, Robert and John were running the agency full-time. However, until his death in 2006, the proud papa was never far away. Charles Page acted as a consultant when needed.

Finding success in an ever-changing insurance industry was not always easy, and it required adaptation to the times and customers’ needs to remain competitive. In recent years, an increasing number of independent agents began to consolidate, often specializing in one specific type of coverage.

The Page brothers use their experience and talent to buck that trend and continue delivering the variety of specialized policies their customers have come to expect.

Robert’s accounting degree best qualifies him to handle the agency’s commercial side – workers’ compensation and general business liability – while John uses his business degree to help him handle the personal insurance business.

“That’s one advantage to being an independent agent,” Robert said. “We’re not limited to representing only one company or selling only one product.”

And while Charles Page utilized a pencil, paper and manual typewriter, technology has drastically changed the way the sons operate. Computers have completely reshaped the industry – speeding up the rate at which information is available.

Gone are the bulky volumes from which quotes were once gleaned. Today, within minutes, insurance products can be retooled and priced. And technology has helped expand the Pages’ customer base beyond the boundaries of Terrebonne Parish.

“We download into our system directly from our companies,” Robert explained. “We are closer to being paperless. All of our agents have two computers on their desks so that we can get to the information faster and be even more efficient in responding to customers’ needs.”

When the Page agency first opened, insurance companies measured independent agents’ performance based on loss ratios, but today, these companies choose agents based on technology.

“Things have changed to where one of the major questions asked by insurance companies could be ‘Is your company automated?'” Robert said. “Our answer is, ‘Yes.'”

As the outgoing president of the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents, Robert said informing the public about insurance is as important today as it was when his father first opened the doors in 1946.

The Pages agree that insurance is nothing more than a piece of paper to most people – until it’s time to use it.

“Our customers don’t often find out how important their coverage is until something happens to their investments – their homes, cars or earnings,” Robert said.

That lesson was recently pounded home by a spate of hurricanes.

The Pages are among those urging help in finding companies willing to write homeowner’s insurance policies in south Louisiana.

“Since hurricanes Katrina and Rita, affordability and availability have been the main issues customers are faced with,” Robert said. “People have to be able to protect themselves and their property.”

The need was literally brought home to the Charles A. Page & Sons Insurance Agency when Hurricane Gustav’s Category 3 winds tore the roof off of the company’s 5911 W. Main St. office. A flood of rain poured into the agency, completely destroying the furniture and interior.

It took the complete gutting of the building and several months of construction before the Page brothers and their staff could once again occupy the location.

Their perseverance is testament to the agency’s continued longevity.

“We’re still here,” said Robert. “We’re still growing and we’re still committed to serving.”