May 21, 2025 • 45 mins
What You Don't Know About Your Insurance Policy Can Hurt You-Part 2
In this enlightening episode of 'Getting Your Edge: How to Downsize Your Home,' hosts Dennis Day and Judy Gratton dive into the complex world of insurance with expert Douglas Olson from USI Insurance Services. Olson breaks down the intricacies of insurance policies, the impact of recent natural disasters on the industry, and why your insurance policy might not cover as much as you think. The episode covers the challenges faced by insurance companies, including the reasons behind rising premiums and policy non-renewals, as well as the legalities and contractual obligations that come with insurance. Whether you're a homeowner, real estate professional, or simply an insurance consumer, this episode offers invaluable insights into what you need to know about your insurance coverage.
00:00 Introduction and Greetings
00:34 Meet Douglas Olson: Insurance Expert
01:10 Understanding Independent Insurance Agencies
02:49 The State of the Insurance Industry
04:00 Consumer Expectations and Insurance Realities
05:22 Challenges in the Insurance Market
10:48 Impact of Environmental Factors on Insurance
22:03 Insurance Companies' Financial Struggles
34:18 Concluding Thoughts and Contact Information
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dennis Day (00:01):
This is episode two of our interview with Douglas
Olson of USI, an independentinsurance advisor.
Hello, all this is Dennis Day,with Getting your Edge, how to
Downsize your Home, and we havea fantastic show for you.
Thanks for showing up.
I'm here with my co-host, judyGratton.
(00:23):
Welcome, judy.
Judy Gratton (00:25):
Good morning on this wonderful spring morning.
The last time I heard Douglas,I was like, oh my God.
One of the things that I heardyou say at the last go-around
was that to help protect yourinsurance, I guess would be a
good way to say it.
You need to consider that it isthere for what?
Did you say catastrophes?
(00:46):
I had a flood in my kitchen andit went under the flooring and
I didn't even know it went underthe flooring and it ruined the
flooring and so we had insurancecover the replacement of the
flooring.
That's not really a catastrophe.
I probably either could havelived with it or done it a
different way.
But what you're saying to helpprevent this from happening your
(01:10):
insurance policy is not therefor every little thing that goes
wrong should not be consideredfor that.
Is that right?
Douglas Olson (01:17):
Yes, and remember , I'm offering food for thought.
I'm not providing direction tosay this is what you should or
shouldn't do, but, as anaccredited advisor of insurance,
that is the advice I'm offeringto those willing to hear that
conversation and ask questionswhy.
While we're not going to diginto it here because it'd be a
(01:38):
four-hour conversation, what Iwill say is the following If you
think about, let's just say,you bought a home in early 2000
and it cost you $180,000.
That same home today, if youwent to sell it is probably in
our area anyways an honest halfa million dollar house.
Can we agree on that?
(01:58):
Judy, I'm being kind.
What's happened is, in those 25years that we've had that
insurance policy, we still havethat exact same $1,000
deductible.
Why, if we were willing to havea $1,000 deductible when the
reconstruction cost of that homewas $180,000, and now it's
$500,000, we're not allowingourselves to do the math to go,
(02:21):
hey, that's probably notappropriate anymore.
And if we're willing to pay$1,000 when it was $180, we
probably should be looking at$2,500 or $5,000 today, because
that's how much risk we wereabsorbing inside that $180,000.
I'm answering you in the.
We also have to be honest withourselves and just go gosh.
(02:43):
Why would I make that claim?
And to answer your questionspecifically, please know that
there are multiple differentlevels of insurance.
And what do I mean by differentlevels?
There are levels of I've had alot of losses and now I have to
pay extremely high expenses, soI'm going to push the coverages
down as much as possible, topush down that premium until I
(03:05):
no longer have those lossesshowing on my record.
Or, if we're talking home, it'sclaims.
And then there's what we like tocall the middle market, which
is your all states, your USAAsyour state farms.
They were built on 1200 squarefoot homes with a nice,
beautiful car in the front yard,and now those homes may be
worth a million or $2 million,and we're getting to the end of
(03:28):
their rope on what they feel isokay for them to not have to
either go into the reinsurancemarket and spend even more money
to offer coverage that you'regoing to end up as a consumer
paying for.
And then you have what we callthe private client level of
coverage and what that basicallymeans.
If you think of folks that arein a million dollar or greater
(03:49):
valued home and we're talkingreconstruction costs here, not
just the perceived value of itsview and location, that are
designing and critiquing theirpolicies to make sure that
client is taken care of the waythey think they're going to be
taken care of on claim day.
The middle market insurancecompanies are going to take very
(04:12):
good care of us for themajority of what's going on, but
they're not going to have anynuances, they're not going to
have any additional protections.
There's other things that thosecarriers are limited to because
that's how they're keepingtheir insurance rates down and
acceptable, because they don'thave those coverages.
And then the other thing I wantto bring to everybody's
attention is there's more thanone insurance policy that you
(04:34):
can get for a home and there'smore than one you can get for an
auto with nearly every singleinsurance carrier.
Every single insurance carrier.
This is why it's important towork with someone that has you
in their best interest andyou're going to be having an
advocate work on your behalf,because if you do that, you're
going to have someone say wouldyou like the basic policy that
(04:55):
has thousands of exclusions?
Would you like a policy in themiddle that maybe only has 500
exclusions and we'll talkthrough those, of course, when
we're having that conversationor are you the kind of person
that says give me all thecoverage you can with the
kitchen sink, believe it or not?
Most people think they havethat coverage, but they're
paying for the other one, andthen that's why they get mad on
claim day when they find out theinsurance contract isn't
(05:16):
covering them.
So, as we're talking aboutdeductibles here, it's smarter
to be having a holisticconversation at this point to
say what coverages do you reallyhave?
What are your risk tolerancesMeaning?
What do you want to pay for onyour own?
All this comes back toinsurance.
Right now should be used as acatastrophic policy, because we
(05:37):
should be absorbing thoseinconveniences we should be
taking on.
I like using the example of ifthere's someone new in the
household that thought they putit in reverse, but they put it
in forward gear and took out thebottom of your garage door,
please don't call the insurancecompany, please call the garage
repair folks and pay for thatout of pocket.
And I know this is laboring alittle bit, but this is
(05:58):
important to also understand.
As we talk about thesedifferent insurance carriers,
they all now have limitationsthat they may not have had just
six months ago or two years agoor five years ago, you know, not
during the contract period, butyou do get this thing called a
renewal offer every year.
If you're not reading thatrenewal offer and those pages
(06:19):
that come with it and you'rejust going, what's the premium?
And then your brain goes, oh mygoodness.
I mean I asked that you turnthe first page and put it over
there first and look at theother pages and go what language
in the contract have we changed?
What are we proposing for yourconsideration?
If you pay that premium, youhave accepted those changes.
(06:39):
Every single renewal.
If there has been an adjustmentor a change in how their policy
will react to you on claim day,you've accepted it because you
paid it.
Dennis Day (06:49):
Can I ask Douglas though and I've said this myself
I've paid into that insurancefor 15 years and never had a
claim.
And I get one claim and theyraise my rates.
Yeah, I hear it all the time.
I said it myself.
What do you say to folks?
Douglas Olson (07:08):
First I give them a hug and I say remember, I'm a
consumer and I work for you.
I'm not the insurance company,so please don't hit me.
Sometimes I do, by the way, I'mnot joking.
Hey, I'm a consumer too.
I get it.
I understand.
I've made claims and a littlebucket of money somewhere for
those unknown things because I'mnot going to use the insurance.
So here's the deal what a lot ofpeople have forgotten for
whatever reason, because theyhaven't done an insurance review
(07:30):
in a while or it just wasn't.
There's only so much room inour brains for what's important
and we want to keep theknowledge right.
We don't all need to beinsurance experts.
That's why it's important totalk to an expert when you're
having this conversation.
Here's the deal when we talkabout if you make a claim and
you haven't made a claim in fiveyears or more, you're
immediately getting a 10% noclaim discount on every policy
(07:53):
within reason that you alreadyare buying.
So immediately if there's a 20%rate increase or a 10% rate
increase just normally becauseof the cost of materials and
labor and what the insurancecommissioner approved for that
insurance company and you weregoing to have that raise happen,
and then you lose the 10% noclaim discount, you're adding
another 10% to that rateincrease.
(08:15):
You're thinking, gosh, I neverused my insurance before.
But there's one more element wehaven't even discussed yet and
that is, depending upon theseverity of that loss, you could
see another 10 to 40% rateincrease when you activate your
insurance, and that's whyconsumers start getting
frustrated.
That's why I'm saying to youplease think of it as
(08:37):
catastrophic.
And if we're going to have thishonest conversation about
catastrophic and let's sayyou're going to say I want a
five or a $10,000 deductible,you need to know that you're
going to absorb that first fiveor $10,000 deductible on your
home.
But let's do the math.
If you're spending $2,000 ayear on your insurance and let's
go worst case scenario and youlose your 10% discount and you
(09:00):
get a 40% surcharge, we're justgoing to look at the 40% number
that we were just talking abouthere for a second Excuse me 50%,
10 and 40.
So now your insurance is goingto go from $2,000 to $3,000 for
three years.
If you do the math, that meansthey're going to get $3,000 out
of your back pocket over thenext three years, but you got
(09:21):
$1,000 deductible.
So you also paid the $1thousand bucks for the insurance
company to help you.
So you're out $4,000 in threeyears.
So why not have a $5,000deductible?
And instead of paying theinsurance company, permission to
have a low deductible?
This drives your insurance ratedown by three five hundred
(09:44):
dollars a year.
So now, instead of being twothousand dollars, maybe it's
sixteen hundred dollars and youstart adding all this money up.
It totally makes sense to havea five thousand dollar
deductible and look at yourinsurance policy for the 20, 30,
40, 50, 100 total loss,whatever that value might be on
your insurance policy, youreally do need to build a
strategy around your own risktolerance and what you're
(10:08):
willing to pay out of pocket,and sometimes affordability for
people go up and down.
