Insurance company expands Joplin operations

PJC Insurance, a full-service agency, is the second largest insurer for truckers in Missouri, but Ted Andrews and Stan Robinson, corporate health specialists, say that the trucking industry is just one potential market in this area. The firm is also promoting new products intended to improve customer service and lower costs.

“Every time I come down there is something new and exciting and I want to be a part of it,” Andrews said. “The business people here seem to be open to new ideas.”

One service PJC is offering potential customers is what Andrews calls a new concept for managing company health care plans.

“We like to refer to it as stopping the madness,” Andrews said.

PJC’s system begins with a software package that eliminates paperwork. It also eliminates teaser rates and the extensive employee applications usually required to get firm rates.

Instead, PJC conducts telephone interviews with employees and takes information directly to underwriters at insurance carriers.

“At that point in time we generate applications,” Robinson said.

PJC does not charge clients and standard commissions are collected by the carrier’s representatives, Andrews said. He said carriers like the process because they know that competitors are making bids based on the same information.

“We have the exclusive for this process in southwest Missouri,” Robinson said.

Another offering PJC is promoting is FlexMED, a fully insured limited benefit health insurance. FlexMED does not have the same rules as standard insurance and gives customers the flexibility to customize a plan, Andrews said. FlexMED is popular among owner-operators, he said.

Andrews said PJC has long-term plans of opening an office in Joplin. The company currently operates an office in Nixa in addition to its four-story building near the north side of Interstate 44 at Kansas Expressway in Springfield.

“We joke that we are just down the street,” Andrews said.