Expansion of services, Hardin rebrands to reflect growth
“I’ve actually been in the insurance business since 1982, agent/owner Steve Hardin said. “We went through, obviously, a lot of different changes. I worked for a company for quite a few years and then in 2002, I started a property casualty agency, carrying car and business insurance and so forth.
“As time grew, we added the financial side to it, so we are rebranding,” he said. “As of July 1, we’re considered a totally independent broker. That’s the biggest thing that we’re rebranding.
“That gives us access to at least 30 different personal line companies, and it’s probably close to twice that many commercial lines,” Hardin said. “And then, I think we have somewhere close to 200 life insurance companies and retirement companies.
“So, we protect assets and grow wealth,” he said. “I call it personal retirement review.
“We sit down with people and not only help them with their car insurance; if they own a business, we help them with their business insurance, Worker’s Comp and all the things involved in that, we can do life insurance … and we help them plan for retirement and Social Security.
“I’ve hired some additional people and we expanded it to entire financial side,” Hardin said.
Originally, he said the agency worked for one company, American National, along with a few others, but “American National decided they were not going to offer homeowner’s insurance any more,” he recalled. “So, that kind of opened the door for me to find another company.
“We decided we’re not going to deal with one company, we’re going to deal with as many companies as we can,” Hardin said.
“We were going to be independent for homes and auto anyway, so we just went ahead and went the entire business and retirement and contracted with a lot of different companies,” he said.
Regarding the financial side of the business, Hardin said he always liked teaching, whether that be children’s church or in front of groups.
“I decided what we would do with the financial side is do seminars,” he said. “We go through all the things about Social Security, what it pays and doesn’t pay, the shortfalls.
“We just look at retirement as a whole … with education seminars,” Hardin said.
Located at 9722A Kingston Pike, the office is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and closed Saturday and Sunday.
For more information, call 865-531-4854 or visit its website at hardininsuranceservices.com
