When insurance agency owner Joshua Schneeloch began searching for the father he had never known, he expected DNA records and distant relatives to provide the clues. He did not expect the trail to lead to another insurance agency.
The discovery revealed an extraordinary coincidence: Schneeloch, who grew up in Catholic orphanage in Germany and later established his own insurance business in California, had a biological father in Texas who had spent approximately 35 years in the same industry.
Neither man knew about the other’s career.
“My first reaction was that it was mind-blowing. I thought, ‘How is that even possible?’” Schneeloch told Insurance Business. “I grew up knowing absolutely nothing about my family or DNA, and then I suddenly ran into these results showing that my father was potentially in the same industry.”
Schneeloch began the search after his wife gave him an Ancestry.com DNA test for Christmas in 2022. Earlier attempts to trace his family had produced little information, but the test gradually connected him with distant relatives in Florida and Texas.
Working with a search specialist, Schneeloch eventually narrowed the possibilities to two men. Social media research uncovered a profile belonging to Arthur Colbert, an insurance professional in Texas.
Because his brokerage works with agents, Schneeloch decided to frame the initial conversation as a recruitment call. The call needed to establish whether Colbert had served in the US Army, whether he had been stationed in Germany during the late 1960s and whether he had spent time around the city of Kaiserslautern, 15 miles from where Schneeloch was born.
Colbert began supplying the answers even before Schneeloch could ask the questions.
“He began by asking me, ‘Hey, I hear an accent. Where’s this accent from?’ I said, ‘Oh, I grew up in Germany,’” Schneeloch said. “The moment I said Germany, he said, ‘Oh, I was in Germany in the ’60s.’”
Within minutes, Schneeloch had his answers. He ended the conversation without explaining its real purpose.
“The moment I realized that I had potentially just spoken with my dad, I became very emotional,” he said. “I hung up and started crying like a little boy.”
A search specialist later contacted Colbert and explained that he might have an unknown relative. Following discussions with his family, Colbert agreed to undergo a DNA test in Dallas while Schneeloch provided a sample through the same laboratory in Los Angeles. The result confirmed with 99.9% certainty that Colbert was Schneeloch’s father.
“After 55 years of searching—as a little orphan who grew up in a Catholic convent in Germany, ended up in America with his own insurance business, a family and a house in Manhattan Beach—I finally had proof,” Schneeloch said. “Finding this man in America and in the same industry I work in, was unbelievable.”
Insurance had been an accidental career choice for Schneeloch. After moving to the US, he was introduced to the industry by a German friend with connections to a large California general agency. Schneeloch began working with brokers on voluntary benefits, group insurance and related products before starting his own agency shortly before the pandemic.
White Wing Insurance Solutions now helps agents and brokers grow their operations. It also provides succession planning, including taking responsibility for books of business when agency owners retire.
That part of Schneeloch’s work may ultimately create another connection with his father.
Colbert, now 77, has operated All Service Insurance Agency with business partner Ray Dickerson since 1991. The Fort Worth agency provides personal and commercial P&C coverage alongside life and health insurance.
As Colbert considers retirement, he and Schneeloch are discussing whether the son he only recently found could take over and manage his book.
Schneeloch said Colbert’s other children do not work in insurance, making the potential succession particularly poignant.
“We’re talking right now about whether I will take over and manage his book of business in Texas,” he said. “The biggest dream of a father is for one of his children to take over his business, but the only son who does it could be the son he found after 55 years.
“You cannot write a story like that. But this is not just a story. This is real life.”
