the MGIS companies

The tradition of workplace excellence at The MGIS Companies, Inc. (MGIS) started with Dale Brunken, who began his career early in life. His father passed away when he was just 11 years old and Dale went to work in the farm fields in the vicinity of Eugene and Grants Pass, Oregon, to help support his mother and younger siblings. Later, he found employment in a men’s fine-clothing store and worked his way up from window displays to sales.

It was apparent from a young age that Dale had a knack for sales. When he was fifteen, he tried to convince the owners of the clothing store to let him sell, but they said he was too young. He kept pestering until finally the owner presented Dale with a challenge. He told Dale there were 21 purple and pink satin cowboy suits that had been in the basement for years. If Dale could sell just one, he’d put him on the sales staff after school and on Saturdays. Dale checked the newspaper and found a rodeo in Brownsville, about 75 miles away. He got on a Greyhound bus that Saturday morning with five cowboy outfits under his arm, found the rodeo, stayed for two hours, sold 16 outfits to the Girls’ posse, rode the bus home—and his career in sales was launched. Dale put himself through the University of Oregon while continuing to work for that store.

After serving as a USAF fighter pilot in the Korean Conflict, Dale began his career in the insurance business. He soon recognized an emerging trend of physicians joining group practices. When he started MGIS in 1969, he was simply filling a business need. Physicians needed disability income protection and group practices were a more stable underwriting risk. Yet, no physician group disability product existed then. So, Dale found a small insurer to take a chance on a new product. As a result, MGIS pioneered the first physician group disability product.

That first product innovation became a pattern for MGIS. Over the next 40 years, MGIS pioneered several products and innumerable enhancements. MGIS is the recognized leader nationally in providing group disability protection for physicians. MGIS’ accumulated expertise within the physician group market has helped MGIS broaden its premier product offerings. In fact, MGIS has served over 135,000 physicians and their employees in over 8,000 medical group practices over the years.

MGIS now offers the industry’s premier physician group disability and medical-professional liability insurance policies to medical groups nationally. MGIS works exclusively through insurance advisors and brokers who have experience and specialized insurance-product knowledge. These brokers now number in the thousands and are supported by MGIS training and specialized, “white glove” client services.

Dale isn’t with us anymore and today’s MGIS team is much broader than the early days, but his legacy lives on at MGIS. His decades of hard work, good business judgment, and honest business dealings set the tone here. He was a friend and mentor to many of us, “Dad” to a few of us, and a great example to all of us. All those who knew Dale personally enjoyed his kind nature, his integrity in business and personal life, and his genuine care and concern for others. He passed away March 13, 2005, on his 75th birthday.

With its strong legacy and lessons of the past, MGIS today operates with a very clear objective: That is to provide premiere insurance products to physicians. We’re here to deliver what our physician customers, our partners, and our brokers expect. Dale would have it no other way.