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Word & Brown General Agency co-founders John M. Word III and Edward J. “Rusty” Brown Jr. will celebrate the 40^th anniversary of founding their business in 2025. Headquartered in Orange County for four decades, Word & Brown is California’s leading independent insurance general agency.
 
As part of its year-long celebration, Word & Brown will profile some of its long-term employees (many with 30+ year histories) in social media and elsewhere, introduce a new 40-year anniversary logo mark, and promote its anniversary on its website, and at company events for business partners and employees.
 
Word & Brown and its sibling companies, CHOICE Administrators, California Rx Card, and Nevada Drug Card – collectively known as The Word & Brown Companies – were recognized recently by Business Insurance magazine as one of its “Best Places to Work in Insurance” for 2024. Across all honorees, Word & Brown ranked 21^st among the 100 Best Places to Work in Insurance. In the medium employer category (for firms with 250-999 employees), The Word & Brown Companies ranked seventh in the top 100 list.
 
The Word & Brown Companies earned additional recognition from Business Insurance as the 15^th best place to work among insurance agents and brokers in 2024. The industry publication selects employers for inclusion on the list based on their outstanding performance in establishing workplaces where employees can thrive, enjoy their work, and help their companies grow.
 
“We are excited to be celebrating 40 years in business, working in partnership with brokers and employees across California, Nevada, and the nation,” said Word & Brown co-founder John Word. “This anniversary is proof that our commitment to service of unequalled excellence and to our brokers, their customers, and our employees is beneficial to everyone.”
 
“John and I know our organization’s success is a direct result of the long-term relationships we’ve built with brokers and the great people we have working on their behalf,” said Word & Brown co-founder Rusty Brown. “When we began, ours was just a small organization with a few employees, but today we have grown to 500+ employees at the general agency and across our family companies to simplify access to better health insurance choices.”
 
John Word began his insurance career in the 1970s, excelling in individual life insurance sales. He later expanded into the growing health insurance marketplace for small employer groups. In the early 1980s he met Rusty Brown, a successful sales leader at John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company who later formed his own agency. The two formed a partnership, the Word & Brown General Agency, in 1985.
 
Together, Word & Brown refined the technology for a revolutionary group health quoting system that combined rate and plan information from multiple insurance carriers into one consolidated proposal for brokers’ client presentations. This technology revolutionized the importance of the broker community in California, as brokers were for the first time able to quickly, accurately, and with guaranteed quotes, find the best insurance plan at the best price for their customers. After just one year, Word & Brown became the largest independent small-group health distributor in the nation.
 
Other innovations followed including creation of a COBRA division in 1986, becoming the first company in the nation specializing in COBRA compliance and administration. Word & Brown introduced a Flexible Benefit Plans division in 1990 to assist employers with Section 125 Flexible Benefits administration and disbursements.
In 1996, Word & Brown launched CaliforniaChoice^®, which quickly became the nation’s leading employee-choice, multi-carrier benefits program – originally for employers with up to 50 employees and later expanding to 100 employees. The California Rx Card and Nevada Drug Card offering nationwide discounts on prescription drugs launched in 2007 and 2008, respectively. ChoiceBuilder, an ancillary benefits exchange offering dental, vision, and other coverage to groups with up to 500 employers, was added in 2009.
 
Word & Brown works with hundreds of the nation’s top insurance providers – and thousands of insurance brokers – helping ensure that individuals, families, and businesses have access to better health insurance choices. To learn more, visit www.wordandbrown.com or follow the company on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, or LinkedIn.