Shelter agent most enjoys serving community

Chris Taylor needed only a week to know Northwest Arkansas was the perfect home for his family.

The Shelter Insurance Company agent visited Bentonville for a 2006 baseball tournament while volunteering as a coach.

“After I spent a week here, I told my wife it was probably a good place to raise the kids,” he said.

Within months, Taylor took over the Shelter Insurance office on Arkansas 102.

About three years later, he moved to another Bentonville location at 1912 South Walton Blvd., Suite C. Now he can be found at the Gravette office at 120 Main St. NE.

Taylor grew up in McCrory, a small town in northeast Arkansas near Searcy. Shelter Insurance was familiar to him even then.

“My family has had a Shelter Insurance agency in McCrory since 1958,” he said.

Taylor didn’t go into the family business right away. He attended the University of Arkansas at Monticello on a football scholarship, playing fullback for the Boll Weevils and working towards his degree in health and wellness.

After college, Taylor spent 12 years in Pine Bluff working at the Jefferson Regional Wellness Center. He also spent two years at Arkansas Children’s Hospital as director of health and wellness.

Taylor spends a lot of his time volunteering. In addition to being a volunteer baseball coach for the past 21 years, he was co-director from 2003 to 2005 for the Arkansas Race for the Cure in Little Rock.

It was volunteer work that brought Taylor to Northwest Arkansas, but his familiarity with Shelter Insurance and a timely opening in the ideal area was what drew Taylor away from his initial career and into his own Shelter Insurance agency.

Taylor continued his benevolent ways, serving as co-director for the Komen Ozark Race for the Cure in 2006.

He said working with the community is one of the best things about his job with Shelter. He likes the interaction, and makes himself available to his clients anytime, day or night.

Taylor is proud to have followed in his family’s footsteps and become a Shelter agent, and he’s happy he was able to do it in Northwest Arkansas.

“I can’t think of another place we would rather live,” he said.

Contact Taylor by phone at (479) 787-5421, or by emailing CTaylor@ShelterInsurance.com.

“I can’t think of another place we would rather live.”