A Conversation with: Lyndsay Kooistra
The Profiles in Leadership series features conversations with organizational leadership experts to discuss important lessons they have learned and what “Hiring for Good” means to them. This series helps us better understand how leadership drives positive transformations and growth for people, organizations, and the world around us.
This episode features a conversation with Lyndsay Kooistra. Lyndsay joined LaPorte with a strong background in marketing, having worked with top carriers in the insurance industry. Her passion for customer service, relationship-building, and providing tailored solutions made her a natural fit for the LaPorte team. She was also a trailblazer—becoming LaPorte’s first female Producer and its only female owner.
Since becoming a Shareholder in 2019, Lyndsay has led Carrier Relationships and overseeing the Small Business Unit, Bonds, Claims, and Administrative Staff. In 2024, she expanded her leadership role as part of the Agency’s Executive Team.
Committed to lifelong learning, Lyndsay earned her CIC designation and currently serves as Chair of the National Board of Governors for CIC with the Risk & Insurance Education Alliance. She is also an active leader in the insurance community, having served as Past President of Big I Oregon and Past Chair of the Young Agents Committee. Her dedication and impact have been recognized through multiple honors, including being named Agent of the Year in both 2021 and 2023.
Outside of work, Lyndsay enjoys volunteering, traveling, exercising, attending the theatre, and spending quality time with family and friends.
“Go for it! Life is not a dress rehearsal!”
Lyndsay’s Contact Information: LKooistra@laporte-insurance.com | 503-444-0439 | https://www.laporte-insurance.com/
“But I said hiring for good means building a team that not only excels in skill but also aligns with our values of integrity, service, and accountability. It’s about bringing in people who are not just here for a job but are committed to making a meaningful impact on our clients, our industry, and on each other. ”
Transcript
Suzanne Hanifin: Well, welcome this is Suzanne Hanahan with Acumen Executive Search and I am so happy to have Lindsay Kooistra from LaPorte Insurance with us today for Profiles in Leadership. LaPorte and Lindsay have grown tremendously both professionally and personally and so I'm really excited to hear about your journey and how did you get to where you are today, Lindsay?
Lindsay Kooistra: Well, that's a fun story. Thank you for asking and thank you for having me on your podcast today, Suzanne. My 11-year-old son thinks it's really cool that I'm on a podcast. But I—I'll go back a little bit in time. I grew up in Iowa and went to school in Iowa, met my husband in college. I spent a—a summer in Washington DC, a semester in London, and came back to Iowa and was like "Ooh I need something different. I—I want to—I want to you know, go out and figure out my own path in life." Luckily my boyfriend, now husband, had gotten into a bunch of different graduate schools and got into Lewis and Clark out here in Portland and so we both decided never visiting Portland, yeah let's go there. I said, "You know the weather is similar to London. I like that, let's do it." So, we came out here. He started out in graduate school, I interviewed for a job with Allied Insurance in Des Moines, and I said I want to live in Portland. They said, "Okay great you can be a claims adjuster." I said, "Awesome that sounds so fantastic." I had no idea what I was signing up for.
But I—I started out as a claims adjuster in 2002 and I joke that I did my time in claims like a prison sentence. Because it was a fantastic way to learn insurance, but it is very much a thankless job. So, I really try to always be very very kind to claims adjusters whenever I need to talk to one. But anyways, back in 2004 the director of sales approached me about becoming a sales manager for Allied. I was 24 years old, and I still don't know what he was thinking but—I—I—I took the—I interviewed, I took the job. My first sales appointment that I went into I didn't even bring a pen and paper. I was really learning on the job. I—I worked there until 2007 and went to CNA and worked at CNA for seven years. I went to AmTrust for just over a year and at some point during my time at AmTrust, I was getting a little burnt out on travel. I was traveling two to three weeks a month. I had been traveling for about 10 years, really working all over Oregon and then with AmTrust about six states. My son was 18 months old, and I decided to see if I could become an insurance agent and be able to spend more time with my family.
