Agent Profile: Alabama Agent Keeps Success Rolling by Playing Defense for Physicians

If you’re doing a word-association test, and someone asks you what’s the first word that comes to mind with “sports,” most likely 0 out of 100 people are going to say the word “insurance.” They are about as polar opposites as hot and cold. But oddly enough, for Blair Voltz, Jr., owner of Voltz Professional Risk Advisors, it was a pick-up basketball game that sealed his fate for a career in the insurance business.

As a youth living with his mother and grandparents in Gadsden, Alabama, Blair was destined to attend the University of Alabama.

“My grandfather went to law school at Alabama back in the ‘20s,” said Blair. “So he was a huge Alabama fan. I was raised on Crimson Tide football, and to this day I bleed Crimson pretty good. I’m a fourth generation graduate of the University of Alabama, and that means a lot down here in the South. Sports is everything, and we’re really proud of our Crimson Tide.”

Interception

Unfortunately, while studying for his master’s degree in mass communications at the university, Uncle Sam decided he had other plans for Blair.

“I was in college during the Vietnam War and my draft number came up 8 out of 365. My birthday is August 17, and they pulled out the ping-pong ball that said August 17 and it had a number 8 on it. So I got into the ROTC and took an ROTC scholarship. Well, Vietnam ended before I got out of college, but I still owed Uncle Sam four years because of the scholarship. So when they sent me the papers, you have to select the Army branches that interested you the most. I had my master’s degree by that time, and I really wanted to go into Armed Forces radio and television. My goal was to get out and become a sports broadcaster. And the Army, in their infinite wisdom, put me in the infantry and made a paratrooper out of me. So for four years they had me jumping out of perfectly good airplanes up at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.”

When Blair returned home to Gadsden—a 60-mile drive away from Birmingham, Alabama—he was faced with a very limited job market and a recession.

“Nobody was hiring and it was tough finding a job. I mean, I could disassemble and reassemble an M-16 rifle in under five minutes, but not a lot of employers were looking for that particular skill.”

Still chasing his dream of being a sports broadcaster, Blair was able to work a few lower-level jobs at local stations, but nothing looked promising as a long-term career—and he was beginning to give up on having a broadcasting future.

“So, one day I was playing a pick-up basketball game down in Birmingham with my friend, who had taken a job for a medical malpractice insurance company called Mutual Assurance Society of Alabama—or MASA—which later would morph into ProAssurance. He worked in accounting but was friends with a guy named Wes Foster, who was the vice president of claims for MASA. During the game, Wes asked me what I was doing in Birmingham, and I told him I was trying to find a job. Now, I don’t know if Wes thought anything about my basketball skills, but for some reason he took a liking to me and invited me to come by his office and talk to him before I left town. One thing led to another, and without knowing anything about insurance, he offered me a job in claims—and I took it.”

Field of Play

It didn’t take long for Blair to realize he had joined a special organization—one that would help influence his mindset for the rest of his life.

“When I got in, I quickly learned the history of the company. There was a real crisis in the medical malpractice world back in the 70s. And there were only two insurers of physicians in the state. When one left the market, the other jacked up their rates so high, a lot of doctors couldn’t afford liability insurance. Well, there was this one urologist, Dr. Derrill Crowe, or Dr. Crowe, who took the bull by the horns and organized the physicians and basically drove the founding of MASA. He was a genius, a great doctor, and a sharp businessman. Dr. Crowe built MASA on the philosophy that, ‘If a doctor didn’t do anything wrong, we’re going to defend them.’ He was so successful with this determined mindset that he literally ran some plaintiff attorney firms out of the medical malpractice business because he was so staunch on defending non-meritorious claims.”

As a claims representative, Blair’s exposure to medical malpractice continuously broadened, teaching him how to break down medical records, work with attorneys, and develop theories of defense, and eventually he was promoted to a senior litigation manager.

“I’m forever grateful to the people who gave me a chance, even though I didn’t have any experience. They brought me in and taught me the way that they wanted it done. And in my opinion, that’s the right way of doing it—to defend.”

After five years in claims, Blair was tapped to take on a different task that would eventually lead to the beginning of a previously nonexistent marketing department.

“MASA was doing so well based on their mission of defending physicians that they didn’t even have a marketing or sales division. Dr. Crowe was a brilliant person and salesman and because of that mission, most physicians simply didn’t want to be insured with anyone else. MASA later demutualized and became a stock company in 1991, and naturally wanted to expand into neighboring states. They pulled me out of claims and put me on the road. It all started when the company entered into an agreement with the Alabama Dental Association to be their preferred carrier. I ended up traveling all over Alabama signing up dentists to come over to us because they were all insured elsewhere.”

With the success Blair found, and the company wanting to expand, they sent him to Mississippi to develop an agent network there, and then to do the same in Tennessee and West Virginia.

End Zone

After 25 years of working for the organization, Blair and his wife, Amelia (Ame), took a leap of faith and started their own agency—Voltz Professional Risk Advisors—in 2011 as a team, right out of their own house. Ame was also a medical practice manager, who had built a great reputation and strong relationships with healthcare practitioners over the years, so this next move seemed very appropriate for the two of them.

Further explaining the move, Blair said: “I had an agent’s license the whole time I was working at the insurance company, but there’s a big difference between being a representative of a company and being an independent agent. When you’re a representative of the company, that’s exactly what you are doing—representing the company. You’re not representing the physician. But as an independent agent, your duty is strictly to the client. And the duty is to go out and find the best insurance company you can for them and get them the best policy to make sure they are well taken care of and defended, if necessary. I felt deep down inside I was doing the right thing by switching over to the agency side and representing the physician—and I owe a lot of my agency success to Dr. Crowe and learning from his vision for his colleagues and his passion for defending non-meritorious claims and suits.”

Blair then shared an anecdote of his most memorable interaction with Dr. Crowe.

“Dr. Crowe was the CEO, and he had a pretty intimidating presence. Whenever you came across him, you just hoped you didn’t say the wrong thing! One day, I was coming in from being on the road a couple days and got on the elevator right at the same time as Dr. Crowe. So, he and I get on the elevator and he said, ‘Blair, how’s it going?’ I replied, ‘I will tell you one thing, this malpractice product is not something that you can sell through an advertisement, or a marketing campaign. You have to get face-to-face with people.’ He looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘I wish everybody in this company understood that,’ and with that he got off the elevator.”

It was a moment Blair carries with him to this very day. And his face-to-face sales methods haven’t failed him. Just this past year, the two-person team brought in close to $1 million in new business.

“Ame and I have been very blessed and have been able to do well for ourselves because we work hand in glove. We don’t need an office, or employees, or any overhead. All we need is each other, our computer, printer, telephone, a few loose papers with notes on it hanging around, and four good tires on the car. And I keep the mindset that I’m not selling just an insurance product. The thing I have always sold is the defense of the physician’s reputation and good name, and the belief that I have in the carrier that provides the defense. I could never represent a company if I didn’t believe they were going to defend my client.”