Employee Spotlight - Zach Sinclair

Who are the people that our clients talk to, trust, and work with year after year?  Get to know more about our agency by getting to know the people through our Employee Spotlight Series. 

What do you do here, at Wells and how did you get started?
I'm a commercial agent here at Wells and work with clients that are in the healthcare industry. I have been in insurance ever since I graduated from college, so I've been in the insurance industry for close to 25 years. This June will be my 9th year at Wells. I bounced around North Carolina for quite a few years prior to that, but originally, I'm from St. Louis, MO and spent a little time in Kansas City as well.  

Prior to Wells, I worked for an insurance company that had a very corporate style of management, and I just found that for my personality I didn't really like that. I had heard about Wells when I was living in Raleigh and came down and spoke with Hal and Steve a couple of times. I just liked their personality, their management style, and the family atmosphere that Wells has. That's one of the biggest reasons why I came here. 

Favorite Book?
I read a lot of kids books right now, but I did read a book a long time ago called Man on Fire by John Eldridge. Great book for any man out there.  

I think the work life balance is one of the best parts of my job. As an agent we don't really have set hours, so it gives me the ability to go do the things with my sons and my wife that I might want to do, like go to their sporting events and attend things at school. The schedule has been fantastic and is probably the best part of my job here.  

What do you like most about your specific job here at Wells?
New business is probably my favorite part of the job...It’s the hunt, where you go out there to try to find those new clients, figure how you could help them, solve problems that they have, and work together to become beneficial to each other.  

How has working here positively impacted your life?
When I was interviewing here at Wells nine years ago, we were living in Raleigh. I had a two or three hour drive back from my second interview here and I got a call from my wife. She asked me what I was doing right then. I said, “Well, I'm driving back from Wilmington”. She said, “OK, I need to talk to you as soon as you get home”. As soon as I walked in that door, she told me that she was pregnant with our first son. So that's probably one of the best memories that I have. I was pretty sure at that point that we would be moving to Wilmington and I would be coming to work here for Wells and then finding out that we were going to have our first son, Alec.  

What's the best lesson you've learned in your career?
The best lesson I've learned here is, “Don't take it personally”. Clients come and go for reasons that might not be about me. They may have a new relationship, or maybe the business gets sold or something like that. So I think learning to have thick skin and not take things personally in a business environment is probably one of the best lessons I've learned here.  

How have you used your experience to help your clients?
Having a background working within the healthcare industry prior to coming to Wells, I've been able to help physicians, medical practices, mental health agencies with some of their really unique problems. There's certainly been some hurdles that some of those businesses have needed to overcome with their insurance policies and having some really specific knowledge of how those policies work has really helped them.

What's at the top of your bucket list?
There's some probably some countries that I'd like to visit...maybe Ireland, maybe getting someplace tropical like Fiji has always kind of been out there in the far distance as a place that I'd like to visit. So yeah, probably traveling and going to see some countries that I haven't been to yet. 

Favorite TV Show:
Favorite TV show is probably any football game...any NFL football game. We're pretty crazy for football in our house and we're big Chiefs fans, so especially this time of year, that's what we watch. 

You know, I think for me success is just to be able to provide for my family, to give them a comfortable lifestyle. My wife is a stay-at-home mom, so she's been able to spend so much quality time with our sons. That's something that this job really affords us. We can do those things and that's really huge. My definition of success for us is that we can have her home and spending that time with our sons.  

What's your favorite non-profit/volunteer organization?
I'm an active member at Lifepoint Church and they have all sorts of different volunteer activities that you can do. One of the best memories for me was when Hurricane Isaias came through in a neighborhood close to where I live, Old Town near Leland where we've got some good friends. They had a tornado hit and do quite a bit of damage. My wife, my sons, and I volunteered to do storm cleanup and it was really cool to be able to help our neighbors that were close to us. My sons still talk about it to this day.

Favorite Musician:
It is Sea Songs or Little Pirates by Jason Andre. (Shameless plug! Thanks Zach -Jason).  

What do you like to do when you're not working?
As a father of two young boys, my family is basically everything I do when I'm not here at the office. It could be coaching my sons in sports, finding some free time to go on a date with my wife, we volunteer at Church from time to time. So basically, just family time.

What's the best advice you've been given?
Having a sense of humor about mistakes or failures, to be able to laugh those things off is really important in life. Failures are certainly something that you can learn from, and if you can laugh at your mistakes as well, it can really help you get through those things. So I don't even know who gave it to me, but that's probably some of the best advice that I've gotten is to laugh off the failures and the mistakes. 

You can reach out to Zach for help with any Commercial Insurance questions at 910.251.5449 or zsinclair@wellsins.com