Dennis Day (10:12):
Douglas, you've said that the insurance companies
are.
They bring in a dollar, theypay out dollar five.
Why is that happening right now?
Douglas Olson (10:22):
For pretty much everything we discussed earlier.
Trust me, if they did, I'd beliving there.
They don't have a crystal ball,so they can't project.
Are we going to have thePalisades lose 500 houses in
January 2025?
They don, so to speak, and thisis why insurance companies are
leaving forestry type areas,because if we don't have the
(10:57):
responding fire departments andwe don't have the resources to
knock the fires down, all theseelements come into this.
The insurance companies have acontractual obligation to write
those checks.
That's the advantage that wehave, because we do have these
insurance contracts.
They are writing those checks.
That doesn't mean, on claim day, that they're not looking at
(11:18):
that contract and make sure thatthey're squeezing every last
possibility to not add to thatcheck.
That's their job, that's whatthey're supposed to do and
that's why it's important toknow the catastrophic policies
you've chosen to put in placeare going to take care of you on
claim day, if and when thatever happened.
Dennis Day (11:33):
Are there things in the world we've talked about?
Florida seems like theinsurance companies are fleeing
California because of the fires.
Are there other areas and otherreasons that insurance
companies are leaving?
Douglas Olson (11:48):
Yes, and I'll get this to Judy as well, if I have
not already.
Judy, I mentioned earlier inthis podcast the Senate had
actually brought thisinformation together and it's
probably going to be rather eyeopening for the majority of
folks that look at thatUnderstand.
This is not something I created.
Just want to be clear.
It's not something theinsurance industry created, but
the Senate did and they pulledthis together and you'll see
(12:10):
these colors going across theentire country.
I don't remember there being astate that is not seeing
companies non-renew policies.
Now, as we say that, I want tobe clear.
Just because a company haschosen to not renew doesn't mean
that they've left the industry.
It just means multiple thingsthat the quality of that home
(12:34):
Remember, we're talking aboutmaintenance.
If they do a satellite view andthey see that the trees are not
maintained or the gutters haveweeds growing in them, or
there's moss on the roof, orthere's a car in the front yard
on blocks, or the lawn doesn'tlook maintained, it doesn't look
right, those are higher risksfor insurance companies A slip
and falls when they order anAmazon item Think of the weaving
(12:57):
and dodging and all thesethings or because the rain
gutters are not clean, thatwater is now wicking back up in
the roof and now we're going tohave a water damage claim.
So, insurance companies I thinkthis is probably a good place
to say this and I apologize fornot saying it earlier there is a
relationship responsibilitythat we have as consumers and
that is to understand thatinsurance companies are a
(13:19):
transfer of risk for an agreedcost to us as consumers for them
to take on that risk.
Insurance companies are designedto take on risk.
They're not designed to take on.
We know what's going to happenand we're going to have to write
a check.
We have to be careful andunderstand that While we may
(13:39):
want to buy something because welove the view, doesn't mean
insurance companies by law haveto cover you.
They're a business and if thatrisk is too great for their
algorithms and how much, they'regoing to be able to charge you.
Because remember, as consumers,if they say $20,000, but
somebody else wants to give youthat same policy for $2,000, are
you going to write the checkfor 20?
(14:00):
Are you going to write the checkfor 2000?
But when that carrier that wasoffering it for 2000 leaves the
market because they were notgetting enough premium, they
were buying the market, or theywere trying to get it going so
they felt they could get enoughpremium to make up for it, and
then they find out, like intoday's environment, that they
can't, so they're leaving themarket.
This is where consumers getupset, because that same carrier
(14:20):
that was offering the $20,000policy is still there and
they're still offering it forthat same $20,000, or there
might be some adjustments.
So we do have to be careful andthat's why we say look at this
as a catastrophic.
Make sure you're building astrategy.
Let's make sure you're puttingsomething in place that's going
to react the way you want it toon that claim day.
Not just how much am I payingevery month out of my pocket or
(14:42):
every year for the policies?
Judy Gratton (14:44):
So, douglas, I don't know if you remember, but
a few years back in the state ofWashington there was an
addendum that was added to cotpurchases, sale contracts that
was strictly around the buyerbeing able to verify that they
could get reasonably pricedinsurance and at that time it
was considered 1% of thepurchase price.
(15:06):
It had to be under 1% of thepurchase price and it was tied
to something and there was anacronym for it.
Now I've forgotten what it was,but it had to do with the fact
that people made claims thatwere turned down or not.
No, that's not covered.
(15:27):
If I call and say my tree fellin the front yard and they say
no, that's not covered.
And we were because mortgage, ifyou're getting a mortgage, they
require that you have insuranceand if you don't get it,
they'll get it for you and it'sgenerally more expensive.
So this addendum came into playto protect the buyer from
getting stuck with outrageousinsurance so they could go away
(15:50):
from the property if that wasgoing to be the case.
Do you see that coming intoplay again now around in our
area at all?
Douglas Olson (16:01):
I want to be careful how I answer that and
just say that insurance has tocollect the correct amount of
premium for the risk.
And I could also say to youit's not unusual for a mortgage
broker to send me an email tosay your insurance is too
(16:22):
expensive.
I've been in this business fora while and it should only be
$800.
Oh, that's nice.
Thank you for your email and Irespectfully the cost is the
cost.
Even with all of my expertise,I cannot go to an insurance
company and say push yourpricing down, it's controlled,
it is what it is.
So an insurance side is areport that shows and
(16:45):
demonstrates claims that havebeen made.
So it's a gathering ofinsurance information, no matter
what insurance carrier.
Judy Gratton (16:52):
Is that recorded both against the person and the
house?
Douglas Olson (16:55):
Yes.
Judy Gratton (16:56):
A house by itself, even though the sellers are
selling it, the new buyer isgoing to.
They're looking at that houseand seeing that a lot of claims
had been made against the house.
But also if the buyer made alot of claims right on something
else, if someone's working withyou and they have a question
about their policy, can theycall you and not end up with one
(17:20):
of those dings on their history?
Douglas Olson (17:23):
It's a really valuable question for you to ask
, judy, and my advice is always,if, whenever possible, if you
do have a relationship with yourinsurance agent, whether they
have acronyms behind their nameor not the agent, not the
supporting person, not the frontdesk person, the agent we have
(17:44):
an advantage and the advantageis we get to be human.
So if you call and say, hey, Ihave a question, can we
unofficially have a conversation?
Yeah, we need to pro and conthese things Absolutely, but if
you call someone that's paid torecord conversations, you call
the insurance company directly.
Judy Gratton (18:05):
Do they record those conversations?
Douglas Olson (18:07):
Oh, the insurance carriers absolutely do yeah.
They don't disclose that youknow I don't want to get into
that, but they I am, I'm calling, I'm hearing them say we're
recording for training purposesand blah, blah, blah.
So I do think that they areletting us know when those
recordings are happening andit's not to be against us, it's
(18:30):
also to keep them honest.
So if someone is giving themmisinformation, that client can
be provided the coverage thatthey were told that they had,
that they don't have as anexample.
So it really is for trainingpurposes and making sure things
are accurate.
If you're communicating withsomeone at the insurance company
, they do have rules,regulations and requirements
(18:51):
that say we're going to openthis claim, even though you're
saying I'm not going to have aclaim because you want to have a
dialogue with me as aninsurance company.
And let's look at this as us,don't?
We want to know how theirproduction is, so we make sure
that they're doing their job.
So now you may lose your 10percent no claim discount
(19:12):
because you reached out to thatinsurance company.
Judy Gratton (19:14):
Even though you don't end up actually A hundred
percent.
Douglas Olson (19:18):
That's why you'll see zero paid out so often on
these reports.
And again, we had thatconversation a moment ago You're
already going to have yourinsurance go up anyways.
Now you lost 10% discount, soit's adding another 10% to it
and that's normally for threeyears.
That's the legal.
I think it's the minimum I hopeI'm using the right word and
for some states that's also themaximum.
That's it.
And there are some carriers,while they may not be able to
(19:40):
charge you when I say some, justthink of it like 50-50, as I
say the word some.
So some insurance companiesmight only charge you for three
years, but then they underwriteit for five or six years.
So you have to understandunderwriting also means are you
eligible?
Are we going to renew you?
(20:00):
Are you a higher risk thansomeone else?
Judy Gratton (20:04):
Well, yeah, hey, we really could, because I can't
stress enough how important itis for people and we.
This podcast is mostly gearedfor downsizers.
They're looking to buy adifferent type of home, or a
second home maybe, or who knows.
This is information that Ithink everyone needs, and we
(20:26):
really need to make sure that weput Douglas's contact
information in here, because Iand see here's one more question
.
I can't stand it.
It could go on all day.
I have also heard that if youleave your insurance company,
then you risk ending up withmuch higher rates anywhere else.
(20:47):
So if someone is settled with acompany but they want to work
with you, what happens?
Douglas Olson (20:54):
That is also a very good question and I hope I
answered the last question fullythere.
But this is a very goodquestion for you to ask, judy,
and here's the easiest way forme to explain it when you have a
conversation with me it'shaving zero impact on your
current insurance.
There's no charge for what wedo.
This is zero impact on yourcurrent insurance.
There's no charge for what wedo.
This is how we choose toconduct business.
(21:16):
There's no hidden fee, and Ilike saying it this way.
Just let's use Progressive as anexample, or State Farm, whoever
we'll use Progressive.
Let's say you call Progressiveand get a quote, and then you
call and you work with me.
If I'm producing the exact samequote, meaning the coverages,
the discounts, the whole nineyards the exact cost is going to
(21:36):
be the same.
It is not going to be that weadded a little percentage or a
buffer or a filing fee or apaper fee.
Why and how does that work thatway?
I'm paid a salary and so that'sa huge advantage.
That's why I can say I'm anadvocate for someone.
No-transcript insurancecontract, so you don't think I'm
(22:17):
just saying something to saysomething, and then we do a
side-by-side to show you if itwas me and you've asked me to do
this on your behalf.
This is where we recommend thatyou consider making adjustments
, even if it's you stay withyour current carrier.
