About Us

Insuring our local communities for over 20 years.

Insurance by the Woods is a family owned and operated, independent insurance agency with offices in The Dalles, OR, Chehalis and Onalaska, WA.

Our corporate office, originally Columbia Gorge Insurance Agency, was founded by Robert Fraley in the 1960s.  He eventually retired and sold the business to James Church in 2004.  James in turn sold the agency to our current owners, Maggie and Norm Wood, in 2006.  Maggie had started in insurance as an agent in 1980, and moved to management at a larger agency in the mid 1990s.  Maggie brought in her years of insurance knowledge and the philosophy that became our mission statement:  “Bringing excellent insurance products to our communities, one individual, one policy at a time.”

Maggie and Norm bought Freed Insurance Group in 2010 and Aahsome 3 Insurance in 2013.  This opened up our reach from just the Columbia Gorge area to Western Washington.  For a few years, we continued to operate under the individual names at each location, but on June 1st, 2016 we started operating under our current name of Insurance By The Woods.

On March 3rd, 2020, Insurance by the Woods acquired the Chehalis branch of Fournier Insurance Solutions.  This brought our agency firmly into Lewis County, WA.  We look forward to establishing warm and lasting relationships with our new community.

Hold us to the high standard of service we strive for - we hope you’ll provide your comments on how we’re doing either online or drop Maggie a note via US Mail. We know that you rely on us to protect your most valuable treasures, including family, home, cars, and finances.  So, as an old motto went, “Trust us and be Freed of your insurance woes.”

Please visit our Employee Directory for more information on our ownership and staff.