Four Generations, One Promise
From a storefront on Grant Street to a specialty brokerage serving clients coast-to-coast, the Kelly name has quietly stood behind Pittsburgh's business community for over a century — and we're still writing policies for families the Kellys first served decades ago.
Why The Lineage Matters
Most insurance agencies don't outlive their founders. They sell, merge, or fold when the next generation decides the family business isn't for them. The lineage that became Kelly Insurance Group has survived that problem four times over — from W.A. Young to H.H. Dixon, from Dixon to his son R.C., from R.C. Dixon to Franklin B. Kelly, and from Franklin down through Jeff to Jonathan today.
That continuity is the whole point. When you hand your coverage to an agency that has been in business since 1881, you're not buying a policy from a brand — you're buying it from an operation that has watched more than a century of Pittsburgh's businesses rise, evolve, and occasionally fail. We've written policies through two world wars, the Great Depression, the collapse of steel, the rise of tech, a pandemic, and every hard market in between.
The handshakes got faster and the paperwork went digital. The job didn't change.
"We still service personal and commercial accounts that my grandfather wrote by hand. Same families, sometimes same properties, different generation."
— Jonathan Kelly, Owner
Where It All Began
W.A. Young
Original Founder · Insurance, Surety Bonds & Real Estate
The story of Kelly Insurance Group starts long before the Kelly name. In 1881, W.A. Young opened his insurance, surety bond, and real estate agency at 1901 Grant Street in downtown Pittsburgh — a single storefront that would change hands twice before Franklin B. Kelly ever wrote his first policy. When H.H. Dixon of Millvale purchased the agency in 1904, he was buying Young's book, Young's reputation, and the foundation of what would eventually become our 140+ year lineage.
Portrait & Original Grant Street Office
Franklin B. Kelly
Founder · Franklin B. Kelly Insurance Agency
Franklin — "Frank" to nearly everyone who knew him — cut his teeth at The Indemnity Insurance Company of North America in the early 1950s, rising to Assistant Manager before leaving to go out on his own. After a brief partnership as the Dixon-Kelly Agency with H.H. Dixon, Franklin opened the Franklin B. Kelly Insurance Agency in Millvale in 1957. His handshake-first approach to underwriting set the tone for three generations of Kellys — and for policies we still service today.
Portrait & Original Indemnity Business CardThe Millvale Offices
Franklin B. Kelly Agency — Office 1
The first office to carry the Kelly name. Franklin launched the agency in Millvale in 1957 after striking out from Indemnity and partnering briefly as Dixon-Kelly.
Franklin B. Kelly Agency — Office 2
A later Millvale location of the Franklin B. Kelly Insurance Agency — still serving the same Pittsburgh neighborhoods that made up the agency's founding book of business.
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The Great Flood
Where Our Agency Learned What Risk Really Means
The photograph above shows H.H. Dixon's agency — the Millvale insurance office that would eventually be acquired by Franklin B. Kelly — in the aftermath of the Great Flood of 1936. Fed by rapid snowmelt and relentless rainfall, the Allegheny River surged past its banks and submerged Millvale under more than a dozen feet of water. The disaster was so prolonged and the recovery so grinding that many locals still reference it as "the 1937 flood," naming the year by the damage, not the date the water arrived.
Homes, storefronts, and the small businesses that made up Millvale's working-class economy were overwhelmed. Infrastructure collapsed, utilities failed, and entire blocks were left unrecognizable. For many residents and business owners, it wasn't property damage — it was total economic reset. Decades of effort, sunk equity, and ledger-book goodwill disappeared beneath the waterline in a matter of days.
The flood reshaped how Western Pennsylvania thought about risk. It accelerated the dam construction, river management systems, and flood control initiatives still protecting the region today. And for the insurance agencies operating in Millvale at the time — including the Dixon agency — it embedded a harsh truth into the culture of the business: catastrophic loss isn't theoretical, and inadequate coverage can erase a lifetime of work overnight.
