A passion for advocacy: Matthew Tassey

By Susan Rupe

If you knew Matthew Tassey’s story, you would say he was destined for an insurance career and destined to be an advocate for his industry.

Tassey is principal at E.A. Scribner Insurance Agency in Scarborough, Maine, and a 51-year veteran of the life insurance industry. The National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors on Sept. 21 will present Tassey with the 84^th annual John Newton Russell Memorial Award, the highest honor accorded by the insurance industry to a living individual who has rendered outstanding services to the institution of life insurance.

He is being honored for his service to NAIFA as well as his political advocacy work on the state and national levels.

Growing up in New Hampshire, Tassey observed the life insurance business first-hand. His father, Steve Tassey, was an agent for what was then known as Metropolitan Life (now MetLife). The elder Tassey eventually became a district manager, overseeing 54 agents in northern New Hampshire and northeastern Vermont. That was in the days of the debit agent system when agents would collect premium payments at clients’ homes on a weekly or monthly basis.

“My father’s territory was a rural area,” Tassey recalled. “The insurance business was good to him and he was able to raise seven children from it.”

Tassey is a 1973 graduate of the University of New Hampshire, and he attended the university during the height of antiwar student activism. He was involved in student government and that began a lifelong interest in how citizens could influence their elected officials.

Shortly before his college graduation, Tassey began selling life insurance for Metropolitan Life.

“I was kind of a longer-haired life insurance guy who really didn’t know anything about insurance other than the fact that my father had been in the business, he had been able to raise seven kids, and it seemed like a good thing to do at the time,” he recalled. “The alternative was to sell typewriters for IBM and that wasn’t a good idea.”

Metropolitan Life had offered him a job as an agent in the seacoast region of New Hampshire.

“I grabbed it and worked there as an agent for two years, and I didn't screw up, so they made me an offer to be a sales manager, which is sort of recruiting and training, but the job was in Portland, Maine. That got us to Maine, and we've been here since 1975.” He has been at Scribner since 1980.

A death claim and some sleepless nights

Tassey worked in a print shop during college, and that was where he made his first insurance sale on his second day as an insurance agent.

“One of the men who worked there said to me, ‘I think I should have insurance,’ and I said, ‘I think you should too.’ My sales manager and I met with him and his wife, who was newly pregnant. He was uninsurable but his wife was insurable. We wrote them a plan that was called an anniversary family plan where she was insured and if they had children in the future, the children would be insured. I picked up the first $19 monthly premium payment and sent it in. While it was in the home office, she was killed.”

Tassey’s first sale quickly turned into his first death claim, and he said it all led to a stressful time for him.

“I didn’t sleep for a week,” he recalled. “It wasn’t only because this was such a terrible thing that happened, but I kept thinking, ‘I hope this stuff works.’ I was worried that the insurance company wouldn’t pay out. But three weeks later, I delivered a $28,000 check to the widower. So this stuff works.”

An invitation rekindles his passion

Soon after Tassey began his insurance career, he was invited to become a member of his local chapter of what was then known as the National Association of Life Underwriters – which is now NAIFA. And his passion for advocacy was rekindled as well.

“Some of the members took me under their wings and took me up to the state capitol in Augusta for us to lobby on some issue that affected the insurance business,” he recalled. “I was hooked. Ever since then, I’ve been involved in one way or another. If you get involved, you actually can make a difference.”

Tassey began working his way through the leadership ranks at NALU. He eventually became president of the Maine Association of Life Underwriters, following in the footsteps of his father, who served a time as president of the New Hampshire Association of Life Underwriter. Tassey’s sister, Dawn Chambers, also worked in the insurance business and was president of the New Hampshire association as was her son, Garrett Chambers.

In the 1990s, NALU formed the Association of Health Insurance Advisors in response to the Clinton administration’s Health Care Reform Initiative. The initiative sometimes referred to as “Hillarycare” after then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was chair of the cabinet-level Health Care Task Force that was tasked with making recommendations to the president on national health care reform.

The highlight of the Clinton health care was universal coverage that would require every citizen to enroll in the health plan. Employers would be required to pay 80% of the average cost of their employee’s health plans. The government would subsidize small businesses, the unemployed, underemployed and self-employed individuals. After several attempts to negotiate a compromise, the bill was declared dead in 1994.

Tassey was a NALU trustee from 1990-1994 and was named president of AHIA in 1998. During his time in NALU leadership, he was instrumental in defeating “Hillarycare” and championed initiatives such as phased-in health deductions for the self-employed, the creation of medical savings and health savings accounts, and the establishment of long-term care partnerships. His leadership helped implement tax-free charges against cash value for long-term care insurance premiums and secured funding for state high-risk pools.

“At the time AHIA was created, it was clear that something was going to happen with health care on the federal level,” Tassey said. “Hillarycare focused on such a giant piece of the economy. Shifting such a big part of the cost of health care into a government program – we’re talking billions of dollars and I’m not sure how we as a nation would pay for it.”

Helping small employers

A significant portion of Tassey’s practice is health insurance and benefits for small employers.

“We’re in a frightening place right now,” he said. “We met with two clients yesterday – one with 10 employees and the other with six or seven employees - and they both are facing 18% increases in their medical insurance for the coming year.

“When you see people who are paying more each month in health insurance premiums for their spouse and children than they are for their mortgage payment, you know we’re in a crisis. Health care costs are out of control. This is what I face every day.”

Tassey said he believes a health care proposal such as Hillarycare will come before Congress every session for the next 10 years.

“I don’t know where health care is going to go in this country,” he said. “Medicare is essentially bankrupt. The clients I work with are seeing family health care premiums of more than $2,000 a month. Something has to happen. But I hate government intervention in anything, because I like having a choice.”

In addition to his work with AHIA, Tassey also served as NAIFA’s treasurer from 2011 to 2018. He began serving as a director for the Life and Health Insurance Foundation for Education – now known as Life Happens – in 2000 and was the organization’s chair in 2005. He played a role in launching the Life Insurance Awareness Month campaign in September and the Disability Insurance Awareness Month campaign in May. He also was a trustee for the Life Underwriter Training Council, an organization that prepares and administers life insurance underwriter training programs.

But he is most proud of his political advocacy work and believes “it's good to be part of the answer, rather than standing in the outside and throwing rocks at people.”

“This business has been spectacularly good for our family,” he said. “That’s why I believe it’s important to be involved. I think our government is the most wonderful thing we have in America, and it's our duty to give our elected representatives the information to do the right thing as we see it.”

Susan Rupe is managing editor for InsuranceNewsNet. She formerly served as communications director for an insurance agents' association and was an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. Contact her at [email protected].