These are recommendations thatwe have, so you don't even have
to call your insurance carrier.
You don't have to call yourcurrent insurance agent.
(22:39):
We can have this entiredialogue and get to the end
result free of charge.
Judy Gratton (22:41):
I would recommend and I intend to take you up on
that personally, because Iwasn't even aware that a service
like yours was out there andthe fact, like you said, so many
of us just take paperwork andsign it because the amount that
you're paying was acceptable atthe time.
I don't know what's in mypolicy.
(23:01):
My husband still thinks we havecomplete coverage.
I'm pretty sure we don't now.
But you take the time to makesure the people understand what
they're getting, and that is soincredibly important.
And I don't think peoplerealize it let's put it that way
until they meet it and theneverybody's unhappy because they
(23:22):
didn't really understand whatthey got in the first place.
Douglas Olson (23:26):
And to answer the other side of your story is we
want to be careful about movingyou.
We do.
That is an important dance.
But I'll also say this to you,judy If your coverage isn't
right and what we're proposingis far more attractive and
(23:47):
possibly in fact I'll tell you91% of the time, I actually am
able to offer a better pricethan what somebody currently has
, it's a high percentage.
That doesn't mean tomorrow itwon't be 14%, because everything
changes.
I just want to say,historically, it's 10 years
worth of me doing this,collecting all that, even though
I've been doing it for almost21 years now.
I've just been keeping track,so literally I can tell how I've
(24:07):
done for each client.
In fact, it's 91.17% of thetime I've actually helped them
save money and put them in abetter position.
Judy Gratton (24:19):
You know that if you call your own insurance
company back, the rate is goingto probably do what Go up.
Douglas Olson (24:21):
So most of the time this is a good, safe
landing spot for them to saywe're going to go ahead and move
forward.
Most insurance companies willnot offer you any kind of
discount for what they calllongevity credits or discounts
if you haven't been with yourprior insurance company at least
three years.
So we do recommend please don'tmake changes.
Judy Gratton (24:40):
I think people jump quickly because they think
they're going to get a bad.
I just saw a new one a companythat is claiming that they can
cut your insurance rates in halfby taking out the middleman.
Douglas Olson (24:51):
And I was like I've seen one that's even worse
than that.
Dennis, I don't know if you'veseen this one, but I showed it
to my wife and she just laughedand walked out of the room,
because, of course, she's heardinsurance conversations when
you've been doing it for 20years, so she understands how
this works.
I would love it if I, the agent, was getting 80% of the
premiums you pay.
Think how.
So what I'm saying to you ismarketing, and if we can just
(25:19):
stop listening to marketing,because it is doing exactly what
we're asking them to do, whichis make us feel good, make us
feel like we're in good hands,or what's nationwide, is on your
side, whatever it to decidewhat's best.
You're not hawking a bunch oftaglines for them to buy from
you.
You're feeding them facts,you're articulating a strategy
(25:45):
for them, you're helping themget to a solution that works
best for their situation, andthe very next client you help.
It's not going to be the samesituation.
Would that be fair?
Judy Gratton (25:55):
Everyone is different.
Douglas Olson (25:56):
Absolutely so.
I hope I'm giving you thatanswer on saying the marketing
isn't going to win you any courtcase, it's not going to make
you whole, it's not going tomake you not be upset.
What is a better advantage isgiving yourself the leverage and
the advantage to know whatyou're actually paying for and
update that.
(26:17):
So what do I mean by that?
If you're not reaching back outto your insurance agent or your
insurance advisor once everythree years, that I would
consider to be on the side ofdangerous.
I do recommend the rates dochange every year your policy
renews.
There's new changes to thatpolicy.
Do you still agree to thosechanges?
So there's things that areimportant for you to know.
(26:39):
What are you actually payingfor.
And we talked about thedeductible earlier.
I'm going to rewind to just saythis a little bit, because there
are more than one home policythat you can get from most
insurance companies.
Most people just zero in on thecheap one.
I like saying it this waythere's a $1,700 one, there's a
$2,000 one and there's a $2,300one.
(26:59):
Most consumers are going to goto that $1,700 one because they
think that $2,300 one is rippingthem off and they're just
trying to make money off of me.
Guess what?
There's a huge difference.
The person that paid for $2,300for the insurance policy while
they're going through a loss andthat part sucks, they probably
have coverage and that $1,700policy, that person now has the
added frustration of getting adenial letter in the mail,
(27:20):
potentially not saying excuse me, 100%, but potentially that is
the case.
So what we do is we help themunderstand how.
About if we look at the middlepolicy and this other policy,
see which one makes sense foryou, and now let's talk about a
deductible, and lo and behold,we might be pretty close to that
premium.
That other policy had thousandsof exclusions in it, or
(27:40):
hundreds of exclusions orwhatever the coverage you didn't
need.
And now you're paying the samepremium, or close, but now you
have coverage that you know isgoing to take care of you the
way you want it to, as it'sdesigned on claim day.
And that's also why we saylet's talk every three years.
I don't want to talk in fiveyears, that's too late.
Let's talk every three years.
I don't want to talk in fiveyears, it's too late.
(28:01):
Let's talk every three years.
And in our agency, dependingupon the client, what do I mean
by that If you only have onepolicy with us, this is not
going to happen.
If you have several policieswith us home, auto, umbrella, so
on and so forth we'reautomatically checking the
market for you in the background, whether you like it or not,
we're making sure you're stilllanding in the same space.
But if you haven't maintainedyour policy you haven't told us
that you remodeled the kitchen,you haven't told us about the
(28:23):
addition to the house.
You haven't told us you put anew roof on.
You haven't told us you addedair conditioning.
We're still basing our analysisoff of the original information
you provided us.
So the onus is on you, theowner of said contract, to let
us know that there's beenchanges, because there is a
maintenance cost inside.
Your insurance policy says.
Dennis Day (28:42):
ultimately it's your problem, not the insurance
company I have to say that hasbeen something I opened my eyes
last fall is that I talked to myinsurance company.
I was trying to save money.
My original policy for manyyears was a home that was at
cover said its value was$300,000.
(29:04):
It's not worth 300, it's much,much more and therefore if I had
a catastrophic event, I wouldhave covered up to $300,000, not
the replacement cost or evenclose to what the value really
was, and I did not understandthat.
Judy Gratton (29:25):
I said a lot of people don't.
They don't even think about it.
Dennis Day (29:27):
So there had been an addition to the house, there
had been a kitchen remodel andnow there's a bathroom remodel,
and in the open market it'sselling quite a bit over that
three hundred thousand dollars,hopefully.
But what critical things do Ineed to know and what kind of
information would the averageconsumer do to help them
(29:51):
understand?
Douglas Olson (29:51):
this is very important issue so this is
probably going to make a fewpeople have the hair rise on the
back of their neck.
This is very important.
I'm going to try and articulatethis in a methodical yet
non-scary environment.
And it's only because now we'reactually talking about contract
(30:12):
language.
Now we're talking about themaintenance clauses that are
inside insurance contracts.
Now we're getting into thenitty gritty that are inside
insurance contracts.
Now we're getting into thenitty gritty.
And all of us, every time we'vegot an insurance policy from a
company where we've had aproperty, all of us have this
information.
So this isn't like new.
We all have this information.
(30:33):
But I am a consumer too, andeven though I am pretty knee
deep into this stuff, I stilldon't read my insurance policies
in total detail because I knowwhat I'm purchasing, just to be
clear.
And I do read the renewalsbecause I've been in this
industry.
But I'm not going to sit thereand read 192 pages every time,
no, but I am going to beconcerned about what is
(30:55):
important.
So you mentioned the house wasbeing insured for $300,000.
Let's make this simple Insurancefor the majority.
There's isoforms, which is aterm of everybody starts with
the same document, with the samelanguage, and you can endorse
that policy to get rid of somerestrictions or add coverages in
(31:17):
that have been eliminated bythe base policy.
Sometimes they're calledendorsements or changing of an
insurance policy, going frombasic to broad to special.
That also brings in a lot ofcoverages and basic language
inside the policy.
That changes, however, everysingle one of those that I just
mentioned your basic, your broadand your special there is
(31:38):
language inside there.
The easiest way to coin it isco-insurance.
And without giving you a longexample and giving you court
case numbers and things alongthose lines, how about if we
just say in general, it workslike this you have a home,
you're enjoying your home,you're living in your home.
The insurance company keepssending you a bill and says,
(32:01):
would you like this insurancepolicy to renew?
And you just continue to writeto check and now we're 10 years
down the road.
If that home was a total lossand let's say it was a million
dollars, let's just we'retalking reconstruction costs.
I want to be clear.
We're not talking it's close tothe highway, so that adds
$100,000 in value.
We're not talking it's close tothe highway, so that adds
(32:21):
$100,000 in value.
We're not talking.
It's overlooking the beautifulwater and the sun sets perfect
every evening and that adds ahalf million dollars.
We're not talking about any ofthose values we're talking about
.
If an insurance company has toreact on claim day, they're
having to pay a premium forcontractors to be pulled off of
current job sites to work onyour house.
That was not a plannedconstruction.
(32:41):
Let's be real.
They're not going down andgetting this great discount and
then they're.
You know, ultimately you're theone that's the general
contractor anyways to find, or aproject manager at least to get
that project done.
But as we're looking at thisinsurance and it's a million
dollar coverage requirementthere's language in these
insurance contracts that say itis your, you, the owner of said
(33:04):
property.
Whether it's in an LLC, whetherit's privately owned, doesn't
matter.
It's your responsibility tomake sure that the
reconstruction cost coverage youare being offered by the
insurance company fits yourneeds.
It is not the insurancecompany's responsibility, it is
not the insurance agent'sresponsibility, it's not the tax
(33:27):
assessor, it's not the realestate agent.
The onus is on the owner ofthat property to make sure that
it makes sense.
You mentioned that you added aspace and you've done some
remodeling in the insurancecontract.
One of their outs is you'rerequired to notify them of
significant changes.
Not I cleaned the window, I puton a new curtain.
