It’s going to be the end of an era in town next week as a longtime business is set to close its doors.
The Allstate insurance office operated by Roy Mankins at 1271 South Highway 160 is halting operations on Nov. 30 after 30 years of service in Pahrump.
Mankins explained that it is the right time to walk away, as he’s been in business long enough.
“I’ve just reached my breaking point,” Mankins said. “The insurance business has changed completely. It’s not what I went to work at anymore… I’ve basically been doing it a very, very long time so I’m pulling my retirement package.
“I love my customers and I wish I could be with them forever, but there just comes a time and 30 years is a long darn time.”
Mankins still remember his first transaction in the business that took place three decades ago.
“My very first insurance sale was after I got out of school, and I got to my office and there were all these boxes of papers sitting there and no one taught me how to sell insurance, they just taught me about insurance,” he said. “I look at that and think, what the hell do I do? I went to lunch at Calvada, it was located where the government center is now. Iit used to be the best restaurant in town.
“I met Cindy Haye, who is the emergency room manager at Desert Springs Hospital now, and I bought lunch and she bought my first insurance sell.”
The interpersonal connection is what Mankins misses the most about the business now, as technology has taken much of the person-to-person interaction out.
“In the old days, even 10 years ago, people were still involved in the insurance business,” he said. “Back then, if one of my customers came in to me with a problem, but I knew they were good people and good business, I could actually pick up the phone make a phone call and talk to my own specific underwriter and I could get business approved.”
Mankins went on to explain to get a rate for a potential customer then, he had a rate book based off a few factors, including age, job, amount of vehicles, and more.
Now with smartphone apps and websites, a person can do all the steps themselves and rarely does an in-person conversation take place.
“Now all the risk selection is done by computer, there’s not even anybody to talk to,” Mankins said. “All the underwriting is done at your desk as you’re doing the contract. There’s 380 different factors built into the actual pricing of the product. In the old days, I could go to lunch, say there’s a 28-year-old male, with one car, no problem. I knew exactly what the rate was.
“Now, it could vary by 100 percent. To be honest with you, I don’t like it. They took the people out of it and it’s basically ruined the insurance industry.”
Although his customers are being transferred to Kathryn Weill and the Allstate branch in the Albertsons shopping center, Mankins thinks his ceasing business will affect the town.
“It is going to leave a hole, an awful lot of my customers are not happy that I’m leaving, and it’s nothing personal, I love them to death,” he said. “I don’t know how it’s going to shake out.”
Mankins is going to work in real estate at Nevada Realty for the time being to keep him busy on a daily basis.
“I’m going to work in real estate and sell real estate for awhile because that’s as close as I can possibly get to insurance without having to relearn everything I know,” he said. “I know everybody, I’ve been here so long and I think I’m going to do really well at it.”
Mankins also has other projects he is working on, the Pahrump Airport among them. He will also continue to lend time and money to various groups around town that he’s supported over the years.
As far as his customers from over the years, Mankins wanted them all to know he wouldn’t be where he is today without them and he appreciates every one of them.
“I made so many wonderful friends, it’s been a life that I’m not sure that I actually deserve and everybody has been so nice for so long and I’m really going to miss that a lot,” he said. “Give all of my customers my love, they’ve put up with me for a long time.”
Contact reporter Mick Akers at makers@pvtimes.com. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.