Phillip Hollis, CEO
Phil Hollis has been involved with insurance since 2002 when he started the Hollis Agency. Over the course of his early days in the industry he gradually gained more and more experience partnering with companies like Northwestern Mutual, Banker’s Life and Casualty, Aflac, and other major players in the global insurance market, which allowed him to build expertise, observe the nature of the insurance industry from the inside, and learn what customers truly want and need at a deep level.
In 2013 he rebranded his agency as Secure Heritage because he saw the need for a different kind of company in the insurance marketplace with a different emphasis. Phil felt that the bigger agencies wanted him to worry about the quantity of the clients at the expense of the quality of service that was being offered. That was not okay. He wanted his approach to focus on education and making his clients’ insurance work for them. Phil decided to take all of his expertise and experience and pour it into a new brand and business centered around meeting its clients’ personal needs, expanding into areas like financial and retirement planning, employee benefits, and other complementary services which manage risk in a wide variety of areas, giving clients peace of mind and security. The commitment is to be there when clients needed us, listening to THEIR needs, and providing education about exactly what will work best for them. In Secure Heritage, Phil treats his clients like they are part of his family, and offers a corresponding level of care and service.
One of the first decisions he made was what to name this new business. In order to do this, he needed to understand and know what he wanted his agency to be known for. In the world of insurance, it is important for the client to feel secure when they need medical attention. They needed to know how their insurance works. At the same time, knowing that someone is there to walk through everything in their time of need is important. This is how the word Secure came about. Another thing he wanted to make the clients realize is that when you come to us, you become family. Not just the person who needs the insurance, but the whole family. Heritage means family. That is how Secure Heritage was born.
Secure Heritage started humbly, with Phil working out of his car as he spent his days traveling from one client to the next. Eventually he upgraded to the basement of his home and began to see clients there. As more and more clients experienced the one of a kind level of education and personalized care at Secure Heritage and spread the word, they outgrew the basement and eventually took over the entire first floor of our home. With her home feeling more and more like Grand Central Station, with each new client Phil’s wife Patty advised him to find new offices. This eventually brought him to his current location in downtown Stevens Point, complete with plenty of room to house a team of agents focused on customer care and education. Secure Heritage had finally become big enough to offer all the things our clients were asking for: Medicare, Health & Life Insurance, Retirement Plans, Employee Benefits, Supplemental Insurance, Disability, Long Term & Home Care.
Phil realized most people get sold policies that they just don’t understand, and he wanted to take a different approach. By educating them on what insurance does, he could give them more value for the money they were spending to cover their families, and empower them to make the best decisions for them.
Phil believes in the power of choice. He recognizes that every personal, family, and business situation is unique and that no one will ever fit into a cookie cutter plan. By offering choices to his clients and truly educating them about each one, they are afforded the chance to be covered and feel secure when they need to rely on the insurance.
Secure Heritage today has the same mission that it had 7 years ago when Phil dreamed of his ideal agency. It has grown because our unique approach to insurance continues to serve our current clients and attract new ones. Our clients have always been the driving force in all that Phil and his agents do.
