Three hundred years of combined insurance experience are the result of the recent merger of two established and well-known Albany agencies.

Fleming & Riles Insurance and Brown Detherage Insurance merged effective July 1, only a  few weeks after Fleming & Riles moved to their new offices on Pointe North Boulevard south of Old Dawson Road. They were previously located at 1115 West Third Avenue.

Fleming & Riles Insurance traces its roots back to 1898 with the Gortakowsky Insurance Agency, owned by the Gortakowsky family. It was purchased by Garrett Fleming in 1979. Brown Detherage had its origins in Albany in 1954, when Jack and Joyce Detherage (now Joyce Chastain) started a small agency on Slappey Boulevard. The agency – which is still providing services to some of its original clients - grew through the years and the office moved to a site on Highland Avenue. Scott Brown purchased the business in 2004 and changed the name to Brown Detherage.

Their location has changed, but Fleming & Riles remains committed to a high level of service for both its longtime clients and the new policy-holders that came in with Brown Detherage, according to Fleming & Riles’ Clint Ivy.

Scott Brown of Brown Detherage said, “I’m as concerned about having somebody take care of and give the right kind of service to my customers as anything. I’ve been serving them for 20 years, and they’re accustomed to the level of service that I’ve been giving them. I wanted Clint to continue that and I knew he would, and that’s why I decided to talk to Clint about a merger. I’m confident they will give them the same or better service than I did.”

Ivy believes the merger will provide “more opportunities for Scott and his customers to have access to more companies in the marketplace. With Scott and I together, it’s a win-win for his customers, where they continue to get the great service they were always given; we’ll make sure of that,” along with the possibility of better coverage and better rates. “I think we both have great reputations in this community. Scott has been around for a long time, and the agency he works with has been around a long time.”