July 16, 2025 • 11 mins
As a family-owned, community-first insurance agency, Rupp-Fiore Insurance strives to form relationships with our clients built on trust and understanding. We don’t just sell you a product and disappear. We want you to understand what’s protecting you, your loved ones, your business, your employees, and the assets you own and depend on. We make suggestions and provide explanations based on our full understanding of your unique insurance needs, allowing you to make the most informed decisions possible for your family or your business. https://ruppfiore.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
And welcome man. This is the CEO's Usual ne podcast.
I'm your host, Johnny Heart. Well, let's say hello to
Chris Roup of Roop and for your insurance. Thank you
for joining me. Good to see you again. How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Oh good? Thank you?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
So tell us everything we need to know about your agency.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, we've been in business. We incorporated forty years ago
this year, my partner Candy Fere and myself Chris Roup.
Our dad started agency was Bob Roup and Joe Fure
and we bought the agency from our dads in probably
two thousand and ten actually, so we've been partnered since
twenty ten. We're independent agents. We represent a lot of carriers.
(00:41):
Our main thrust the business as a small business to
medium business. I'll say when I say medium up to
about one hundred employees. We write the business insurance for
and then we also do personal insurance. We write a
lot of personal auto and homeowners business. We do a
lot of that too as well. One of the things,
like I said, we have lots of care carriers, so
we have the ability to shop customers with a lot
(01:03):
of carriers and we can solve a lot of problems
for customers. So if they have issues with underwriting for example,
roof issues, loss issues, driver issues, business loss issues, exposures.
We can place customers with a carrier pretty pretty regularly,
I mean, and it's not a problem for us to
find coverage.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
When you say independent, what does that mean and what
does it mean to the listener?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Okay, we're as an independent agent, We're we're not bound
to write insurance just for one company, and so a
lot of carriers. If you write for one company pretty
much tell the customers all I have when we no,
this is it, I can't tell you for you where
we have with with with us be an independent agents,
we have a lot of carriers. So if the rate
goes up with one carrier, we're not bound in saying, hey,
(01:46):
we're going to say this is your company, you have
to stay with them. It's the only company deal with.
We just go to another company and we get a
better price.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
And you and Candy are literally a second generation. Yes,
so you've known Candy pretty much all your life?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yes? Crazy, Yes, yeah, we Her and I started working
together pretty much about the same time in ninety five
for our duds, and from there our dads built agency
and then after we bought the agency, we continue building
in the agency. Now.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Now, insurance has changed quite a bit in just a
short period of time. How has insurance changed, Why has
it changed? And what do you want people to know
about that change?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Probably it's funny. I do a lot of I'm involved
in a lot of like we'll say, agency round table
type sessions with carriers. And probably about two years ago,
I was at AMMANI in Seattle with Liberty Mutual and
they had brought it the information in the table basically
and said, hey, instrument traates are well, I don't know,
I'm like, no way, And they pretty much justified in
(02:47):
this meaning why it was these lawsuits, the claims, the
large catastrophes, and insurance companies just weren't making money and
coming out of COVID, the costs, I mean, the cost
of everything went up so much so they were just
getting killed. I mean they were making money, and that's
where the rates just changed real quickly on us. I
mean it was it was like night and day. We
(03:07):
didn't a lot of us didn't even see it coming.