One of my friends that I had made in the insurance career was Adam Harris at LaPorte. We actually met in 2004 and when he came to LaPorte I was going to CAN. And we worked really well together, me on the carrier side and him on the agency side. He had mentioned to me at one point in time "Hey I would really love for you to think about LaPorte if you ever want to come to the agency side." I was—I was in some continuing education, and I still have this paper back in my home office and I just kind of beautiful-minded this thing where I was making notes everywhere. "Here's what's important to me and here's what I really would want to do if I went to the agency side." I wrote down some agencies that I was—had always been impressed with over the years and obviously LaPorte was on that list. So, I called Adam, we sat down and I said, "I think I'm ready to become an agent." So, we figured it out and so, I became an insurance agent at LaPorte back in 2015. So, this October will be 10 years and—you know, quickly I’m just—I’m—I’m a big learn-by-fire type of person so I jumped in. I started writing policies. I had all this insurance experience and knowledge and education so the biggest thing for me was just being able to talk to clients. I joke with them I speak insurance and not English so just trying to develop better English skills instead of insurance skills.
But—yeah, I just jumped in and I—I had made it known that I really wanted to become an owner and they said "Great just keep doing the right thing and it’ll happen for you." So, when I was pregnant with my daughter and I joke that I felt like I was 100 months pregnant with her, they offered me partnership and to buy into the agency. So, that was--that was amazing. And she was born in December of 2018, and I became a partner in ‘19 and have been working my way into different management roles and leadership roles. And so—today, myself and three of my partners are kind of our leadership team moving—moving forward and—there you go! Is that a good—is that a good explanation?
Suzanne Hanifin: I love it. Because it’s—it's interesting Lindsay and I've got a couple comments. One is I think you're the only person I've ever talked to who said I love the Portland weather. Number one.
Lyndsay Kooistra: Well right now it's kind of getting on me I'll be honest.
Suzanne Hanifin: I know. You're like "Oh it's just like London I love it!" And what? Really? No. Amazing. But the-the—it's interesting how your life has kind of been a straight line. Like—like, you've stayed in the insurance industry your whole career. You know, again claims adjusting to in, you know, as a carrier and now as an agent. But there's these formative things and experiences, whether it's with a mentor or—or some—something happens where people tend to take a step back. And similarly to you mine is all around my kids. That—that you kind of go "Okay I'm gonna have a kid, things need to change. Ok, here's another kid now I'm doing, you know, doing this." So, kind of dive more into these formative experiences that shaped who you are.
Lyndsay Kooistra: I—I learn—I learn by failure. I learn by experience and I really—you mentioned mentorship and so forth. I've worked for different leaders in the past that have, you know I've wanted to emulate or I've wanted—I I’ve liked what they've done and wanted to tweak it a little bit or do something differently. But yeah, every—every experience I've had has led me to where I am today and I still have a lot of growth and experience ahead of me. I’m trying to think of a better way to answer that for you. I gave you a good pause!
Suzanne Hanifin: Yeah, no I think that was—that was great because again, sometimes we go down these paths and life takes us. And and, it’s always interesting to look back and go “Wow this this really, again, impacted and help me shape these these—these decisions.
You also talked about, you wrote down these values what was important to you in switching. What are some of those values that you hold dear. And more importantly, as a partnership with four partners at LaPorte, how do you operationalize those values into every day work?
Lyndsay Kooistra: Yeah I'll I'll answer that in a couple different ways. So like one of my—my North Star is simple: it's do the right thing. And it’s, do the right thing by clients, do the right thing by employees, do the right thing by my agency. And what I really value about my partners is they have that same North Star and we'll be in—we’ll be in meetings together and we're just trying to discuss or problem solve something and it comes back to that "Okay well what's the right thing and how do we move that forward." So I—that is, that is an important value to me—what was the other part of your question? Sorry I should be writing down…
Suzanne Hanifin: Well, no okay no no no h—how do you operationalize that? So you've talked about that it's in the conversation and in the decision-making process, is how, you know, you take doing the right thing in everyday's world.
So, I know that LaPorte has been growing tremendously and as we all know it's either growth by, you know, organic growth or inorganic growth and you've done quite a bit of acquisition. You know, growing up in the M&A world on the finance side, the due diligence is the easy part. It's the integration that is such a hard part. So how do you take these values, assess a company that there's alignment, and how do you bring them together?
Lyndsay Kooistra: Yeah, so 2024 was a very busy year. This was the year that my—Dan, Adam, Taryn, and myself really became the the core leadership group. We had an amazing organic growth year. We surpassed our our goal, which was amazing, but then we also made three acquisitions between November 1st and January 1st of 2025. And—this was the first time, really, we had—we had made acquisitions as a team and it's a lot, but it's exciting because we’ve—we have a different value proposition than maybe some other agencies out there.