(33:49):
That's not what we're talkingabout.
We're talking about if youchange the floor, you put a new
roof on, you did an addition,you remodel the space, have a
conversation with your insuranceadvisor and make sure the
insurance policy meets yourneeds.
Here's where the rubber meetsthe road.
We're still talking about the$300,000 covers that you've
purchased In this topic.
(34:10):
That's very excessive.
If we're talking about amillion, what I mean by
excessive is that's very unusualfor there to be that wide of a
spread, but I'm just using thatas an example.
To be that wide of a spread,but I'm just using that as an
example the contract says ifit's not insured for at least
80% of what it would cost tototally rebuild that structure
(34:32):
the day of that loss and this iscontractual, this is not
negotiable and the reason thatthey put that in place is a
great example would be if I'vebeen spending a dollar amount
each year for that renewal andI've only had $300,000 in
coverage and I keep paying thatbill, how can we ask the
(34:54):
insurance company, where therisk is really a million dollars
, to write a check for a milliondollar loss and expect that to
be appropriate.
You have to look at it bothways.
So they're being kind andsaying since you are only
insured for 300,000 and you atminimum should have been insured
for 800,000, whatever the lossis, you're responsible.
(35:14):
Now again, 40,000 foot elevation.
There's fine print.
There's a bunch of differentthings that occur.
I'm just trying to help peopleunderstand the critical
importance that you need to knowwhat it costs to rebuild your
home.
Otherwise, what would you?
Here's the alternative.
Every day, an insurance companyis going to call you and ask
you what you did to change toyour home.
(35:34):
Now think about that.
Judy Gratton (35:37):
First.
That brings up another questionwhat about the personal
property inside the home?
I'll give you a perfect example.
My husband is a musician, Sure,and if there was a fire he
would take his Martin D35 outbefore me.
But he also has eight otherguitars.
Now, when we first, I'm surethe Martin was listed because he
(35:57):
had it when we did theinsurance, but the other guitars
we'd never said anything about.
So what about the personalproperty?
If you?
What about that?
All right, In a fire it'sdestroyed Like pouches.
Douglas Olson (36:16):
I'm going to answer that, but I'm going to go
back to the other topic realquickly.
Okay, depending upon theinsurance policy you put in
place, there may be extendedreplacement costs that get added
to the dollar amount that youhave for your dwelling, and that
is a part of the calculation.
You might even be with acarrier that has removed that
co-insurance and now they're onthe hook.
(36:37):
But the point is, the pointreally, basically, is you need
to know what you've got.
Do you want to be at the mercyof the insurance company on
claim day or do you want to bean informed consumer?
You know exactly how thatpolicy is going to react for you
on claim day, and I can tellyou that the last I heard is
what?
67% of every home in the UnitedStates in the United States is
(36:59):
currently not insuredappropriately, and that's the
federal government making thatstatement.
That's not me making thatstatement.
That's me regurgitating theirinformation.
But that means the majority ofthe folks that you're having
this video as reviewed by, evenif it's 51%, they're probably
not insured to the value thatthey really think they should be
.
And let's be honest, what didlumber do in 2022?
(37:21):
It went up 400%.
Now it's come back down, butwhat are houses built out of?
Okay, so I just want to becareful that this isn't everyone
.
That's why I don't want firealarms going on.
We just need to know whatyou're paying for and be an
informed consumer.
Now we're talking about yourpersonal property.
This is also an important topicbecause, depending upon what
(37:42):
your dwelling value limit is andlet's use the same 300,000
number there for just a moment,dennis Normally insurance
companies are going to cover 50%to 70% of that dwelling.
Reconstruction cost isautomatically extended to you
for your personal property.
That includes your silverware,certain limits of jewelry,
artifacts, antiques, art.
They're very low limits, but ifyou think about your furniture
(38:04):
and your dishes and yourclothing and stuff like that's
what that limits really for.
When we talk about yourhusband's guitar specifically, I
can replace the name guitarwith guns, art collections.
And when I are collectibles,what do I mean by that?
You can't see it because it'snot this wall, but my wife and I
have a lounge in our home andthere might be one or two
(38:25):
different spirits in there andsome of them might be worth a
few dollars.
Ok, so those items fall outsidethe personal property coverage,
beyond the limit that insurancecompanies providing to you.
And when we talk about basic,broad and special, those limits
are very low, so it reallydoesn't usually cover what most
(38:47):
people do inside their space andsome people might go.
If I lose it all, I won'treplace them anyways, I'm tired
of them.
So if you do have items thatvalue to you or you've made an
investment or it's part of yourlegacy, you're going to give
them to family members orfriends or a museum after you go
to wherever you go and whenwe're not here on planet earth
anymore.
A museum after you go towherever you go and when we're
(39:07):
not here on planet Earth anymore, and when we deal with that,
you are going to want to makesure that is a separate policy,
away from your home policy.
I want to be clear about thatand that you are listing the
items that you want on there andmany insurance companies are
going to ask for currentappraisals.
So sometimes there's some laborinvolved.
But if you're going to wantthem protected, to be able to be
replaced or at least get thevalue that you feel they're
(39:29):
worth and put it in your pocket,you need to go through that
exercise.
And why am I saying make it aseparate policy.
Here's why, if you have thatguitar and shirt on your
homeowner policy, you're losingyour 10% no claim discount and
you're probably going to see theminimum 20% rate increase.
Because it's a low end loss,you're going to see a 20%,
potentially, everything'spotential potential 20%.
(39:51):
So now you're going to see yourinsurance rates go up 30% for
the next three years.
Wouldn't you rather have thaton its own, what we call it a
PAF policy?
Personal article floater.
Judy Gratton (40:01):
We call it floaters too.
Douglas Olson (40:03):
Yep, yep.
Personal article floater andthat is its own policy.
So if you're paying two orthree hundred dollars on that a
year and you have a theft, thatsame 30 percent impact is a
little bit smaller than ifyou're paying two thousand
dollars for your home insurancepolicy and seeing that kind of
an impact Wow.
Dennis Day (40:21):
The whole thing about insurance is risk.
How can homeowners minimize therisk so that they don't have
catastrophic claims?
Douglas Olson (40:33):
That is a great question.
Judy Gratton (40:34):
Maybe at least understand that they've got to
understand so they make a betterinformed choice on the
insurance.
I think that is reallyimportant to consider.
Douglas Olson (40:48):
So this is probably not the answer you're
looking for.
I apologize in advance, butit's an honest answer, and that
is to become engaged in theinsurance conversation with your
insurance agent.
It can no longer be aninconvenient 15, 20, 30 minute
darn it.
You need to make an investmentin your time because you're
(41:09):
protecting all of the hard workyou have been doing.
I help a lot of people thatcome straight from financial
advisors.
The financial advisor scaresthe daylights out of them.
I call them a soft landing spot.
Say okay, I understand whereyour financial advisor is coming
from.
That individual is very smart.
Here's ways we can reduce thoserisks and here's ways we can
protect those risks so you'renot as exposed as you feel you
(41:32):
are today.
The bottom line is they need toactually engage and have that
conversation.
They need to be willing toanswer 30, 40, 50 questions, not
five.
That is the kind of client thatI want to engage with.
Otherwise, how can I be anadvocate If all you want is
churn and burn, give me cheap?
That's the wrong path and infact I'll say to you that's
(41:53):
probably a self-destructive pathin today's environment.
You really have to honestlymake that investment and if you
look at it this way you may havepurchased an item on Amazon
that you did more research onbefore you bought that on Amazon
than you've done on yourinsurance in the last year.
Absolutely an offer on aproperty.
(42:22):
The next phone call needs to bewith your insurance agent, not
the painter, not the plumber,not the designer, not lows for a
new credit rate increasebecause you're going to do a
massive remodel.
Judy Gratton (42:36):
And there's a reason behind it.
Douglas Olson (42:37):
We are seeing more often than not,
unfortunately, we'll get arequest from a mortgage.
Here's what people don'tunderstand you may not be
currently getting a non-renewalnotice, but that doesn't mean
that if you are buying aproperty, you, as the owner of
the property, you may not begetting a non-renewal notice,
(42:58):
but that doesn't mean when yourconsumer or that person at the
buyer is looking at the market,that the insurance companies are
going to say no, thank you,because when you're already with
an insurance company they're onthe hook, right.
We just talked about thatcontractually to a certain point
until the next renewal, right.
So it's important to have thatconversation in advance and I'm
(43:19):
highly advising that it be thenext phone call after the
acceptance has happened and youhigh five and yell at each other
and you're all excited when youbreathe in and breathe out.
The next phone call needs to beto get and I want everyone to
key in on what I'm going to sayhere an underwritten and
approved quote.
(43:39):
I can go get quotes right now atprogressive for landlord
policies, investment properties.
Just because I can get a quotedoesn't mean that when I go
through the underwriting processthat the premium won't change
or the underwriting guidelinequestions I'm answering no
longer fit and no longer qualify.
So instead of running at thelast minute just buying any
(43:59):
insurance policy you can get onit, why not be on the front end
of that?
Why not minimize that stressand have an honest conversation
and make sure that everythingmakes sense?
You might want to move from onecarrier to another because of
the location that you've movedto or your situation's changed.
You have 12 cars going down totwo cars, or two cars going to
12, whatever.
So I hope that's taken.
(44:19):
I'm advising they do that.
Judy Gratton (44:22):
Thank you.
Dennis Day (44:23):
Yeah, this happened to my son actually, actually,
because he just bought a homeand he was looking for insurance
and it's a 1955 home.
The car insurance companywouldn't insure the home because
it was too old.
Yeah, okay, we gotta wrap thisup.
Thanks, douglas, so good andit's been such.
Judy Gratton (44:42):
I, douglas, I'm so grateful that you joined us and
spent this time with us, andthank you.
Dennis Day (44:49):
Thank you.
Judy Gratton (44:50):
Thank you, I'm sorry, it went long.
Don't be sorry.
Like I said, we could do thisall day on this subject.
Dennis Day (44:57):
So if someone wanted to find you, Douglas, what
would they do?