I mean it was just so fast. But I kept
getting the vibrations from all these means I was going
to and then all of a sudden it hit. It's
like a wall like two years ago or partly a
year and a half. It's a year and a half ago,
and we've been fighting it since then. But uh, you know,
the carriers did take their rigged increases. They are making
money now, so now they're starting to turn around and
come back down. But it's been it's been a struggle
(03:30):
bus for about a year a year and a half
now with rates.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
So what it's it's not just Pennsylvania, it's it's across.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Its country wid Yeah, yeah, it's country Wye.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
And what is the advantage of maybe going to an
independent independent agent when when rates are.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, so you with amazing we have you know, some
of our carriers are not doing that well, so the
rates are up. So then we have carriers that are
doing well and the rates are down, so we use
the carriers that have the lower rates for the customers
when they're lower.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Do people have the option of switching you know horses
midstream like you know.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, they could switch any time. Yeah, we switch them
all the time.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Halfway And so can you get a better rate? How
often should somebody shop for a better rate?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Then I would say if it's if you're seeing talk
to your agent about the rate increases. You know, kind
of look at the industry. And then if you see
the rate increase that's like an extreme rate increase, you
should shop it. If it's with the market, I wouldn't,
(04:27):
I mean jump the shop it all the time. But
I mean normally customers, My customers shop pretty regularly. I
mean I shopped them every year. I mean for commercial
insurance and the personal lines. If we see a rate,
we watch the rates in our system. Our database actually
tracks rate increases. So if we we set the parameter
a certain amount of rate increase, and anything higher than that,
we shop it right away.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So tell us a little bit about because you have
how many locations eleven eleven locations, So tell us about
your team. What is your team? What is your team?
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So our offices we have they call csrs and all
the offices and producers and so my you know, each
office has personal line CSR, commercial line CSR, and usually
a producer. And then some of our larger offices have
more than that. They're the person line csrs, the commercial
line csrs, you know, their shopping service and the customers.
(05:18):
Producers are writing new business. But as a team. We
all you know, we work together, you know, the person lines,
csrs and producers. You know, we have regular meetings and
we go over the different markets we have on a
regular basis. The rate increasing dcreases, we're seeing the commercial
lines we do as well, same thing, so we're all
working together. I work directly with all them pretty much
(05:41):
regularly every every day, you know. So they're calling me
regularly and everything funnels to our office in North Huntington.
We have a main office North Huntington where we have
like all the management. So we have like a rating
team that does a lot of commercial rating for for
the support the other offices we have.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And so from a marketing standpoint, you have eleven different locations,
how do you get the word out of what you're
able to offer.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
We do a lot of local advertising. We do the
radio advertising with DV. We do a lot of online
type advertising as well. We do mailers. Were involved in
a lot of different clubs, local clubs and just referrals.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
So what is your biggest challenge?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
It was employees up until about a year year year
year ago, but uh, lately the biggest challenge is is
just making sure you know we're ahead of the game
with the markets and just making sure we have good markets.
And we seem to stay on that pretty regularly.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So what changed a year ago?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
We you know, we struggled the market. The market was
tough with employees. I mean we lost some employees, some
some pretty good employees. Uh, we lost like three actually,
So we went we went ahead and got aggressive with
the employees we had and kind of restructured some things
and you know, worked through it with them. And our
employees are real happy now. I mean we you know,
basically they're making a lot more money they made before.
(07:08):
The structure is a lot better for them. All of
our employees are commission based, which is nice. I mean,
so they're aggressive. They're always trying to write business.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
You grew up in the in the industry, do you
is that something that you've always loved? Is that always
did you? When did you? When did you aspire to?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, it's funny. I was actually I was actually accounting
major and actually sat for the CPAT. I passed two
parts of it and I was in ducane. I was
finishing graduate school when I was working for my dad
part time. I had left another job in accounting and
I graduated college really young. I was like May, I
was like twenty years old. My graduate college in like
two years. And then I was doing graduate school and
(07:47):
working and working with my dad, and I started just
working with counting computers, and I was watching my dad
buy deals and he started buying agencies, and I'm like, man,
this is a pretty good deal. I mean, this is
neat how you guys can grow. And and I started
watching how they write business and how they're doing businesses,
and I just got interested in it pretty quickly. So
my dad had an office in Turtle Cake, and I
started with him at that point, and I took a
(08:08):
step back, I mean in an income from my job,
my prior job, and I had a really good job actually,
and I started working with dad and it just it
just paid off. And then I watched watched him and
his partner buy agencies, and then once we bought them out,
I went ahead and started buying my own, buying agencies
on my own.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
So do you still see that expansion continuing.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah, we're working on deals right now actually, so which
is kind of nice because it's turned like our agent
our industry became really tough with private equity money because
they were buying a lot of the agencies in our area,
just like all the other industries, and every industry is
being affected by private equity money. But lately the agencies
that have sold the private equity money are struggling. The
(08:51):
staffing are seeing a lot of changes they don't like.