We really look for agencies that care about their employees and they care about their clients, and they want to see, they want to care for those two groups after the sale of their agency. And so, and our goal is to really help keep their brand and their identity and their community marketplace, and—and just, you know, foster growth, foster growth. And foster—we look for their culture too and like, making sure it's a good alignment for ours.
And it’s, the integration piece—there's different parts of it, right? So, I have—I wear a bunch of different hats at LaPorte and one of them is managing our carrier relationships. And so, I have to communicate to all of their carriers and our carriers saying, "Hey, we've brought on such and such agency, we're really excited about this partnership and here's what I need you to do." And—the amount of emails that I had to send and receive and all and additional paperwork, luckily we've got an amazing team that helps get us through all of that.
But just in these three acquisitions, I've learned so much from the first one to the third one on what to do and definitely what not to do. So—it’s now we're at a point where it's getting the people integrated and Dan, who's our president and CEO, had the great idea of having an all-agency summit. And so, we did that on President's Day and it was just so fun to get everybody together so that they could all meet from all over the state of Oregon and you know, talk about our mission and our values and our goals for the future. And it was, it was a really good and great event, great team building and just talking about, you know, what the future holds and and how we can all work together moving forward, so.
Suzanne Hanifin: No, that's—that’s amazing. So, what are some of those learnings you talked about? What to do, what not to do — just high level.
Lyndsay Kooistra: There's there’s a process with—when an agency is acquired in which their license needs to be surrendered and becomes part of LaPorte's. Their Oregon business registry needs to be updated and the carriers—some will look at this entity called Lexus Nexus. There's just—there’s a lot of this—the timing of things and if you do something out of step, it can cause issues. So, one of our acquisitions lost access to one of their carrier websites for a week because of the timing of some things and the timing of some other things that were outside of our control. And you know, working through that — problem-solving, figuring out how to keep things moving along when there's a halt — is problem-solving, is 90% of my job.
Suzanne Hanifin: And timing—and we say this in our business all the time—timing is everything.
Lyndsay Kooistra: It's everything. Yeah.
Suzanne Hanifin: You are so regulated, I can't even imagine. It’s boom boom, you know. The timing of everything is so critical.
Lyndsay Kooistra: So, I've kind of created policies and procedures of the timing of things and and I’m I'm big into policies and procedures. I love it. I love creating that kind of template and organizing them in OneNote, but then also being open to changing them, right? Because—you know, what works today may not work tomorrow. And you know, there are probably still some tweaks that I need to make to that — learning more throughout this process.
So—yeah, a lot of what I do is trying to build that out but then I have to be open to changing it because—we learn things along the way, right, and that's part of the gig.
Suzanne Hanifin: Yeah, it's it’s part of business ownership, isn't it? For sure.
So as we talk about learnings, here we are, you know, in our career, we're established. Looking back, Lindsay, what advice would you give your 20-year-old self?
Lyndsay Kooistra: Well, it's a little bit of what I talked about, of finding those leaders that you really respect, but finding them maybe a little bit earlier on and just trying to learn as much as possible and listen to them. Maybe do more listening than talking, right? That is—that’s a—that’s a big help.
But I want—a couple things that I wish I would have done earlier on is just finding my voice. I've always been an advocate for myself, and I feel like if nobody else is going to advocate for me, I've got to do it, right? But yeah, just finding my voice a little bit earlier on.
And then being my authentic self, which may be a good thing or not, I don't know. But—you know, the the other piece too is just making sure I don't lose sight of the other things that I love so much in life. You know, making sure that I find good quality time with my kids and my family—and doing all the things I love to do — going to museums and reading all the plaques. And doing photography, and reading books, and traveling, and all that kind of stuff.
So—I'm not very good at a work-life balance, and I would tell my 20-year-old self to get better.
Suzanne Hanifin: Yeah, I think that's a lesson a lot of us can learn because again—I I had a girlfriend who said it's not work-life balance. I'm trying to remember how she put it, but it was beautiful — it's like you work when you can work and then it's kind of about being present.
Lyndsay Kooistra: Yes
Suzanne Hanifin: This is the time that I'm here with my children or my husband or my girlfriends or my you know, whatever.
Lyndsay Kooistra: Yeah.
