With a long and storied history that includes insurance, real estate brokerage and banking, Wheeler & Taylor is forging a path into the future on the leading edge of risk management, insurance and real estate solutions. While our history and roots lie solidly in Western Massachusetts, we have worked with our partners at GoodWorks Financial to expand regionally and across the nation. Operating from locations in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, California and Nevada, we serve clientele throughout the U.S. and internationally. With Wheeler & Taylor you don’t have to choose – we offer you the hometown service and values you deserve, combined with the expertise, capabilities and reach that you need.

Metras Insurance Agency is a Division of Wheeler & Taylor Insurance, an independent insurance organization with a longstanding commitment to serving individuals, families, and businesses throughout the communities we call home. Together, we are dedicated to supporting the clients and communities we serve and to making a meaningful difference through our involvement with local organizations and community initiatives.

Due to their geography or other unique circumstances, many clients are faced with exposures far exceeding the basics of property and casualty insurance in areas such as marine, environmental considerations, builder’s risk and international exposures, not to mention the more catastrophic weather-related exposures to named-storm, flooding and earthquake activity.

Being part of an industry dictated by the service levels provided by their employees may also mean that many clients must also be fully aware of the sole remedy laws surrounding workers’ compensation, and the best ways to manage what can be a very complicated and arduous system; the laws of which are governed and dictated differently from state to state.

If you want to know more about the most effective means of transferring risk through property & casualty, workers’ compensation, executive & financial, private client personal insurance, or even bonding & surety placements, our commercial and personal lines experts can help you navigate and negotiate the marketplace on your behalf.

Commercial Property & Casualty

Metras Insurance Agency professionals work closely with you to identify the full spectrum of your property & casualty exposures. We utilize industry expertise to analyze, innovate, and market your property & casualty risks. Our solutions help you transfer risk while maximizing protections and minimizing your total costs.

• Auto and Fleet Management
• Boiler and Machinery
• Builders’ Risk
• Crime
• Environmental
• General Liability
• International Risk
• Marine
• Product Liability
• Property (including earthquake, flood and wind exposures)
• Umbrella and Excess Liability

Workers’ Compensation

Our team of industry experts has the expertise to thoroughly present your unique risks to the marketplace. We advocate on your behalf to secure the most competitive pricing, terms and conditions for your workers’ compensation insurance program. Dedicated workers’ compensation placement and analysis experts work with you to achieve the best results possible from your insurance program.

Our deep knowledge of each client’s risk profile allows us to achieve superior program placement results. We collaborate with you to develop and execute a comprehensive marketing strategy based upon:

• Client portfolios and profiles
• Employee loss performance metrics
• Regulatory & safety compliance efforts
• Effectiveness of accident investigation techniques

Executive & Financial

Metras Insurance Agency will assist you in designing an executive and financial liability insurance program as unique as your business, by identifying your corporate and personal exposures to liability. In addition, we offer and incorporate risk mitigation recommendations in an effort to ensure you have the most robust coverage available.

• Director & Officers
• Employment Practices
• Errors & Omissions
• Professional Liability
• Network & Cyber

Personal & Private Client Insurance

At Metras Insurance Agency, we know that creating wealth takes hard work, determination, and focus. Ensuring wealth for your life and generations to come requires even more. For each of our clients, we craft a personalized plan to minimize the potential for financial loss throughout your asset portfolio of Automobiles, Homes, Investment Properties, Fine Art Portfolios, Jewelry, and other Collections. Through analyses of your unique exposures and the potential detrimental outcome on your finances, we optimize a plan to serve your needs by:

• Recommending detailed strategies to protect you from a loss before it happens
• Offering complete risk management services based on your personal and professional liabilities — your circumstances, your assets, and your involvements
• Leveraging our deep relationships with highly rated insurance carriers on your behalf to achieve the optimal balance of coverage and cost.

Bonding & Surety

Metras Insurance Agency surety experts will help you in securing the most appropriate terms, conditions and pricing for your bonding and surety programs. We work with an unparalleled sense of urgency in order to help you achieve your company’s desired results by:

• Actively driving successful outcomes on claims and subcontractor disputes
• Capitalizing on opportunities in the construction market
• Enhancing your company’s overall financial performance
• Increasing bond capacity
• Improving relationships with banks and credit providers
• Ensuring greater flexibility on surety credit terms and conditions

Beyond risk management advisory and insurance placement lies everything else we do. From the day-to-day interaction with our top-notch client service staff to our consultative analysis programs, we are here to help you with services as wide ranging as workers’ compensation mod analysis and mitigation strategies, employee benefits reviews and analysis, reviews of your vendor contracts, development of the elements of an effective business continuity plan, or in the event of a loss, superior claims advocacy through our dedicated claims management staff.

