Episode #60: Don't Knee-Jerk Your Insurance Coverage

[00:00:00] One of the big things that people don't realize is that your billing and your payment plans do have an impact on your premium. And what I mean by that is a lot of carriers now out there, they really will credit your policy if you can pay that policy in full. Really? I don't think I even knew that. Yeah. Oh, so like it's lump sum versus monthly. Right.

[00:00:26] So you get your auto bill, you know, it was 500 bucks a month. It's what? 6,000 bucks a year. Yep. The bill comes in the mail, you go online, you pay the 6k, you know, what would be like- 10%. Really? That's pretty good. It's enough to at least give it some thought to say- Oh. And it's not for everyone because not everyone can just peel off- Most people aren't in a position to do that. Right.

[00:00:50] But also the people that are really concerned about 50 or 100 bucks a month in that same example, you knock off 10%. I mean, you're saving some money. Yeah. You're saving 50 bucks a month. Well, and then you put on a credit card and then you get some rewards and then you just pay it off. Maybe you pay off your credit card or maybe you are in the mode of, yeah, we build up credit and then we pay it off. So, yeah, that may be an option. Good idea for some people.

[00:01:21] Welcome to the podcast dedicated to real estate insurance and building your business. Join us as we take you along our own business building journeys with additional wisdom from our network of local and national experts. Welcome to Bricks and Risk. Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Bricks and Risk. I'm Tim Garrity. And I'm Sean Mooney.

[00:01:51] Happy New Year, man. Happy New Year, 2025. Welcome to the new year. Here we are. But yet I'm looking at an old shirt. Yeah, a little repurposing. A little retro action? Yeah. All right. All right, dude. Well, this one's going to be a little bit more insurance focused today, guys. So why don't you tell us what we're talking about? Yeah. So the environment right now with insurance is price, price, price, price, price. Price is going up and people having to deal with that.

[00:02:20] So what we're going to talk about is some different situations and scenarios of what we're seeing in the marketplace from a whole host of carriers and what's going on and kind of what we're seeing on a day to day basis.

[00:02:35] And then maybe some tips for some people about what they should and shouldn't be doing just as recommendations in terms of how to deal with the current status of insurance. So it sounds like this one's going to be educational from a consumer standpoint, but it's also going to be educational from like, let's say, an insurance rep standpoint or even a business owner standpoint. Like maybe they don't deal with this as much as you do.

[00:03:05] And we titled this one appropriately. We called it Don't Knee Jerk Your Insurance Coverage. Yeah. And all right. So here's something I'll start off with, with that name. Again, we like to insert humor into our episodes, as everyone knows at this point. Um, explain knee jerk. Why would someone knee jerk their coverage? Well, I don't know if it's knee jerking their coverage. The knee jerk is more of a reaction.

[00:03:34] So given the scenario where the policy or policies, your insurance package is coming up for renewal. So they usually get sent out 30 days prior, 45 days prior to your renewal date. You get in the mail, open the mail, you fall off your chair because the increases are coming through it.

[00:03:57] You get a clip of 20%, 25%, 30% more, wherever you're, you know, different areas are seeing different increases. So the knee jerk is, oh my gosh, my insurance just went through the roof, you know, compared to what it was a year or two ago. And the knee jerk is, I'm going to find cheaper insurance. Yeah, it's, it's a commodity. Insurance is a commodity.

[00:04:26] I'm going to cut my cost. I'm going to, I'm going to solve this problem on my own. I just got to make some calls, shoot some emails, fill out some contact forms and I'll get my insurance down. Yep. Okay. So we're talking about the knee jerk reaction. So it's like the environment we're in people's monthly bills are going up. I mean, Sean's been talking about since we started the podcast, cause we've been in that environment for the last year, which is about when we started recording this. Yeah. Um, in a dramatic way. Not, not like my,

[00:04:56] minor increases. We're talking about sizable. Yeah. Like if you pay like, let's say 500 bucks a month for your insurance and it goes up 20%, it's 600 now. Yeah. Like that's, that's serious. 1200 bucks a year. And roll that over the course of 12 months. Yep. And let's say someone's job is slower or they just had another child or, you know, it's just income is tight, whatever it is. Yeah. Things are expensive still. Housing is expensive. Cars are expensive. Groceries. Yeah.

[00:05:25] Your bill goes up a hundred bucks a month. People are going to panic. I don't know about panic, but they're going to certainly say, can I do better? Where, where can I, where can I get back to where I was or even in a better position financially? All right. So talk about, so let's go back to that scenario. Someone gets the mail, they open it up, your bill goes up a hundred dollars a month on your car insurance, which to some would be a big deal.

[00:05:55] And they have this reaction of, I have to get that down. What are some tips or like, let's call it, what's an approach rather than have that reaction, which 99 out of a hundred people are going to have. Your bill goes up. You're going to be like, what the hell is going on? Yeah. How would you advise people approach that so as to not make a rash decision or do something that could even affect them having covered?

[00:06:23] So let's start with what you shouldn't do. All right, let's go. We're going glass half empty moon. What should you not do? You should not. Step one, call your agent and start throwing profanities at them. All right. So that's, this is a cue for everyone. Give Sean a call tomorrow and use any choice words that you want. Okay. Profanity laced. Got it. This is BS.

[00:06:53] Your BS. This insurance company. This is, I, I, we document these in the office and you know, and this. Your shirt's BS. Obeys BS. All of that. Um, but no, seriously is we get that reaction a lot. Right. And we have people that will write their insurance and a year and we deal with this increase. And this is BS.

