Horak Insurance offers ‘personal service’

Nearly 100 years ago, Paul R. Horak started an insurance firm in downtown Washington. The company’s mission was providing insurance services to the people of Washington.

That was 1928.

Today Horak’s grandsons, one also named Paul and the other Luke, carry on that tradition of customer service. The company has grown significantly but its core values remain as they were a century ago.

“We are always going to be here,” grandson Paul says. “We are pretty ingrained in our communities.”

Over the years, the company has passed from father to son. The grandfather handed off to his sons Dick and Tom in the early 1960s. Brothers Luke and Paul took over in 1996.

The company has grown from the office on the west side of the square that the grandfather shared with a shoe store. Today there are three offices — in Washington, Columbus Junction and Sigourney.

Horak Insurance offers a full range of products: property and casualty, commercial, public entity and life and health.

“We’re basically serving the needs of small-town Iowa,” Paul Horak says.

More than 90% of the business is property and casualty insurance — home and auto. Horak Insurance has 12 companies it works with to provide its clients with the right insurance to meet their needs.

“Some of these companies we have dealt with for more than 50 years,” Horak says.

The company has 15 employees, many with Horak Insurance 20 years or longer. Much of their business comes from referrals.

Back in 1928, clients liked dealing directly with Horak’s grandfather. That hasn’t changed, although there is much more competition today from out-of-town and internet companies.

“If you deal with an internet company, you are never going to see the person who sold you the policy,” Horak says. “Personal service, that’s what we are about.”