Written by John Obrecht, Business Insurance
Courtney Montfort was just 14 when she got her start in insurance, thanks to her high school volleyball coach being the State Farm agent in her hometown of Corydon, Indiana.
“She reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, I’m looking for somebody to mail mailers, answer phone calls,’” Ms. Montfort said. “In my small town, your options were pretty much babysitting or working at one of the two fast-food restaurants, and I didn’t want to do that.”
She was still in high school and working at the agency when she obtained her insurance license at 18. After earning a B.S. in insurance and risk management from Indiana State University in 2003, she went to work for Willis, first in the Phoenix area and later in Nashville, Tennessee.
Ms. Montfort spent 13 years at Willis before joining Gibson Insurance Agency in Indianapolis — a move prompted in part by a desire to raise her children in the Midwest. She and her husband, Joshua, an underwriter with Zurich North America, have two sons.
In July 2022, Ms. Montfort became managing principal in charge of Gibson’s Indianapolis office. As a Gibson board member, she worked on the deal in which Unison Risk Advisors acquired the agency earlier this year.
As her career was advancing, Ms. Montfort faced the sudden challenge of battling non-Hodgkins lymphoma, which was diagnosed and treated in early 2021 and has been in remission since July of that year.
“Looking back now, it was absolutely the worst thing that turned into the best thing for me,” she said. “I have so much more courage and confidence. … I tell myself constantly, if I can get through that, anything I’m going to face talking to somebody about insurance isn’t that bad.”
Tiffany Sauder, founder of Element Three, a Carmel, Indiana-based marketing agency and Gibson client, said she’s impressed with Ms. Montfort’s “strategic understanding of insurance and how to be a business partner.”
“She has an incredibly high standard for herself as far as her depth of knowledge and preparation for anything that she’s going to work on,” Ms. Sauder said.
To see all the honorees in this year's Women to Watch, click here.
To read the full press release, click here.
Connect with Courtney
Managing Principal
cmontfort@thegibsonedge.com
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