Just got my own car insurance bill. Went up. Again. And I know I’ll be adding my 16-year-old daughter in a few months. I’m sure that’ll help.
But at least my home insurance went d. . ., wait, it went up too! 46%!!!! A few four-letter words come to mind (“ouch” for example). I’m going to give the agent a piece of my mind.
But wait, I am an insurance agent! Don’t I get some kind of magic button to control rates? At least for myself?
Nope.
So at this point you may join me in wondering,
What good are we?!!!
We do have certain tools that can help with pricing.
Like many agencies, we can request what’s called a “rerate” for you here in Oregon (a kind of an insurance score refresh). We can also revisit deductibles, discounts, and coverages.
Most important, we can also quote with other carriers for you since we’re an independent agency. That means you don’t have to shop around unless you love it. (Some do!). That saves you time. Sometimes we can find a better option, and at the least, can give you a sense of whether your rates are out of line.
We walk all those paths for our clients.
And yet when it comes to insurance prices, we have no magic button.
And it turns out that no one has a magic button and that’s actually why we have insurance. Insurance exists because there is no magic button when some chaos enters our lives.
So what good is my car insurance anyways?
One privilege we have as an insurance agency is to see many different insurance claims, right here in Oregon, in your neighborhood and in ours.
Those claims are the reason we pay for an insurance policy, so an insurer will share in some of the possible chaos of our lives.
One interesting thing I’ve learned as an agent is that most of us will never hear the total amounts that the insurer paid out to solve our problem.
I recently had a client who was understandably concerned about her rate going up. When she switched to our agency, we were able to save her about $400 for similar coverage over six months–that’s a win! But a few months later she had a slow accident in Hillsboro. That “fender-bender” raised her six-month renewal cost a bit past where she was before. Ergggg.
She knew the insurance company spent about $10k repairing her car. I asked if she knew how much the insurer had paid to repair the other car. “Nope.” The insurer had also paid out about $12k to repair the other car.
So about $22k in total for a low impact “fender-bender.” That was $22k she didn’t have to come up with. But that’s not all.
What about the hassle of dealing with the other party? All the follow up bills, emails, phone calls and stress of negotiations with the other party that can follow any accident? All taken care of by the insurance company.
Another client’s son smashed his Subaru into a guard rail. He had a check for about $25k in his bank account within a couple weeks.
So car insurance helps us get around without worrying too much about the “what if’s” of driving your rig down the freeway at 60+ miles per hour.
When I’m driving our well-passengered minivan down TV Highway to a soccer practice in Hillsboro, whizzing along at 45+ miles per hour (kind of like the Millennium Falcon), it’s good to know that if I hit another car, my insurance carrier will work out the details and payments with the other person. If their car is damaged, my company will take care of it. If they sustain injuries, my carrier will take care of it.
It’s also good to know that my company will cover damages to my car after the first $1000 of repairs (my deductible).
So what good is my home insurance?
The closest thing to a magic button in our house here in the mighty Aloha is the garage door opener. And that’s why it’s good to know that if something crazy happens to our house, our single biggest asset, my insurance carrier will help in major ways.
Yes, we all know that insurance has its limits. Sometimes claims get complicated and sometimes insurance companies flub something, but the vast majority of claims are handled well. It’s good to know that the insurer has agreed to provide substantial relief in resolving the chaos for a range of losses.
A fire, a tree falling on our home, or an earthquake for instances. Yes, recovery would still be difficult–no magic wand!–but knowing that our policy covers the house is a major comfort because we’ve seen policies in action.
In the storms last year, the wind threw a branch like a spear right through our client’s roof in Lake Oswego. Within weeks, the carrier had over $15k wired into their bank account to cover the temporary preventative repairs and the full repair.
In Beaverton, we had another client who dealt with a “small leak.” Within a month the company sent over $30k to cover the repairs.
We’ve also seen a fire loss in Beaverton, and the insurance company has already paid out over $200k to clean and recover possessions and to help them live elsewhere. And get this, the remodeling has barely begun!
In Sum
We know rates have been exceedingly difficult these past few years. We’re with you. We’re paying the same rates, and we’ll do everything we can to help.
And a friendly reminder as we remind ourselves that our insurance has value even when a bill makes that value feel distant.
Why?
Because life has no magic buttons.
Learn more About Us (actual people!), our Sensible Approach, or our Carriers.