How many couples do you know who have been married more than 50 years? How many couples do you know who have worked together to build an insurance business (or any other business, for that matter)?
Soderberg Insurance Services recently recognized co-founders Douglas and Frances Soderberg for their mutual lifetime achievement—they have been in the business for a combined total of more than 100 years!
Douglas Soderberg, CLU, CPCU, ChFC, is the co-founder and treasurer of Soderberg Insurance Services, Inc. He entered the life insurance industry in 1957 as a life sales agent for Aetna Life and Casualty. A native of New Sweden, ME, he married his childhood sweetheart and business co-founder, Frances Roderick the same year. Soderberg was the youngest general agent (age 24) that Aetna had ever appointed.
Doug’s insurance credentials are impressive. He is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table. His sales activities have laid the foundation for agency growth. Today the agency is in the top 10 percent of independent insurance agencies with respect to premium volume. Life insurance had clearly been the focus of the agency at inception.
Frances Roderick Soderberg, co-founder of Soderberg Insurance Services, oversees the general operations of the agency. Also a native of northern Maine, she worked in research and development at Arthur D. Little Company in Cambridge, MA. The desire to join her husband in the insurance business and foster agency growth was what attracted her away from the field of research.
As the Soderberg’s agency grew, its focus also grew from strictly life insurance products to employee benefits and later to all lines of insurance, both commercial and personal. The agency relocated several times before settling in at the current location in Lynnfield in 1985. The agency has been active in the community, sponsoring local charities and events.
After working in the agency for many years, their daughter Kathryn Soderberg, CPCU, took over as president in 2000. With the addition of their daughter in the leadership position, the agency transformed itself once again by creating a niche for themselves in the Hispanic community (the younger Soderberg is fluent in Spanish). Today more than 35 percent of the agency clientele is Hispanic.
The Soderbergs have lived in Lynnfield, MA, since 1965, and both are the offspring of self-employed parents (Doug’s parents owned and ran a family farm, and Fran’s parents owned and worked together many years in a small camera store). You might say that being founders of a successful business was in their blood.
Broker World applauds their lifetime personal and professional achievement. [SAC]
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to The Marketing Alliance, Inc., for the incredible honor they bestowed upon Broker World’s founder, the late William S. Howard, by naming him the recipient of this year’s Billy Vogel Award.
The award is named after William E. Vogel, the late president of the W.S. Vogel Agency, Inc., who exemplified the award’s criteria of distinguished service to the financial services industry through business acumen, innovation and—above all—integrity. Particularly poignant for us is the fact that Billy Vogel was a treasured friend of Broker World and of the Howards.
The Marketing Alliance (TMA) traces its roots to the formation of SUB Centers, Inc. in 1961, the oldest BGA marketing/study group still in existence today. In 1996 the members formed and capitalized a new company and named industry icon George Williams to run the SUB Centers Marketing Alliance, originally charged with managing national marketing arrangements, assisting companies with researching, developing and distributing product nationwide.
Today The Marketing Alliance is a publicly traded company (OTC markets, symbol “MAAL”) with 30 dedicated employees serving the underwriting, processing, marketing, product and recruitment support needs of independent brokerage general agencies, as well as offering help in developing new markets. TMA focuses on the distribution of life, annuity and long term care insurance products from its valued carrier partners.
The W.S. Vogel Agency continues to thrive under the leadership of another dear friend of Broker World and Billy Vogel’s beloved wife, Lynda Baccoli. [SAC]
