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Sunlight and plants greet us as we walk into the front lobby of Best Choice Insurance Agency. The plants look no different from the ones that fill the front windows of the Chinese herbal healing center next door, E Shan Tang — because they are no different. Tatyana Shtein, the insurance agency’s owner, had received her plants from her neighbors there.

The plants are just one of the many offerings received by Shtein from over two decades of working in the office. Everywhere in the agency, you can find these gifts: a collage of paper currency from Nigeria to South Korea, chocolates from Kazakhstan, whiskeys from locals. One customer even leaves her money trees to regrow in the agency’s front lobby, claiming that they thrive only there. “People even when they go to different countries, they bring us something, and they give it here,” she said. ​​

Shtein has two main offices, one in Allston, where she receives “a lot of people from Hispanic speaking, Korean speaking, Nigerian speaking, a lot of American people, people from other countries,” and the other in Lowell. She joined the insurance industry 30 years ago, at an agency on Harvard Avenue called Galaxy Insurance, after a disappointing search for work following her studies in occupational therapy. “

That’s where the patience come. I’m working on every one of my customers,” she laughed.

After leaving Galaxy Insurance, she opened the office in Lowell first and later, arrived at the Gordon Building. Gerald “Gerry” Gordan, the building’s landlord up until June 2026, sold her a unit on the first floor at 163 Harvard Avenue so that she could get better business. 

“My office was upstairs. It was very tough. I wasn’t doing good, you know,” said Shtein. “That’s why my old landlord put me here downstairs, and that’s when the business started picking up, and I started being noticed in the neighborhood.”

But before 163 Harvard Avenue was occupied by Best Choice Insurance Agency, it was a Hello Kitty merchandise store. Shtein’s daughter, Sabrina Shtein, called it her playground: “I used to beg her to come to work with her, when she worked upstairs, because I would want to come and go to the Hello Kitty store.” Today, Sabrina Shtein still comes to work with her mother, now as a colleague. 

At one point in our conversation, Sabrina Shtein interrupts to ask her mother a question about what insurance company a client is under. Without having to check her computer, Tatyana Shtein immediately responds with his insurance company, what he still has to pay for, and how much he has to pay. “We know every single client, every single situation in their family. We go through divorces. We go through marriages. We go through kids’ troubles. We go through everything here together,” said the owner.

Family, to Shtein, is not defined simply by blood: family extends to the customers of Best Choice Insurance Agency and to her coworkers.

A bulletin board titled “Hall of Fame” is filled with black-and-white photos of coworkers and customers who have touched her life, such as helping her get started in the industry, donating turkeys with her to people experiencing homelessness in Lowell every year, or designing her office. Shtein does not seem to have to hire strangers to do this work for her — many of them are warm friends.

Family also extends to her neighbors in the Gordon Building, many of whom are insured by her: “It’s a building full of the most friendliest, nicest, hardworking people here.” 

“In the office in Lowell, I only know my next door’s name, and that’s it. I don’t even know people there, it’s very different, very different,” Shtein told us.

“My friends that are also landlords, business owners in other buildings, they always tell me, ‘Oh my God, this is crazy. You guys are this friendly?’ It’s a very close relationship here between all of us. You know, we always say good morning, good night. In my Lowell building, I come in, nobody says hi.”

Waiting, wishing

Shtein plans to start packing up the office soon to leave in August. One of the items she will be taking with her is a wish box.

During the holidays, Shtein holds a tradition where people who come to the office write their wishes on a paper slip and place it in the box, never to be seen again. 

It is not the first time Shtein wished to be in the place she is today. When she took over Best Choice Insurance Agency, she first bought her office in Lowell, but knew she always wanted to come back to Allston. “This place came, and I was like ‘I want to go down. I want to go down.’ This is like my life, and I came back, and here I am,” she said with conviction. “Now I’m leaving again. Not for long, Allston. You wait until I come back bigger and stronger.”