Insurance Agents/Companies

Hi,
So this might be a little long winded to get to my point.

A little history of my luck with insurance agents.

I had AF for almost 40 years, was really happy with AF and the agents until about 5 years ago when a vehicle policy was canceled. Turns out I did not get the notification for renewal and at the time I was very busy with work/travel, etc. and did not remember the policy was due. I talked to the AF agent and asked, aren’t you informed by AF when a policy is about to be canceled and then you contact your customer. His response was no, he was not informed by AF. I found out later that he lied to me and that in fact he did get notification when the policy was due and also before it was canceled. I switched to a different AF agent and really trusted/liked him and when he left and went to an independent agency I followed him. This agent then took a career change and at about the same time we moved and selected a new independent agent closer to our new home but kept the same companies.

Now my homeowners was just canceled. Turns out that AAA ignored a request for an address change made by my new agent this past January and thus the renewal notice did not get sent to me and being asleep at the wheel again a policy was canceled. When I selected my current independent agent I informed of the previous problem and informed I was expecting notification in case anything like this every happened again. He did not have much of a response.

So I am thinking about going back to AF and talked to someone this AM on coming back and asked for quotes. With two homes, AF quoted their Gold Policy on main home which provides +20% coverage to the number their system spits out as the replacement value and for the 2nd home their Silver policy which does not have the +20% coverage increase. So I asked why quote Silver for the 2nd home and the response was to be competitive with other insurance companies. To which I responded, the average Joe is supposed to ask for and additional +20% coverage in case your software estimate is low? Her response, well which do you want me to quote.

So the general question is, do you trust your agents, truly dig into your policies, and let the agent using their software set your home coverage limits? If the coverage limit turns out to be wrong, your screwed.

Any agents please pipe in.

The Mille Lacs section is a weird place to ask this question. I have had the same agency for home and auto for 32 years. The agent has changed a few times. The first agent was amazing, the second was fine, and the present is good. I never had anything canceled, and they would remind me if a payment was due. I have never had an issue with anything being covered either. I have a friend that is an agent for AF and she did say that on two boat trailer issues with bearing failures I had over the years that AF would have never covered either of them. State Farm never questioned anything. I did shop around last year to see if I could save money switching. There were some savings to be had, but not enough for me to risk switching to another company, and risk a lousy insurance company that wouldn’t pay if I had a claim. My business insurance agent on the other hand was a joke and was only in it for a commission check. IMO insurance companies do matter, and agents do too. If you have a lazy agent that won’t work for you I would look elsewhere. I did switch my boat insurance a year ago to Justin Schneider because of the high praise here, and he is great to deal with. I haven’t had a claim of any kind though through him, but I do have confidence all will be well.

gonefishin wrote:

Hi,

Any agents please pipe in.

I’m not an agent…but here’s my 2 cents worth,

I bypassed the agent years ago and deal directly with my chosen insurance company. I’ve had just one claim for hail damage on my truck and the response was outstanding. The whole claims process was completed in less than a week.

I have auto-pay, so no chance of missed premium payments.

Don’t just look at the price, read thru the policy completely. The silver and gold package could also have some other things in it. When I was shopping around one company said I had $X amount of coverage on personal stuff. (clothes, jewelry, electronics, furniture, sporting goods, ect.) But when you added up the cap on each section you couldn’t even touch the coverage she was selling me. The cap on fishing related stuff was only $200. As you could guess I passed on her policy. Make sure to look everything over.

I am a Farmers Insurance Agent. I cant speak for every insurance company, but I do know that most agents do get some kind of a reminder when a customers policy is getting close to being due or during the grace period when past due. That is the 1st thing I check each morning when I get to the office. If someone’s payment is due or past due I make several attempts to reach them. I often leave a voicemail on home and cell phones, Send a Text if I have cell #, and send a Email if I have a Email address. I understand that often a bill gets lost in the mail or a customer is just really busy and forgets the payment.

As far as the Extended replacement cost goes – Keep in mind that only comes into play if you have a total loss and you decide to rebuild the home. If you decide to simply walk away you most likely will only receive the amount listed as Dwelling coverage. Normally the replacement cost Or RC as its normally referred to as.

When it comes to the Dwelling amount or Replacement cost – Most homes this amount is far greater than the current home value or taxed value. This value is simply the cost to rebuild the current home using what ever tool they use to determine it. Most often these tools have most of the homes Info. defaulted into the tool from sources such as Building permits, and county tax data. often the Info. that defaults is incorrect. I like to collect all the various Info. from the homeowner before I even start the quote, so that I can verify that the information that defaults on the home is correct or I can correct any incorrect information that is wrong. Often some agents simply go with whatever info. the system they use tells them.

What is covered and at what cost varies greatly from one company to another. That is why I think it is important to have a Agent you are comfortable with and Trust. A good agent should go over all the coverage’s with the customer and explain each to them. A good agent should also try and sit down with each customer every year or every other year at the least if possible to review the coverage’s to make sure they are all still correct for the customers current needs.

