How do I save money on my insurance?

Insurance rates were last seen hanging out with these two. I’d normally give credit for the photo, but I found it on Reddit. It’s Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg. In Amsterdam. You do the math.

I’ve been getting a lot of calls lately, from my clients as well as folks with other insurance companies.

“Why is my car/home insurance so high?”

It’s a fair question.

There are two reasons rates keep getting higher and it’s true for both home and auto insurance.

1) The number of claims is going up. (You can blame bad drivers and climate change for that)

2) Claims are getting more expensive. (Inflation, worker shortages and supply chain issues get the credit here)

To put it another way, insurance is a way of spreading out the pain. And there’s been a lot of pain to go around lately.

So, the question becomes, “How do I save money on my insurance?”

1) Get a local agent. Yes, I am an agent and yes, this one is a bit self-serving. But we’re specialists. Find a couple of specialists and ask them for quotes. Make them explain what coverages they’re recommending and why. Go with the one who can come up with the best combination of price and coverage.

You won’t get that from an 800 number or a website.

An agent can also help you decide whether decide whether anything else on this list makes sense for you.

2) Take a look at your deductibles and other “extras” like rental reimbursement.

This one comes with a really big caveat: Don’t lower your liability limits or how much you’re insuring your home for. Rates are going up because you’re more likely to need your insurance. Now is not the time to start skimping.

That said, you will be able to save money by raising your deductible. You’ll have to decide whether the lower premium is worth the higher risk.

If raising your car insurance deductible from $500 to $1,000 saves you $60 a year, keep the $500 deductible.

But if raising your home insurance deductible from $1,500 to $2,500 saves you $300 a year? That’s probably worth it.

And if there are two drivers and three vehicles, do you really need rental reimbursement on your auto insurance? Or would you be able to use the third vehicle?

3) Credit score. Yeah, sorry, that one affects your rate, too.

Underwriters say there’s a correlation between how well you keep track of your finances and how likely you are to have a claim.

So, if your life is more stable than it was when you first started your insurance, it may be worth asking your agent for the company to rerate you based on who you are now.

And if you’re asking around for quotes, make sure the agent checks whether it’s cheaper to put you or your spouse as the first named insured (That’s whose credit they’ll check).

BTW, it is considered a “soft hit” so getting an insurance quote doesn’t affect your credit score.

4) Discounts. This the one that all the ads like to talk about. And a local agent can help find discounts you didn’t know you qualified for.

A quick rundown of a few you may not know about:

Bundling (Package several types of policies like home, auto, life, business, boats, etc., together and you usually get them cheaper than getting them each individually. I’ve even seen instances where the package was cheaper than the auto by itself)
Homeowner (For auto insurance)
Good student (As if you needed another reason to encourage the kid to get good grades)
Pay plan (The cheapest ways to pay are usually pay all at once or with an automatic draft from a checking account)
Where you work (Sometimes your occupation can get you a discount)
ePolicy (Get your policy emailed to you instead of a hard copy)
Early shopping (Yes, you can get a discount if you don’t need to start your insurance right away)
Updated equipment (Have you updated your plumbing, HVAC or electrical systems? You may be able to reduce your home insurance premium)

5) Auto trackers. Technically this one’s a discount, but these are worth talking about a little more.

Before I started selling insurance, I got a discount for plugging a little doohickey into my car that kept track of some of my driving habits. That was almost 15 years ago.

Now most companies have a phone app that monitor your speed, your mileage, and — probably most importantly — when you’re on your phone as you drive. (Remember when I said there are more crashes because of bad drivers? Drivers distracted by their cell phones is right at the top of the list of problems)

I was hesitant when Farmers rolled its out, but the app isn’t doing anything your phone doesn’t already do, it’s just sending the information to one more place.

These apps are a few years old now and I expect them to get more important as time goes on.

I had one client tell me she found an insurance company where she could “pay as you go.” The trick is not crossing the line between tracking and stalking.

Unfortunately, folks, there are no magic bullets, just a couple of suggestions until we get past the current craziness.

