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Advocate Brokerage Inducted into Westchester County's Business Hall of Fame
April, 2002
Article By Jeanine Prezioso
WESTCHESTER BUSINESS JOURNAL
Vol 40, No 6
A very pregnant Rosalyn Binday overheard her husband and some other men talking at a dinner party one night about how they wish their wives would get their insurance licenses so they could use them as tax write-offs.
Binday, on her third child, made a mental note of it.
“I went into this to help my husband out,” she said from her Scarsdale office, “but I wound up really liking insurance.”
She started taking classes for the license and everywhere she went with her third child in stroller — the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker as she puts it — asked businesses to see their insurance policy.
“I bet I can save you money,” she would tell them.
Some 33 years later, Rosalyn’s skills as a mother, wife and insurance broker have grown exponentially. All three of her children, Glenn, Michael and Denise, and her husband, Ronald, work for Advocate Brokerage Corp., a company she started from home that now offers personal and business insurance and financial services to thousands of clients.
Advocate has 25 employees, and is on its third office.
“I never thought it would turn into this,” Roslyn said, sitting on the first floor of the company’s three-floor space at 820 Scarsdale Ave.
Extended family
The Binday family’s work has been recognized by The County Chamber of Commerce this year. Advocate will be inducted into the county’s first business Hall of Fame in the category of family business.
“We are thrilled,” said Ron Binday. “We never expected all this.”
The inductees will be honored at the County Chamber’s First Annual Westchester County Business Hall of Fame Awards Dinner on April 10, at Glen Island Harbour Club in New Rochelle.
In addition to being honored at the awards dinner, the winners will have their names on display at Westchester County Airport for a full year.
Ronald Lambert, vice-president and branch manager of HSBC in Scarsdale, said he nominated the Binday family for the award because he thought they incorporated the idea of community into the business.
“It’s a family business, but it’s more than that,” he said. “If you’ve ever seen their advertising, they typically present a picture of their staff as well as themselves, like their employees are members of their extended family. It’s a nice touch.”
Steady growth
They seem to keep that theme with clients as well.
“I like to help people understand insurance, what they’re paying for,” Rosalyn said. “Not just speak in insurance jargon with them.”
She said the last person she ever thought she’d be working with was her husband. “I already had my client base before he joined us,” she said, “so we could work separately.”
Ronald Binday, a graduate of Hofstra University, was an insurance broker for Allstate before he retired and joined his wife in 1990. He takes care of “all the numbers,” said Rosalyn.
The business has been growing at a steady rate every year, Ronald said, but not too large.
“We want to continue to give our customers personalized service,” both said.
Their policy with the children was that none were forced to work in the family business, Rosalyn said.
“Glenn, my middle one, always wanted to go into insurance,” she said.
So when he graduated from Vassar College, he took a two-year insurance course and then joined the business as a business insurance salesman.
Michael is the oldest son and worked in banking before working with his dad in the financial services affiliate of Advocate, of which his father is president. He graduated from Duke University with a bachelor’s degree in bio-medical engineering and got a master’s degree in business from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Business.
Denise, the youngest, graduated from Columbia University with a dual degree in art history and fine arts and worked for Sotheby’s and the Swan Gallery before taking up selling personal insurance in 1991.
Separate responsibilities
Rosalyn said keeping everyone in separate areas is how the business succeeded.
“We had seen so many businesses fall apart when family got involved,” she said. “So we separated everybody.”
The children agree. “We refer business to each other rather than compete,” said Glenn.
The chamber’s Hall of Fame Awards are presented by HSBC USA Bank and sponsored by Advanced Telecom Group. The County Business Hall of Fame is also supported by Heineken USA Inc., Pace University and the Westchester County Business Journal.
The White Plains-based organization has about 700 members ranging in size from one-person companies to multinational corporations.
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