Julie Brown had no intention of starting her own business.
“I never thought I’d be an entrepreneur or business owner,” said the president and founder of San Diego Insurance Staffing, a temporary to permanent insurance agency.
Brown said stumbling into the business happened as a fluke.
Six years ago, Brown and her husband, Robert, were interested in starting a business that would be primarily operated by him.
After watching a television news special on careers available through temporary agencies, Brown decided instead of pursuing an entrepreneurial endeavor, she would opt to work as a temp instead to give her the flexibility she desired to be at home with her family.
Sharing the idea with her mother-in-law took her in a different direction.
“When I told her she said, ‘What do you mean you could be the temp? You could hire the temps!'” Brown said.
– Growing Up In The ’90s
With only two other agencies as competition and 12 years of insurance experience under her belt, Brown thought, “Why not go for it? The timing was right,” she said.
In 1995, working out of her home, Brown started Insurance Staffing with five temporary staff members available.
Within a year, the business moved into its current facility in Mission Valley and today employs seven full-time corporate staff and has an available pool of 300 staffing candidates.
Insurance Staffing provides insurance employees in the areas of property/casualty, life/health claims and risk management services.
“When I started I had more candidates than orders. Now I have more orders than candidates,” she said.
The company’s annual revenue for 2000 was $2 million. “If you have a good niche market for temp staffing, you have more of an advantage,” she said.
An industry-specific business has given Brown a clear focus on her clients’ and candidates’ needs and perspectives.
Clients are looking for a candidate who has computer skills, common sense, dependability and the willingness to learn, Brown said.
Included in the company’s local clientele are John Burnham & Co., Barney & Barney and Golden Eagle Insurance Corps.
“You don’t have to advertise everywhere ,insurance is a very specialized field,” she said.
– New Business From Referrals
Insurance Staffing receives most of its business through referrals and word of mouth.
Brown also remains active in many local industry associations, like Professional Women in Insurance, as a way of networking.
The last couple of years has been challenging due to the shrinking employee pool, she said.
Also, the lack of business and writing communication skills among candidates has become a big issue and source of complaint among clientele.
It is particularly noticeable in e-mails and business letters sent out with misspellings and incorrect sentence structures.
“That’s why we started the training academy , I realized there’s always going to be a need for insurance people,” she said.
There is no formal education for insurance and many who work in the field have fallen into it or have received on-the-job training.
By having a school that provides this training, time is saved and experience is gained early on, Brown said.
– Training At Academy
In January, she opened the Insurance Training Academy to offer educational training to job-seekers and refresher courses to those already employed in the field.
“I wanted to give agencies the extra support and get new people into this industry,” she said.
Courses range from business writing for insurance to pre-licensing for property/casualty and life insurance and are taught by experienced field professionals.
Class length can run from two hours to 14 weeks for completion.
Certificates of completion are offered for each class and continuing education credits are available through the Department of Insurance of California, for agents wishing to keep or update their licenses.
Brown is hoping to expand the academy into the high school and community areas to encourage people unsure of their career paths, and inform them of their options.
“I want to show them it (insurance) can be lucrative, exciting and challenging,” she said.
Insurance Staffing is looking to expand its services outside of San Diego County and currently has operations in Riverside.
Brown also wants to branch into the areas of life insurance and financial services, “growing fields that need more staff people.”
“We want to saturate the market here and make sure we work with all types of insurance (services),” she said.
