General Questions

A captive agent typically offers insurance for a single insurance company with the ability to write coverage with other carriers only if their primary insurance carrier will not offer coverage.

An Independent agency has contracts with multiple insurance companies. This gives us the freedom to find the best balance of coverage and price that fits your individual needs the best. As we are not bound by a contract to a single primary carrier, you can keep your agent and change insurance companies, simply by having us rewrite the coverage.

As independent insurance agents, we help you navigate the decisions between coverage and price. We ask the questions you may not think to ask to help ensure the things that are most important to you are insured correctly. After all, self-insurance could be a good option for you, but don’t you want to know how much that will cost too?

Just because the state says you must carry a minimum limit of liability to register and drive a vehicle, doesn’t mean that limits the amount of liability you have as a driver. If you are the at-fault driver in an auto accident and you cause injury or property damage that exceeds the limits of your auto policy, you are personally responsibility for the additional money.

The next time you’re driving, look at the other cars on the road. How many of them could be replaced with a minimum limit of $5,000, $25,000, $30,000, or whatever the minimum limit is in your state? Now what if you’re the last car in a multi-vehicle chain and you’re legally responsible for damages to more than 1 vehicle? How far would your limits go?

There are several reasons for premium increases. Insurance is a pooled risk product so if there have been a lot of claims for other people, or costs have risen dramatically, carriers need to increase the rates to make sure there is enough money to pay for future claims. Over the past few years, we have seen increases in both property and auto insurance. This is primarily because the cost and severity of claims has been increasing. Your individual claims history is only one part of the equation.

The purpose of insurance is to protect the things that are most important to you against the unexpected. If you have any significant events or changes happening in your life, then it is time to start updating your coverage. Some life changes that warrant updates are:

Personal

Getting Married

New Baby

New Drivers in your household

Starting a new job or home business

Income Changes

Pay off a car loan

Buying a home

Moving to new apartment/home

Home improvement projects

Getting closer to retirement

New high value purchases (i.e. jewelry, antiques, tech equipment, etc.)

Business

Start a new business or branch

Increase in employee personnel

Inventory increase

Loss of employees

Expansion Plans

Owner is nearing retirement

Contact us if any of these changes apply to you or your business now or you are expecting them in the near future!

It isn’t always in your best interests to move insurance carriers at every renewal. Believe it or not, insurance companies do reward loyalty. Also, in many states, the longer you’ve been with a carrier, the more claims you can have before the carrier is allowed to non-renew your policies. And did you know that many insurance carriers reward loyalty to a prior carrier when they’re offering quotes? Someone with 5 years of continuous history with their prior carrier is almost always going to get a better price than a comparable account that moves their insurance every term. We reach out by email at every renewal to ask if you’ve had any changes that we should know about. Sometimes these changes can impact the cost of your insurance. We also keep an eye on rates for you, and when there are significant rate increases, we check the marketplace to make sure you are still getting competitive rates.

Moving insurance to “save money” might mean an unexpected loss of benefits and earned coverage. Do you want to know whether you’d be giving up guaranteed insurability, loss forgiveness, or longevity discounts? It always pays to ask whether it’s time to shop your insurance because maybe we just need to make adjustments to your existing policy to help you rebalance cost vs coverage.

If you are concerned about whether you’re getting the best rates, just call your team. We’re always happy to answer questions and do account reviews. After all, account reviews are the best time for us to ask the questions that give us information you may forget to tell us.

We do our best to make sure you’re getting all applicable discounts. However, sometimes your circumstances change, making you eligible for a discount, and we don’t know about it. Some things people frequently forget to tell us:

• They installed leak detection sensors.

• They’ve replaced their roof.

• They have to get defensive drivers training for their job – or they paid for their teen to have a driver training course after getting licensed.

• They’ve changed jobs and are working from home, or aren’t commuting as far.

• They have a company car which is insured by their employer.

If your circumstances have changed, let your agent know!

Many people think that the bank notifies the insurance company when a property or vehicle has sold, but they don’t. Insurance and loans are separate contracts. We frequently don’t find out until the policy renews and a bank just ignores the renewal invoice. Unless you’ve called us to ask for a different change to your policy – like asking for an address change on your auto policy so we know maybe you’ve moved – we don’t magically know. As the named insured, it is your responsibility to let us know when a property sells or you no longer own a vehicle so we can cancel or change the insurance.

We’d be happy to send you a copy of your ID card or policy. Here are some of the ways to obtain a copy:

1. Call – Give us a call and request them over the phone. If we’re on the phone when you try to call, you can…

2. Email - Just send us an email and we’ll respond quickly. You get the fastest service by emailing your account team, but you can also send a request to info@riskinsuranceco.com and we’ll direct it to the right team.

3. Client Portal – If you have received access to the client portal from your account team, you can find you ID cards there!

4. Contact Us here.

Insurance is a contract and the coverages that are included on a homeowner’s policy are somewhat different than the coverages included on a landlord policy. In order to make sure your interests are correctly protected; we need to rewrite the policy. Liability is different, and many times you don’t need as much contents coverage. Frequently, rewriting the insurance will save you money.

The short answer is yes! Life Insurance policies are in place to ensure your family, or business, would be taken care of in the event of an untimely passing. Contact our Life Insurance Advisor for help on setting up your policy today.

2 unrelated people (Owner and one other employee-other than Spouse)

The carriers recommend 50% employer contribution toward employee’s monthly medical premium for group’s less than 50 employees

For groups with more than 50 FTE’s (Full Time Equivalent = # of FT employees + PT hours per month in the past year), ACA mandates would be in effect and the employer would need to make it Affordable (Ask us How?)

Employer does not have to contribute toward ancillary premiums such as dental and vision

Health Savings Account; member-owned bank savings account to save pre-tax dollars to use on medical / health expenses – belongs to the member for life – do not “lose”; must be enrolled in an H S A –Qualified Medical plan to make tax-free contributions to the savings account.

Every insurance carrier invests in “advertising” in different ways. Some do spend a lot of money to place ads and make sure the average person has name-brand recognition of the company. But many insurance carriers depend on agents to do the advertising for them. They use us to pick and choose the clientele that best fit their products.

As insurance agents, we pay a lot more attention to the carrier’s reputation for claims management, and their financial stability. Sometimes the best insurance company (and agency) is one your friends haven’t heard about. If an insurance company is financially stable, there will be money to cover claims. And if an insurance company has trained and knowledgeable staff to handle your claim or service needs, they may be the best kept secret that you need to know about.

Less than 50 FTE’s (Full Time Equivalent = FT + PT Hours per month for the past year), in short, no, not required, but is valuable in obtaining and retaining quality employees

More than 50 FTE’s – yes, ACA mandates the Applicable Large Employer to offer affordable, minimum value medical coverage to the FT employees.