Dear Neighbor,

My father opened this agency in 1952 in one room over the hardware store, with a desk, a typewriter and a rate book. For the next twenty-seven years he drove out to farms after supper to sit at kitchen tables and talk with people about what would happen if the barn burned. I started answering his telephone in the summers when I was in high school, came into the office full time in 1968, and have run the agency since he retired in 1979.

We are not a big outfit. We write insurance for the families, farms and businesses of Oxbow Mills and the townships around it, and we have done it from the same storefront on Main Street, across from the bank, since 1961. Most of the people we insure, we also see at church, at the grocery store and at the Friday fish fry.

My daughter tells me people look up a business on the computer now before they pick up the telephone. I don't know how many folks in Oxbow Mills do that, but she says the new families moving out from the city do, and she is usually right about these things. So this is our home page. It tells you who we are, what we write, when we're open and how to reach us. There are two more pages you may find useful: the questions people ask us every week, including this year's favorite, the Y2K question, and a home inventory checklist you can print out and take from room to room.

Thank you for stopping by, and thank you, to those of you who have been with us a long time, for your business.

Sincerely,
William Tallman
Bill to most of you

Forty-seven years in one small town comes down to a few dates.

An independent agent doesn't work for one insurance company. We represent several companies. When you come in, we look at what each of them would charge and what each of them would cover for your house, your farm or your cars, and we tell you which one we think fits you best, and why.

1. You have more than one choice. If one company's rates go up, or it stops writing the kind of policy you need, we can move you to another one. You don't have to change agents to change companies.
2. We work for you when there's a claim. We help you report it, we call the adjuster, we drive out and look at the damage ourselves, and we keep after it until it's settled.
3. You can reach us. Call the office and you get our office, here in town, not a switchboard in some other state.
4. We live here. We shop here, pay taxes here and sent our kids to school here. When a storm comes through Oxbow Mills, it comes through our yard too.

We close on Saturdays from Memorial Day to Labor Day, so Saturday hours are back on now. Evening appointments are no trouble; just ask. Farm calls whenever the cows allow.

Had a loss after hours? Call the office number anyway. The recording will tell you how to reach us, and we will call you back.

What's on these pages is general. Every policy is a contract, and they are not all alike. If you have a question about your own coverage, call or stop in, and bring your policy along. We'll read it together, and I'll tell you in plain English what it says and what it doesn't.

Telephone: (555) 555-0147
E-mail: [email protected] (I check it every morning with my coffee)
Stop in: Main Street, across from the bank, Oxbow Mills, Wisconsin