Brokers Alliance Founder

Joseph starting writing life insurance as an independent broker in 1978. He founded his General Agency, RAAN Marketing, Inc. in February 1982. Joe founded the first Brokers Alliance® in the town of Homewood, Illinois. He expanded in 1995 by establishing the Fountain Hills, Arizona office.

Joe Racich also created a revolutionary, in its time, newspaper called the Illinois Broker and creative solution for Brokers Alliance®, the insurance brokerage that Joe Racich was part-owner of in 1990. As a way of bringing legitimate news to the insurance community, Joe saw the vision of Illinois Broker as that channel of communication.

It would also provide a means of low cost or free advertising to his brokerage company. Illinois Broker was setup as a separate company with a goal of creating the statewide insurance publication that provided the entire industry a means of communicating with the independent insurance brokers in Illinois. Competitors of Brokers Alliance® paid to advertise in the publication to reach the 50,000 plus agents/brokers in the state.

In a short few years, the publication was thriving as the largest and most widely read publication in the state for insurance professionals. Joe expanded it along with his brokerage company to Arizona, and then Nevada. The success was so good that counterparts in other states inquired to Joe on how they might do the same in their state. In a stroke of new genius, Joe and his partner developed a licensing system whereby other brokerage companies could finance their own version of Illinois Broker in their home state, while Joe's team managed the production, articles, advertising, etc. At this time the name was changed to Broker News, and then regionally branded by the licensees of the Broker News name. Within 10 years, Broker News was being circulated to more than 600,000 agents in 20 regions/states.

Along the way, Joe created the first JUMBO Card Pack in the insurance industry. This became an additional marketing tool for the Broker News advertisers through direct mail, and landed Broker News on the national scene for effective insurance marketing. Other card pack companies followed suit shortly after with their own version of the JUMBO Card Park, placing Joe in the innovative category once again.

Joe's ability to see opportunities in his field are unparallelled, and substantial. Thus, he is seen as a pioneer of innovation in the insurance marketing industry, and has been awarded top contracts and annual sales awards each year.