The annual Harford Fair is a venue where the Clyde Smith Insurance Agency staffs a booth year after year and has the chance to interact with many clients, including farm owners. In this vintage photo, Clyde Smith, the insurance company’s founder, mans the booth. The baked goods to the left were baked by his son.
Photo Courtesy of Yvonne Smith
In this vintage photo, Clyde Smith, founder of Clyde Smith Insurance Agency, accepts the 2015 first-place vendor award from a representative of the Harford Fair.
Photo Courtesy of Yvonne Smith
If you’re having a conversation with Yvonne Smith from Clyde Smith Insurance Agency Inc., and tell her she’s doing a good job, she might think you’re saying that to be polite.
But there have been times when customers have been talking about her in front of her building, not realizing their voices carried through the windows and she could hear them. Those are the compliments that have meant the most to her, when people tell each other that they know she cares, just like her father, who started the business in 1983.
“Those are the fun ones,” she admitted during a telephone interview. “When they don’t know you’re listening.”
It’s no wonder she won the Insurance Agent category for the Best of Lackawanna readers’ choice awards helpd by times Leader Media Group.
As an independent insurance agency, Clyde Smith is not bound to a single insurance company.
“We can quote from many different companies so you can get the best fit,” she said in a telephone interview. “The most coverage for the least amount of money.”
While Clyde Smith Insurance Agency will arrange insurance for clients’ cars and homes — and boats and golf carts, even Segways — the company also has a special interest in farms, because Clyde Smith was a dairy farmer until he lost his leg in an unfortunate farming accident.
“We stay close to our farm owners’ roots,” Yvonne Smith said, mentioning some of the dangerous situations that can occur on farms, from barns burning to crops being destroyed by weather to animals stampeding or even losing their lives in a storm.
“Cows and horses tend to take shelter under trees and get struck by lightning,” she said. “Sadly, it’s a common claim.”
On a happier note, Smith enjoys setting up a stand for the insurance company at the annual Harford Fair, which is set for Aug. 17-22 at the Harford Fairgrounds in New Milford.
“It’s the largest agricultural fair in Pennsylvania,” she said, noting she’s happy to meet farmers there.
Smith said her business philosophy is to follow her father’s ideals: “to be straightforward and honest with the customer and give them the best coverage to suit their needs, with transparency.”