That mindset carried forward. When H.H. Dixon passed the agency to his son R.C., and when R.C. eventually sold to Franklin B. Kelly, what changed hands wasn't just a book of business — it was a hard-earned respect for real exposure, forged in the worst natural disaster Millvale ever survived. It's why we still approach underwriting the way we do. A hundred years of "what can go wrong" is baked into the way this agency reads a risk.
The Event
The Allegheny River submerged Millvale under 12+ feet of water — one of the most destructive disasters in Western PA history.
The Aftermath
Accelerated flood control, dam construction, and river management across the region — the infrastructure that still protects Pittsburgh today.
The Legacy
A generational respect for real exposure — not hypothetical risk — that still shapes how we underwrite specialty accounts today.
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The Night Frank Stayed Home
How The Hindenburg Shaped A Family's Passion For Risk
The LZ 129 Hindenburg erupts into flames during its landing approach at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey — killing 36 people and effectively ending the era of passenger airship travel in a 34-second inferno caught on newsreel.
Franklin B. Kelly was a young man in 1937 — years before he would ever think about writing an insurance policy. He was living in Lakehurst, New Jersey, working as a dirigible worker at the Naval Air Station. The Hindenburg — the largest aircraft ever flown — was scheduled to land there on the evening of May 6th, and Frank was on the ground crew.
He wasn't feeling well the night before. Whatever it was — a cold, a flu, an off night — Frank made the call that any working man might have grumbled about on another week: he decided to call off for his shift on May 6th.
At 7:25 PM the next evening, the Hindenburg burst into flames above the exact field where Frank would have been standing. The disaster killed 36 people, leveled one of the most ambitious engineering feats of the 20th century, and was broadcast live in one of the most haunting radio reports ever recorded.
Frank wasn't there. A stomach-ache kept him home.
It's the kind of story families tell at dinner tables for decades — the night Grandpa called off sick and the world changed without him. But for the Kelly family, it became something more than a story. Twenty years later, Franklin would open the Franklin B. Kelly Insurance Agency in Millvale. Three generations later, his grandson Jonathan would build a brokerage specializing in the hardest risks the insurance market will place — crane operators, aviation contractors, stage riggers, event operators, the people whose jobs put them in the path of what can go wrong.
You can't help but wonder if the Hindenburg paved the path. If a single day off in 1937 planted the seed for four generations of Kellys taking risk more seriously than anyone in the room.
A Century-Plus of Continuity
W.A. Young Opens on Grant Street
W.A. Young establishes his insurance, surety bond, and real estate agency in downtown Pittsburgh — the earliest link in our family's chain of custody over Pittsburgh's insurance business.
The Dixon Family Acquires the Book
Millvale's H.H. Dixon purchases the agency from W.A. Young, later passing the business to his son R.C. Dixon — moving the operation's center of gravity from downtown to Millvale.
The Great Millvale Flood
The Allegheny River submerges Millvale under 12+ feet of water. The Dixon agency weathers the storm — and the experience cements a generational respect for real exposure that still shapes how we underwrite today.
Franklin Calls Off Sick — The Hindenburg Falls
Working as a dirigible handler at Lakehurst NAS, Franklin B. Kelly feels under the weather and skips his shift. That evening, the Hindenburg explodes on the landing field where he would have been standing. The story becomes family lore — and arguably the spark for the Kellys' lifelong fluency in catastrophic risk.
Franklin B. Kelly Begins at Indemnity
Franklin B. Kelly starts his career at The Indemnity Insurance Company of North America, rising to Assistant Manager before leaving to go out on his own.
The Dixon–Kelly Partnership
Franklin teams up with H.H. Dixon to form the Dixon-Kelly Agency — the formal bridge between the Young/Dixon lineage and what would become the Kelly agency.
Franklin B. Kelly Insurance Agency Is Born
Franklin opens the Franklin B. Kelly Insurance Agency in Millvale — the first office to carry the Kelly family name, and the ancestor of every policy we write today.