10 years later …

October 1, 2021October 1, 2021 DaveGragg Business owner

Look what I got today!

These kinds of milestones should be a chance to reflect on who helped you get here now, where we were then and where we’re going next.

I’d love to, but I’m actually a little busy this afternoon. And if I start thanking the people who got me here, I’d never stop.

My wife does get a shout-out though. Not only has Martie had to put up with me at home after bad days, late nights, slow months (and a slow year or two at the start) she comes in to the office and puts up with me here (She actually just left today).

Love ya babe! Couldn’t have gotten here without you.

Putting the “Con” in contractor

May 21, 2021 DaveGragg Uncategorized Home insurance, Small business

I just got a note from our claims department.

They said they’re seeing a lot of out-of-town door knockers and fly-by-night contractors in Springfield and around the Ozarks. And they usually target seniors.

These contractors will walk up to your door and offer a free roof inspection, you just have to sign this little piece of paper and they’ll get started.

If they find damage — they target areas that have recently seen hail, so there’s a decent chance they will — you file an insurance claim and the company says that little piece of paper that you signed is actually a contract for them to do the work.

Insurance companies hate these guys. They typically do shoddy work and it’s more expensive than more established companies.

You know what happens when insurance companies have to pay more on a claim than they would have otherwise? Of course you do, your rates go up. Again.

And the contractor is no where to be found when you need them to fix their shoddy work.

That’s why I like local companies: I want to know where to go to yell at someone when something goes wrong.

Because even good companies sometimes get things wrong. The best companies are the ones who try to make it right afterward.

If you think you have hail damage, there are a lot of reputable roofing contractors in our area. Give the office a call and we can even recommend a couple.

Insurance in the time of corona

March 20, 2020March 20, 2020 DaveGragg Business insurance, Business owner, Insurance agent

plague doc — Who wants to help me bring these bad boys back in style? (I guess I should have known http://www.plaguedoctormasks.com was a thing.)

If we’re lucky, the biggest threat COVID-19 poses is to the economy.

Social distancing means folks aren’t going to work, aren’t going out to eat, to the movies, etc., etc.

It’s better than watching a lot of people die, but it’s going to suck. The economy relies on people moving around and spending money.

So what can your insurance do?

Health insurance could be pretty important.

Life insurance is probably a good idea, too. You already have that in place, right? Because coronavirus probably isn’t going to get you, but that doesn’t mean something else won’t.

Other than that, I’m afraid your insurance may not be able to help a whole lot.

Call your agent if you have problems making a payment. They may be able to help — or at least make sure you know your options.

One of the things I’ve always impressed on small business owners is the importance of a provision that helps pay the bills if they have to rebuild after a covered loss.

So business income coverage that helps, right?

No.

An outbreak isn’t a covered loss.

I was frustrated when I found it out, too, but it actually makes sense.

An outbreak like this has such a small chance of happening and widespread, disastrous consequences that there’s no way to properly take it into consideration when companies figure premiums.

Either the premiums are so small the company wouldn’t bring in enough money to actually pay out as claims if they’re needed, or they’re so high that no one can afford them.

A tornado, earthquake or hurricane can devastate a region and an insurance company can absorb the loss and move on.

COVID-19 is knocking the entire nation to its knees.

There’s only one group that can help the economy keep moving in the short-term and recover in the long-term — the American taxpayer. And we’re still waiting to see how, exactly, the state and federal government plan to do that.

The worst insurance discussion I’ve had to have

July 2, 2019July 3, 2019 DaveGragg Business owner, Insurance agent, Life insurance

This one was painful.

There are some clients we only talk to every once in a while.

Then there are those that we see every month or so — to pay a bill, answer a question, whatever.

Noah didn’t wait until it started raining to build an ark. Insurance is no different — you can’t wait until you need it to get it.

J and her husband were ones we’ve seen a lot over past year or so. They came in to pay their bill in cash most months — a lot of times with their kids, including a newborn, in tow.

