Insurance agents Justin and Blake Stephenson told the story of how they both came to move their young families here and also presented a synopsis of their insurance practice history at the Kingfisher Lions Club meeting last week.

The brothers own Stephenson Insurance Center, which originated in Woodward, but now also has an office in Kingfisher.

The two were raised in Woodward and Justin became a certified professional accountant and opened an accounting practice in Woodward, but eventually sold that business and moved into the commercial and personal insurance field, he said.

His younger brother Blake, was a pharmaceutical sales representative who traveled the state.

Blake married Stephanie Gooden, a Kingfisher High School graduate, and the couple decided upon Kingfisher as a good community to raise their twin sons, who are now 8 years old.

Stephanie works as a speech pathologist.

After Blake moved to Kingfisher, Justin convinced him to work for the business in Woodward and start up a health, vision and dental insurance services division of the business.

Both worked out of the Woodward office, even though they had approximately 20 agents working for the firm across western Oklahoma and into Kansas.

Justin said he and his wife, Tracy, and their four children moved to Kingfisher in 2018.

“We just fell in love with the community,” Justin said. “It has great schools,

“It has great schools, great people and its close enough to Woodward that the plan was to eventually centrally locate another office here because it’s really the center of our commercial insurance customer base.”

Tracy is now an elementary school teacher here.

Since that time, the brothers purchased and moved into the old Kingfisher Dentistry and Braces building located on the south side of town at 2302 Frontage Road.

They operate three businesses out of the location: A Farmers Insurance agency specializing in personal insurance services; Stephenson Benefit Services, specializing in health insurance; and Stephenson, Baggs & Guthrie, LLC, a commercial insurance company.

Justin operates the commercial and personal insurance divisions of the company while Blake operates Stephenson Benefit Services Inc., which is a health insurance enrollment center that focuses on finding benefit packages for medical, dental and vision insurance for small and large employers as well as individuals.

“It’s really sort of funny,” Blake said.

“I started in this business when Obamacare was being introduced and I was without a single customer. And at that same time, when insurance carriers and agents were running away from health care as fast as they could, I was running into it.”

Blake said he now services well over 100 client businesses and individuals and business is increasing each year, he said.

Justin and his family are currently living in Kingfisher and are in the process of building a new home here.

“We both love it here. It’s a perfect fit for our families,” Justin said. “We’ll retire here I think.”

They said they both continue to commute to Woodward as needed to operate their Woodward office as well.

The brothers were introduced by Kingfisher Lions Club member Jarod Hendrix, who works for the agency as an insurance agent.