Rudolph Whitcomb began his career in insurance at the age of 19 with Bayly Martin and Fay on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. At that time Bayly Martin and Fay was one of the largest insurance agencies in the world and handled a variety of large, national accounts. These included Mobil Oil, Universal Pictures, The County of Los Angeles, Starkist Tuna.
Rudy was fortunate enough to enter the business world at the top.
In 1963 he joined Haidinger Hayes in Los Angeles. His duties were to arrange protections for entities such as the Metropolitan Water District and Hughes Aircraft. He was soon assigned the firms motion picture and television accounts. This included the Cast Insurance and other exposures for CBS Television, Desilu and others.
In 1964, Rudolph joined American National General Agencies, a firm specializing in addressing the liability exposures of the Motion Picture and Television business.
In 1965, he joined the Los Angeles office of Marsh & McLennan. With over 44,000 employees, Marsh was the largest insurance agency in the world. In addition to arranging protections for Union Oil, Coca Cola, MGM, Hughes Tool and Hughes Aircraft, Lear, National General, Times Mirror, MCA, Occidental Petroleum, Hearst Newspapers and many others, Rudy also acted as liaison for Marsh McLennan’s Division Five. Division Five included Southern California, Nevada and Arizona. His duties were to assist Marsh McLennan offices in New York, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and elsewhere. He was involved in mergers and acquisitions and for the assimilation of the employees and the business of Marsh McLennan’s own acquisitions within Division Five. This gave him experience in complex financial transactions including leverage buy-outs, mergers and acquisitions.
In 1970 he left Marsh McLennan to form, with two partners, Dependable Insurance Associates (DIA), a Managing General Agency and Surplus Lines Brokerage. Initially Rudolph was the production side of the firm. However, because of the firm’s rapid success he immediately became Vice President and Secretary Treasurer. Soon DIA was a $40,000,000 a year firm with over 100 employees and offices in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Houston, Atlanta, New York and Chicago. DIA specialized in large national and multinational clients with emphasis on fully integrated petrochemical accounts. Rudolph now had a thorough knowledge of the on and offshore exploration, drilling and production end of the oil business along with refining and distribution.
In 1978 Rudolph sold his interest in DIA and launched his own firm, Whitcomb Surplus Lines. Focusing on those firms with large and especially difficult liability exposures, Whitcomb arranged or participated in the arrangements of The Mobil Oil worldwide super package, (Control of Well), Union Oil, British Petroleum, Amerada Hess and others. In the non-petrochemical sector, Whitcomb participated in arranging the strike cover for the American League / National League Baseball Clubs. Whitcomb also arranged liability insurance coverage for the Automobile Club of Southern California, Kawasaki, Dallara Automobili, Consolidated Edison of New York and many others. Whitcomb arranged the final Nuclear Incident Liability Coverage required allowing Three Mile Island to resume operation after the reactor meltdown.
In addition to DIA and Whitcomb Surplus, Rudolph Whitcomb founded Marina Maintenance and is one of the founders of First Business Bank, IMS Excess, Triesco, and Nations Builders Insurance Company.
Rudolph Whitcomb retired from the insurance business in 2010.
He is currently on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Area Helicopter Noise Coalition, an ad hoc organization working with Congressman Adam Schiff, Senator Barbara Boxer, Senator Diane Feinstein and other legislators along with the Federal Aviation Administration. He is also on the Board of M.U.S.I.C, an organization dedicated to educating and assisting children with Downs Syndrome to become active and self-sustaining members of society.
He began an acting career in 2015 and has appeared often on television and in movies. (See Rudolph Whitcomb, IMDb).
An accomplished single-handed sailor of sloops up to 40 feet, he has also owned several exotic cars, Ferraris.
He and his wife Martie live in Southern California.
He has worked with some of the world’s players, movers and shakers, heroes and swindlers. His extensive travels and a successful career in business has led him to write about some of his own experiences and what he saw.
He has written four action/adventure/mystery novels, Don't Play with those Kids Down the Street, The Old Kirkham Farm, Six Months in Spain, The Man in the Ice Cream Suit.