About Bashwinger Insurance: 50+ Years on the Mohawk

A family agency, founded in the 1970s

The agency that became Bashwinger Insurance was started in the early 1970s by Billy Bashwinger, who opened on Market Street in downtown Amsterdam to serve neighbors and small business owners who weren't being well-served by the big national insurance brands of the time. Billy built the book one client at a time — Main Street retailers, small contractors, families buying their first home in Gloversville or Johnstown.

The agency passed to his son Lee Bashwinger, who modernized the carrier mix, grew the commercial side of the book through Fulton County, and continued the same commitment to local service that Billy had started with. Today Bashwinger Insurance still operates from downtown Amsterdam and still works the same Fulton and Montgomery County towns that Billy first knocked on doors in.

What "independent" actually means

We are not a captive agency. A captive agent works for a single insurance company and can sell only that company's products — if the rate goes up at renewal, the only option is to sell you the same company at the higher rate. An independent agent, by contrast, has appointments with many carriers and can shop your home, auto, business, or umbrella policy across all of them.

That model isn't unique to us — but the way we apply it is. We re-shop policies at every renewal that comes back with a meaningful increase, we tell clients straight when their existing carrier is still the best deal even after a hike, and we don't try to bind business that doesn't fit. The goal is a 20-year client relationship, not a one-year transaction.

What we write, and where

We write personal lines (home, auto, motorcycle, renters, umbrella, flood) and commercial lines (BOP, GL, workers' comp, commercial auto, commercial property, cyber, professional liability) across all of Fulton and Montgomery County, NY. Our largest concentration of clients sits in Amsterdam, Johnstown, Gloversville, and the river-corridor towns, but we regularly write across every town in both counties.

We are also licensed beyond our home counties for select clients with property or business interests elsewhere in New York State. The home base, though, is the Mohawk Valley — and that's where we do our best work.

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