Insurance Service of Asheville: a family affair for 50 years
Right away, Jim Stickney acknowledges that selling insurance isn’t exactly glamour city.
“Very few people grow up wanting to be insurance agents,” Stickney said with a laugh.
The elder Stickney’s family moved from Cuba to Asheville when he was a first-grader. Always driven, he finished UNC Chapel Hill in three years and then worked in the construction industry. He gravitated toward the insurance end of the business.
Jim Stickney III started a small insurance operation in a basement room of the Battery Park Hotel, and the business moved to four other locations before settling in Executive Park just off College Street, its home for the past 20 years.
Jim Stickney IV, now 53, joined the company 30 years ago. Most people call him “Jimbo,” a nickname that differentiated him from his dad.
Back then, the agency had five employees and about 700 clients. Today, ISA has 20 employees and about 2,000 customers, many of them longtime clients such as Black Dome Mountain Sports, which has had its business insurance through ISA since opening 24 years ago.
“They’ve always been a very hands-on business,” said Black Dome President Trent Thomas. “They get to know you, and I’ve actually become friends with that whole family as well.”
Thomas said he likes that ISA is independent and able to approach more than one company for policies and pricing. It allows them to “fine-tune a program” that works for each business.
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