Insurance is like a lot of other things – You often get what you pay for. When you are standing in your driveway as your house burns down is not the time to ask yourself if that cut rate insurance was a good deal or not.

If anyone ever has any insurance questions, Feel free to PM me and I’ll provide you my cell # to give me a call. I am more than Welcome to answer any questions you may have.

I had Farmers for 28 years. My agent left for an independent company and about a year after that I looked in to the Canopy Group. I found out I was over-insured (too low of deductibles) and saved a ton of money. Why didn’t the Farmer’s agents tell me that. No offense fishthumper. Auto-Owners is who I’m with now. The only claim we’ve had is a crack in my daughter’s windshield. She called on a Thursday and it was fixed the next Tuesday. They reviewed my situation before renewal and said Auto-Owners is still the best fit.

I’ve been with AF for as long as I’ve had a drivers license (22 years). Been through 3 agents. 1st one was terrific, 2nd one was not great but his receptionist was extremely attractive which was a bonus. Current agent is very attentive to my needs and always takes the time to explain any questions I have. My brother is through AF too but had a different agent. He said he couldn’t get his agent on the phone for 4 years. Finally got him switched over to my agent and they’ve been great with him. My agent is out of anoka.

I haven’t used insurance much over the years. 1 totaled boat, a minor fender bender in the car a few years back, and a hail damage claim many years ago. AF helped me through all of them without issue.

I like AF but I admit I have never shopped around so dont have anything to compare it to. I also admit I have never spent much time looking through my policies. I really should do that especially for my house coverage.

If you do go back to AF my agent is named
KARI A HEFNIDER out of anoka. Side note she also happens to be easy on the eyes but more importantly her entire office does a great job of responding to my needs. Good luck

Thanks all for the comments. I meant to create this in the general forum but my default booked mark turns out to be ML page.

Interesting comments on AF as like I mention I had AF for about 40 years and was very happy with the company, but changed to follow an agent. My thought that an agent is more important than the companies.

As mentioned I now have Auto Owners for homes and autos. Turns out that when the policy was originally created, the mail to address was wrong and the homeowners policy address was correct. Just found out that my agent made a request to AAA to change the mail to address but AAA ignored the request thinking the mail to was correct and policy address was wrong, therefore I did not received the notifications. Big error on AAA. AAA confirmed they do not send policy info to the agents.

The other 3 policies with AAA had the correct mail to.

Also AAA has a very archaic web site. Must have been an afterthought from travel side. I am starting to search for replacing AAA.

Just an option to consider – when I prepay 6 months of insurance at a time, I get somewhere around $75-$100 as a discount just for prepaying and you don’t have to remember to pay the bill every month. I don’t know why more people don’t do this. If you need to cancel the policy mid-period, you will get a pro-rata refund for the unused period, PLUS you are getting a discount just for pre-paying. Free money in my mind plus it removes the burden of paying a bill every month.

Netguy wrote:

I had Farmers for 28 years. My agent left for an independent company and about a year after that I looked in to the Canopy Group. I found out I was over-insured (too low of deductibles) and saved a ton of money. Why didn’t the Farmer’s agents tell me that. No offense fishthumper.

Insurance like everything else – Has good employee’s and poor employees. Farmers included. Did you agent ever offer a policy review? I offer each of mine one every year. Some come in every year to go over their policies. Some have never came in to review their policies. Its sometimes hard to help people get the correct coverage for their needs if they don’t take the time to meet to review things. There are a lot of low rate insurance companies out there. They are great until you have a claim and then you often find out why their rates were so low. A lot don’t have their own claim adjusters or claims people, They hire that out. I know of some people here in my area that are still dealing with wind and hail claims from last summer. They are just now getting adjusters out to view their damage. some of my customers had new roofs on their homes within a month of the damage.

I’d much rather deal with a lawyer then a insurance policy.

That said, I have Justin with Water & Woods as a agent for my boat insurance. I can say that after 40 years of buying insurance for different things Justin absolutely makes it the easiest. I had a claim and he immediately had it taken care of. I couldn’t possibly be happier with Justin and Travelers Insurance.

Now……home owners and auto insurance is a different can of worms.

All my new agent wants to do is sell me dumb investments.
The rest of the office staff is unbelievably helpful though, so I haven’t looked around.

No major claims here but Progressive has been good to us. I ALWAYS get MULTIPLE reminders when my policy is about to expire…and why not, that’s how they make their money.

For any of you with Auto Owners for home owners, have you seen a huge rate increase for this year in the Anoka area? My premium jumped 37%. It was explained to me that the increase was 7% yearly inflation increase and the rest an increase to make up for the storms that have rolled through in the last couple of years. Needless to say Auto Owners will not be around long. But the problem is when you have multiple homes, autos, umbrella, then dropping one policy with a company screws up the rest.

Insurance sucks, even you have a good agent.

