NEW YORKER of the WEEK
David Sterling
To serve and protect
BY ALAN KRAWITZ
For David Sterling, president and
CEO of SterlingRisk Insurance,
it’s always been about “connecting
with people and helping them.”
But Sterling’s path to building one
of the largest national insurance brokers,
and a leading provider of risk
management services and employee
benefi ts, wasn’t always clear.
“My dream early-on was to become
a clinical psychologist, I loved
that world,” he recalled. “I was very
interested in connecting with people
and helping them.”
Sterling attended the University of
Wisconsin at Madison and majored
in psychology. But, in a very short
time, he realized he wasn’t a good
fi t for the fi eld since he was “too
concrete,” and psychology is a “very
subjective fi eld.”
Although Sterling was disappointed
by this realization, it also helped
open his eyes to an alternate career
path, to possibly work in his family’s
insurance business, which began life
as the Central Underwriters Agency,
opened in 1932 by Sterling’s grandfather
and located on Park Avenue
in Manhattan.
“I thought insurance was an interesting
fi eld,” Sterling said, as it would
allow him the opportunity to explore
various fi elds from construction and
real estate to fi nance and maybe one
would pique his interest.
And that’s exactly what happened.
While still in Wisconsin, he
switched his degree to insurance.
Later, after moving to Long Island
and fi nishing his degree in fi nance
at Hofstra University, Sterling joined
the family business in 1978.
“I realized the business I loved
most actually was insurance, because
it enabled me to connect with
many different people in various
businesses,” he said, adding that
“you’re protecting people by providing
them with coverage they can afford
and still help them. “It’s what I
always wanted.”
Fast forward to 42 years later, and
Sterling has a “career I was made for
and didn’t even know it.”
Today, SterlingRisk Insurance
has eight locations from New York
to Florida and provides clients with
business insurance, consulting and
personal insurance in a variety of industries
from architecture and aviation
to restaurants and retail.
But, more than anything, Sterling
David and Mona Sterling
says that among his most
prominent accomplishments is assembling
a team of professionals
who have helped build the now
90-year-old company.
“You can’t get the type of growth
PROVIDED
we’ve enjoyed without the right
people,” he says.
Sterling also points to the company’s
development of “some of the
most creative insurance products in
the industry in the past 40 years.”
He said that since 2009, the
company has “tripled in growth,”
with most of that being organic as
opposed to acquisitions.
“Our growth is across the board
and not attributed to any one area,
except for maybe real estate, which
has grown well in New York over the
years,” he noted.
He credits his wife Mona, for some
of that growth.
“My wife is a real estate developer…
I met her in 1996 and much of
the company’s spectacular growth
started then,” Sterling said. “A great
deal of what I’ve been able to accomplish
has been because of her.”
He also adds that the company
helped to pioneer selling the fi rst
online insurance policies, back in
the days when Western Union was
still using its Telex system, predating
the Internet.
“We sold some of the very fi rst
insurance policies online,” he recalls.
Asked how the ongoing pandemic
has affected the company, Sterling
said he’s remained fl exible since
the beginning.
“I was following the events in
China from the start and made the
early decision to be fl exible and let
my team work the way they’re most
comfortable and felt safest,” he said.
Sterling noted that the pandemic
had some unintended consequences,
such as “exposing people to a lifestyle
few knew existed,” allowing people
to get things done at home while still
working and remaining productive.
“I’m not making any demands on
employees to come back to the offi
ce…people can use a hybrid model,
couple days in offi ce and then at
home,” he noted. “In many ways, I’m
not the leader,” he says. I’m following
my employees.”
Sterling’s philanthropic life is centered
mainly around donating and
volunteering with AIPAC (American
Israeli Public Affairs Committee) and
the UJA Federation.
He explained that he supports
the organizations to help combat
the ongoing societal problem of
antisemitism, or persecution of Jews.
“Through a combination of my
own personal feelings as well as history
and facts, Jews continue to be
one of the most persecuted groups in
the world throughout history,” Sterling
noted. “It just feels right to me…
To help Jews who need it and also
to build bridges between the Jewish
community and other racial, religious
and ethnic groups as well as to help
strengthen the U.S.-Israeli alliance.”
Sterling also serves on numerous
charitable boards and gives to a
wide range of organizations, such as
Habitats for Humanity, which builds
housing for the homeless.
“Because, these issues affect all of
us,” he noted.
8 January 27, 2022 Schneps Media