Insurance ?

I switched to Indiana Farmers for the home a few years ago. Rates have held surprisingly steady.

I too was with Amfam for over 20 years. I decided to go with an independent agent and I saved a good amount.

Who do you recommend?

I have had State Farm auto for 34 years. And home for 28. Rates are decent. Everytime I have had a claim. It was done with no hassle.

I own an independent agency, and we represent more than 10 different companies. Several on here have mentioned Indiana Farmers, and they are one of the companies we represent. I spent 7 years as an agent for American Family before I went independent, and know a lot of the AmFam agents.

The biggest benefit to being with an independent agent is that they can shop your rates if they go up. Captive agents (AmFam, State Farm, Farm Bureau, etc) do not have the ability to do that. The fact is that rates with all companies are cyclical, so you want your agent to have the ability to shop your rates for you in house when/if your rates go up.

If you want to discuss in detail, call my office. 317-272-0800. Ask for Josh or Logan.

What do you think of Erie Insurance? I’ve had them for about 35 years. May be time to shop around.

Erie is not one of the companies that I represent, but have several friends that do. Overall, they have very positive experiences with Erie. Rate wise, they go thru the same cycles that all companies do.

In my opinion, here are a few things everyone should know about insurance:

- Make sure you are with an “A” rated company (if possible), that is financially sound.

- Make sure you have an agent that you can talk to, and reach when you need them. You should have an agent that you can speak to any day of the week if you have an issue. If you have an emergency on a weekend, make sure you’ll get a call back same day. Most agencies aren’t staffed 24/7, but we all have the technology to have our voice mails forwarded to our cell phones or emails. I’ve had many times where I’ve climbed down out of my treestand to call a client back that’s had a wreck or some other issue.

- Make sure you know what coverage’s you need, then make sure you know what coverage’s you have. Almost everyone shops on price, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, if you’re shopping on price alone and not getting the coverage’s you need from a sound company, then you might be in for some tough times if you ever have a major claim. For example, there are different homeowners forms that policies are written on (HO3, HO5, HO8, etc). If you take a policy written on an HO3 form and a policy written on an HO5 form, your dec pages that show your coverage’s might look identical but there are differences in your coverage. Those 2 policy forms are very similar, but there are differences. There are even more differences with the other policy forms. So, determine what you need/want, then shop on price based on getting all that you need/want. Not going to do you much good to compare the price on a policy that doesn’t cover what you need against a policy that does cover what you need.

- Going along with the point above, make sure you are educated on what you have, and understand what is and is not covered by your insurance policy. Insurance policies generally don’t cover everything. The policy will spell out what the covered perils are, the endorsements and exclusions that apply, etc. For example, maintenance issues and wear & tear are not covered. Generally, for a claim to be covered, it has to be caused by a covered peril and meet the definition of “sudden & accidental”. If you’re not sure what your policy covers, schedule a meeting with your agent to explain it. If your agent will not do that or is hesitant, you need a new agent.

- Insurance companies are no different than any other large company. They have hundreds, if not thousands, of employees. Some of those will be good at what they do, and some will not be good. So if you have a claim, and you get a turd of an adjuster, your experience is not going to be good at the start regardless of how good the company is. This happens, even with the best companies. This is where you’re going to learn if you’ve got a good agent or not. If you have a good agent, he or she is going to get involved and help get this worked out. I can say that the vast majority of our claims go very smoothly, but even the best companies can have some hiccups. Again, this is where your agent needs to be willing to engage and help. If they’re not willing to do that, go find yourself an agent that will.

- Have an agent that will shop your rates for you when needed. As stated in an earlier post, captive agents can’t do that. Independent agents can. In our office, we have a management system that flags renewals. If a client’s policies are going up more than a percentage point or two, it automatically signals us to re quote their policies thru our entire lineup of companies. We also will re quote any time a client requests it, even if they haven’t had a price increase. I’ve got clients that I’ve had with the same company for 10+ years, but I’ve also got clients that we switch almost yearly. Make sure your agent is doing that for you.

Hope this is helpful.

We had our home insurance with American Family until a couple of years ago. Our rates went up and we were having trouble meeting with the agent. My wife even called the corporate office to try to speak to someone and they transferred her back to the unresponsive agent who insisted we set up an in person meeting. We live a little over an hour away from his office. She then dove into the policy and found that they had added things like exotic animal coverage, increased the amount they would pay for our possessions, and a few other needless things without our knowledge. welder I would check your policy for new items and negotiate them back down as part of your comparison. My in-laws had the same rate increases we did and they were able to negotiate back down for a while. They may have ended up switching once they had time to shop around.

Insurance companies WILL make money.

Not only making up for the money they put out for what you mentioned but they cover all losses. My insurance went up once and I questioned my agent and he said "The stock market was down". The insurance companies invest like anyone else only they can raise rates to cover their stock market losses.

I just laugh at the deer hunters that blame the insurance companies for the lack of deer. They say that the insurance companies lobby and pay the DNR to reduce the herd. Deer and vehicle collisions are covered under comprehensive and the rates are raised ON EVERYONE to cover that. They will NOT lose money.

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