Phone call, email.
Douglas Olson (45:02):
Whatever is their preference.
I'm on LinkedIn, like most ofus are.
I'm assuming Judy will provideall my information Information.
Yeah, okay, thank you both.
Dennis Day (45:13):
Douglas Olson, thank you so much from USI.
Douglas Olson (45:18):
This has been fantastic.
Nobody has an insurance.
Headache now need Advil.
I'm getting there.
It's a headache, now I needAdvil.
Dennis Day (45:24):
I'm getting there.
Thank you for watching and orlistening.
Hope to see you soon.
Take care, bye.
This is episode two of our interview with Douglas
Olson of USI, an independentinsurance advisor.
Hello, all this is Dennis Day,with Getting your Edge, how to
Downsize your Home, and we havea fantastic show for you.
Thanks for showing up.
I'm here with my co-host, judyGratton.
(00:23):
Welcome, judy.
Judy Gratton (00:25):
Good morning on this wonderful spring morning.
The last time I heard Douglas,I was like, oh my God.
One of the things that I heardyou say at the last go-around
was that to help protect yourinsurance, I guess would be a
good way to say it.
You need to consider that it isthere for what?
Did you say catastrophes?
(00:46):
I had a flood in my kitchen andit went under the flooring and
I didn't even know it went underthe flooring and it ruined the
flooring and so we had insurancecover the replacement of the
flooring.
That's not really a catastrophe.
I probably either could havelived with it or done it a
different way.
But what you're saying to helpprevent this from happening your
(01:10):
insurance policy is not therefor every little thing that goes
wrong should not be consideredfor that.
Is that right?
Douglas Olson (01:17):
Yes, and remember , I'm offering food for thought.
I'm not providing direction tosay this is what you should or
shouldn't do, but, as anaccredited advisor of insurance,
that is the advice I'm offeringto those willing to hear that
conversation and ask questionswhy.
While we're not going to diginto it here because it'd be a
(01:38):
four-hour conversation, what Iwill say is the following If you
think about, let's just say,you bought a home in early 2000
and it cost you $180,000.
That same home today, if youwent to sell it is probably in
our area anyways an honest halfa million dollar house.
Can we agree on that?
(01:58):
Judy, I'm being kind.
What's happened is, in those 25years that we've had that
insurance policy, we still havethat exact same $1,000
deductible.
Why, if we were willing to havea $1,000 deductible when the
reconstruction cost of that homewas $180,000, and now it's
$500,000, we're not allowingourselves to do the math to go,
(02:21):
hey, that's probably notappropriate anymore.
And if we're willing to pay$1,000 when it was $180, we
probably should be looking at$2,500 or $5,000 today, because
that's how much risk we wereabsorbing inside that $180,000.
I'm answering you in the.
We also have to be honest withourselves and just go gosh.
(02:43):
Why would I make that claim?
And to answer your questionspecifically, please know that
there are multiple differentlevels of insurance.
And what do I mean by differentlevels?
There are levels of I've had alot of losses and now I have to
pay extremely high expenses, soI'm going to push the coverages
down as much as possible, topush down that premium until I
(03:05):
no longer have those lossesshowing on my record.
Or, if we're talking home, it'sclaims.
And then there's what we like tocall the middle market, which
is your all states, your USAAsyour state farms.
They were built on 1200 squarefoot homes with a nice,
beautiful car in the front yard,and now those homes may be
worth a million or $2 million,and we're getting to the end of
(03:28):
their rope on what they feel isokay for them to not have to
either go into the reinsurancemarket and spend even more money
to offer coverage that you'regoing to end up as a consumer
paying for.
And then you have what we callthe private client level of
coverage and what that basicallymeans.
If you think of folks that arein a million dollar or greater
(03:49):
valued home and we're talkingreconstruction costs here, not
just the perceived value of itsview and location, that are
designing and critiquing theirpolicies to make sure that
client is taken care of the waythey think they're going to be
taken care of on claim day.
The middle market insurancecompanies are going to take very
(04:12):
good care of us for themajority of what's going on, but
they're not going to have anynuances, they're not going to
have any additional protections.
There's other things that thosecarriers are limited to because
that's how they're keepingtheir insurance rates down and
acceptable, because they don'thave those coverages.
And then the other thing I wantto bring to everybody's
attention is there's more thanone insurance policy that you
(04:34):
can get for a home and there'smore than one you can get for an
auto with nearly every singleinsurance carrier.
Every single insurance carrier.
This is why it's important towork with someone that has you
in their best interest andyou're going to be having an
advocate work on your behalf,because if you do that, you're
going to have someone say wouldyou like the basic policy that
(04:55):
has thousands of exclusions?
Would you like a policy in themiddle that maybe only has 500
exclusions and we'll talkthrough those, of course, when
we're having that conversationor are you the kind of person
that says give me all thecoverage you can with the
kitchen sink, believe it or not?
Most people think they havethat coverage, but they're
paying for the other one, andthen that's why they get mad on
claim day when they find out theinsurance contract isn't
(05:16):
covering them.
So, as we're talking aboutdeductibles here, it's smarter
to be having a holisticconversation at this point to
say what coverages do you reallyhave?
What are your risk tolerancesMeaning?
What do you want to pay for onyour own?
All this comes back toinsurance.
Right now should be used as acatastrophic policy, because we
(05:37):
should be absorbing thoseinconveniences we should be
taking on.
I like using the example of ifthere's someone new in the
household that thought they putit in reverse, but they put it
in forward gear and took out thebottom of your garage door,
please don't call the insurancecompany, please call the garage
repair folks and pay for thatout of pocket.
And I know this is laboring alittle bit, but this is
(05:58):
important to also understand.
As we talk about thesedifferent insurance carriers,
they all now have limitationsthat they may not have had just
six months ago or two years agoor five years ago, you know, not
during the contract period, butyou do get this thing called a
renewal offer every year.
If you're not reading thatrenewal offer and those pages
(06:19):
that come with it and you'rejust going, what's the premium?
And then your brain goes, oh mygoodness.
I mean I asked that you turnthe first page and put it over
there first and look at theother pages and go what language
in the contract have we changed?
What are we proposing for yourconsideration?
If you pay that premium, youhave accepted those changes.
(06:39):
Every single renewal.
If there has been an adjustmentor a change in how their policy
will react to you on claim day,you've accepted it because you
paid it.
Dennis Day (06:49):
Can I ask Douglas though and I've said this myself
I've paid into that insurancefor 15 years and never had a
claim.
And I get one claim and theyraise my rates.
Yeah, I hear it all the time.
I said it myself.
What do you say to folks?
Douglas Olson (07:08):
First I give them a hug and I say remember, I'm a
consumer and I work for you.
I'm not the insurance company,so please don't hit me.
Sometimes I do, by the way, I'mnot joking.
Hey, I'm a consumer too.
I get it.
I understand.
I've made claims and a littlebucket of money somewhere for
those unknown things because I'mnot going to use the insurance.
So here's the deal what a lot ofpeople have forgotten for
whatever reason, because theyhaven't done an insurance review
(07:30):
in a while or it just wasn't.
There's only so much room inour brains for what's important
and we want to keep theknowledge right.
We don't all need to beinsurance experts.
That's why it's important totalk to an expert when you're
having this conversation.
Here's the deal when we talkabout if you make a claim and
you haven't made a claim in fiveyears or more, you're
immediately getting a 10% noclaim discount on every policy
(07:53):
within reason that you alreadyare buying.
So immediately if there's a 20%rate increase or a 10% rate
increase just normally becauseof the cost of materials and
labor and what the insurancecommissioner approved for that
insurance company and you weregoing to have that raise happen,
and then you lose the 10% noclaim discount, you're adding
another 10% to that rateincrease.
(08:15):
You're thinking, gosh, I neverused my insurance before.
But there's one more element wehaven't even discussed yet and
that is, depending upon theseverity of that loss, you could
see another 10 to 40% rateincrease when you activate your
insurance, and that's whyconsumers start getting
frustrated.
That's why I'm saying to youplease think of it as
(08:37):
catastrophic.
And if we're going to have thishonest conversation about
catastrophic and let's sayyou're going to say I want a
five or a $10,000 deductible,you need to know that you're
going to absorb that first fiveor $10,000 deductible on your
home.
But let's do the math.
If you're spending $2,000 ayear on your insurance and let's
go worst case scenario and youlose your 10% discount and you
(09:00):
get a 40% surcharge, we're justgoing to look at the 40% number
that we were just talking abouthere for a second Excuse me 50%,
10 and 40.
So now your insurance is goingto go from $2,000 to $3,000 for
three years.
If you do the math, that meansthey're going to get $3,000 out
of your back pocket over thenext three years, but you got
(09:21):
$1,000 deductible.
So you also paid the $1thousand bucks for the insurance
company to help you.
So you're out $4,000 in threeyears.
So why not have a $5,000deductible?
And instead of paying theinsurance company, permission to
have a low deductible?
This drives your insurance ratedown by three five hundred
(09:44):
dollars a year.
So now, instead of being twothousand dollars, maybe it's
sixteen hundred dollars and youstart adding all this money up.
It totally makes sense to havea five thousand dollar
deductible and look at yourinsurance policy for the 20, 30,
40, 50, 100 total loss,whatever that value might be on
your insurance policy, youreally do need to build a
strategy around your own risktolerance and what you're
(10:08):
willing to pay out of pocket,and sometimes affordability for
people go up and down.
Dennis Day (10:12):
Douglas, you've said that the insurance companies
are.
They bring in a dollar, theypay out dollar five.
Why is that happening right now?
Douglas Olson (10:22):
For pretty much everything we discussed earlier.
Trust me, if they did, I'd beliving there.
They don't have a crystal ball,so they can't project.
Are we going to have thePalisades lose 500 houses in
January 2025?
They don, so to speak, and thisis why insurance companies are
leaving forestry type areas,because if we don't have the
(10:57):
responding fire departments andwe don't have the resources to
knock the fires down, all theseelements come into this.
The insurance companies have acontractual obligation to write
those checks.
