In this week’s episode, Guest Host Nicole Barron is back in the studio with Ann Anderson of Anderson Insurance Agency to discuss a wide variety of topics related to insurance, raising a family in Frisco, and the many seasons of life.

SHOW NOTES:

[00:20] Introduction
[01:15] What’s new with Ann and her family
[03:10] When kids go off to college and insurance questions
[05:00] Seasons of life
[08:30] Before Anderson Insurance Agency began
[10:35] What people may forget or don’t consider when it comes to insurance
[13:15] How people can reach Ann

LINKS & RESOURCES:

• Ann Anderson on Lifestyle Frisco
• Anderson Insurance Agency Website
• Ann Anderson Business Page
• Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn

Connect with Lifestyle Frisco on: 

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Frisco Podcast. I’m your guest host today. Nicole Barron, sitting with Ann Anderson of Anderson Insurance here in Frisco. Hi Ann.

Hi. How are you Nicole?

Good. It’s always a pleasure to see you. We got to do this together a year ago and at that time we had your lovely husband with us as well to chat and um, our relationship with you is so wonderful. You’re one of our favorite clients because you’re so fun to work with. You bring great content for us and the community adores you.

Oh, thank you. Well, I love our community, so it makes it easy and it’s always been a great relationship with Lifestyle Frisco, so.

Well thanks. I appreciate that. So you and I were chit chatting beforehand and trying to catch up personally a little bit and it was fun to talk about where your kiddos are now and how things have changed for your family in the last one, what would you say? 10 to 15 years. How long have you been here again?

We just had 15 years. Yes. Years. So long.

And we won’t, we won’t do the cliche. Oh, back when it was fields on La Hacienda Ranch, we’ll just breeze past that.

Thank you.

By the mall. Dirt roads. It’s been said. It’s been said. Um, so what is new with your family? How are things going?

So I think a year ago our daughter was in college in North Carolina, but now she’s done a semester at Disney in an internship there with their college program, which was amazing. Also gave her some clarity and time to look back and think. So she’s moved home and is doing Collin for a semester. So our, our college junior is home, which is different dynamic. And our youngest is about to graduate from Frisco High School. So we’re um, he is very clear he’s going to go to Collin for a couple of years and then to Texas Tech. That’s been, he said that for years, uh, our, but now we’re looking at colleges again cause our junior needs to transfer, so to finish up somewhere. So we’re, we’re back at that kinda stage, but she’s, she’s very level headed and she has a much better idea of what she’s, where she wants to be.

So good. We have such good options here. Do you do that? Play the parent card, like, you know, you could go to UNT and just the around the corner. Are you comfortable with them going off and being wherever they want to be?

You know, she just did, you know, five, six months in Orlando without a car figuring it out. She only asked us for money once. She lived in an apartment with five other girls and have the most amazing time of her life. And I think she wants to go work for Disney for the rest of, for every forever. Right. She’s like a Disney fiend now. But um, so I don’t worry so as much, you know, um, we are, we are definitely looking at Texas colleges though she’s, she’s kind of put that like, I want to stay in Texas. It’s easier. It, you know, it’s not so far away. It’d be nice to kind of finish and then, and then we’ll see where life takes her.

So, you know what, that’s a unique segue into what you do professionally and are so good at is insurance. And I have to wonder because I have little kids, we’re all very just living the Frisco life. Haven’t had to give thought to like the future future quite yet. From an insurance perspective, when you’re sending kids off to college in state, out of state, what do you have to think about? What are the, I mean that’s a giant question.

