Secur-All Insurance returns to Longboat Key's Bay Isles area

Customers who walk through the door of Secur-All Insurance Agency on Longboat Key can expect quality customer service, especially from 10-year-old Ziggy, the canine head of public relations. Ziggy's office is located right next to manager Sandra Smith's at the new headquarters on the island.

Staff members recently relocated after the storms damaged the office building located further north on the Key.

Smith has run the Longboat Key arm of the insurance agency since it opened in 2009. Her father, Robert Smith, started the original 1964 Long Island office in New York, now run by her brother, Adam.

Her family is proud to have continuously served Longboat Key community through the years as an independent agency, and Sandra said their focus on helpful, reliable service has been essential to their continued success.

"Service has been a lost commodity in this industry, and we train our agents to think about everyone but themselves," she said, adding that employees don't work on commission in Florida.

Secur-All has been a longtime supporter of community projects like the Lawn Party, which aids the Children's Guardian Fund, Savor the Sounds, activities with the Kiwanis Club of Longboat Key, and the annual golf tournament supporting the Longboat Key Firefighters Association.

"To me, if you're living in a community, it's important to give back," she said.

Photo by Dana Kampa

Sandra has lived on the Key for 30 years, and she said she recognized a need for accessible service in the community.

"How do you make a difference and how do you start an agency when you're competing with such big, national firms that are in our area?" she said she asked when considering opening the Longboat Key branch. "The only way I knew to set us apart was to provide that high-level customer service."

She said her father set a standard of coming out to people's homes when needed, ensuring they get the support they need.

File photo

"I remember packing wine bottles for the clients at Christmas time, and it would fill a whole room," she said. "We're in an industry where service is very, very hard to get."

The agency's offices are located in Florida and New York, but the company serves more than 30 states, which Sandra said is helpful to Longboaters considering many spend part of the year elsewhere.

Having a wide network also benefits employees, and Sandra said agents could still work remotely in the aftermath of the storms until the new office was up and running.

The office building at 6350 Gulf of Mexico Drive, where Secur-All moved in 2022, suffered one too many bouts of flooding and needed to be demolished after the hurricanes. But Sandra said she looks forward to this new chapter, a homecoming to the central part of the Key.

"I think you're always stronger when you go through adversity, and you learn what to do to move forward," she said.