So other agency owners that are just considering selling don't
like what they're seeing. So now they're starting to pull
back and starting to sell. I was like me again,
so which is good because I can compete.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Were you ever tempted by the re equity money.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I've never talked to anybody that. I mean, honestly, they
called me probably every week, but I have no interest.
I mean, I like what I do. I have good employees.
I mean, I have a great system. I'm here for
a while.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
So in your agency, how does how do you get
involved in the community.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
We have a lot of involvement. I mean, everybody seems
to have their own little thing they do. You know,
there's rotary clubs, A lot of it's rotary. We do
have a lot of rotary. My dad was a just
district governor, past district governor he served. He's on a
couple of local boards for the rotary and then there's
a couple of small organizations each person's involved in, Like
my dad's partners involved in something called the Helping Hands
(09:45):
over in York area. I have another employee there gets
involved in another nonprofit. We just everyone has something in
their area, so we we get involved in them all.
You know, some is there something that you're personally involved?
Is there something close to the governor. I'm actually involved
in the Greater Pittsburgh Business Connection and they have a
Toys for Pittsburgh Tykes program, which I think you guys
are familiar with sure and that's one of the things
(10:06):
I'm pretty involved in, Yes, with jobing.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So all right, what's the future of insurance and what's
the future.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
For I think the future for insurance. I mean it's
just going to keep plugging away. I mean I think
that I don't think that it'll ever like go to
where it's an online platform completely because I think they've
already tried. I think there's always going to be the
agencies involved. I think AI is going to be a
tool for insurance going forward. For us, I mean we're
going to continue going I mean, we like what we're doing,
so we're going to continue buying agencies. We'll probably staying
(10:35):
in Pennsylvania. I don't think we'll ever get bigger than Pennsylvania,
but we'd like to be in the area.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
So and if somebody wants your service, what's your website.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It's a www. Dot roop Sure dot com.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Chris Roop of Roup and for your insurance and a
CEO you should know Chris. Thanks, thanks for stopping by
it for Sure Having for Sure, this has been the
CEOs you Should Know podcast, showcasing businesses that are driving
a regional economy. Part of iHeartMedia's commitment to the communities
we serve. I'm Johnny heart Well, thank you so much
for listening.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
M
And welcome man. This is the CEO's Usual ne podcast.
I'm your host, Johnny Heart. Well, let's say hello to
Chris Roup of Roop and for your insurance. Thank you
for joining me. Good to see you again. How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Oh good? Thank you?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
So tell us everything we need to know about your agency.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, we've been in business. We incorporated forty years ago
this year, my partner Candy Fere and myself Chris Roup.
Our dad started agency was Bob Roup and Joe Fure
and we bought the agency from our dads in probably
two thousand and ten actually, so we've been partnered since
twenty ten. We're independent agents. We represent a lot of carriers.
(00:41):
Our main thrust the business as a small business to
medium business. I'll say when I say medium up to
about one hundred employees. We write the business insurance for
and then we also do personal insurance. We write a
lot of personal auto and homeowners business. We do a
lot of that too as well. One of the things,
like I said, we have lots of care carriers, so
we have the ability to shop customers with a lot
(01:03):
of carriers and we can solve a lot of problems
for customers. So if they have issues with underwriting for example,
roof issues, loss issues, driver issues, business loss issues, exposures.
We can place customers with a carrier pretty pretty regularly,
I mean, and it's not a problem for us to
find coverage.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
When you say independent, what does that mean and what
does it mean to the listener?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Okay, we're as an independent agent, We're we're not bound
to write insurance just for one company, and so a
lot of carriers. If you write for one company pretty
much tell the customers all I have when we no,
this is it, I can't tell you for you where
we have with with with us be an independent agents,
we have a lot of carriers. So if the rate
goes up with one carrier, we're not bound in saying, hey,
(01:46):
we're going to say this is your company, you have
to stay with them. It's the only company deal with.