Suzanne Hanifin: And that is a hard lesson for sure.
Lyndsay Kooistra: I joke—I joke its quality not quantity. So, when I'm with my kids I try to put the phone away and not look at it. I have a setting on my phone that’s—that, you know, when somebody's calling I can click it that says, "Kiddo time, call you later." You know, like, it's—it’s really important to me to try to have that quality because the quantity isn't there.
Suzanne Hanifin: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you know that this podcast is about leadership and and learnings and what we can share. So, we always like to ask about hiring for good. What does hiring for good mean to you?
Lyndsay Kooistra: Well, I love that question Suzanne and I typed it out because I didn't want to fumble through it, so I'm going to read you my answer: But I said hiring for good means building a team that not only excels in skill but also aligns with our values of integrity, service, and accountability. It's about bringing in people who are not just here for a job but are committed to making a meaningful impact on our clients, our industry, and on each other. For me, that means looking beyond resumés and identifying individuals who take ownership, solve problems proactively, and genuinely care about delivering exceptional service. It's about fostering a culture where people feel supported, challenged, and empowered to grow beyond our own organization. Hiring for good also means contributing to the industry by creating opportunities for diverse talent, mentoring the next generation, and ensuring that the work we do has a lasting positive impact on the community we serve.
Suzanne Hanifin: Wow, if I wrote that out I would have read it too. I think you've said it better than I could have ever said because again...
Lyndsay Kooistra: I doubt that Suzanne.
Suzanne Hanifin: Well, but it's bigger than us and I think that's to me hiring for good is bigger than just me. It's employees, it's clients, it's community, it's where we live, it's again bigger than just one person.
No, I love it. So, so, tell me a little bit, Lindsay, and I'm gonna go backwards, about the values and the clients. Who are your ideal clients and why? You talked about value proposition; why should they call you?
Lyndsay Kooistra: I love problem-solving, and I love complex insurance needs. A lot—a lot of my clients, you know... starting at the beginning, I'm like, "Document dump on me, send me your policies, let me go through them, let me organize them." I love OneNote. I also love spreadsheets, so I'll spreadsheet everything. And then I'm a very detail-oriented person, which is not common in the sales world, but I am very detail-oriented. So, I want to dive into those policies, learn the goods, the maybe not-so-goods, maybe the gaps of coverage, and—and then, it’s really...education is really important to me. It's always been a foundation of my career and it's a foundation of how I work with clients. So, the better educated I am, the better I can help them, and the better I educate clients, the better they understand the insurance policies that are there to protect them.
So—Ideal clients for me are really those that appreciate detail and want detail and want to get into the weeds of things and will enjoy having fun with me. I think insurance is fun, and I do try to make it fun. Obviously, there are times where things are—scary or worrisome or—concerning, and that's also part of what I'm here for. And making sure that if the worst thing happens and someone has a claim, then I'm here to advocate for them and bring in the right team to support them.
It sounds kind of like a weird way to answer that question, but I work a lot in the construction industry, development—developers—building owners, manufacturing—but yeah, those complex insurance needs are where I really enjoy life.
Suzanne Hanifin: Yes, and so the second shock — I don't think anybody has ever said insurance is fun.
Lyndsay Kooistra: I know I'm not the first, but I can't think of anybody. I took a personality test back when I worked at AmTrust, and I think it was AmTrust that I was at... maybe it was maybe it was Allied or CNA. But it was one of those things where, you know, "What's your sales acumen?" and "What drives you?" and the question answer was, "If Lindsay's not having fun, she's moving on." And it's true. I have to have fun with what I'm doing because we work so hard. I I I don't want to add up how many hours a week I work, but I'm thinking it's north of 60, and why would I work 60 hours a week if I wasn't having fun?
Suzanne Hanifin: I love it, I love it. Another great learning for us.
So, Lindsay, this is— we've paused the video, but I really think what we were talking about is good information for business owners and—how we need to be looking at insurance. So, let's take Acumen. Acumen for professional service as an organization. So, errors and omissions, our professional liability — we have all of that. But we also own a building. So, walk me through what I need to be looking at.