It’s a huge question, you know, and I will tell you that, you know, we have attorney friends there. Of course, there’s so many things that they, they remind us of, you know, make sure you have a powers of attorney you have, there’s a number of legal documents when our kids turn 18 they immediately are not our children anymore. They’re adults in their own right. And so there’s a lot of legalities around that and being able to even just have access when you go. Okay. The first rude awakening was at the college when we went to, it was called one-stop and that’s where kind of the offices are. And you just went in and we wanted to find out some information about paying. We knew we wanted to pay them and they were like, we’re sorry. Do you have the code that your student would have given you to access her account? I was like, I want to give you money. I kid, she’s my kid. But those are real things and I, and I, I really understand the reasons for it. So, um, so yeah, even in insurance then we think about, well we need to make sure that, you know, she set up with insurance for her dorm room, that she has renter’s insurance. We want to make sure she has the right, you know, we’ve indicated her correctly on our car policy. Like she didn’t go to college with the car. So we, we made that distinction on our car insurance, just all the little things to make sure that, you know, she’s set up right. And of course, you know, at some point we’ll actually put her on her own and she’ll have her own insurance policy. So we have to kind of, we definitely want to set her up for success in that regard as well.

So how, I mean, so many things I’ll just have to keep in touch and, and salary advice. Um, so I mean, you were, we, again, we were sharing before we hit record today about seasons of life and you were kinda talking about, um, how dramatically things change. Um, what was, you know, sort of the dynamic of your life. Let’s just say 15 years ago when you came to Frisco, you had littles.

Yes.

So what were you doing? What was your day to day like? Yeah, 15 years ago we were, I mean, it was Christmas season to believe it or not, we moved over the Christmas break. Corinne was in, Corinne was in first grade. Harold was in, um, not even, he was three years old. Um, and we were, you know, moving our whole, our whole family. Uh, it was my work that brought us here. So, um, if you can imagine, we were trying to figure out where we want it to live. We, we knew wherever we lived would be where we lived forever. My husband was adamant, you know, Thor grew up in the same house his entire life in Bismarck, North Dakota. So he’s, you know, I was a military child, so we just kind of moved all the time. I thought that was normal. And he’s like, no, I want the kids to have the same school district. I don’t want to hop around the metroplex. So, you know, we just sort landed in Frisco, which were, we feel really thankful for to be honest. Um, but yeah, I mean 15 years ago I wasn’t thinking about college and, and where we are today. And I was really worried about, you know, Corinne was wanting to get into Corrine. I think Corinne did girl Scouts, but I forgot what it’s called when daisies, man, I think so. I haven’t gone there yet. I mean, it was doing, it was all of those things. And of course, after we moved here, um, that’s when Harold was, you know, we realized Harold had some needs and some sensory dis, you know, um, some challenges that were going to be unique to him. And so, um, those all became apparent. So we were even more thankful to be in Frisco, to be honest, because the special education department here is, is the best. It is absolutely the best and constantly growing and changing to, um, to meet the needs of the students. So, um, yeah, I, I will tell you, yeah, I can’t even wait. But yeah, the seasons change, right? We go from um, worrying about the little littles and all the things like are they doing soccer, are they doing lacrosse? Are they, you know, what are the sports they’re going to choose or not choose. And then moving to, you know, middle school, high school, you know, all the steps and like we were talking now, um, we have the 21 year old junior in college that moved home, which changed, changed the dynamic a little bit. We have the graduating senior who could be happier than his sister, his home. I mean, eh, and you know, my dad comes in the winter and stays with us for about three months cause it’s warmer here. So we have dad here too. We’re truly the multi generational family. So, but it’s really nice. And, you know, I wouldn’t change any of it to be honest. It, you know, it all presents its own struggles and its own challenges. But, um, this is our life and our story and we love it. So that’s so nice. And it’s, you know, now you’ve got the office space and that you, when was that? About a year ago. Two years ago.

It’ll be three years in July. Yeah. Two and a half years. [inaudible] no, that’s awesome.

And it’s amazing though, because I bet back then when you had the little ones, you probably couldn’t have imagined that you’d be, you know, in the seat that you are now the successful business, but community involvement at the level that you have it and the investments that you’ve made have brought that. But, um, so then I have to wonder why back then. What did you imagine like did you, was there another, you’re so good at what you do and you’re such a lovely person to know and to represent so many members of Frisco with their insurance needs. I mean, I, I, you’re so trustworthy and personable. It’s so nice. But I wondered, did you ever have other dreams of things that you were like, I want to be a, or where did you think you’d be?

