Aliyya Swaby Photo
Insurance consultant Janet Ruiz and Durango are two of the staff at the company who speak English and Spanish.
Fabian Durango’s experience as an immigrant from Caracas, Venezuela, helps him understand the needs of the neighborhood’s Latino community and fortifies him to keep them from being taken advantage of by others.
Durango, the owner of Durango Insurance at 266 Grand Ave., said fitting small Fair Haven businesses with the right insurance policies often requires him to put on the caps of a consultant, relationship counselor, or psychiatrist.
Durango has made it his goal to provide otherwise “vulnerable customers” with the knowledge they need to build businesses and buy homes in New Haven.
“A lot of people think that because they’re paying insurance, they’re covered,” he said. “Insurance is not coverage. You could be paying insurance and be declined coverage based on different clauses or risk.”
Durango said he wants his customers to have the coverage they need before they are actually depending on it.
He took a long route to his New Haven office, starting in Caracas.
His father was an immigrant to Venezuela, who moved there from Peru in the early 1970s looking for better economic opportunities before his son was born. Massive riots, falling oil prices and fewer available social services in the late 1980s in Venezuela led Durango’s father to pick up once again — and move to the United States.
“No one else was leaving the country at the time. Everyone thought it would eventually come back to normal,” Durango said. But having been through one economic crisis already, his father wasn’t about to get stuck in another. So he left.
Durango, his mother and his 25-year-old brother followed to Portchester, N.Y., in 1991 when Durango was 10 years old.
His parents had to start their careers from the beginning. His father had just graduated from college in Venezuela and begun work as an insurance agent at a large company. His mother worked for a hedge fund in Caracas.
In New York, his parents got what work they could. His father sold pots and filters, working for himself. His mother took on odd jobs, including babysitting.
They came to the United States legally but then let their visas expire. “It was a huge culture shock,” Durango said. “The first three months were not good for me at all. I wanted to go back. I went from living in a decent apartment to living in a one-bedroom attic with four adults.”
Though Portchester was heavily populated by Latinos, it was very different from living in Venezuela. Durango gave himself a challenge: he would learn English. “I told myself, ‘I don’t care if I made myself a fool. I would start conversations,’” he said. He watched television and asked his English as a Second Language teacher to help him define unfamiliar words. “Some of my friends were very patient in allowing me to have conversations with them.”
Durango.
Durango said he tried to never depend on his parents financially. He found himself a retail job when he was in high school and told his father about it. But his father vetoed that job. He wanted his son to get into the insurance business, which seemed steady and like he could make a living out of it.
He put his son to volunteer in an insurance agency in Portchester. After a year and a half at that agency, one of the partners started an office in Norwalk and Durango worked there for five years. He got a paycheck after two years of volunteering.
When he was 23, he started his own insurance agency based out of Fairfield. But he had a lot of ties in New Haven, with its large Latino community and with many self-employed businessowners. He built the business until he could open a second office in New Haven.
Now, Durango Insurance has five offices, in New Haven, Bridgeport, Norwalk, Stamford, and New Britain, each with two to three full-time employees. The business also has three independent contractors. Durango works 15-hour days Monday through Saturday and commutes between offices, spending 20 to 25 hours per week in New Haven.
“I’m a road warrior, as they say,” Durango said, laughing. About 90 percent of his staff is fully bilingual.
That allows them to do a better job assessing their customers true needs. Recently, he saw a client who wanted a quote for homeowner’s insurance. The mortgage broker had advised him to get standard insurance before the closing.
But Durango noticed the loan was actually a rehab loan, allowing him to purchase and also renovate the house. The client was “putting a lot of cash up front,” he said, meaning he needed a policy that was not standard.
The client needed a “builder’s risk policy,” which covers a house as it undergoes renovations. But he was never educated by the mortgage broker, realtor or attorney about that need. “With us, we were able to educate him and let him know was going on,” Durango said.
His quote was more expensive since it was a higher risk policy, and the client was doubtful, he said. But when he got outside advice, he was told Durango was correct.
“People sometimes look at the vulnerable customers, the customers that don’t speak English as easy targets, instead of educating them,” Durango said. “I educate my clients on how not to live in fear, on how to overcome obstacles and not have people limit them.”
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Enjoyed reading this piece.
"The client needed a "builder's risk policy," which covers a house as it undergoes renovations. But he was never educated by the mortgage broker, realtor or attorney about that need. "With us, we were able to educate him and let him know was going on," Durango said. "His quote was more expensive since it was a higher risk policy, and the client was doubtful, he said. But when he got outside advice, he was told Durango was correct."
Easy to advise a client, not always easy to convince, even when it is in their best interest. Well done.