Founder of Cincinnati Financial Remembered for Ties to Independent Agents

One of the founding agents and long-time board members of Cincinnati Financial Corp., Robert C. Schiff, has died at 86.

Schiff was a board member since 1950 and past senior vice president of Cincinnati Insurance Co. -- the property/casualty flagship of Ohio-based Cincinnati Financial (NASDAQ: CINF). He had been one of four agents to found the initial company, Cincinnati Insurance.

"He was a great friend of the local independent professional insurance agent," said John J. "Jack" Schiff Jr., chairman of the boards of Cincinnati Financial and Cincinnati Insurance, and Schiff's nephew. "Like my father and like myself, he was a true independent insurance agent at heart."

Noted for strong relations with its 1,133 independent agents, the group Cincinnati Insurance Cos. is either the No. 1 or No. 2 carrier in more than 75% of reporting agency locations appointed for more than five years, according to BestLink.

Jack Schiff said his uncle had a simple philosophy: "If you know your policyholder and respected their needs, then you all slept well." Robert Schiff's extended family is still heavily involved with the companies he spent his career helping to build, which now continue "in the same spirit that Bob represented," according to Jack Schiff.

Twenty-six years ago, Robert Schiff had stepped away from his executive position at Cincinnati Insurance to found Schiff, Kreidler-Shell, an insurance agency that now has 110 employees in the Cincinnati area. He had purchased an existing company with a deep regional history and renamed it, subsequently serving as chairman and president of that firm. "He bought the agency lock, stock and barrel and all the people in it," Jack Schiff said, adding that his uncle then turned it into "one of the most prominent agencies" in the region. Another Schiff nephew, Alvin Roehr, is the agency's president.

Though Schiff was still a director emeritus of Cincinnati Financial, his 2004 retirement from that company and from SKS ended a 59-year career in insurance.

Kenneth W. Stecher, president and chief executive of Cincinnati Financial, said in a statement that Schiff believed that independent agents "had personal relationships in the community and unique local knowledge that could lead to prosperity for an insurance company."

Most of the Cincinnati Insurance Cos. have current Best's Financial Strength Ratings of A+ (Superior).

(Jesse A. Hamilton, Washington bureau manager: Jesse.Hamilton@ambest.com)