Jeff Kelly Takes the Helm — KIG Is Formed
D. Jeffrey Kelly, Franklin's son, assumes ownership and rebrands the firm as Kelly Insurance Group, Inc. — the name that still hangs on the door today.
Smith & Irons and Fred F. Gigler Acquired
KIG expands its book by acquiring two storied Pittsburgh-area agencies — Smith & Irons Insurance and the Fred F. Gigler Agency — deepening personal-lines and commercial roots.
North Side Headquarters
The agency relocates from Millvale to Pittsburgh's North Side — a short drive from the old Millvale office and still walking distance from where the Kelly story began.
Jonathan Kelly Joins the Agency
Jonathan Kelly — Jeff's son and Franklin's grandson — begins his career at Kelly Insurance Group, carrying the family name into its third active generation.
Holman & James Insurance Launched
Jonathan founds Holman & James Insurance as a dedicated specialty brokerage — a sister operation with its own focus on hard-to-place entertainment and commercial accounts.
Holman & James Folds Into KIG
Kelly Insurance Group acquires Holman & James — uniting Jonathan's specialty book with the family agency and consolidating the full Kelly operation under one roof.
Same Families, Same Phone Number
KIG still services personal and commercial accounts that Franklin B. Kelly himself wrote decades ago — proof that the boutique approach still holds up in a consolidating industry.
From Main Street To The Main Stage
In the 1970s, Kelly Insurance Group wrote its first entertainment policy — a small, offbeat account that opened a door the agency has been walking through ever since. While most small-town agencies stayed in homeowners and auto, KIG leaned into the hard stuff: concerts, tours, stages, rigs, inflatables, aircraft, mechanical bulls, LED walls, film productions — the accounts carriers mark "do not quote" on the submission.
Fifty years later, that instinct for hard-to-place risk is the engine of the business. Specialty brokerage isn't a side practice at KIG — it's the main stage. The boutique approach Franklin built in Millvale scales surprisingly well when the account you're underwriting is a crane operator in Texas or an arts non-profit in Oregon.
Boutique, Not Small
Independent agency means our allegiance runs to the client, not a parent carrier. We shop every renewal. We place accounts with the underwriter most likely to actually pay the claim — not the one offering the cheapest premium on day one.
Licensed In Most States
A Pittsburgh headquarters and the licensing footprint of a national brokerage. Clients on both coasts, a dedicated focus on specialty commercial classes, and a direct line to carriers most retail agencies can't access.
Headquarters
Pittsburgh
North Side offices, a short drive from Millvale where Franklin opened the doors.
West Coast
Los Angeles
Servicing film, touring, entertainment production, and event clients across the West.
Midwest
Detroit
Commercial and specialty accounts across Michigan, Ohio, and the upper Midwest.
The Book We Still Hold
Insurance is a relationship business measured in decades. KIG still services personal and commercial accounts originally written by Franklin B. Kelly himself — homeowners policies on houses now owned by the grandchildren of the people Franklin first quoted, commercial policies on businesses that started in the back of a Millvale garage and are now run by the founder's sons and daughters.
When Kelly Insurance Group absorbed Smith & Irons Insurance and the Fred F. Gigler Agency in the 1980s and early 90s, we didn't just pick up a book of business — we inherited the trust those agencies had built. When KIG acquired Holman & James Insurance in 2022, Jonathan's specialty brokerage folded back into the family operation, uniting three Pittsburgh insurance names under one roof.
Every agency we've absorbed had its own history. We don't pretend those histories became ours on the day of the sale. We keep servicing those clients like they're still with the agency they originally signed up for — because as far as they're concerned, they are.
A Legacy You Can Count
A Short Drive From Where We Started
Our North Side offices are just down the road from Millvale, where Franklin opened the doors in 1957. The zip code changed; the handshake didn't. If your family, your business, or the agent who used to write your grandfather's policy ever ran through our office — we probably still have the file.