Since announcing our move to Markel Insurance Corporation in April, we have hit the ground running, having one of the most successful months ever in equine insurance premiums, in our very first month working for the company. I have been to the Richmond Virginia Headquarters a few times, but Tracey Scharf, our office (and life) manager, joined me on our latest trip, where we spent 2 full days training and working with the management team responsible for our success. This was a particularly special occasion for Tracey, as her 3 year old son was recently diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, throwing her life into a whirlwind of doctors, medications, and a frantic search for a day care who would take him. With Hayden in the capable hands of Tracey’s Mom, she had the chance to get away for a couple of days getting the first full nights’ sleep in her own comfortable hotel room provided by Markel.

Our immediate success has been a team effort, here at our home base in Florida, and with the support network at Markel Headquarters in Richmond, Virginia. In the past two months we have accomplished an amazing amount of work, and it has been fun doing so. That is because the “Markel Style” is about “hard work and a zealous pursuit of excellence while keeping a sense of humor. I have always been a pretty independent type, marching to my own drummer, shunning corporate commitments. However, accepting this position with Markel has given me a true sense of what a corporation done right, can achieve. There is a feeling of camaraderie, and family at Markel. One senses this atmosphere immediately when entering the building. Markel is the only equine insurance company which has been around for 40 years.

Getting Down to Business
We met the folks in charge of Horse Mortality, and Farm Owner and Liability, housed on the 4th floor of one of 4 buildings owned by Markel and its associate companies. The marketing department, headed up by Linda Crooks, whose twin and younger sister as well as a cousin and her mother all have worked for the company a collective (Linda -how many years).