They also owned a business. She handled paperwork and he handled the manual labor.

She came in earlier this week and apologized for not coming by to pay the bill last week when it was due — there had been a family emergency.

“Family emergency” can cover a lot of ground so I hoped for the best.

It was the other kind of family emergency.

Her 27-year-old husband had been drinking, then grabbed his stomach and fell over.

He’d been in the hospital, unresponsive, all weekend.

They still didn’t even know what was wrong with him.

I can’t blame her for the question she asked as she held back tears.

Was there any way we could get the life insurance on him that she and I had been talking about since she first became our client?

Like I said, this one was painful.

You can’t get insurance — home insurance, auto insurance, business insurance — after you need it. You have to get it in place beforehand.

Life insurance is no different.

That’s a conversation I never want to have again. So please, if you don’t have life insurance right now, call someone.

Your family is depending on it.

Radio

March 5, 2019 DaveGragg Life insurance

If you are visiting me right now, there’s a decent chance it’s because of the radio ad we have with John Kimmons and The Bull.

Welcome. lifeinsurancejob

John told me about his brother-in-law the first time we met. As tragic as it is to lose someone, the story had as happy of an ending as possible. His family had enough money to continue living their lives.

John’s coworker wasn’t as lucky.

I’ve talked about life insurance a lot on this blog, but the point is this: If there is someone who relies on you, you need life insurance.

It won’t replace the gaping hole in their life that your death would leave, but it does take a huge weight off their shoulders at a time that their entire world has just collapsed.

Give me a call at (417) 708 9583. I’d love to sit down and talk about what options may be right for you and your family.

Today was a good day

April 30, 2018April 30, 2018 DaveGragg Insurance agent

I helped save a man’s life.

That’s not something I get to say very often, but the man came in today and told me that’s what I did. Today was a good dya

He had walked in to the office back in November to talk about getting motorcycle insurance.

While we talked, the conversation moved to health insurance. He didn’t have any because he couldn’t afford it, he said.

The health insurance exchanges set up through the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare, if you prefer), can be confusing, so I walked him through the process and let him know what his premiums would likely be.

For me, that was the end of it.

For him, that was just the beginning.

Armed with his new knowledge, he signed up for health insurance.

Once the plan kicked in in January, he went to see a doctor to ask about his chest pains.

The doctor referred him to a specialist. The specialist tried to send a camera through his arteries, but they were so clogged the camera wouldn’t fit.

One open-heart surgery and three months of rehab later, he stopped by the office this morning to say “Thank you.”

An insurance agent isn’t just here to save you money on your car insurance or give you your ID cards when it’s time to renew your license plates. We’re more than happy to do that, but our real job is helping you choose the coverage to protect you and your family when it hits the fan.

You know what “it” I’m talking about here, right? Of course you do.

His only complaint? He really hadn’t had a chance to use his motorcycle insurance because the rehab was keeping him from being able to ride.

The scammers almost got me

August 22, 2017August 23, 2017 DaveGragg Identity theft

I thought it was a little odd that my credit card company was calling my business line, but I didn’t worry too much about it.

ID Theft — photo credit: cafecredit Identity Theft – Credit Card via photopin (license)

They needed to update my credit information. That should have been red flag number two; I’d never had a card company say they were going to do that.

But it didn’t even phase me.

I fully believed the guy calling was from my credit card company.

The only reason I didn’t undergo his questioning — which I’m sure would have given him all the information he needed to take my ID and run with it — was because I wasn’t going to give that information to anyone who called me.

That wasn’t a problem, he promised me, all I needed to do was call the number on the back of my card and give them the information they asked for.

Clever bastard.

I wonder how many people changed their minds when he gave them that line. I almost did. I might have if I hadn’t been working on something else at the moment.

Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway) my credit card company didn’t know anything about “updating my credit information.” It was just a “vishing” scam.

I don’t consider myself especially gullible. I guess he just caught me on the right day. Or almost caught me.