That's the advantage that wehave, because we do have these
insurance contracts.
They are writing those checks.
That doesn't mean, on claim day, that they're not looking at
(11:18):
that contract and make sure thatthey're squeezing every last
possibility to not add to thatcheck.
That's their job, that's whatthey're supposed to do and
that's why it's important toknow the catastrophic policies
you've chosen to put in placeare going to take care of you on
claim day, if and when thatever happened.
Dennis Day (11:33):
Are there things in the world we've talked about?
Florida seems like theinsurance companies are fleeing
California because of the fires.
Are there other areas and otherreasons that insurance
companies are leaving?
Douglas Olson (11:48):
Yes, and I'll get this to Judy as well, if I have
not already.
Judy, I mentioned earlier inthis podcast the Senate had
actually brought thisinformation together and it's
probably going to be rather eyeopening for the majority of
folks that look at thatUnderstand.
This is not something I created.
Just want to be clear.
It's not something theinsurance industry created, but
the Senate did and they pulledthis together and you'll see
(12:10):
these colors going across theentire country.
I don't remember there being astate that is not seeing
companies non-renew policies.
Now, as we say that, I want tobe clear.
Just because a company haschosen to not renew doesn't mean
that they've left the industry.
It just means multiple thingsthat the quality of that home
(12:34):
Remember, we're talking aboutmaintenance.
If they do a satellite view andthey see that the trees are not
maintained or the gutters haveweeds growing in them, or
there's moss on the roof, orthere's a car in the front yard
on blocks, or the lawn doesn'tlook maintained, it doesn't look
right, those are higher risksfor insurance companies A slip
and falls when they order anAmazon item Think of the weaving
(12:57):
and dodging and all thesethings or because the rain
gutters are not clean, thatwater is now wicking back up in
the roof and now we're going tohave a water damage claim.
So, insurance companies I thinkthis is probably a good place
to say this and I apologize fornot saying it earlier there is a
relationship responsibilitythat we have as consumers and
that is to understand thatinsurance companies are a
(13:19):
transfer of risk for an agreedcost to us as consumers for them
to take on that risk.
Insurance companies are designedto take on risk.
They're not designed to take on.
We know what's going to happenand we're going to have to write
a check.
We have to be careful andunderstand that While we may
(13:39):
want to buy something because welove the view, doesn't mean
insurance companies by law haveto cover you.
They're a business and if thatrisk is too great for their
algorithms and how much, they'regoing to be able to charge you.
Because remember, as consumers,if they say $20,000, but
somebody else wants to give youthat same policy for $2,000, are
you going to write the checkfor 20?
(14:00):
Are you going to write the checkfor 2000?
But when that carrier that wasoffering it for 2000 leaves the
market because they were notgetting enough premium, they
were buying the market, or theywere trying to get it going so
they felt they could get enoughpremium to make up for it, and
then they find out, like intoday's environment, that they
can't, so they're leaving themarket.
This is where consumers getupset, because that same carrier
(14:20):
that was offering the $20,000policy is still there and
they're still offering it forthat same $20,000, or there
might be some adjustments.
So we do have to be careful andthat's why we say look at this
as a catastrophic.
Make sure you're building astrategy.
Let's make sure you're puttingsomething in place that's going
to react the way you want it toon that claim day.
Not just how much am I payingevery month out of my pocket or
(14:42):
every year for the policies?
Judy Gratton (14:44):
So, douglas, I don't know if you remember, but
a few years back in the state ofWashington there was an
addendum that was added to cotpurchases, sale contracts that
was strictly around the buyerbeing able to verify that they
could get reasonably pricedinsurance and at that time it
was considered 1% of thepurchase price.
(15:06):
It had to be under 1% of thepurchase price and it was tied
to something and there was anacronym for it.
Now I've forgotten what it was,but it had to do with the fact
that people made claims thatwere turned down or not.
No, that's not covered.
(15:27):
If I call and say my tree fellin the front yard and they say
no, that's not covered.
And we were because mortgage, ifyou're getting a mortgage, they
require that you have insuranceand if you don't get it,
they'll get it for you and it'sgenerally more expensive.
So this addendum came into playto protect the buyer from
getting stuck with outrageousinsurance so they could go away
(15:50):
from the property if that wasgoing to be the case.
Do you see that coming intoplay again now around in our
area at all?
Douglas Olson (16:01):
I want to be careful how I answer that and
just say that insurance has tocollect the correct amount of
premium for the risk.
And I could also say to youit's not unusual for a mortgage
broker to send me an email tosay your insurance is too
(16:22):
expensive.
I've been in this business fora while and it should only be
$800.
Oh, that's nice.
Thank you for your email and Irespectfully the cost is the
cost.
Even with all of my expertise,I cannot go to an insurance
company and say push yourpricing down, it's controlled,
it is what it is.
So an insurance side is areport that shows and
(16:45):
demonstrates claims that havebeen made.
So it's a gathering ofinsurance information, no matter
what insurance carrier.
Judy Gratton (16:52):
Is that recorded both against the person and the
house?
Douglas Olson (16:55):
Yes.
Judy Gratton (16:56):
A house by itself, even though the sellers are
selling it, the new buyer isgoing to.
They're looking at that houseand seeing that a lot of claims
had been made against the house.
But also if the buyer made alot of claims right on something
else, if someone's working withyou and they have a question
about their policy, can theycall you and not end up with one
(17:20):
of those dings on their history?
Douglas Olson (17:23):
It's a really valuable question for you to ask
, judy, and my advice is always,if, whenever possible, if you
do have a relationship with yourinsurance agent, whether they
have acronyms behind their nameor not the agent, not the
supporting person, not the frontdesk person, the agent we have
(17:44):
an advantage and the advantageis we get to be human.
So if you call and say, hey, Ihave a question, can we
unofficially have a conversation?
Yeah, we need to pro and conthese things Absolutely, but if
you call someone that's paid torecord conversations, you call
the insurance company directly.
Judy Gratton (18:05):
Do they record those conversations?
Douglas Olson (18:07):
Oh, the insurance carriers absolutely do yeah.
They don't disclose that youknow I don't want to get into
that, but they I am, I'm calling, I'm hearing them say we're
recording for training purposesand blah, blah, blah.
So I do think that they areletting us know when those
recordings are happening andit's not to be against us, it's
(18:30):
also to keep them honest.
So if someone is giving themmisinformation, that client can
be provided the coverage thatthey were told that they had,
that they don't have as anexample.
So it really is for trainingpurposes and making sure things
are accurate.
If you're communicating withsomeone at the insurance company
, they do have rules,regulations and requirements
(18:51):
that say we're going to openthis claim, even though you're
saying I'm not going to have aclaim because you want to have a
dialogue with me as aninsurance company.
And let's look at this as us,don't?
We want to know how theirproduction is, so we make sure
that they're doing their job.
So now you may lose your 10percent no claim discount
(19:12):
because you reached out to thatinsurance company.
Judy Gratton (19:14):
Even though you don't end up actually A hundred
percent.
Douglas Olson (19:18):
That's why you'll see zero paid out so often on
these reports.
And again, we had thatconversation a moment ago You're
already going to have yourinsurance go up anyways.
Now you lost 10% discount, soit's adding another 10% to it
and that's normally for threeyears.
That's the legal.
I think it's the minimum I hopeI'm using the right word and
for some states that's also themaximum.
That's it.
And there are some carriers,while they may not be able to
(19:40):
charge you when I say some, justthink of it like 50-50, as I
say the word some.
So some insurance companiesmight only charge you for three
years, but then they underwriteit for five or six years.
So you have to understandunderwriting also means are you
eligible?
Are we going to renew you?
(20:00):
Are you a higher risk thansomeone else?
Judy Gratton (20:04):
Well, yeah, hey, we really could, because I can't
stress enough how important itis for people and we.
This podcast is mostly gearedfor downsizers.
They're looking to buy adifferent type of home, or a
second home maybe, or who knows.
This is information that Ithink everyone needs, and we
(20:26):
really need to make sure that weput Douglas's contact
information in here, because Iand see here's one more question
.
I can't stand it.
It could go on all day.
I have also heard that if youleave your insurance company,
then you risk ending up withmuch higher rates anywhere else.
(20:47):
So if someone is settled with acompany but they want to work
with you, what happens?
Douglas Olson (20:54):
That is also a very good question and I hope I
answered the last question fullythere.
But this is a very goodquestion for you to ask, judy,
and here's the easiest way forme to explain it when you have a
conversation with me it'shaving zero impact on your
current insurance.
There's no charge for what wedo.
This is zero impact on yourcurrent insurance.
There's no charge for what wedo.
This is how we choose toconduct business.
(21:16):
There's no hidden fee, and Ilike saying it this way.
Just let's use Progressive as anexample, or State Farm, whoever
we'll use Progressive.
Let's say you call Progressiveand get a quote, and then you
call and you work with me.
If I'm producing the exact samequote, meaning the coverages,
the discounts, the whole nineyards the exact cost is going to
(21:36):
be the same.
It is not going to be that weadded a little percentage or a
buffer or a filing fee or apaper fee.
Why and how does that work thatway?
I'm paid a salary and so that'sa huge advantage.
That's why I can say I'm anadvocate for someone.
No-transcript insurancecontract, so you don't think I'm
(22:17):
just saying something to saysomething, and then we do a
side-by-side to show you if itwas me and you've asked me to do
this on your behalf.
This is where we recommend thatyou consider making adjustments
, even if it's you stay withyour current carrier.
These are recommendations thatwe have, so you don't even have
to call your insurance carrier.
You don't have to call yourcurrent insurance agent.
(22:39):
We can have this entiredialogue and get to the end
result free of charge.
Judy Gratton (22:41):
I would recommend and I intend to take you up on
that personally, because Iwasn't even aware that a service
like yours was out there andthe fact, like you said, so many
of us just take paperwork andsign it because the amount that
you're paying was acceptable atthe time.
I don't know what's in mypolicy.
(23:01):
My husband still thinks we havecomplete coverage.
I'm pretty sure we don't now.
