Or Why I Won’t Ever Change Insurance Agents

I know who my insurance company is, but if you were to ask me who my insurance is with, I wouldn’t tell you a company name, I’d tell you the name of my insurance agent. I don’t worry about the company. I don’t worry about claims being handled quickly or appropriately, because I know my agent is on top of it. All it takes is one phone call or email to him, and I know I don’t have to worry about it anymore.

I mention this not because of the aftermath ofSandyand the other awful weather in the Northeast, but because today I had to call and schedule glass replacement for one of our cars.

We have no idea how the backseat window of our car got broken. It wasn’t in an attempt to steal anything. Nothing in the car was touched. But the car was left out on the street (not uncommon) and the window got broken. I called our agent to double check what our deductible was- if it was high enough, we figured we wouldn’t even file a claim. Turns out, though, that our deductible for glass replacement is $0. So today I filed a claim. Tomorrow, someone will come to our house and replace the window.

Honesty & Integrity We did not have to get lucky, picking a random agent out of a phone book or being assigned one by an insurance company. Back when C worked at a bowling alley, our agent was on a league there. One night, C overheard a conversation between him and one of the other league bowlers- a young man in his early 20s. The young man was asking about life insurance. The agent asked- Do you have kids? Are you married? Do you have siblings you are helping support or whose futures you want to fund? Do you support your parents? When the answer to all of these was “No”, the agent’s response was- You don’t need life insurance.

He could have sold a product to this guy, taken his money, and everyone would have been happy, but that wouldn’t have been him. C knew then, when we bought our house, this was who he wanted to work with- someone who wouldn’t sell us a product we didn’t need.

Clients Come First It’s a relationship that has lasted over 9 years now. Our agent used to be with a specific company, and he always got us the best deal he could with that company, but he ended up leaving because he couldn’t take care of his clients the way he wanted to. He signed a non-compete and never contacted us himself. But when we got a postcard from the insurance company saying your new agent is some random guy, we pulled up the personal cell phone number for our agent (so we can always get in touch with him if we need to) and asked what had happened. He said he had gone out on his own. We said- we weren’t with company X, we’re with you. A few days later, we were getting insurance polices that were saving us hundreds of dollars a MONTH, for better coverage.

Each year, when it’s time for our policies to renew, our agent does a quick search (without us even asking) to see if he can find us an even better deal.

At OUR Convenience In addition to all of this, we’ve never been to his office. I know he has one. He even has an assistant that sends me email now and then, but I’ve never not been able to reach him directly, and he’s always been willing to come to us. We’ve signed paperwork at coffee shops (it isSeattle, after all) and at our home. If he needs to get paperwork to us, it’s never dropped in the mail but hand delivered.

With the glass issue, I called him on a Saturday to ask about the deductible, expecting to leave a message and hear from him on Monday. He called me back Saturday evening.

Loyalty He now saves us money because he can, but truth is, if he had never left the company, I would still be paying the higher prices. Because he’s worth it. And I’ll recommend him to any of my friends that is looking for new or better insurance. He can’t always save people money, and he’s honest when that’s the case.

Not every job needs quite this level of personal touch, and plenty of people are successful without it, but I’ll be honest, nothing creates customer loyalty like someone coming to you, at your convenience, letting yours dogs jump all over them, all the while saving you money.