Lyndsay Kooistra: Yeah. Yeah, so one, I would love to spreadsheet things for you, Suzanne. But—you know, you own your building, right? So, making sure your building limit, your business personal property, and your business income meet your needs. So, I'll talk to clients about, "Worst case scenario, you have a fire. Do you have enough coverage to rebuild your building, to replace all your business personal property? Do you have enough business income coverage?" There are different ways to do that that will make sure that one, you could pay your payroll from that, replace your income that you're missing out on because your building is gone.
And then also with your professional liability E&O policy, looking at the definition of professional services. The broader, the better in my opinion on that. And then looking at the exclusions, because there are probably other policies that are out there that could fill the gaps on those exclusions. And that could be cyber insurance that protects you from a data breach, ransomware, that sort of thing. It could be a management liability policy that covers you for your directors and officers, employment practices liability, crime, and fiduciary liability. I do know those are excluded on a professional liability policy, so that's why I bring them up.
But yeah, so it's important to go through the details of things and make sure that if there is a gap or an exclusion, you know, "Do I want to self-insure this or do I want to find a separate insurance policy to cover it?"
Suzanne Hanifin: Yeah, because again, we can just take that building — you know, most people I think think like me as a business owner. You go, "I've got insurance, if it burns down it's covered." But I never thought about wages lost... you know, this other whole piece that again makes me think that you and I do need to sit down, and you can do an audit of my insurance. But what other things as a business owner do you think they need to look at to be protected?
Lyndsay Kooistra: Yeah, well, we talked about the property. So part—sometimes the property is part of a package policy which would include general liability. You've got auto liability, and if your business doesn't own business vehicles, then there's a coverage called hired and non-owned auto liability. So that gives you coverage for renting vehicles, which is the hired, and then the non-owned, which is you're using your vehicle on personal use or, excuse me, not for personal use — for business use. And you get in an accident, you cause an accident, you're at fault, right? Your personal insurance is always going to be primary, but if they find out the claimant or a claim's attorney finds out you own Acumen or you work for Acumen, they may name Acumen in the lawsuit, and that's what that non-owned liability is there for. It protects the business not the driver if that makes sense—and then there is umbrella policy and this policy can go above and beyond your general liability, your auto liability, your employer's liability, which is part of your workers' comp policy and the employee benefits liability.
And I was like I know I'm forgetting something so. Having employee benefits liability if you offer—Medical Group group health insurance to your employees. That's what that employee benefits liability is for.
So that's just to name a few. Every company is different. Manufacturing—manufacturing clients are going to be looking at an ocean cargo stock throughput inland marine type policy quite frequently potentially product recall as well.
Construction clients are going to be looking at pollution coverage, professional errors and emissions type policies. Everybody is—should look at a management liability policy to help protect your directors and officers, Employment Practices, fiduciary and crime.So.
And cyber losses keep happening. We see them unfortunately quite frequently either with social engineering or ransomware. Those are the most common and there the the you've gotta you've got to do the research or your agent has to do the research to find the right policy to protect you.
Suzanne Hanifin: Yeah, and we both know Nick who is the owner of Heroic Technology Cyber Solutions and Nick always says you're you're not too small to be attacked. You're too small to be on the news. And and that always just you know clicks into my head and and I think it's surprising how common it's becoming.
Lyndsay Kooistra: It is—I think COVID made it worse because the bad guys sat at home trying to figure out ways to--more ways to hack and more ways to wreak havoc.
I always love when Nick talks about—the different things that have happened and I in my mind I'm always saying insurance can cover that. Insurance can cover that. Make sure you buy good insurance. So.
Because it it is it happens unfortunately a lot and--you know a good cyber policy is going to have that protection for ransomware. It'll have a social engineering sublimit. It'll have PR expense. It'll have business income replacement so—and more that I'm not mentioning.
Suzanne Hanifin: Yeah, so again what a good reminder to at least pull everything out and and have an audit done and find those gaps. And to really look at it as that risk is this worth risking or or not.
So once again Lindsay I have to say thank you for some educating me. Some educating.
Lyndsay Kooistra: I love educating.
Suzanne Hanifin: Yeah, thank you for educating me on really things to to think about and be aware. Because you know insurance it's we said it's the devil's in the details and it's kind of CYA right. That's what insurance is.
Lyndsay Kooistra: Yup. And many more there and fun
Suzanne Hanifin: Yes, and and you have fun so so not to get…yeah. So, thank you once again Lindsay and—again even just for an audit contact Lindsay. Thank you.
Lyndsay Kooistra: Thank you.