But you take the time to makesure the people understand what
they're getting, and that is soincredibly important.
And I don't think peoplerealize it let's put it that way
until they meet it and theneverybody's unhappy because they
(23:22):
didn't really understand whatthey got in the first place.
Douglas Olson (23:26):
And to answer the other side of your story is we
want to be careful about movingyou.
We do.
That is an important dance.
But I'll also say this to you,judy If your coverage isn't
right and what we're proposingis far more attractive and
(23:47):
possibly in fact I'll tell you91% of the time, I actually am
able to offer a better pricethan what somebody currently has
, it's a high percentage.
That doesn't mean tomorrow itwon't be 14%, because everything
changes.
I just want to say,historically, it's 10 years
worth of me doing this,collecting all that, even though
I've been doing it for almost21 years now.
I've just been keeping track,so literally I can tell how I've
(24:07):
done for each client.
In fact, it's 91.17% of thetime I've actually helped them
save money and put them in abetter position.
Judy Gratton (24:19):
You know that if you call your own insurance
company back, the rate is goingto probably do what Go up.
Douglas Olson (24:21):
So most of the time this is a good, safe
landing spot for them to saywe're going to go ahead and move
forward.
Most insurance companies willnot offer you any kind of
discount for what they calllongevity credits or discounts
if you haven't been with yourprior insurance company at least
three years.
So we do recommend please don'tmake changes.
Judy Gratton (24:40):
I think people jump quickly because they think
they're going to get a bad.
I just saw a new one a companythat is claiming that they can
cut your insurance rates in halfby taking out the middleman.
Douglas Olson (24:51):
And I was like I've seen one that's even worse
than that.
Dennis, I don't know if you'veseen this one, but I showed it
to my wife and she just laughedand walked out of the room,
because, of course, she's heardinsurance conversations when
you've been doing it for 20years, so she understands how
this works.
I would love it if I, the agent, was getting 80% of the
premiums you pay.
Think how.
So what I'm saying to you ismarketing, and if we can just
(25:19):
stop listening to marketing,because it is doing exactly what
we're asking them to do, whichis make us feel good, make us
feel like we're in good hands,or what's nationwide, is on your
side, whatever it to decidewhat's best.
You're not hawking a bunch oftaglines for them to buy from
you.
You're feeding them facts,you're articulating a strategy
(25:45):
for them, you're helping themget to a solution that works
best for their situation, andthe very next client you help.
It's not going to be the samesituation.
Would that be fair?
Judy Gratton (25:55):
Everyone is different.
Douglas Olson (25:56):
Absolutely so.
I hope I'm giving you thatanswer on saying the marketing
isn't going to win you any courtcase, it's not going to make
you whole, it's not going tomake you not be upset.
What is a better advantage isgiving yourself the leverage and
the advantage to know whatyou're actually paying for and
update that.
(26:17):
So what do I mean by that?
If you're not reaching back outto your insurance agent or your
insurance advisor once everythree years, that I would
consider to be on the side ofdangerous.
I do recommend the rates dochange every year your policy
renews.
There's new changes to thatpolicy.
Do you still agree to thosechanges?
So there's things that areimportant for you to know.
(26:39):
What are you actually payingfor.
And we talked about thedeductible earlier.
I'm going to rewind to just saythis a little bit, because there
are more than one home policythat you can get from most
insurance companies.
Most people just zero in on thecheap one.
I like saying it this waythere's a $1,700 one, there's a
$2,000 one and there's a $2,300one.
(26:59):
Most consumers are going to goto that $1,700 one because they
think that $2,300 one is rippingthem off and they're just
trying to make money off of me.
Guess what?
There's a huge difference.
The person that paid for $2,300for the insurance policy while
they're going through a loss andthat part sucks, they probably
have coverage and that $1,700policy, that person now has the
added frustration of getting adenial letter in the mail,
(27:20):
potentially not saying excuse me, 100%, but potentially that is
the case.
So what we do is we help themunderstand how.
About if we look at the middlepolicy and this other policy,
see which one makes sense foryou, and now let's talk about a
deductible, and lo and behold,we might be pretty close to that
premium.
That other policy had thousandsof exclusions in it, or
(27:40):
hundreds of exclusions orwhatever the coverage you didn't
need.
And now you're paying the samepremium, or close, but now you
have coverage that you know isgoing to take care of you the
way you want it to, as it'sdesigned on claim day.
And that's also why we saylet's talk every three years.
I don't want to talk in fiveyears, that's too late.
Let's talk every three years.
I don't want to talk in fiveyears, it's too late.
(28:01):
Let's talk every three years.
And in our agency, dependingupon the client, what do I mean
by that If you only have onepolicy with us, this is not
going to happen.
If you have several policieswith us home, auto, umbrella, so
on and so forth we'reautomatically checking the
market for you in the background, whether you like it or not,
we're making sure you're stilllanding in the same space.
But if you haven't maintainedyour policy you haven't told us
that you remodeled the kitchen,you haven't told us about the
(28:23):
addition to the house.
You haven't told us you put anew roof on.
You haven't told us you addedair conditioning.
We're still basing our analysisoff of the original information
you provided us.
So the onus is on you, theowner of said contract, to let
us know that there's beenchanges, because there is a
maintenance cost inside.
Your insurance policy says.
Dennis Day (28:42):
ultimately it's your problem, not the insurance
company I have to say that hasbeen something I opened my eyes
last fall is that I talked to myinsurance company.
I was trying to save money.
My original policy for manyyears was a home that was at
cover said its value was$300,000.
(29:04):
It's not worth 300, it's much,much more and therefore if I had
a catastrophic event, I wouldhave covered up to $300,000, not
the replacement cost or evenclose to what the value really
was, and I did not understandthat.
Judy Gratton (29:25):
I said a lot of people don't.
They don't even think about it.
Dennis Day (29:27):
So there had been an addition to the house, there
had been a kitchen remodel andnow there's a bathroom remodel,
and in the open market it'sselling quite a bit over that
three hundred thousand dollars,hopefully.
But what critical things do Ineed to know and what kind of
information would the averageconsumer do to help them
(29:51):
understand?
Douglas Olson (29:51):
this is very important issue so this is
probably going to make a fewpeople have the hair rise on the
back of their neck.
This is very important.
I'm going to try and articulatethis in a methodical yet
non-scary environment.
And it's only because now we'reactually talking about contract
(30:12):
language.
Now we're talking about themaintenance clauses that are
inside insurance contracts.
Now we're getting into thenitty gritty that are inside
insurance contracts.
Now we're getting into thenitty gritty.
And all of us, every time we'vegot an insurance policy from a
company where we've had aproperty, all of us have this
information.
So this isn't like new.
We all have this information.
(30:33):
But I am a consumer too, andeven though I am pretty knee
deep into this stuff, I stilldon't read my insurance policies
in total detail because I knowwhat I'm purchasing, just to be
clear.
And I do read the renewalsbecause I've been in this
industry.
But I'm not going to sit thereand read 192 pages every time,
no, but I am going to beconcerned about what is
(30:55):
important.
So you mentioned the house wasbeing insured for $300,000.
Let's make this simple Insurancefor the majority.
There's isoforms, which is aterm of everybody starts with
the same document, with the samelanguage, and you can endorse
that policy to get rid of somerestrictions or add coverages in
(31:17):
that have been eliminated bythe base policy.
Sometimes they're calledendorsements or changing of an
insurance policy, going frombasic to broad to special.
That also brings in a lot ofcoverages and basic language
inside the policy.
That changes, however, everysingle one of those that I just
mentioned your basic, your broadand your special there is
(31:38):
language inside there.
The easiest way to coin it isco-insurance.
And without giving you a longexample and giving you court
case numbers and things alongthose lines, how about if we
just say in general, it workslike this you have a home,
you're enjoying your home,you're living in your home.
The insurance company keepssending you a bill and says,
(32:01):
would you like this insurancepolicy to renew?
And you just continue to writeto check and now we're 10 years
down the road.
If that home was a total lossand let's say it was a million
dollars, let's just we'retalking reconstruction costs.
I want to be clear.
We're not talking it's close tothe highway, so that adds
$100,000 in value.
We're not talking it's close tothe highway, so that adds
(32:21):
$100,000 in value.
We're not talking.
It's overlooking the beautifulwater and the sun sets perfect
every evening and that adds ahalf million dollars.
We're not talking about any ofthose values we're talking about
.
If an insurance company has toreact on claim day, they're
having to pay a premium forcontractors to be pulled off of
current job sites to work onyour house.
That was not a plannedconstruction.
(32:41):
Let's be real.
They're not going down andgetting this great discount and
then they're.
You know, ultimately you're theone that's the general
contractor anyways to find, or aproject manager at least to get
that project done.
But as we're looking at thisinsurance and it's a million
dollar coverage requirementthere's language in these
insurance contracts that say itis your, you, the owner of said
(33:04):
property.
Whether it's in an LLC, whetherit's privately owned, doesn't
matter.
It's your responsibility tomake sure that the
reconstruction cost coverage youare being offered by the
insurance company fits yourneeds.
It is not the insurancecompany's responsibility, it is
not the insurance agent'sresponsibility, it's not the tax
(33:27):
assessor, it's not the realestate agent.
The onus is on the owner ofthat property to make sure that
it makes sense.
You mentioned that you added aspace and you've done some
remodeling in the insurancecontract.
One of their outs is you'rerequired to notify them of
significant changes.
Not I cleaned the window, I puton a new curtain.
(33:49):
That's not what we're talkingabout.
We're talking about if youchange the floor, you put a new
roof on, you did an addition,you remodel the space, have a
conversation with your insuranceadvisor and make sure the
insurance policy meets yourneeds.
Here's where the rubber meetsthe road.
We're still talking about the$300,000 covers that you've
purchased In this topic.
(34:10):
That's very excessive.
If we're talking about amillion, what I mean by
excessive is that's very unusualfor there to be that wide of a
spread, but I'm just using thatas an example.
