"At 5.15pm on a Friday night in December 1986, stock values plummeted. A $300 goat dropped to $25 to $30 over the weekend," he said.
"It was amazing."
A Dannevirke National Mutual insurance agent was looking to retire, and suggested Mr Hemmings take up the reins.
"It happened fairly quickly. I hadn't thought of it before but it seemed like a really good industry to work in," he said.
"It was a totally different industry and, having my interest piqued, there was an opportunity to look at different ways companies worked and performed."
He covered his bets, training with three insurance companies at the same time before joining Norwich Union.
Becoming self-employed was an adjustment, he said.
"Being self-employed has some freedoms but you have massive disciplines you have to follow.
"You probably work harder and take less time off when you work for yourself than when you're employed in a salaried job.
"When I first started on the meat industry back in the 1960s, if the company had you as an employee then it did all sorts of things to keep you there and performing.
"The plan was that you would pretty much stay there for life. That is a massive change from today."
The transition was not smooth due to a personal event.
"The day I joined the insurance industry, my wife suffered a bad car accident that really knocked her around.
"People think the road toll is bad but there is also a huge impact on New Zealand's economy and families from the impact of serious injuries."
After five years' selling insurance and a move to Napier he went out on his own, branding his business Commonsense Insurance.
He brokers life, health, trauma and disability insurance.
"I do the personal covers - I don't do property."
It was "more than enough" to specialise in, in an industry transformed by KiwiSaver. Companies moved away from the investment-type life insurance products, unable to compete with the government's generous and ubiquitous scheme.
"Michael Cullen designed a scheme that was very generous and still is fairly generous.
"If you look at what retired people over 65 get from the pension, to get a personal income like that and on today's interest rates a couple would need $1.5 million to produce the pension they get. It's pretty good. We are lucky in that respect."
He said many Kiwis were complacent about insurance with many having a "she'll be right" attitude, unlike people from countries such as South Africa.
"For them there is no debate. You have to have it."
His sales model is one he "picked up from Canada", targeting a five-year age band "within a reasonable proximity of Napier", but most new custom comes from existing clients.
He said working with the same type of people and with similar issues "means you develop an expertise".
He also gains contacts through Rotary International and lights up when speaking of the community organisation.
"I have been going to Rotary every week for 40 years, so I'm either a boring old fart or it's a pretty amazing organisation to be involved with. I certainly hope it's the latter."
When asked why the Rotary is amazing, he quoted Hastings District councillor and community advocate Henare O'Keefe.
"Helping people is intoxicating," he said. "Rotary also has fellowship, which is how it started, the need for fellowship."
Rotary's main local project, in conjunction with local government, has evolved into the Hawke's Bay Trails comprising hundreds of kilometres of cycle track that has become a tourist attraction and part of Nga Haerenga - the New Zealand Cycle Trail project.
Rotary's biggest international project is the eradication of polio in conjunction with the World Health Assembly's Global Polio Eradication Initiative, in conjunction with the Bill Gates Trust.
"They have almost eradicated polio completely. There are just two countries with small outbreaks, Pakistan and Afghanistan, but other than that it has not appeared in any other country in the world for nearly two years."
He organises speakers for Napier Rotary and organised the late Samuel Gibson's first television appearance.
Mr Gibson suffered from brittle bones and died in an accident with his wheelchair while competing in the Air New Zealand Hawke's Bay International Half Marathon last month.
"He was a guy who did some amazing things and was a very good storyteller. He was such an inspiring fellow. He spoke to a Rotary conference here in May to nearly 400 people. Just an amazing young fella."
Like many people, Mr Hemmings collected many requests to be part of people's LinkedIn network. "Very little happens unless somebody drives it, so I formed the group here in Hawke's Bay called Face-to-Face, which now has 340 members.
"We get together each month. It is a people-helping-people programme and there is no cost other than the direct cost of attending.
"At the end of the day, people are all that is really important and the more you bring them together, the more things happen.
"In January we do what we called Kickstart and in July we do Reboot, with the concept of helping people meet people and sharing their business ideas and stories - what people have been through on their journey, which stimulates more ideas.
"Some of them have very good beginnings, a rough middle and a very good finish, whereas some have persevered with what they do with their lives to improve their lot."
He said his meatworking and insurance careers were similar because they were both about working with people, but he nearly took a different path.
"I was studying to be an engineer and I was sat one day, listening to how an electrical current went through a wire, when I thought, 'who cares?' That's when I went back to working with people. It has been an interesting journey."
