I was born and raised in Ellendale, Minnesota — the kind of small town where the diner knows your order, the church knows your family, and your neighbors will plow your driveway before you have a chance to ask. Growing up somewhere that small teaches you what really matters early on: show up for people, do what you say you are going to do, and keep your word like it is a contract. Because in a town like Ellendale, that is exactly what it is.
I went through school at NRHEG, where I spent most of my free time running track and playing basketball for the Panthers. Sports taught me lessons I still lean on every single day in this business. You do not win games on talent alone — you win them by showing up early, putting in the work nobody sees, and trusting the people standing next to you. That is exactly how I try to run my agency.
My father was in the insurance business long before I joined it, and growing up I watched him do something I have never forgotten: he genuinely cared. He did not just sell policies. He sat at kitchen tables. He answered phone calls on Sunday afternoons. He treated every family he served as if they were his own. He helped hundreds of people, and as a kid I knew without question that I wanted to do exactly what he did.
When I joined him in the business, I dreamed of one day helping as many families as he had. I never expected to be doing it without him.
When he passed, the weight of his work fell on my shoulders, and so did the responsibility of carrying his name forward. Today, I run the William Tuttle Agency from our office in Owatonna, where my team and I serve families and business owners across five states. We are a Farmers Insurance Premier Agency — and more important than any credential, we are your neighbors. You will see us at the Chamber, at Big Brothers Big Sisters events, at the youth basketball game your kid is playing in, and at the coffee shop on Broadway.
This work has always been personal to me. And now, in a way I never could have planned for, it is more personal than ever. Every family I help is a quiet tribute to the man who taught me what this job is really about. I do not think of myself as filling my father's shoes — I think of myself as carrying his work forward, one family at a time.
If you are looking for an agent who is going to pick up the phone, look you in the eye, and treat your family like his own — let us talk.
— Will Tuttle