It is my distinct pleasure to here recognize dear friend Ross Hopkin, The Brokerage Inc., Lewisville, TX, as the 2016 recipient of the Billy Vogel Award from The Marketing Alliance. Announced recently at the marketing group’s spring meeting in San Antonio, TX, Hopkin was recognized as clearly meeting the award’s criteria of business acumen, sense of innovation, and above all integrity. The award is named after and honors the late William E. “Billy” Vogel, the W.S. Vogel Agency, Livingston, NJ.
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Shortly after receiving a degree in finance from the University of Houston in 1964, Hopkin began his insurance career as a group rep with General American. After stints with Ranger and Blue Cross Blue Shield, he recognized the need to be able to offer the products of multiple companies and opened his own brokerage shop in 1976, with a typewriter, one group health insurance contract, and his wonderful wife Cheryl.
The agency grew to be a major force in the group and individual major medical market and added a life department in the late 1980’s and a long term care department in the 1990’s. In 2001 he recast the agency with a focus on Medicare related products that would help the agency evolve into a national presence, capitalizing on opportunities presented in changing demographics and changing legislation. Today, The Brokerage Inc. is a national marketing organization with 30 employees, many of them long term.
Hopkin has served on many insurance carrier and agency advisory boards, was one of the initial investors in The Marketing Alliance, and helped to build The Brokers Health Insurance Network and SubCenters.
I met Ross over 25 years ago as I was helping promote the fledgling Brokers Health Insurance Network. I find him to be a great friend, a savvy businessman and a great ambassador for our industry. Congratulations Ross! [SPH]
April is the month to work up action plans for Disability Insurance Awareness Month, a campaign initiated annually by the Life Happens organization. I encourage you to visit www.lifehappens.org as well as the Council for Disability Awareness,www.disabilitycanhappen.org, and the International DI Society, www.internationaldisociety.com, for a wealth of information and resources to help coordinate your efforts to serve your clients and prospects by helping them to protect the most important asset they possess—their income! See page 71 in this issue for a further breakdown of some of the tools available from these great organizations enthusiastically serving our industry. [SPH]
