Monday, January 12, 2015BOARDMAN, Ohio Not only did Steve Lewis pick himself up and dust himself off, he’s started all over again with Dan Landers.
The former president and CEO of First Place Financial Corp. joined Landers, former president of First Place Insurance Agency, to form the Landers-Lewis Insurance Agency & Consulting Services LLC, 721 Boardman-Canfield Road.
Landers-Lewis, which has 12 employees, celebrated its first anniversary in November and expects to grow even more now that Landers’ noncompete agreement has expired.
Landers, who turned 57 in November, and Lewis, 56, say their enterprise is “our last hurrah.” Landers formally joined the agency in November, coming from USI Insurance Services, which had bought most of the assets of First Place Insurance in December 2011 from First Place Financial. The purchase was expected to contribute $3.6 million in annual revenues to USI.
Landers-Lewis -- “a unique boutique,” as Lewis likes to call it -- is parent of the insurance agency and MVC Advisors LLC, which Lewis calls “sister companies that complement our skill sets. …
“Dan is an expert in insurance,” Lewis says, while he sees offering his 29 years of experience in banking as benefiting small-business owners wanting to improve their relationships with banks. “We’ll help them arbitrate, negotiate,” he says, “or have discussions with banks. We’ll get banks to compete” for their business.
Lewis, whose background is accounting – his CPA license is dormant -- intends to use those skills as well in “assisting with small mergers and acquisitions, lining up [nonblank] investors to finance M&A.” He and Landers will help their clients write and executive business plans.
One of the first projects for which Lewis arranged financing is Oak Ridge Apartments, 834 E. Midlothian Blvd., just off Interstate 680 on the south side of Youngstown. The complex of 96 efficiency and one-bedroom apartments “was pretty neglected over a couple of decades,” Lewis said, and in need of repair.
Lewis “formed an investment group of seven or eight [who] saw a complex with potential” and bought and improved the apartments.
Purchase price was $965,000 and the investors, who took Lewis a year to line up, committed another $400,000 to renovations, which included installing new windows, painting the interiors, replacing carpeting and updating the plumbing. The parking lot was reduced in size and repaved. Green space, which saw trees planted, replaced the unneeded parking space and wood fences replaced metal fencing.
Today the owners advertise the apartments, which rent for $395 and $495 per month according to the Oak Ridge website, as an alternative to Youngstown State University dormitories, noting the complex is a 10-minute drive from campus and that pets are allowed. The apartments were “70 to 75% full” last fall, Lewis reports. “The residents were pretty happy” and the occupancy rate rebounded.
When Landers devotes his time to insurance, Lewis says, “I spend most of my time on real estate. I identify the good potential on the real estate side [of our business].”
The company’s consulting division, MVC Advisors LLC, also provides assistance with strategic planning and business plan development.
Landers and Lewis go back to 1998 as First Place embarked on a strategy of providing everything a homebuyer would need, from mortgage origination and financing to title work and insurance. They have a warm friendship and are quick to express the admiration and respect they have for the other’s acumen.
“Steve basically said to me he respected what I did,” Landers says, when Lewis broached forming an alliance.
“The values we share in common,” Lewis picks up. “Both of us are customer-services nuts.”
Landers elaborates, “If you call here [during office hours], a human will answer. And if we’re out of the office, they’ll forward [your call] to our cell phone.”
Says Lewis of working with Landers: “It was Dan’s unyielding sense of service to his customers that made [First Place Insurance] so successful.”
The only thing different about Landers’s approach to insurance is that he’s selling it under his own name.
Landers-Lewis represents at least a dozen carriers “and has access to hundreds more,” he says. The agency has four licensed agents, including Landers’ daughter, Melanie Landers, who offer home, auto and comprehensive commercial policies. For health insurance coverage, the company partners with Ohio Premier Health Solution, Warren.
Landers strives to ensure his policyholders have the coverage they can afford and need – “no gaps” -- and won’t feel a double loss should they suffer a loss only to discover they lacked coverage or adequate protection.
“Insurance is a protection of assets,” he says, “and I want to make sure you have insurance for what you think you have.”
Seeing to it that trucking companies have sufficient liability protection is a priority as is “cyber protection. Make that cyber data protection,” Landers clarifies, “so in case you’re [your computer system is] broken into,” the company has the resources “to quickly notify your customers their data might be compromised,” not just the company owner.
Pictured: Dan Landers and Steve Lewis.
Copyright 2015 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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