BIOGRAPHY - Rudolph F. Whitcomb began his career in the insurance business
over fifty years ago, in 1959 with Bayly Martin and Fay on Wilshire Boulevard in
Los Angeles. At that time Bayly Martin and Fay was one of the largest insurance
agencies in the world and handled large and varied commercial accounts throughout
the United States such as Mobil Oil, Universal Pictures, The County of Los Angeles,
Starkist Tuna. Rudy's introduction to the world of insurance was “at the top”
so to speak, and in order to round out his knowledge of the insurance industry,
Rudy recognized he needed experience on the company side of the business.
Rudy left Bayly Martin and Fay in 1961 and joined the Los Angeles office of the
Hartford Insurance Company as an auto underwriter and after two years in that position
moved on to the Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company.
In 1963, Rudy returned to Wilshire Boulevard joining Haidinger Hayes, a large Surplus
Lines Brokerage and Managing General Agency. Initially his duties were underwriter-broker
on commercial accounts including the Metropolitan Water District and the products
liability on the Hughes Helicopters (Hughes Tool Company, Aircraft Division) and
eventually was assigned the firms motion picture and television accounts. This included
the cast insurance, Producer Errors and Omission and property and floaters on the
camera and other properties and equipment for CBS Television, Desilu and others.
In 1964, Rudy joined American National General Agencies (ANGA), the Surplus Lines
Brokerage and Managing General Agency subsidiary of Bayly Martin and Fay. ANGA also
specialized in Motion Picture and Television business.
In 1965, Rudy joined the Los Angeles office of Marsh & McLennan in the casualty
marketing department. The largest insurance agency in the world, Marsh McLennan
has offices throughout the United States and in almost all foreign countries. In
addition to managing the placement of the primary and excess liability programs
for Union Oil, Coca Cola, MGM, Hughes Tools and Hughes Aircraft, Lear, National
General, Times Mirror, MCA, Occidental Petroleum, Hearst Newspapers and many others
Rudy was also liaison for Marsh McLennan’s Division Five, consisting of Southern
California, Nevada and Arizona territory, with all other offices. Rudy's duties
were to facilitate and assist in the placement and handling of the primary and excess
casualty for other Marsh McLennan offices, particularly New York, Chicago, Houston
and San Francisco and involved Rudy in the Penn Central Railroad, RJR Nabisco, DiGorgio,
and others. Rudy was also responsible for the merging of the insurance programs
on the acquisitions for Marsh McLennan Western Division accounts and for the assimilation
of employees and accounts of Marsh McLennan’s own acquisitions within Division Five.
Rudy left Marsh McLennan in 1970 to form, with two partners, Dependable Insurance
Associates (DIA), a Managing General Agency and Surplus Lines Brokerage with offices
on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Initially, Rudy was the production side of
the firm, however because of the firms rapid success, Rudy took on the function
of Vice President and Secretary Treasurer of the firm and by 1974 DIA had offices
in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Houston, Atlanta, New York and Chicago. The
staff produced, underwrote, issued policies and endorsements assisted in the handling
of the claims, filling nearly every aspect of the operations of an insurance company.
The firm specialized in large, national and multinational accounts with emphasis
on fully integrated petrochemical accounts requiring the firm to have a thorough
knowledge of on and offshore exploration, drilling and production activities of
the oil business along with the refining and distribution aspects.
In 1978 Rudy’s two partners agreed to buy him out of DIA to enable him
to launch his own Surplus Lines Brokerage, Whitcomb Surplus Lines. Whitcomb's target and
specialty is large, difficult accounts and we have placed or participated in the
placements of The Mobil Oil worldwide super package, (Control of Well), Union Oil,
British Petroleum, Amerada Hess and others and in the non petrochemical sector,
the strike cover for the American League / National League Baseball Clubs, the Automobile
Club of Southern California, Kawasaki, Dallara Automobili, Three Mile Island Nuclear
Incident Coverage, Consolidated Edison of New York and many others, Whitcomb targets
large, difficult and unusual accounts for primary general liability with heavy products
liability and are a major market for residential and commercial contractors.
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