Shay Robinson, UPC Insurance Company, was installed president of The 1752 Club during a virtual meeting held Feb. 25.
She succeeds Lyndsey Manalla Graham, Servpro of Metairie, who remains on The 1752 Club’s board of directors.
Robinson has more than 17 and one-half years of experience in the insurance industry, having started with American Hallmark Insurance Company as a Texas territory manager after graduating from college.
In an interview after being installed as president of PIA of Baton Rouge, Robinson told the Reporter that a friend recommended that she interview for a position with an insurance company which had an opening for a marketing representative in Austin. “I got the job with no insurance experience, and moved from Baton Rouge to Austin, Texas,” Robinson said. Her territory was south Texas, from Austin down to Brownsville.
Robinson then went to work for Mendota Insurance as the Alabama agency manager and later as the Texas agency manager. She came back to Louisiana to work for AssuranceAmerica Insurance Company as the Louisiana territory manager.
After AssuranceAmerica, she went to work for AccuAgency where she was the Louisiana/Mississippi state coordinator for a little more than eight years before joining UPC Insurance as a territory sales manager. She has been at UPC for four and one-half years.
In addition to her service to The 1752 Club, Robinson served as president of PIA of Baton Rouge for two years and on the board of the Northshore Chapter of PIA.
Robinson, who holds the CPIA designation, is a 2002 graduate of Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond with a degree in general management.
Outside of insurance, Robinson is active with her son’s Cub Scout organization and will be treasurer of the pack next year.
Robinson received the 1752 Club’s Insurance Woman of the Year Award in 2014 and the Jim Herndon Company Rep of the Year Award in 2016. Both were presented during PIA of Louisiana Conventions. In 2013, she received the Associate Member of the Year Award from PIA of Baton Rouge.
One of the benefits she sees from her membership in The 1752 Club is networking with members at the events hosted during the year. The 1752 Club typically meets four times a year: in February for its annual meeting; in May for a Day at the Races; in July during the PIA Convention, and in October or November for a Saints tailgate party. With the pandemic, Robinson hopes that The 1752 Club can get back to in-person social activities but, according to Robinson, the board is planning virtual activities just in case.
During her term as president, Robinson would like to continue letting insurance marketing representatives who are not members of The 1752 Club know the benefits of membership in the organization. She feels that the members of The 1752 Club have a wealth of knowledge that can be beneficial to other marketing representatives.
When asked by the Reporter what she thought was the biggest challenge facing agents in Louisiana, she pointed to the hardening market. “Agents will see stricter underwriting guidelines and tighter access to markets,” she said. “The effect on agents will depend on how long the hard market lasts, how hard it gets and what changes occur because of it,” she added.
Taking office along with Robinson are Jason DiMaggio, SageSure Insurance Managers, president-elect, and George Bernard, Gulfstream Property and Casualty Insurance Company, secretary-treasurer. Assuming positions on the board of directors are Trish Bump, Foremost Insurance Group; Darren King, National General Insurance Company, and Mary Katherine Brown Leach, Brown Claims Management Group.
The 1752 Club’s membership consists of field representatives and/or inside company marketing managers and others who engage in appointing independent agents, including general agents, surplus line brokers, property and casualty adjusters, along with marketing representatives for service industries such as defense attorneys, premium finance companies and insurance software companies.
The name of The 1752 Club is a reference to the founding date of the first property insurer in North America, March 26, 1752. Benjamin Franklin was among the founders of the company, The Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire, which survives to this day.
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