AGENCY HISTORY
Cumberland Valley Insurance had its beginnings in the home of its founder, Jerry Schnell, over 25 years ago. In 1985 we relocated to the village of New Kingstown where the new office was conveniently situated in the same building as the Post Office. Our most recent move came in 2005, this time to the building next door into what had been an M&T Bank branch location.
As a start up business in 1980, we had been very fortunate in obtaining agency contracts with some of the finest carriers at the time. Among them were Aetna, Ohio Casualty and Donegal Mutual, strong companies that enabled us to grow at a rapid pace in our early years. Today, thanks largely to our affiliation with the Keystone Insurers Group, we have over 40 carrier and brokerage relationships.
While it had been our intention from the beginning to focus almost entirely on the production of commercial lines business, we soon realized considerable growth in the personal lines as well. Today, we enjoy a division of approximately 40% in the area of personal lines and 60% in commercial.
So much has changed in our business over the years. Gone are the rating manuals, adding machines, hand calculators, typewriters and carbon sets. And gradually disappearing as well are the paper files in folders with names, replaced by electronic bits stored thousands of miles away, displayed on flat screen monitors.
But while everything else may have changed, one thing has remained constant – the enduring personal and professional relationships that we experience with our clients, both large and small. Their insurance needs and concerns become ours as well, and we protect them as if they were our very own.
In an increasingly impersonal world, we at Cumberland Valley Insurance feel that this unique concern for our clients separates us from the many with whom we compete in the insurance marketplace today.