Building Trust Through Service

Meanwhile, Tony’s brother, Charles H. (Chuck) Schroeder, had begun an insurance career of his own, selling policies in St. Louis through a contract with Continental of New York. By 1955, Schroeder Insurance had grown to the point where Tony needed help. He invited Chuck to sell for him in Union, but the younger Schroeder initially proved to be an elusive catch. He felt that the St. Louis market offered the best opportunity, until one day Tony asked, “Do you want to be a little fish in a big sea or a big fish in a little sea?” Not long after that conversation, Chuck moved back to his hometown and joined Schroeder Insurance as an agent.

In the years that followed, the agency grew, both through the new client relationships that the Schroeder brothers developed, and through the acquisition of accounts served by other local agents such as Mr. Herb Maune and Mrs. Irene Sudholt. Herb Maune’s agency dated back to the years of the Great Depression, when his father, H.O. Maune, started selling insurance for The Travelers to supplement the income produced by the mercantile store he owned in Union. Eventually, Herb Maune took over his father’s insurance business and sold it to Schroeder Insurance in the late 1970s. The Sudholt agency also had deep roots in the community: It had begun decades earlier with a book of auto insurance built by Ralph Sudholt in connection with the Oldsmobile dealership he owned and operated in Union. By the early 1980s, his widow, Irene, was approaching retirement, and found in Schroeder Insurance a firm that could service her accounts with the respect and attention she felt they deserved.