Fullenkamp Insurance rolls over 60 years

Taking a risk

"His boss said go ahead and do it and, when you go broke, come back and be a great employee.””

Chris Fullenkamp, Fullenkamp Insurance Agency

WEST POINT – What started on an “unheated back porch” has become a 60-year legacy in West Point.
The Fullenkamp Insurance Agency rolled over 60 years serving clients in 2023, six decades after the company’s patriarch, Ron Fullenkamp, purchased a few clients from his Uncle, Louis Neuweg.
Chris Fullenkamp and his sister Jill Garmoe now lead a staff of seven licensed agents dealing in coverages from commercial, health, and personal insurance to surety bonds, crop, and farm insurance.
Judy Moeller, Brian Stuekerjuergen, Erin Dop (Jill’s daughter), Desiree Hamilton, and Kendra Terry are all on staff as licensed agents under the Fullenkamp brand.
Fullenkamp said the “made-for-TV version” is a provincial one, but one that has stood the tests of time.
“Dad was working for the old Frietag Implement in town and his uncle had a small insurance agency. Dad told his boss that he was going to buy the insurance business and start an agency,” Fullenkamp said from his office in West Point Wednesday.
“His boss said go ahead and do it and, when you go broke, come back and be a great employee.”
Ron never went broke. And never went back.
On May 1, 1963 Ron bought a small stack of policies from his uncle with plans of Neuweg teaching him the business.
On May 4 of 1963, Ron’s first son was born and on May 10 of the same year, Louis died leaving Ron without a mentor in the business.
“He and mom (built the business) on the back porch of a little house on 4^th street,” Chris said. “An unheated back porch, he used to tell.”
Ron joined the Independent Insurance Agents of Iowa to learn the business and then in 1971, bought the building where Ann Menke’s office is now.
In 1982 he bought the other part of the building as business grew. In 1981, he hired a friend who had an agency in Winfield and they started expanding into the Burlington market.
In 1989 Ron bought the current building the agency is in and Menke bought the former office building as her business got up and running.
Chris and Jill both went to University of Iowa and got four-year degrees learning under Emmett Vaughan, world renowned insurance estimator and educator who was called in to help assess damages at the first world trade center attack among others.
Jill came right back to work for the family upon graduation, but Chris spent some time in Des Moines and then Kansas City, where his wife resided.
He said when the couple decided to have children, they didn’t want to raise them in Kansas City, so he moved back to West Point and started with his father’s company in January of 1992.
Moeller and Fullenkamp attended high school together and she came to the firm in 1984.
Fullenkamp said the insurance business hasn’t changed much for him from the handshake across the desk that used to seal a deal. He said technology has reduced the paper load and the need for as much personal contact, but he still believes that’s the key to continued business.
He said now the industry is saturated with national brands who can save you money on rates.
“Our theory is we want you to know if a claim’s going to covered or not before it happens,” Fullenkamp said.
“If its something that could’ve been but isn’t, we want that to be your decision that it wasn’t necessary to cover. Risk management – don’t insure what you can afford to lose, don’t risk a lot for a little and don’t risk a little for a lot.”
He said the future is solid for the family agency with Erin coming on board. Fullenkamp said he’s turned away many offers from bigger companies because of networking and collaboration.
“We’ve turned down many offers, but we feel were in good hands with the family business. We can continue to do what we’re doing for, who knows, another 60 years or more,” he said.