Business: Manzi Insurance of Newtown

Address: 617 South Britain Road, Southbury; 14 Church Hill Road (Suite A3), Newtown; and 215 Main Street South, Woodbury.

Owner: Raymond Manzi

What is your business background? After I got out of the service, I went to North Creek Valley Community College and got a degree in marketing. I started working with an agency that my father had started, so I officially entered the insurance business in 1982. Through insurance there’s licensing, but then there are also courses to increase your knowledge, so I’ve done those over the years, credited advisor of insurance, chartered financial consultant, and licensed insurance counselor.

What is your business’ focus? I think our business focus has always been to grow; we’re going to be celebrating our 20th anniversary this year in October and we’ve always established ourselves as a place to go for insurance needs. We’ve also always had the same business philosophy, which is focused on what our customers need in their insurance and not how much money we’re going to make by selling to them. There have been numerous times when we’ve worked with people and there’s never been sales and that’s okay because what’s going to happen is they will go to a family member and refer them.

Our main source of business is referrals and when your main source of business is referrals, if that’s successful, then that tells you that you’re doing something right.

What is something important to you that readers know about your business? I think what sets us apart is that we do every form of insurance that your average citizen in the state of Connecticut would need; we can help you with all your insurance needs. Another thing that sets us apart is that we don’t have a single employee who works off commission, so nobody here really cares how much the product they’re selling is as long as it’s a good fit for the client. We are also very big on education and maybe sometimes the customer doesn’t care about the mechanics of their insurance and that’s fine, but we like to think that when we’re working with somebody is that we’re not selling them anything, we’re working together to identify the need and find the product that best fits the customer’s needs.

Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:30 am to 4:30 pm; Saturday hours dependent on appointment.

Website: manziins.com/

Phone: (203) 426-2273

Email: Ray@manziins.com