http://www.plymouthrockblog.com/?p=119 Discussing topics that interest drivers like you! We'll post thoughts about safe driving, saving money, and understanding auto insurance. You can share your opinions, ask questions, and recommend future topics. Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:39:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 http://www.plymouthrockblog.com/?p=119&cpage=1#comment-10 Geoff Gordon Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:17:54 +0000 http://www.plymouthrockblog.com/?p=119#comment-10 There's another piece to this puzzle that affects auto insurance buyers who also have a home (including condo or apartment)...account credits. Insurance companies have long known that customers who buy more than one kind of insurance (example, home and auto)stay with that one company for years. And statistically, loyal customers have fewer claims. This fact is priced into loyalty credits for long time customers, and account credits for new and existing customers. Account credits for home insurance are generally higher as a percentage (15 - 20%) than auto insurance (3-5%), but adding both together yields significant savings in almost every case. Don't view your auto insurance in a vacuum. Agents understand both these kinds of insurance and can find good solutions that tie together neatly and cleanly. By shopping both home and auto with multiple carriers, agents can generally find the optimal combination quickly and efficiently, because we do it all day long. There’s another piece to this puzzle that affects auto insurance buyers who also have a home (including condo or apartment)…account credits.
Insurance companies have long known that customers who buy more than one kind of insurance (example, home and auto)stay with that one company for years. And statistically, loyal customers have fewer claims. This fact is priced into loyalty credits for long time customers, and account credits for new and existing customers. Account credits for home insurance are generally higher as a percentage (15 – 20%) than auto insurance (3-5%), but adding both together yields significant savings in almost every case.
Don’t view your auto insurance in a vacuum. Agents understand both these kinds of insurance and can find good solutions that tie together neatly and cleanly. By shopping both home and auto with multiple carriers, agents can generally find the optimal combination quickly and efficiently, because we do it all day long.

]]> http://www.plymouthrockblog.com/?p=119&cpage=1#comment-9 Geoff Gordon Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:07:05 +0000 http://www.plymouthrockblog.com/?p=119#comment-9 In our agency a lot of our in-bound traffic is from internet shoppers. It's amazing how much people don't know, and the new on-line entrants to this marketplace exploit that. We recently wrote the auto insurance for someone for whom we only handled home insurance as new customers last year. The reason? They had a claim, and were amazed to find out that even though they weren't at fault, they had to pay their $1000 deductible. Why? Because they hadn't known to ask for "waiver of deductible", a $13 add-on that we include by default, and their on-line carrier excludes by default. Many on-line quotes strip away everything but the bare basics, because absent any analysis, why not take the quote that's $13 less? Beware...if you don't know to ask, you won't get some of these little benefits that most consumers have been able to take for granted. In our agency a lot of our in-bound traffic is from internet shoppers. It’s amazing how much people don’t know, and the new on-line entrants to this marketplace exploit that.
We recently wrote the auto insurance for someone for whom we only handled home insurance as new customers last year. The reason? They had a claim, and were amazed to find out that even though they weren’t at fault, they had to pay their $1000 deductible. Why? Because they hadn’t known to ask for “waiver of deductible”, a $13 add-on that we include by default, and their on-line carrier excludes by default.
Many on-line quotes strip away everything but the bare basics, because absent any analysis, why not take the quote that’s $13 less? Beware…if you don’t know to ask, you won’t get some of these little benefits that most consumers have been able to take for granted.

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