We are an innovative company committed to securing personalized risk management solutions.
Our Mission
Innovation comes in many forms and is a lot more than the latest app or newest device. At SFM Insurance, we bring innovation to the insurance industry where it matters – in our coverage and customer service. We’re committed to always finding more secure, personalized risk management solutions and communicating them in an easy-to-understand, down-to-earth way that allows us to be trusted advisors to businesses, friends and neighbors throughout Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and beyond.
People are our Focus, Insurance is our Offering
Whether for our employees, customers or providers, we’re in the business of building strong relationships with people, centered on the belief that insurance is a valuable product that provides the security and peace-of-mind upon which the best communities are built. Always approachable, we’re trusted advisers in the business of helping you make the most educated risk-management decisions.
We are Driven to Succeed, Honestly
We work hard and have fun doing it. Our relationships with each other drive us to push ourselves in a way that preserves the integrity for which we are known. We constantly strive for sustainable growth and an honest profit so that we can endure as a provider of stable employment and helpful products.
We are Responsible to our Community
Whether supporting our neighbors who need a helping hand or thanking our shareholders who gave us a helping hand, we appreciate and give back to the community and the relationships we’ve built. We strive to make a fair profit for those who invest in us and, in turn, to invest in the communities we call home.
OUR HISTORY
- Smith-Feike-Minton, Inc. (SFM) has always been committed to the communities, businesses and individuals we serve. As an innovative company committed to securing personalized risk management solutions, we have certainly learned from managing our own risks – business growth risks, that is – over the past 130 plus years.
- SFM Insurance began serving our communities on August 15, 1877, with a farm policy written to R.F. McKay in Wilmington, Ohio. While the original owner of the agency is unknown, Ben LeSourd and Charles S. Thomas were the first official partners to lead the agency between 1888 and 1920. Frank P. Leary then joined what would become Thomas & Leary in 1920. In 1941, Leary’s nephew, John M. Smith, joined the firm, followed by his son, J. Stephen Smith, in 1965. Thus began the second and third generations of leadership of the rebranded Leary Insurance Agency.
- Still a hometown insurance business at heart, the agency had big dreams to continue growing and helping a wider pool of clients. From 1965 through 1976, the agency purchased the Frank Skimming Agency, the Feike Insurance Agency, the Ora Foote Agency, and the Harry Metzger Agency – all from the Wilmington, Ohio area – and became Smith-Feike, Inc. A merger with Dale R. Minton’s agency in 1979 created the current-day Smith-Feike-Minton, Inc.
- The 1980s brought more growth, and between 1984 and 1988 SFM purchased the Vandervort Insurance Agency, the C.E. Bates Insurance Agency and Hooper & Associates, Inc.
- J. Stephen Smith’s son, Brian C. Smith, joined SFM in 1993, becoming the fourth generation of leadership. Inspired to expand our service offerings to more people throughout Ohio, SFM set out in the early ‘90s to add more branch offices. The first branch office opened in 1992 when SFM purchased the Charles C. Evans Agency of Chillicothe, Ohio. Then, in the mid-1990s, the purchase of the Yelton Insurance Agency and Share Insurance Agency brought about the second branch office in Northern Cincinnati. The Burrell Insurance Agency, in Delaware, Ohio, was purchased in 1999, forming the third branch, which currently serves the Delaware and Northern Columbus areas. Most recently, in 2013, SFM purchased Landen Insurance, LLC of Springboro, Ohio.
- Throughout the many purchases, mergers and name changes, one thing has always remained the same – SFM’s commitment to our community, customers, carriers and employees. Centered on the idea that insurance is a valuable product that provides the security and peace-of-mind upon which the best communities are built, SFM will always be approachable, trusted advisers in the business of helping you make the most educated risk-management decisions.
