Car lover shaped modern collector-car insurance

Insurance guys aren’t usually built this way.

They aren’t supposed to own “Chopper” motorcycles or be particularly interesting ... or really into cars.

But McKeel Hagerty never met a stereotype he couldn’t shatter.

“I have a weird background,” Hagerty says during a telephone interview from his home office in Traverse City, Mich. “Insurance brokers just aren’t supposed to be that interesting.”

Hagerty is hardly your average insurance guy.

Funny, interesting, charismatic and amazingly diverse, Hagerty, in his early 40s, has turned his parent’s little marine insurance business into a classic-car insurance empire. Hagerty’s business is the largest specialty insurance company for collector cars and classic boats in the United States serving 200,000 members through 12,000 agents across the country.

The most amazing part? Hagerty wasn’t even supposed to be in the business.

“I studied Russian orthodox theology in the seminary,” Hagerty says. “You could say my path has been a little different.”

But cars were never far from his heart. The path begins with $500 and a restored Porsche 911S.

As a curious 14-year-old boy, Hagerty was always interested in collector cars. His father, Frank, had a love for restored vehicles that was passed down to his only son, the youngest of three children, and his two daughters.

Given the choice, McKeel’s eldest sister had bought and restored a Corvair Lakewood station wagon.

“I opted for something a little different,” he says.

McKeel spent two years haggling with a neighbor down the street who was reluctant to sell his rusting 911. It was easily his passion. Growing up, McKeel only read two publications: Road & Track and Porsche Panamera, a Porsche collector magazine.

“I always dreamed I would be armed with great cars,” he says.

The 911 was his start and the classic collector market would be his avenue to even better days.

By 18, Hagerty had his insurance license and was selling marine craft policies and pursuing interesting studies. By the time he had decided not to be a priest and dropped out of a philosophy program, he was armed with a better plan for his father’s business.

Hagerty Insurance was about to fire up a classic auto insurance program and McKeel led the charge. He developed a sales and marketing plan and, by 1995, led the company as its vice president. He encouraged a plan that included a tongue-in-cheek advertising campaign, bringing a human element to an often sterile business.

“The collector-car-insurance market is very affordable but restrictive. They restrict mileage, wear and use and so a lot of times you had people lying about the fact that they were not driving in parades,” he says. “So in our ads we would say, ‘Seriously, when was the last time you drove in a parade?’ We wanted to poke fun at the industry and bring out the human side of the business.”

What happened next became a true car-marketing success story.

Hagerty implemented new technology — one of the first groups to team with online auction company eBay — and implemented new services such as a 24-hour nationwide roadside assistance for collector-car owners, people who could most use the service.

The business expanded to six times its size and Hagerty’s status in the collector-car world went through the roof.

“We try to do it all,” he says.

Meanwhile, Hagerty became more serious about his own collection. He became friends with some of the industry’s biggest names and began gathering some of the coolest cars for himself.

What began with a Porsche 911 grew to include a 1967 Shelby GT 500, a vehicle personally signed on the glovebox by its creator, Carroll Shelby, as well as a 1963 Corvette, a 1960 Cadillac Series 60 convertible ... “a big boat,” Hagerty says.

“My collection will change,” he says. “It will grow and it will change.”

And so will the business.

Hagerty was planning expansion into the United Kingdom. There are also legislative initiatives. Hagerty wants to lobby American states to ease emissions restrictions for classic cars. In 2003 he established the Hagerty Fund for Historic Vehicle Preservation with the mission to keep significant vehicles out of the clutches of government and away from the crusher.

He’s busy. He’s committed. And he’s different.

“This is a wonderful profession,” he says. “And who says you can’t take the insurance business and make it interesting?”

Jason Stein is a feature writer with Wheelbase Communications. He can be reached on the Web at www.wheelbase.ws/mailbag.html. Wheelbase Communications supplies automotive news and features to newspapers across North America.