Okay. So, okay. Uh, first of all, my family, there’s a lot of entrepreneurs in my family. Oh really? Yes. In my, in our history, like my great grandfather even. And my grandfather, my dad’s father owned a shoe repair shop and a little cafe. So he, my grandmother did that in Tennessee. But anyway, so there’s kind of that, I think it’s our DNA, maybe a little, uh, always kind of want it something. My brother’s been self employed for years, so I always talked about it and, and I had a dream that, um, perhaps one day I’d leave financial services cause that’s where I was all prior to this. Um, and I would open a bookstore, a bookstore with a coffee shop.

And so my husband’s like, have you watched, You’ve Got Mail. The old Tom Hanks taught me the great movie, the shop around the corner. That would have been me out of business when the, you know, the big store moved in. But so, so it’s not, and I was telling the kids actually, I said, you know, truth be told, my cousin and I, when we were young little, uh, we always said we would open a horse breeding ranch in Colorado. That was wow. Yeah, that never happened. Hey, there’s still time. There’s still time, young lady yet this, it’s not going to happen. Okay. But the coffee shop in bookstore retirement may be maybe in like 20 years, I’ll be like, I’m bored with someone else can run the insurance agency. I’m going to open my dream little coffee shop and want to serve the perfect London Fog because that’s my drink of choice these days.

Oh my gosh. I hope you do it so well.

Right. But, but no, it’s just so you to it back to reality though. You’re so good at what you do. I mean we’ve been able to tell stories for you over the last few years and the level of insight that you bring to things that I just will say that I did not think of like, we need you, we need you to tell us what we have not thought of to protect our homes and families is you’re like, uh, what do you think, and this is, uh, this may not be a fair question to throw at you, but what is the biggest thing that people may be forget about and don’t consider is can you answer that or is there just like 10 of them?

Oh, that’s the, yeah, it was really hard to think of like all the top of my, give me one example that I think that what people do more often than they under insure themselves in their auto insurance, trying to save a buck or two, they weigh under insure their auto insurance because I think it’s going to be so much more expensive to have the higher limits, um, when it comes on the liability side. And, um, and I think that it’s, you know, it’s just, it’s your own personal choice, but I think that’s something that people do a lot. And I think we forget to insure ourselves. Our biggest assets is my ability to provide for my family. So the house isn’t the biggest asset. I am the biggest asset. So if I don’t have my life insurance in line, then that’s wow. You know, that’s kind of the, I think those are the two biggest things. They just, and yeah. And unfortunately it’s usually something sad that makes us think of it, you know, you know, we had a, yeah, it’s just, yeah, we all know those people. We all know the stories, right. You know, funeral services, whatever. Um, and those are the things that people just kind of neglect because I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it. Of course, night life insurance is not sexy. It’s not, it’s, you know, but it can be, I mean, it can be, if I think about that, if I’m not here, my daughter still gets to go to college and my son gets to go to college still and they still could have a great life. And you know, well that’s, I mean, again, why we need someone like you to come and sit down and hopefully have an open mind and a teachable mind to listen to the experts say, here are some things that I’ve experienced and seen over the years. Please consider this. And like you said, it’s up to them. It’s a very personal decision, a financial decision. But at the end of the day, you bring perspective that we just might not have. So it’s so valuable.

Well, thank you. And you know, and I will tell you the first half of my life was on the mortgage side of the business, but I’ve always been in financial services. So, and um, working or having our agency, uh, is just our opportunity to help people. And I tell people at the end of the day, that’s just what I’m doing. I’m just giving information, whether you take it and run with it or, or you’re like, thanks, but this isn’t for me right now. That’s okay. No harm, no foul. But now, you know. Yeah. You know, that’s kind of my attitude at least now. You know.

Exactly. Yeah. Well Ann is a lovely person to know and I just can’t say it enough. I know. I’m already so nice that you are. I mean, I think that when you seek an agent, you want it to be someone that you feel comfortable talking to and they’re, you trust them and they are part of the community and you are all of those things. Well thanks. How do people reach you? They can call me.

