Today I would like to talk about personal insurance when it comes to home and auto insurance. I was reading a quote today by Don Miller, in his book business made simple, and he talks a lot about the journey that people go through in their lives and careers. And this quote, specifically was, those who journey as a part of this will arrive with the most strength. Keep fighting. Don’t quit.
One of the things that I’ve learned over the past few years of doing insurance is to look towards not just finding and earning every customer out there and doing whatever it takes to sell the policy. It’s more about what’s the right thing for the customer. And what am I going to ethically feel good about?
For me these days, it’s about making sure the customer has enough coverage, to make sure when people file a claim that they’re protected.
A good example is I had a client yesterday that we wrote a home policy and they asked us to look at their auto policy. During the course of discovery, we find out that they have Oregon State minimums, no comprehensive, and no collision on their vehicles. They bought a brand new house and they’re looking to reduce costs, reduce their monthly expenditures. So the existing insurance agency they’re working with basically lowers their liability limits to the minimum they could go, and removed coverages and said, here you go. This is the only way we can save you money.
When I look at something like this, and the fact they just bought a house and when they get into an accident, and cause more than $25,000 of liability claims. They’re going to be on the hook for everything over that $25,000. Where are they gonna get that money? Well, all that money they’re putting into their home and they are going to have to sell it and go back to renting because they’re going to have to pay these liability claims out. So when I look at something like that I know. There’s got to be different ways to help these people.
I looked at it as an opportunity to educate them on the benefits of having higher liability limits, and what the risks are. Once they understand that, then we go and we find the best policy for them at the best rate. The benefit of being independent in my world is once we figured out the right amount of liability coverage they needed, then we could shop that policy around and find the right price for them. In this specific case, we were able to put them at 250/500 liability limits for less money per year than what they were paying for their 25/50 coverage. As well as get their comp and collision coverage back on the vehicles.
The first course of action is always the discovery of what they need. Are you a homeowner? What are your assets? We can make sure that at the end of the day when the claim happens, you have the right insurance.
I hope you find this helpful, next time you’re talking to your insurance agent, make sure they’re asking the right questions, make sure they’re talking about what’s your asset value, and are your liability limits enough when something happens.
