Over two months ago, PIA Northeast welcomed back Mary Anne Cecchetto as the new director of membership. Cecchetto has nearly 38 years of experience in the insurance industry, serving as a sales & retention representative for 14 years and 13 years as a membership liaison, retention specialist, licensed sales executive and marketing representative at PIA Northeast.
The role of director of membership oversees the operations of PIA Northeast’s membership growth, engagement, on-boarding, recruitment and retention activities. Part of realizing those goals is making sure members and nonmembers are helped, understood and guided.
“Our job is to reach out to our members and nonmembers to keep track of trends and issues, and to discover what they need to run their agencies” Cecchetto said. “Then we use that information to help establish the association’s agenda and goals.”
In addition to making sure that agents are heard, PIA offers benefits to its members to help them “survive and thrive,” as Cecchetto explained. For independent agents and their agencies, they may not have the means to be truly self-sufficient in terms of education and legal resources.
“Basically, PIA is the business partner for agents and brokers,” said Cecchetto. “If you’re an agent you have to hire somebody to do all those things for your agency.”
“Or you can join PIA, and you can let us take care of it—it’s more cost effective. PIA Northeast provides members with the information, the education, the legislative representation, the products and the services they need.”
In her role, Cecchetto will continue to provide excellent service for independent agents through effective communication and a variety of resources for them to use.
Throughout her decades of experience, the American insurance industry has changed so much due to advances in technology and major historical events, but Cecchetto has found that the base needs of professionals have remained the same, like managing operating costs, finding and retaining employees, and navigating the insurance marketplace.
“That’s the thing about insurance, people are always going to need it. You’re always going to need professional people to do that,” said Cecchetto. “I want our members to survive and thrive. That’s what PIA is going to do by being their business partner.”
Matt McDonough is PIA Northeast's writer, editor and content curator. Matt joined PIA Northeast in September 2023. Before that, he had been an editor for the online entertainment magazine Collider from 2021-23 as a copy editor for its lists section. Matt entered the world of journalism at his alma mater, SUNY New Paltz, writing and reporting for the college's student run newspaper, The New Paltz Oracle. He graduated from SUNY New Paltz with a Bachelor of Arts in English and a minor in Creative Writing in 2020.