To be that wide of a spread,but I'm just using that as an
example the contract says ifit's not insured for at least
80% of what it would cost tototally rebuild that structure
(34:32):
the day of that loss and this iscontractual, this is not
negotiable and the reason thatthey put that in place is a
great example would be if I'vebeen spending a dollar amount
each year for that renewal andI've only had $300,000 in
coverage and I keep paying thatbill, how can we ask the
(34:54):
insurance company, where therisk is really a million dollars
, to write a check for a milliondollar loss and expect that to
be appropriate.
You have to look at it bothways.
So they're being kind andsaying since you are only
insured for 300,000 and you atminimum should have been insured
for 800,000, whatever the lossis, you're responsible.
(35:14):
Now again, 40,000 foot elevation.
There's fine print.
There's a bunch of differentthings that occur.
I'm just trying to help peopleunderstand the critical
importance that you need to knowwhat it costs to rebuild your
home.
Otherwise, what would you?
Here's the alternative.
Every day, an insurance companyis going to call you and ask
you what you did to change toyour home.
(35:34):
Now think about that.
Judy Gratton (35:37):
First.
That brings up another questionwhat about the personal
property inside the home?
I'll give you a perfect example.
My husband is a musician, Sure,and if there was a fire he
would take his Martin D35 outbefore me.
But he also has eight otherguitars.
Now, when we first, I'm surethe Martin was listed because he
(35:57):
had it when we did theinsurance, but the other guitars
we'd never said anything about.
So what about the personalproperty?
If you?
What about that?
All right, In a fire it'sdestroyed Like pouches.
Douglas Olson (36:16):
I'm going to answer that, but I'm going to go
back to the other topic realquickly.
Okay, depending upon theinsurance policy you put in
place, there may be extendedreplacement costs that get added
to the dollar amount that youhave for your dwelling, and that
is a part of the calculation.
You might even be with acarrier that has removed that
co-insurance and now they're onthe hook.
(36:37):
But the point is, the pointreally, basically, is you need
to know what you've got.
Do you want to be at the mercyof the insurance company on
claim day or do you want to bean informed consumer?
You know exactly how thatpolicy is going to react for you
on claim day, and I can tellyou that the last I heard is
what?
67% of every home in the UnitedStates in the United States is
(36:59):
currently not insuredappropriately, and that's the
federal government making thatstatement.
That's not me making thatstatement.
That's me regurgitating theirinformation.
But that means the majority ofthe folks that you're having
this video as reviewed by, evenif it's 51%, they're probably
not insured to the value thatthey really think they should be
.
And let's be honest, what didlumber do in 2022?
(37:21):
It went up 400%.
Now it's come back down, butwhat are houses built out of?
Okay, so I just want to becareful that this isn't everyone
.
That's why I don't want firealarms going on.
We just need to know whatyou're paying for and be an
informed consumer.
Now we're talking about yourpersonal property.
This is also an important topicbecause, depending upon what
(37:42):
your dwelling value limit is andlet's use the same 300,000
number there for just a moment,dennis Normally insurance
companies are going to cover 50%to 70% of that dwelling.
Reconstruction cost isautomatically extended to you
for your personal property.
That includes your silverware,certain limits of jewelry,
artifacts, antiques, art.
They're very low limits, but ifyou think about your furniture
(38:04):
and your dishes and yourclothing and stuff like that's
what that limits really for.
When we talk about yourhusband's guitar specifically, I
can replace the name guitarwith guns, art collections.
And when I are collectibles,what do I mean by that?
You can't see it because it'snot this wall, but my wife and I
have a lounge in our home andthere might be one or two
(38:25):
different spirits in there andsome of them might be worth a
few dollars.
Ok, so those items fall outsidethe personal property coverage,
beyond the limit that insurancecompanies providing to you.
And when we talk about basic,broad and special, those limits
are very low, so it reallydoesn't usually cover what most
(38:47):
people do inside their space andsome people might go.
If I lose it all, I won'treplace them anyways, I'm tired
of them.
So if you do have items thatvalue to you or you've made an
investment or it's part of yourlegacy, you're going to give
them to family members orfriends or a museum after you go
to wherever you go and whenwe're not here on planet earth
anymore.
A museum after you go towherever you go and when we're
(39:07):
not here on planet Earth anymore, and when we deal with that,
you are going to want to makesure that is a separate policy,
away from your home policy.
I want to be clear about thatand that you are listing the
items that you want on there andmany insurance companies are
going to ask for currentappraisals.
So sometimes there's some laborinvolved.
But if you're going to wantthem protected, to be able to be
replaced or at least get thevalue that you feel they're
(39:29):
worth and put it in your pocket,you need to go through that
exercise.
And why am I saying make it aseparate policy.
Here's why, if you have thatguitar and shirt on your
homeowner policy, you're losingyour 10% no claim discount and
you're probably going to see theminimum 20% rate increase.
Because it's a low end loss,you're going to see a 20%,
potentially, everything'spotential potential 20%.
(39:51):
So now you're going to see yourinsurance rates go up 30% for
the next three years.
Wouldn't you rather have thaton its own, what we call it a
PAF policy?
Personal article floater.
Judy Gratton (40:01):
We call it floaters too.
Douglas Olson (40:03):
Yep, yep.
Personal article floater andthat is its own policy.
So if you're paying two orthree hundred dollars on that a
year and you have a theft, thatsame 30 percent impact is a
little bit smaller than ifyou're paying two thousand
dollars for your home insurancepolicy and seeing that kind of
an impact Wow.
Dennis Day (40:21):
The whole thing about insurance is risk.
How can homeowners minimize therisk so that they don't have
catastrophic claims?
Douglas Olson (40:33):
That is a great question.
Judy Gratton (40:34):
Maybe at least understand that they've got to
understand so they make a betterinformed choice on the
insurance.
I think that is reallyimportant to consider.
Douglas Olson (40:48):
So this is probably not the answer you're
looking for.
I apologize in advance, butit's an honest answer, and that
is to become engaged in theinsurance conversation with your
insurance agent.
It can no longer be aninconvenient 15, 20, 30 minute
darn it.
You need to make an investmentin your time because you're
(41:09):
protecting all of the hard workyou have been doing.
I help a lot of people thatcome straight from financial
advisors.
The financial advisor scaresthe daylights out of them.
I call them a soft landing spot.
Say okay, I understand whereyour financial advisor is coming
from.
That individual is very smart.
Here's ways we can reduce thoserisks and here's ways we can
protect those risks so you'renot as exposed as you feel you
(41:32):
are today.
The bottom line is they need toactually engage and have that
conversation.
They need to be willing toanswer 30, 40, 50 questions, not
five.
That is the kind of client thatI want to engage with.
Otherwise, how can I be anadvocate If all you want is
churn and burn, give me cheap?
That's the wrong path and infact I'll say to you that's
(41:53):
probably a self-destructive pathin today's environment.
You really have to honestlymake that investment and if you
look at it this way you may havepurchased an item on Amazon
that you did more research onbefore you bought that on Amazon
than you've done on yourinsurance in the last year.
Absolutely an offer on aproperty.
(42:22):
The next phone call needs to bewith your insurance agent, not
the painter, not the plumber,not the designer, not lows for a
new credit rate increasebecause you're going to do a
massive remodel.
Judy Gratton (42:36):
And there's a reason behind it.
Douglas Olson (42:37):
We are seeing more often than not,
unfortunately, we'll get arequest from a mortgage.
Here's what people don'tunderstand you may not be
currently getting a non-renewalnotice, but that doesn't mean
that if you are buying aproperty, you, as the owner of
the property, you may not begetting a non-renewal notice,
(42:58):
but that doesn't mean when yourconsumer or that person at the
buyer is looking at the market,that the insurance companies are
going to say no, thank you,because when you're already with
an insurance company they're onthe hook, right.
We just talked about thatcontractually to a certain point
until the next renewal, right.
So it's important to have thatconversation in advance and I'm
(43:19):
highly advising that it be thenext phone call after the
acceptance has happened and youhigh five and yell at each other
and you're all excited when youbreathe in and breathe out.
The next phone call needs to beto get and I want everyone to
key in on what I'm going to sayhere an underwritten and
approved quote.
(43:39):
I can go get quotes right now atprogressive for landlord
policies, investment properties.
Just because I can get a quotedoesn't mean that when I go
through the underwriting processthat the premium won't change
or the underwriting guidelinequestions I'm answering no
longer fit and no longer qualify.
So instead of running at thelast minute just buying any
(43:59):
insurance policy you can get onit, why not be on the front end
of that?
Why not minimize that stressand have an honest conversation
and make sure that everythingmakes sense?
You might want to move from onecarrier to another because of
the location that you've movedto or your situation's changed.
You have 12 cars going down totwo cars, or two cars going to
12, whatever.
So I hope that's taken.
(44:19):
I'm advising they do that.
Judy Gratton (44:22):
Thank you.
Dennis Day (44:23):
Yeah, this happened to my son actually, actually,
because he just bought a homeand he was looking for insurance
and it's a 1955 home.
The car insurance companywouldn't insure the home because
it was too old.
Yeah, okay, we gotta wrap thisup.
Thanks, douglas, so good andit's been such.
Judy Gratton (44:42):
I, douglas, I'm so grateful that you joined us and
spent this time with us, andthank you.
Dennis Day (44:49):
Thank you.
Judy Gratton (44:50):
Thank you, I'm sorry, it went long.
Don't be sorry.
Like I said, we could do thisall day on this subject.
Dennis Day (44:57):
So if someone wanted to find you, Douglas, what
would they do?
Phone call, email.
Douglas Olson (45:02):
Whatever is their preference.
I'm on LinkedIn, like most ofus are.
I'm assuming Judy will provideall my information Information.
Yeah, okay, thank you both.
Dennis Day (45:13):
Douglas Olson, thank you so much from USI.
Douglas Olson (45:18):
This has been fantastic.
Nobody has an insurance.
Headache now need Advil.
I'm getting there.
It's a headache, now I needAdvil.
Dennis Day (45:24):
I'm getting there.
Thank you for watching and orlistening.
Hope to see you soon.
Take care, bye.
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