The No. 1 rule of preventing ID theft is not to give out your information to unsolicited callers. Luckily I followed that one.

You don’t need me to give you any other tips to prevent ID theft. They’re all over the Internet. I just wanted to throw out another warning. Because they almost got me.

Me and the Mother Road

July 17, 2017July 17, 2017 DaveGragg Business owner, Insurance agent Business owner, Car insurance, Route 66

My insurance agency sits on one of the paths Route 66 took through Springfield., Mo.

It’s not the first time America’s Main Street and I have bumped into each other, so it made sense to have a few mementos of our meetings as I decided on the office decor.

Jerry Rice Downtown Springfield — “Downtown” shows downtown Springfield, Mo., as it appeared in 1964, when the square was open. You can see the Heer’s Building as well as the Fox Theater. Artwork by Jerry Rice

Most of my decorations are the kitschy stuff you can get anywhere, but I do have a couple of pieces I’m proud of.

I got to add a piece to the collection I’m proud of this week.

Jerry Rice paints Route 66 scenes from the Mother Road’s heyday in Southwest Missouri.

This one, that he calls “Downtown” shows the square in Springfield back before they added the park.

Bill Curry Route 66 Celebration.jpg — “Tourist Enchantment,” commemorates Route 66’s Diamond Jubilee in Tucumcari, N.M. Art by Bill Curry

My first run in with Route 66 was in 2000, when I became the editor of a semi-weekly newspaper in Tucumcari, N.M., one of the little towns that thrived during Route 66’s peak.

The Mother Road had its Diamond Jubilee the next year and the celebration committee asked artist Bill Curry to commemorate the event with a painting.

This print has been traveling around with me since 2001.

If you’ve ever seen the movie “Cars,” the movie has several nods to real towns and people connected to the road. Tucumcari Mountain, there behind the Corvette, inspired the mountain that looks like a radiator cap in Radiator Springs.

As part of that 75th anniversary celebration, my paper put out a brochure that talked about the history of the Route. One of the articles in the brochure was written by Route 66 historian Michael Wallis, who was the voice of the sheriff in the movie.

The one I’m probably the most attached to, though, isn’t traditionally considered a work of art and isn’t even centered on Route 66.

It’s an 50-year-old map that my grandparents had. It shows the Southwest United States, including most of the places Route 66 went.

My granddad had a gas station in Urich, Mo., so I’m not sure if this map is from the time when gas stations handed out road maps or if it was a map my grandparents actually used to visit California.

As a side benefit, the map shows most of the places my life has taken me.

The map doesn’t quite go far enough north to get to Kirksville (where I went to Truman State University) or small enough to get Montrose (the tiny town where I grew up), but the rest are there: Not only Tucumcari and Springfield, but Dodge City, Kan., and McAllen, Texas.

I also have a number of prints from the early days of Farmers Insurance. No direct tie to Route 66, there, either, although Farmers started in 1928, two years after the Mother Road’s start in 1926.

Business insurance — A small business saver

July 10, 2017July 10, 2017 DaveGragg Business insurance, Business owner Business income, Business insurance, Business owner

I feel bad for the guy I really do.

But it could have been easier.

Landscaper insurance — These things are expensive. Make sure you have a way to replace them if someone steals it. photo credit: Jo Zimny Photos James & The Giant Lawnmower! via photopin (license)

A post came through my Facebook feed.

A wife in Arkansas complaining about the lowlife who stole her husband’s lawnmower, weedeater and blower that he used in his business.

“This is my husband’s business…..our livelihood! I am a stay at home mom……this is what supports our family. This is what feeds our family!!”

I know. I sell things that no one ever wants to use.

But if you need it, that investment in small business insurance can save your livelihood and keep food on the family table.

It can replace what’s been stolen. Or blown away. Or burned.

It can pay you while you’re getting your business back up and going.

There’s a whole host of things insurance can do.

It’s not always cheap. But it’s a whole lot cheaper than not having it.

The world as I see it

Insurance in the Springfield, Mo., area

Author: DaveGragg