REGION – Gaudette Insurance Agency has been devoted to building relationships in Central Mass. since the very start.
Bed-ridden and sick with polio, Roy Gaudette started the agency near Grafton Common in 1926, writing automobile insurance policies for friends and neighbors alike. The business – spurred by a new Massachusetts law that mandated insurance for every car – was successful enough that Gerry Gaudette Sr., Roy’s younger brother, joined the business and moved down the Blackstone River to Northbridge in 1935 to open the agency’s second office. The business was incorporated 20 years later.
Gerry Gaudette Sr.’s eldest son and namesake, Gerry Jr., joined the agency in 1960 and drove its philosophy and growth for the next 40 years. Gerry Gaudette Jr. was an influential figure in both the Blackstone Valley and the Massachusetts independent insurance agency communities.
Much has changed in the century since Roy Gaudette started the agency – the group has expanded along the Route 9 Corridor, for instance, opening offices in Southborough, Westborough, and Shrewsbury – but the company’s philosophy has remained markedly the same. Gaudette Insurance Agency’s approach focuses on excelling at the old-fashioned fundamentals: building lasting relationships with clients, being responsive to clients’ needs, and having the expertise and ability to tackle a wide range of concerns.
“I’m proud of the company’s success,” said President Lee Gaudette, Gerry Sr.’s grandson and the third generation of Gaudettes to lead the agency. “But the achievements that we’ve made across the course of my career would not have been possible without having been able to attract and keep a really great team of professionals that strive to exceed the expectations of our clients every day.”
With an experienced, knowledgeable staff – Lee Gaudette has been at the agency since 1990, and several staff members still have longer tenure – the folks at Gaudette Insurance Agency are able to foster relationships and trust with clients. The built-up trust is especially important in an industry like insurance, which is an intangible and complicated product. At Gaudette Insurance, clients are assigned one person to communicate with, building familiarity, allowing for easier access to information, and eliminating call centers.
“We offer old-fashioned service with modern tools. It’s something that not many of our competitors do,” Gaudette told the Community Advocate. “We assign an individual person to handle the needs of each individual client – you have one person to call. It’s a good solution when you’re able to stay with us over a number of years. Our clients love it. Most of our larger competitors, you end up in a call center. Here, I encourage our people to recognize the client’s voice. Hopefully you get to know them, you get to recognize their voice. Building those long-term relationships is one of the keys to our success.”
The agency also prides itself on providing practical solutions to everyone; Gaudette Insurance Agency offers personal insurance (home, auto, life), business insurance (business owners, commercial property, workers’ compensation), and a range of other services for businesses ranging from art galleries to dental practices. The agency, which has grown sixfold since 1990, has dozens of longstanding relationships with insurance partners, requiring employees to understand more products and risk appetites.
Still, it’s all worth it for Gaudette Insurance Agency; it means the company can better help Central Mass. residents and businesses.
“We’re on the side of our customers, and we represent a lot of insurance partners. Many of our competitors won’t do that, because for every additional insurance company we add, we need to learn a new set of procedures – it’s kind of inefficient. The reason why we do it is because each individual company can bring a solution we might not have access to otherwise. We’re a generalist with a geographic focus – we’re able to solve a broader range of problems, and having many insurance partners allows us to do that,” Gaudette said.
Gaudette Insurance Agency has five locations throughout Central Mass., including offices in Whitinsville (1 Plummers Corner), Grafton (68 Worcester St.), Westborough (86 East Main St.), Southborough (11 Main St.), and Shrewsbury (489 Boston Turnpike). For more information on the company, please visit https://gaudette-insurance.com/ or call 508-234-6333.
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Based in New York, Stephen Freeman is a Senior Editor at Trending Insurance News. Previously he has worked for Forbes and The Huffington Post. Steven is a graduate of Risk Management at the University of New York.