It’s all who AND what you know…
Many people think by going straight to the insurance companies they can ‘cut out the middleman’. The parallel may be true with car sales where you pay a sticker price for a physical good that needs to be sold before it depreciates, but that’s not the way insurance works. You see, insurance companies control a pool of money and bet against occurrences such as car accidents and natural disasters that destroy or damage housing and business offices.
When there are more of these occurrences in its area than expected, the company receives more claims, draining the insurance pool. The company needs to apply for the approval to raise its rates higher or else it goes out of business. Unfortunately, that means higher rates for its customers.
So how do I get the best insurance rate?
Rates will depend on how many claims a company is receiving. If your city is peaceful, but the east-side of your state is at risk of frequent tornadoes, it would be better to have a house insurance company that serves just your city. Same goes for floods, fires, termites, etc.
So the best bet is to shop around to see which insurance companies cover which areas, whether those areas are risky, and what kind of claim volume they have been experiencing. Sounds like a good deal of work, eh?
Brokerage agencies such as ours are in the unique position to get bulk quotes from local, state-wide, and national companies. We can see what the lowest quote is currently for home, auto, business insurance, etc. Additionally, since we have been tracking occurrences for areas and claims rates for different insurance companies, we can forecast with a pretty good accuracy how rates will go up and down. It’s all about fast access to the right information. Simple enough, right? Quotes are free, so don’t neglect to get one now.