Not Auto Owners, but I have State Farm and live in Anoka County (Andover.)
Premium increase of about 9% total since 2018.

I have also had State Farm for over 30 years. 3 agents (the first two retired) and they have all been good. They have done a good job and anytime that I have compared prices for the exact same coverage State Farm has been lower cost than alternatives.

I work for State Farm and would be happy to review quotes or coverage’s with anyone. I don’t speak down about other companies and their processes or coverage’s. But I’m more than happy to tell you every homeowners policy I setup the coverage amount is determined by the customer and what they tell me the characteristics of their home are, as well as how much they want their home to be covered for (we also automatically include a 20% buffer). We only have one homeowners policy and it comes with Full Replacement Coverage (rather than Actual Cash Value aka Depreciated Value). We have a dedicated employee whose only job is to make sure people are aware of past due payments, docs that we may need or any other service related tasks. State Farm is the #1 Home and Auto insurer in the nation basically since WW2 and I’d love to show you why.

Joneser I’m not going to debate with a random person on an open forum about my employer, feel free to PM me if you’d like to discuss further. All I will say is our CEO Michael Tipsford has been with State Farm since 1988, and was Rusts right hand man for many years before he retired. State Farm is the largest organically grown company (no mergers or acquisitions) in the history of the US, and that is something we’re, rightfully, quite proud of. And I doubt an IT platform (of which I’ve seen many come and go) will be the undoing of that.

It seems as though insurance no matter the company is only as good as the agent.

Oberfeld Ins. Services on the main drag of Isle. First rate service and David & Tommy O. are as honest and upright as can be. You will not ever be able to find anyone in the area that would ever be able to knock David. He’s a ordained Presbyterian minister for Pete’s sake.
Butler Ins. in Apple Valley is the same way. Dan B. is retiring, kinda sorta, but his son Bill will give you outstanding service. No Medicare supplement thru them but H & A, P & C.
Both are independent agents.
Oberfeld has had my business for years. Auto Owners has mostly been the carrier.

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>gonefishin wrote:</div>
Hi,

Any agents please pipe in.

…

I have auto-pay, so no chance of missed premium payments.

I gotta go back here… Get your insurance, and all your bills, setup for auto pay and go enjoy your life. It’s not like you’re going to pass on your premium are you? I’m a hundred years old and I have it all automatically done. No offense, but do this and it won’t be your agents fault when you forget to pay your bill. 😉

Yup that is the way I had it with AF. They have a very easy website. However AAA is a poop show. The more I find about about AAA the less I like being with them. Last year when I moved from one zip code to another I could no longer log on. Turns out one needs to log on within the zip code your policies were originally written in. Took multiple calls with CS to figure this out. Also any policy that was written in the old zip code can not be transferred over to the new zip code and thus when new policy was written for the new address, needed another account set up to see the new policy. Also with AAA the policies don’t just automatically show up on the web site, you have to have them added. Was told the other day by CS that the cabin policy will never be on line as it is in a different zip than home. Just a entirely crap experience.
So when you can’t get your policies on line and the insurance company doesn’t change the address as requested by the agent, you don’t get the bill when due or the cancellation notice. Go figure.

I had State Farm for a long time then switched everything to Farmer’s except the boat last year. State Farm’s Boat insurance in unbeatable IMO after shopping around. Farmers for vehicles saved me a lot of money.

Farmer’s has been good- at least my agent. The adjuster can stick it for all I’m concerned. I have made 2 insurance claims my entire life, once with SF and one now with Farmers. The Farmer’s adjuster accused me of falsifying behind my back to my auto body shop, told them to stop work and they weren’t paying and never notified ME. My shop notified me, I called my agent, he was not made aware of this action either. After an hour he called back and said not to worry everything was fine. And it was, but the experience I had with the adjuster was nothing but negative. My agent is the only reason I didn’t drop Farmer’s right then and there.

I am not eligible for USAA as I did not serve our country, however everyone that I know who uses USAA has said that they are nothing short of incredible.

I should add For the record, my switch from SF to Farmer’s was strictly due to lower premiums at the same coverage for our home and vehicles. My SF agent recommended checking back with SF in 2-3 years as I may be able to get better rates as a “new” customer again.

gonefishin wrote:

Yup that is the way I had it with AF. They have a very easy website. However AAA is a poop show. The more I find about about AAA the less I like being with them. Last year when I moved from one zip code to another I could no longer log on. Turns out one needs to log on within the zip code your policies were originally written in. Took multiple calls with CS to figure this out. Also any policy that was written in the old zip code can not be transferred over to the new zip code and thus when new policy was written for the new address, needed another account set up to see the new policy. Also with AAA the policies don’t just automatically show up on the web site, you have to have them added. Was told the other day by CS that the cabin policy will never be on line as it is in a different zip than home. Just a entirely crap experience.
So when you can’t get your policies on line and the insurance company doesn’t change the address as requested by the agent, you don’t get the bill when due or the cancellation notice. Go figure.

Unreal. They don’t deserve your business.