Long time Cheney insurance business owner John Boots said the time was right to retire. Tom Benzel from Airway Heights with Buck West and Affiliates will pick up where Boots left off.
For Boots, it will be a move on to other chores and lists. “There’s lots of things that have been put off over the years,” he said.
“You keep thinking, ‘Well I’m going to get to that, ‘boy I should probably get that done,’” the 69-year-old Boots added. “Now I don’t have any excuse.”
Boots, who carried on the business established by his father in 1959, said that timing was perfect for retirement. His insurance license was set to run out on his birthday in late November.
“It was just one of those things that when my birthday came around and my insurance license came due and I’m going, ‘You know, it’s really time that I get to doing something else,’” Boots said.
Benzel’s purchase includes Boots’ line of Grange Insurance. “We felt it was a good fit, there was some crop insurance involved,” Benzel said. “We have a pretty big book of crop insurance.”
Benzel writes a great deal of farm insurance. “It’s not all that unlike regular homeowners insurance that insures the home and contents as well as outbuildings and equipment,” Benzel said.
Formerly affiliated with Big Bend Insurance in Cheney, Benzel went out on his own. “In 2007 they were purchased and I decided that wasn’t the direction I wanted to go, so I started out on my own,” he explained.
“I started with two other partners, one of which was Gary Buck of Buck Insurance up north (in Spokane),” Benzel said. He began using the dba (doing business as) Buck West because the two were doing some marketing and advertising together
Benzel established a Pullman office in 2009. “We’re growing,” he said.
“John did a good job of taking care of his customers and that obviously is our goal,” Benzel added.
Boots plans more downtime to devote to children and grandchildren, he said. “The kids need some things done and I enjoy doing some carpentry work-type stuff,” Boots said.
In separate interviews, both Boots and Benzel echoed each other on the transaction saying, “It’s a good fit.”
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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