We just go to another company and we get a
better price.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
And you and Candy are literally a second generation. Yes,
so you've known Candy pretty much all your life?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yes? Crazy, Yes, yeah, we Her and I started working
together pretty much about the same time in ninety five
for our duds, and from there our dads built agency
and then after we bought the agency, we continue building
in the agency. Now.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Now, insurance has changed quite a bit in just a
short period of time. How has insurance changed, Why has
it changed? And what do you want people to know
about that change?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Probably it's funny. I do a lot of I'm involved
in a lot of like we'll say, agency round table
type sessions with carriers. And probably about two years ago,
I was at AMMANI in Seattle with Liberty Mutual and
they had brought it the information in the table basically
and said, hey, instrument traates are well, I don't know,
I'm like, no way, And they pretty much justified in
(02:47):
this meaning why it was these lawsuits, the claims, the
large catastrophes, and insurance companies just weren't making money and
coming out of COVID, the costs, I mean, the cost
of everything went up so much so they were just
getting killed. I mean they were making money, and that's
where the rates just changed real quickly on us. I
mean it was it was like night and day. We
(03:07):
didn't a lot of us didn't even see it coming.
I mean it was just so fast. But I kept
getting the vibrations from all these means I was going
to and then all of a sudden it hit. It's
like a wall like two years ago or partly a
year and a half. It's a year and a half ago,
and we've been fighting it since then. But uh, you know,
the carriers did take their rigged increases. They are making
money now, so now they're starting to turn around and
come back down. But it's been it's been a struggle
(03:30):
bus for about a year a year and a half
now with rates.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
So what it's it's not just Pennsylvania, it's it's across.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Its country wid Yeah, yeah, it's country Wye.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
And what is the advantage of maybe going to an
independent independent agent when when rates are.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, so you with amazing we have you know, some
of our carriers are not doing that well, so the
rates are up. So then we have carriers that are
doing well and the rates are down, so we use
the carriers that have the lower rates for the customers
when they're lower.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Do people have the option of switching you know horses
midstream like you know.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, they could switch any time. Yeah, we switch them
all the time.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Halfway And so can you get a better rate? How
often should somebody shop for a better rate?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Then I would say if it's if you're seeing talk
to your agent about the rate increases. You know, kind
of look at the industry. And then if you see
the rate increase that's like an extreme rate increase, you
should shop it. If it's with the market, I wouldn't,
(04:27):
I mean jump the shop it all the time. But
I mean normally customers, My customers shop pretty regularly. I
mean I shopped them every year. I mean for commercial
insurance and the personal lines. If we see a rate,
we watch the rates in our system. Our database actually
tracks rate increases. So if we we set the parameter
a certain amount of rate increase, and anything higher than that,
we shop it right away.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So tell us a little bit about because you have
how many locations eleven eleven locations, So tell us about
your team. What is your team? What is your team?
Speaker 2 (04:58):
So our offices we have they call csrs and all
the offices and producers and so my you know, each
office has personal line CSR, commercial line CSR, and usually
a producer. And then some of our larger offices have
more than that. They're the person line csrs, the commercial
line csrs, you know, their shopping service and the customers.
(05:18):
Producers are writing new business. But as a team. We
all you know, we work together, you know, the person lines,
csrs and producers. You know, we have regular meetings and
we go over the different markets we have on a
regular basis. The rate increasing dcreases, we're seeing the commercial
lines we do as well, same thing, so we're all
working together. I work directly with all them pretty much
(05:41):
regularly every every day, you know. So they're calling me
regularly and everything funnels to our office in North Huntington.
We have a main office North Huntington where we have
like all the management. So we have like a rating
team that does a lot of commercial rating for for
the support the other offices we have.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And so from a marketing standpoint, you have eleven different locations,
how do you get the word out of what you're
able to offer.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
We do a lot of local advertising. We do the
radio advertising with DV. We do a lot of online
type advertising as well. We do mailers. Were involved in
a lot of different clubs, local clubs and just referrals.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
So what is your biggest challenge?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
It was employees up until about a year year year
year ago, but uh, lately the biggest challenge is is
just making sure you know we're ahead of the game
with the markets and just making sure we have good markets.
