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How thankful I am that I was able to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with family. We organized a little reunion with the Florida cousins and along with my parents, all of my siblings, and some of their children and grandchildren, we spent the weekend together in sunnier climes. Another thing I was thankful for was that by being away, I avoided the long holiday weekend chores such as Christmas shopping, decorating the house, and eating left-overs. I had to chuckle when I heard one of my nieces exclaim, “They are ruining Black Friday by opening the stores on Thanksgiving Day!” Is that a double-negative?

About a year after he retired from the Tuscano Agency, Bill Tuscano got into the retail business – he decided he needed a ‘little place’ to sell the stuff he had accumulated at auctions and garage sales. The little place became Longbridge Station and came with a Bait & Tackle shop, gas pumps, and a lousy location along a scenic highway. Pouring his time and energy into this little place was never an issue for Bill. Once a year, the business actually showed a profit and that was the Opening Day of Trout Season. He had people lined up and out the door buying bait and supplies as early as 4:00 AM. Opening Day at Longbridge Station was an event that you had to experience - complete with 5-cent coffee, minnows flopping around on the floor, worms in the fridge, and a place to tell your fish stories. Now that I think about it, there are plenty of similarities between Opening Day and Black Friday...

Strong sales are so important to the health of the American economy, but few people recognize the importance of a strong trucking industry to the movement of the goods we consume. Insurance for truckers is a core class of business for Tuscano and one we are steadily growing despite our territorial restrictions. We have been able to provide insurance solutions for some difficult risks, including multiple out of service issues or poor Safer results. In PA, we have been very competitive on most of the trucker classes, including dump trucks, trash haulers, construction materials, or just good-old freight haulers. I have an agreement with Santa Claus to do what we can to keep costs down!

Finally, as we are heading into the holiday season, it becomes very important that your clients be fully protected when they host a holiday party in case the menorah tips over or the snow falls and makes sidewalks slick. A personal umbrella policy is just so affordable and easy to write, every one of your clients should be given the opportunity to purchase one. Tuscano makes this extremely easy to do with our on-line umbrella rater. We have great markets and we can write in all 17 of the states we are licensed in. We have the ability to quote preferred accounts, accounts with losses or bad drivers, the very wealthy, as well as celebrities. The rater also submits risks that need to be quoted manually, so it is a great tool regardless of the account type. The Personal Lines team will take awesome care of you and your client and keep the holidays happy!

By the way, Bill is ready to start his second retirement next summer, so if all goes well, he’ll be out of the retail trade and ready for his next big adventure.

FOR SALE: 1 little place with big potential!