Cheap Insurance That Could Cost You Big

by Guest writer from Chapman Insurance Group

A couple times a year I go to my mailbox and bundled in with my bills and credit card offers, I find an offer for lower priced home or auto insurance (I'm lucky enough to get both). You may have seen these and been tempted to wonder just how much you could save. I can't blame you; I wondered the same thing.

When I'm shopping for things, especially something as critical as insurance for my most valuable possessions, I want to make sure I'm getting the best price, but I also want to know that the guy selling them to me really has my best interests in mind. Especially in areas that I know I'm not an expert, I need to be able to trust that the person I'm listening to wants something more than just the sale. 

When I got the most recent solicitation, it offered me auto coverage from a carrier we write with, it has both my cars correctly listed, and the premium estimate was about 25% of what I was currently paying. But before calling the office, I thought I'd do a little sleuthing. I went on the carrier's site with one question in mind, "How much coverage would I have to strip out of my policy in order to get anywhere close to this premium." I put together proposals for clients all the time with basic information. I can find out most everything I need from just an address, but I make certain assumptions about what kind of coverage my clients need based on the home/auto, their family, what an average level of coverage is, etc. 

What I found is that in order to get coverage at that price, I would have to select a policy with huge deductibles with such stripped-down coverage that if someone called our office asking for a proposal based on those numbers, we'd likely decline to write it because it would be exposing the client to way too much risk.

Now, we write policies with lower coverage for clients because it may be the best thing available at various stages of life, but if I were proposing coverage to a family with two newer vehicles, would this be where I started? Only if my primary goal was to "sell". What happens if a hardworking family who is in a tight financial place, at the time, is lured by the extremely low premiums and doesn't know much about insurance, purchases a policy like this and then is involved in an accident? It wouldn't take much before the little they save on premiums disappears in the out-of-pocket expenses they are now liable for.

You want an insurance agent who has access to great products at great prices, but you also want one interested in more than just making the sale, who will consider more than just what it will take to get you to break out the checkbook.

At Chapman Insurance Group, our primary goal is making sure our clients are properly protected, by helping you understand the coverage you are purchasing. While there are ways to reduce premiums by lowering and removing coverage's, we feel that that should be your choice to do so. Don't be tempted by lower premiums, at the expense of proper protection. Because of the relationship Chapman Insurance Group has with many high-quality carriers, we very often provide our clients better or expanded protection while still saving our clients significant amounts on their premiums. Let the agent you trust help equip you with the knowledge needed to make an informed decision.

Chapman Insurance Group believes in the value of a promise, and our promise is to provide great advice, great products, great service, and great prices. 

Click here to find out more about Chapman Insurance Group.