Focused Claims Advocacy

As a client of Metras Insurance Agency, you are afforded invaluable insight and guidance in all aspects of claims management and resolution. Our objective is to ensure that the risk and insurance products we negotiate on your behalf respond as intended, with minimal delay and disruption to you. Our dedicated claims management staff will assist you by:

• Providing day-to-day assistance on claims issues and claims handling matters
• Evaluating coverage applicability
• Assisting with the claims recovery process
• Facilitating and participating in claim reviews
• Assisting in the development of loss and special handling instructions
• Helping you anticipate what to expect from underwriters on complex claims
• Identifying and correcting any breakdowns in the claims-handling process
• Identifying claim trends
• Developing loss control procedures to address repeat loss patterns

Workers’ Compensation Analysis & Mitigation Strategies

Workers’ Compensation is not only compulsory, but often one of the least understood and highest expenses of your complete insurance program.

Our highly specialized Workers’ Compensation professionals focus exclusively on Workers’ Compensation issues for our clients. Analyzing your Workers’ Compensation results and program in precise detail, we provide a customized analysis of how past, present, and future claims and trends affect your overall cost. Identifying and evaluating specific trends and claims, we help you develop targeted Loss Control, Risk Management and Best Practices to effectively reduce future losses and claims.

With direct access to top carriers and industry specific Workers’ Compensation programs, we will match your unique situation with the best and most competitive solution. This comprehensive and synergetic approach translates into a safer workplace, fewer claims and more favorable rates.

Employee Benefits Consulting & Insurance

The increasingly disrupted, confusing, and complex health care system in the United States has created challenges for employers in managing costs and compliance. Metras Insurance Agency partners with you to deliver consistent outcomes on your benefits programs. With our team standing next to you, we will help you streamline administration and boost employee engagement, all while focusing on cost savings.

Compliance & Regulations

Regardless of your industry, all businesses share similar challenges. Legislative, Human Resources and OSHA compliance regulations are constantly changing. Wheeler & Taylor understands that it takes time, money, and resources in order to stay up-to-date and in compliance. We provide comprehensive legislative information regarding health care reform, COBRA, HIPAA, OSHA, workplace regulations, Employee Handbook and/or Safety Manuals creation tools, and much more. Our business is to make it easier for you to run and grow your business, all at no cost to you.

Contract Review & Analysis

A contract, by definition, is a written or spoken agreement, especially one concerning employment, sales, or tenancy that is intended to be enforceable by law. Metras Insurance Agency takes a managed approach to contract review assuring our clients that the assumption of contractual liability is consistent with the organization’s risk management philosophy. These reviews typically require time sensitive responses coupled with a concise understanding of local insurance requirements, but the service is invaluable to our clients as these activities help to manage and identify the possible new exposures that may emerge.

Business Continuity Planning

While traditional transactional insurance or other risk financing techniques can ease the financial losses associated with business interruption, a sound business recovery or “continuity” plan is crucial to help prevent a minor disruption from turning into a catastrophe.

At Metras Insurance Agency, our consultants combine loss control experience with broad insurance and risk management knowledge, allowing us to provide you with a thorough risk and business impact analysis. This analysis can form the foundation and cost justification basis of an effective Business Continuity Plan (BCP).

We also understand the importance of complying with regulatory requirements and fiduciary responsibilities in order to avoid potential penalties and litigation, bringing to bear the BCP solution that is right for your organization.

Business Life & Disability Consulting

Insuring your business isn’t just about insuring your property and protecting against liability. It’s also insuring yourself and the key employees that keep your business operating and growing. The unexpected death or disability of a partner or key employee can have a devastating impact on the continued operation, growth, and perpetuation of your business.

Our knowledge and experience will not only help you understand, identify and plan for such unexpected events, but also structure and fund those business perpetuation and continuance plans. We partner with the highest rated and industry leading companies to find the best performing and most cost-effective solutions.

Business Insurance Products and Plans Include:

• Buy/Sell Agreements
• Key-Person Agreements
• Business Overhead Expense
• Disability Income
• Term Life
• Whole Life
• Universal Life