Nona McCreedy | PMR Insurance

Nona McCreedy, president, founding partner, PMR Insurance 

Nona McCreedy is not one to back down from a challenge. 

Now an insurance vet with 44 years’ experience, she was inspired to join the industry when her husband started taking insurance courses, intent on buying her stepfather’s brokerage when he retired. 

She was working as a preschool teacher then, but decided to take the courses too and soon learned she loved underwriting and the problem-solving associated with it.  

An insurance company hired her and, after a few months at her new job, while sitting at a meeting with a branch manager, she decided to stir the pot. “You know, nowhere in this company is there a woman who’s above being a unit manager or supervisor,” she said.  

“By now, the branch manager knew I was a bit of a rebel, mostly without a cause. So he kind of smiled, and he said, ‘You’re right. But what are you going to do about it?’” 

She responded: ‘Well, I’m sure I’ll come up with something.’” 

Over a few years, she climbed the ranks and took charge of a commercial lines unit. But she wasn’t done. After progressing from company to company, even working on the retail side for a bit, she took the opportunity to start Aurora Underwriting, a managing general agent (MGA).  

“At one point after I had started it, I was the only female [Lloyd’s] coverholder in North America,” she said.  

The other women she saw at the Lloyd’s meetings would be accompanying male coverholders as a secretary or assistant. McCreedy would make a pointed, but polite, display of introducing herself to the women first, “because I wanted them to feel like they were part of it — and that they were an important part of it — because to me, they were an important part of it.” 

McCreedy would also audibly point out the number of women she saw in those meetings, holding her colleagues accountable for improving the representation of women at their own companies. “Pretty soon,” she said, “I started to notice the difference. 

“These days, I see more women in this business who have moved up the ladder,” she reflects. “And it’s wonderful to see, because we are good at it.” 

She sold Aurora a few years ago with the intent of retiring. Instead, she founded another MGA — PMR Insurance Services. 

Studies support that women network differently than men, and that the gender-specific career advice and support that women give each other is crucial to their advancement. 

Plus, women tend to feel comfortable using their network only after they’ve formed in-depth relationships, whereas men often don’t have those same reservations. 

Early in her career, McCreedy joined an industry association for women. It was a safe space where female leaders mentored and shared their knowledge with younger female professionals, full of support and free from hierarchy. “There would be clerks, right up to presidents or vice presidents of companies, sitting at this table, and we were all equal,” she said.  

Eventually, the association allowed men to join, says McCreedy. But instead of being about allyship, the dynamic changed to one of competition. And that was the end of the line for McCreedy.

“That was when I kind of lost interest in that,” she says. “But I never lost interest in mentoring other women.” 

For 15 years, she taught courses at the Insurance Institute “because I love teaching,” she said. “I loved to see the look on people’s faces when they got it. You could see it in their eyes, and it was just marvelous.” 

She still takes calls from her former students who have questions about risks. For McCreedy, that’s a symbol of the importance of building a professional network and supporting fellow women in the industry.  

“I can pick up the phone a dozen times today and talk to a dozen different women in this country who would help me with what I needed to know,” she said. “And I would do the same for anybody who phones.”