And we seem to stay on that pretty regularly.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So what changed a year ago?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
We you know, we struggled the market. The market was
tough with employees. I mean we lost some employees, some
some pretty good employees. Uh, we lost like three actually,
So we went we went ahead and got aggressive with
the employees we had and kind of restructured some things
and you know, worked through it with them. And our
employees are real happy now. I mean we you know,
basically they're making a lot more money they made before.
(07:08):
The structure is a lot better for them. All of
our employees are commission based, which is nice. I mean,
so they're aggressive. They're always trying to write business.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
You grew up in the in the industry, do you
is that something that you've always loved? Is that always
did you? When did you? When did you aspire to?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, it's funny. I was actually I was actually accounting
major and actually sat for the CPAT. I passed two
parts of it and I was in ducane. I was
finishing graduate school when I was working for my dad
part time. I had left another job in accounting and
I graduated college really young. I was like May, I
was like twenty years old. My graduate college in like
two years. And then I was doing graduate school and
(07:47):
working and working with my dad, and I started just
working with counting computers, and I was watching my dad
buy deals and he started buying agencies, and I'm like, man,
this is a pretty good deal. I mean, this is
neat how you guys can grow. And and I started
watching how they write business and how they're doing businesses,
and I just got interested in it pretty quickly. So
my dad had an office in Turtle Cake, and I
started with him at that point, and I took a
(08:08):
step back, I mean in an income from my job,
my prior job, and I had a really good job actually,
and I started working with dad and it just it
just paid off. And then I watched watched him and
his partner buy agencies, and then once we bought them out,
I went ahead and started buying my own, buying agencies
on my own.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
So do you still see that expansion continuing.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah, we're working on deals right now actually, so which
is kind of nice because it's turned like our agent
our industry became really tough with private equity money because
they were buying a lot of the agencies in our area,
just like all the other industries, and every industry is
being affected by private equity money. But lately the agencies
that have sold the private equity money are struggling. The
(08:51):
staffing are seeing a lot of changes they don't like.
So other agency owners that are just considering selling don't
like what they're seeing. So now they're starting to pull
back and starting to sell. I was like me again,
so which is good because I can compete.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Were you ever tempted by the re equity money.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I've never talked to anybody that. I mean, honestly, they
called me probably every week, but I have no interest.
I mean, I like what I do. I have good employees.
I mean, I have a great system. I'm here for
a while.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
So in your agency, how does how do you get
involved in the community.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
We have a lot of involvement. I mean, everybody seems
to have their own little thing they do. You know,
there's rotary clubs, A lot of it's rotary. We do
have a lot of rotary. My dad was a just
district governor, past district governor he served. He's on a
couple of local boards for the rotary and then there's
a couple of small organizations each person's involved in, Like
my dad's partners involved in something called the Helping Hands
(09:45):
over in York area. I have another employee there gets
involved in another nonprofit. We just everyone has something in
their area, so we we get involved in them all.
You know, some is there something that you're personally involved?
Is there something close to the governor. I'm actually involved
in the Greater Pittsburgh Business Connection and they have a
Toys for Pittsburgh Tykes program, which I think you guys
are familiar with sure and that's one of the things
(10:06):
I'm pretty involved in, Yes, with jobing.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
So all right, what's the future of insurance and what's
the future.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
For I think the future for insurance. I mean it's
just going to keep plugging away. I mean I think
that I don't think that it'll ever like go to
where it's an online platform completely because I think they've
already tried. I think there's always going to be the
agencies involved. I think AI is going to be a
tool for insurance going forward. For us, I mean we're
going to continue going I mean, we like what we're doing,
so we're going to continue buying agencies. We'll probably staying
(10:35):
in Pennsylvania. I don't think we'll ever get bigger than Pennsylvania,
but we'd like to be in the area.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
So and if somebody wants your service, what's your website.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It's a www. Dot roop Sure dot com.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Chris Roop of Roup and for your insurance and a
CEO you should know Chris. Thanks, thanks for stopping by
it for Sure Having for Sure, this has been the
CEOs you Should Know podcast, showcasing businesses that are driving
a regional economy. Part of iHeartMedia's commitment to the communities
we serve. I'm Johnny heart Well, thank you so much
for listening.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
M
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