Um, at our office, the number’s (214) 619-4012 or my cell phone. It text me on my cell phones a lot easier than calling. Just, I think we’ve all gotten to that world. But it’s two, one four, four nine one seven six one eight our websites and anninsurestx.com not the whole Texas, just the initials, TX. Um, and of course you can always find us at 6500 Preston Road, Suite B 11. So I tell everybody, ground floor, back of the building, there’s a big parking lot and everything.

You’re just everywhere and available and it’s nice that you give out that cell number.

Well you know, and that’s the, I think if you see me in a store or I’m hiding it or my baseball cap cause it’s Saturday morning and I just like rolled out of bed and I need it to milk, just say hello. I love running into people. I probably, one of my favorite things about Frisco is even though we’re this growing and thriving city and there’s just so many, there’s always something to do. But I love like bumping into people at the restaurants and um, you know, grocery stores where when you’re out and about, doesn’t it still give you that small town feel?

It does. It’s a small, big town or big, small town. However you want to say that. Saying that. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Maybe that’s where I heard it, but I agree with you. It feels like a small town. Sometimes. I’ll be, I just was at Target this morning. I bumped into somebody that I swear I bumped into all over town and it’s just, I don’t know, I guess we’re living the same life.

Well, it’s, well, and it’s like going to the, um, the Chamber’s Gala on Friday night. I feel like you’re, you’re there with 600 of your best friends having, they probably are your best.

I don’t know. It’s just so much fun. And it was fun to like celebrate the history of the Chamber and the history of the city really. I mean, it’s so inter, they’re so intertwined and absolutely. Anyway, and just seeing where we’re going. It’s, I can’t wait. Um, I can’t wait to see what the next 15 years for me are 50 years for the Chamber. That just where the city’s going to be. And you know, it’s, it’s just a lot of fun. I think we all just really fortunate and even, and I’ll tell you my kiddos, especially our daughter, remember she’s went to Orlando, she went to college in North Carolina. And so when she left, she, um, one of our favorite stories is she’s using the college and she said, why did the buildings are kind of just old. And my husband’s like, he said, I just really, she’s never been in a education facility that’s more than 10 years old.

Oh my gosh. I know our poor kids. That’s the only thing is that the awakening they’ll have when they, but even that, that’s a good thing to go out and realize. That’s a great thing. My sister Nancy, my sister in law told her, you will never again have the opportunity to be in a, in, it’s such a small town. She was in a really small town called Cullowhee, which is technically a geographical area. It’s not even a town, but you know, uh, it was such a great experience for her, you know? Yeah. And if you can ever do the Disney college program, it’s amazing. I’ve heard that. Yeah. Adults can do it as nontraditional students, great leadership training, customer service, training, all of that.

All the best. You think, I think of Disney, they do everything just on point. Perfect. Have a magical day, have a magical day, a Disney day.

We’re, we’re total Disney fanatics and she, yeah, but you know what, like I think that she, I was telling you before we started, she just got a job offer and I honestly think her experience there opened that door. So yeah. Yeah. That’s a good testimonial for that. Yeah. Very good. Yeah. And I appreciate you letting us get to know you a little bit personally as well, that you would allow us to dig in a little bit to your personal life here about your family. Um, but again, I have to say, I think that’s a huge part of, you know, choosing an agent. Somebody that you like.

Well, well, I hope so. And has the expertise, which I know you have, I mean years and years and we’re really fortunate. Denise in our office is amazing. She’s been an insurance forever. You know, Thor joined me a couple of years ago. He’s has his own expertise there and it’s just been, um, we, yeah. And honestly, we just love helping people. We have some fun things planned for this year, so, you know, as we get out of the office more and, um, just anyway, uh, we’re, we’re hoping to put together a really fun summer programs, so hopefully we’ll see that rolling out. We’ve got to get some interns in place and anyway, but we’ll think.

Oh, good. Well, you’ll be sure to tell us and we’ll tell everyone.

Oh, I will, I will.

Thanks so much.

Thank you Ann.