Brooke Insurance Franchisee’s get royally taken
Insurance agents learn tough lessons from Brooke Corp. - Kansas City Star
I remember this company from a few years back. A recruiter had actually
called me about franchise opportunities. The light bulb went off for me when a new recruiter called me back, then another. This one really is a tragedy you know. Take some entrepreneurs and then totally hose them!
Check out some of the article…
It wasn’t long after Rhonda Lobell bought an insurance agency in Gonzales, La., with the help of Brooke Corp. that she realized something was seriously wrong.Lobell, who had been in the insurance business for 29 years, flew to Kansas City in February 2005 to attend Brooke’s three-day training academy in Overland Park and immediately ran into trouble.
The idea behind Brooke — to finance and provide back-office support to entrepreneurial-minded people wanting to own their own insurance agencies — looked good on paper but proved disastrous in execution.
Wade Griffith, who owned several Brooke agencies in the Kansas City area and one in Lawrence, said: “Somebody knew something over there. Because when things would get questioned, they’d try to push you off to the next person. No one wanted to get cornered and tell you what was going on.”
Griffith had worked for several insurance companies, including GE Capital and AIG. With financing from a Brooke subsidiary, Griffith bought four agencies for a total of $3.1 million, putting down just $65,000 of his own money.
He also paid a franchise fee of $165,000 in each of the four transactions.
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