A Look Inside the Mick Manley Agency

As a local Farmers® agent in Omaha, Neb., I put my professional experience to work helping people choose the coverage that best suited their needs and lifestyle. Whether that's auto, home, renters, life, business insurance or other needs, my process is straightforward and personalized to help make people better informed about insurance.

Helping Families in the Community

Your local agent is the frontline of Farmers’ outreach in the community. From emergency relief and developing teacher resources to fundraising for healthy newborns, agents such as myself are committed to helping families where they live and work.

An Early Start

I began my work in the world of insurance when I was just 15 years old. My father was also a Farmers’ agent, so making cold calls for his agency seemed like a good way to make some extra money. If you had asked me at the time if I also planned on becoming an insurance agent, I would have said that I was more likely to become a professional video gamer. As I matured, it became more and more clear to me that insurance made sense for me. I began working in the office with my dad and I believe that working together—no matter how toxic at times—we were able to create a great rhythm and example for how the agency is conducted daily.

I officially joined my father’s agency when I was a senior in high school and had a half day schedule. Working alongside my dad created a very intense atmosphere as he was a very high energy and intimidating person by nature. Being his son, however, I was in no way afraid of challenging him. My dad had built this agency from nothing and it had become one of the largest in the region. And, he had very high expectations of me to keep mistakes to a minimum.

At first, it was a difficult task moving from strictly cold calling to operating the Farmers Insurance dashboard with seamless success and the pressure of dad’s expectations. It pushed me, he pushed me, and I often times pushed him back, pointing out his own shortcomings and we would end up in a screaming match right in the center of the office. The agency somehow managed to benefit from our unique working relationship, and the two of us created a standard of efficiency that allowed us to operate a sizeable agency with less than half the recommended staff for our size.

Efficiency is the name of the game at my agency. We come to work, and we put in work from start to finish. I am in the office full-time with my staff— and I want to be. The amount of service work generated from having such a great number policies would paralyze most agencies. It also would prevent many agencies from writing a lot of new business, but our agency is able to do both through streamlining our processes and always communicating with our clients.

A lot of agents enjoy spending time on the phone with clients and gaining a better understanding of their personal lives and corresponding needs. While this certainly is important, I have made it a point to spend the majority of my time reviewing every single policy to make certain my clients are always holding the best possible coverages and the best price Farmers’ has to offer them. For example, vehicles get older and may no longer need full coverage because the value of the vehicle has gotten to a point where going to liability is more cost effective. Or, older couples may have two vehicles and no longer need to have car rental on there because if there was a claim more than likely they could go down to one car for a couple weeks. I can’t say that I always ﬁnd new discounts or coverages that are no longer needed, but what I can say is that each person's rate is the best that we have to offer at that time.

Another part of our renewal review process entails identifying households that we only have one or two lines of business with, because the more policies you have the less expensive your rate can potentially be. For example, you may only have your house with us so we will try to get into contact with you to quote your automobile because even if we were the same exact price you are paying now for your auto, it would be more economical to package together with your home because of the discounts. Same thing goes for your car, if we only have your car insurance we always reach out to get a price on the home to see what the price would be as a whole package.

Periodically, however, we do have to talk with clients about their overall budget for insurance (understandably, no one likes to do this--myself included). While costs are certainly a factor, this doesn't necessarily mean that occasionally we shouldn’t consider increasing our coverage to protect ourselves. Everyone knows that medical costs go up every year as it's one of the biggest and most talked about topics in our country. You know what's not talked about the most in our country? Liability limits which are directly correlated with medical costs. If you've had the same liability limits for 10 years what does that mean in terms of medical costs? That means that you're far less protected now than you were 10 years ago because that coverage is not going to stretch as far as it once did.

We do face-to-face reviews with our clients every two years to ensure that everything is up-to-date and understood in regards to the policies that they have with us. There is something to be said about meeting in person that can really develop a relationship and allow people to put their full trust in you. I value my work as an insurance agent and understand that people are putting their livelihood and safety in my hands so this is not something I take lightly and one of the many reasons I take pride in my profession as an insurance expert, not an insurance salesman.

I think the last and arguably most impactful aspect of my agency is my right hand man, Bryan. Bryan had been with my father since the beginning, and I couldn’t have taken over this agency without him. I could not maintain this agency while operating at the standards set long before me by my father without him. If you are reading this and wondering how to find similar success in whatever business lie ahead of you, there is not enough to be said about surrounding yourself with the right people who will show up and give 100 percent daily. I have that in Bryan, and I am thankful everyday for what he does for my agency.

Mick Manley