March 2004 Page 10  Insurancewest Magazine

Perfect attendance–well, almost

More than four decades ago, Edmonton broker Larry Heron found a job in the insurance industry and turned it into a life-long career. He’s missed only two annual IIBAA conventions during that time.

By Ron Shorvoyce
Larry Heron is an Edmonton broker who really believes in making commitments
A long time ago – in 1963 – he decided he’d set aside a few days every year, come rain or shine, to attend the Independent Insurance Brokers Association of Alberta (IIBAA) annual conventions.

More than forty years later, his attendance record is close to being perfect – he’s missed only two conventions, one in 1967 but he can’t remember why, and one in 1998 because he’d sold his agency.

Heron, 62, is a past president of the IIBAA (1981) and has been in the insurance business for the past 43 years. He got into it straight out of high school in Edmonton with the old Sun Insurance offi ce. His father was in the clothing business but that had no appeal for him. He chose insurance because he needed a job.

“There was no magic to it,” he says. “I was looking for a vocation and it was either insurance or banking and there was a little more fl exibility on the insurance side.” A job with the bank, eron remembers, paid only about $200 a month and “they moved you around and you couldn’t get married for seven years (to make it easier to transfer employees).”

So he picked insurance and it turned out to be a life-long career. It’s like no other business, Heron says, as he looks back over the last four decades. “I like the people and the variety. There are no two days that are ever alike. You get the opportunity to meet some fascinating people and in what other vocation do you get the basic knowledge of a lot
of industries? It’s been very good to me.”

Heron went into a partnership in 1978 to form an agency called Heron-Siegel Insurance Ltd. in Edmonton. He ended up sole owner and then sold it in 1997 thinking he’d retire. But almost immediately he missed the business and wanted to get back in. A year later, he established Direct-Line Insurance Inc. after buying another agency for its book of business. Direct-Line has a staff of 12 and annual premium volume of $7 million.

Heron’s eyes light up when he’s asked why he keeps coming back year after year to the IIBAA annual conventions. In 2003 it was held in the Rocky Mountain resort community of Jasper and this year it’s in Calgary.

“Oh, the people. Oh yeah. It’s the one opportunity of the year that you get to meet the people from southern Alberta
or northern Alberta that you don’t see over the normal course of the year. You establish relationships and make friends ... you just enjoy meeting with them and catching up with what they’ve done in their lives,” Heron says.

Between the formal sessions and seminars at a convention, Heron says there are lots of opportunities for fellowship through activities such as golf and maybe even a “little bit of carousing.”

Carousing and a late night contributed to one particular episode back in the 1980s that Heron still chuckles about. The directors’ meeting was held early on a Sunday morning and a few directors showed up still dressed in their tuxedos, Heron remembers, because the formal ball took place on the Saturday night. “They hadn’t gone to bed at all." And the president was somewhat dismayed that his board of directors had stayed up all night long. Some of the discussion wasn’t very coherent at all.”

Heron says the format of the conventions today is much the same as it was 20 years ago. “About the biggest change is that the conventions used to be in October and now they’re in May,” he says. Also, since about 1979, the insurance companies have had a common area for exhibits and displays, Heron says, where previously they had separate hospitality suites to promote new products and services.

As for the IIBAA itself, Heron says the biggest change he’s seen over the years is the decision to add an education component to the association’s roster. “It was in the late ’70s or early ’80s that that was introduced. And it’s had a tremendous impact on the industry because now, instead of strictly an apprentice-type program within the agency ranks, there’s a formalized education process,” he adds.

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