[00:07:22] I signed up and now the rates are going up. Right. Yep. And so we, as an, as a broker don't have any power over the pricing. Yeah. You don't decide the pricing. Nope. You can look at carriers. Sure. And find options for people. Yep. But you're not, you can't control. You can't say, I, you know, I'll make a little less this month. Like, go ahead. Yeah. Here you go, Bill. Here you go, Sally. Yeah. Like take a little break on me. Yeah. You can't do that.

[00:07:47] And so we're getting hammered every single day just by way of, you know, everyone's bills are going up. So my recommendation is don't do that because when you do that, it's like your broker's less inclined to want to make all of the appropriate moves to, to try to help you. Cause it's just a, it's just a bad. It's putting, let me put it this way. Let me know if I'm right.

[00:08:14] You're kind of passing blame to your insurance rep, your insurance broker, whoever you're working with to be like, why, why is this hat? Why did you do this to me? Kind of thing, which is a natural reaction. Yeah. Most people would have that reaction. Absolutely. But you're saying, look, as much as you think you can control Mooney insurance brokers, you can't. So rather than look to you and say like, you know, look, don't shoot the messenger. I'm your ally. I'm your advocate.

[00:08:43] How can I help you navigate this, this issue? Yeah. All right. So they shouldn't obviously use profanities. What, what else should they not do? So the other thing they shouldn't do is go online and find one of these insurance. We'll shop you with a hundred companies websites. Yeah. Someone looking for data, basically.

[00:09:11] Putting in your information and we, we represent a hundred companies. We'll find you the best rate or the cheapest insurance or whatever that may be. Don't do that. Okay. Why would you not do that? Number one, they're just scraping your data. You're going to be put in some call center. Your information is going to be shared out. It's going to be sold. You're going to be put on a list. You're going to get 20 emails and 50 phone calls.

[00:09:40] And it's going to be this. Yeah. Like whirlwind of just like stalking, like internet stalking. Yeah. All right. Um, so you don't, you don't want to do that because it's all of the things that come along with it. Anything else they should not do? Um, or we, can we get into the Garrity glass half full? I think I got plenty of beer in my glass.

[00:10:04] I think just stay, I think the, I think the wrong approach is number one. I think the wrong approach is, okay, my bill went up. I got to get cheaper insurance. Yep. You should try to stay away from just looking at the policy, looking at your coverage and just zeroing in on what the price is. Let's, let's talk about not to, I don't want to veer off too much cause we're on this,

[00:10:33] what you shouldn't and what you should do. Why is cheap sometimes a disadvantage for the person getting the cover? Like why can cheap be a red flag to someone says, Hey, you're building up a hundred bucks a month. I know that sucks. What if I could lower it a hundred? You were at 500. You went to six with Sean. What if I could get you down to four with me? I'm, I'm Billy. Well, it's the perfect, it's the perfect, you know, you see the advertisements on TV is

[00:11:02] like name your price or we get the coverage you need. Right. Right. So they're trying to build out a policy around the price. And so why that might be bad is you might pay less. Well, what comes with that is typically less coverage. Yep. And so this is where we get into the price versus cost. Yeah. Jump into that real quick. Cause that, this is a good.

[00:11:30] And so the price is your premium. This is your monthly premium. This is what you pay. This is what you're out of pocket. The cost is everything else associated that might come along with your insurance coverage beyond what the premium might be. Meaning, um, you sign up for that new policy, but you don't have the same coverage. Right.

[00:11:57] So your, your premium might be less, but if you get into an accident, maybe there's collision that's taken off of one of your vehicles. Right. Yep. And that's the reason why it's probably cheaper. Right. If something happens to you, which could be common in the driving world. Yeah. Now there's a big surprise where you're convinced, oh, you don't need that. Your car is older. Yeah. You're fine. So now what, what might've been saving $50 a month on your premium for that price,

[00:12:26] you might be at $10,000 because now you have to go out and, you know, buy a new vehicle. Yep. So that would be, if you're looking at the total cost of insurance and what, what you could potentially be on the hook for in an event like that. So like, let's, let's relate it to homeowners insurance. So real estate, you know? Yeah. You own real estate, you've got investment properties. Even if you rent real estate, tenants get insurance coverage.

[00:12:54] So relate that to real estate, same kind of scenario. Someone's offering them a lower monthly premium to insure their home. Let's say, let's keep it real simple. Yeah. What kinds of things could go wrong with your home where that cheaper premium, that cheaper monthly amount could affect you? Like what kind of things? Perfect example would be you have a homeowner's policy and one of the common optional endorsements

[00:13:19] that we always try to put on is a backup of sewer and water coverage. Go back to the Reed Stever episode. Yeah. He said he mentions that to every single person he meets for an inspection. Get the coverage. Yep. And so we try to include it on every policy. We have it, you know, baked in. It's optional, but we just like kind of automatic. Yeah, you're like, this is how we run our business. Yeah. As a templated coverage, right?

[00:13:45] So you may find that new policy for homeowners. So if we have coverage on your policy for $50,000, right? And cover interior flooring, cover some personal property. Bywall. Right. You take that new policy and they don't have that coverage. And now your premium went from $1,500 a year now to $1,000 a year. Right? Yep.

[00:14:14] But that's excluded now because it's an optional thing that they don't have included. And you have a claim and there's a loss and there's a backup. $25,000 worth of damage inside your home. And now you're eating that, right? Yeah. So you're like, while you were saving maybe $50,000 or $100,000 a month, now you could have $25,000, $50,000 worth of damage. Yeah. That's what can happen. Your sewer pipe backs up.

[00:14:42] Like, let's be honest, whether your basement's finished or not, you got stuff down there. You could have photos, you could have memorabilia, you could have like furniture, you could have electronics. Like, it's like, hey, my basement's a catch-all. I'm going to throw it down there. My kid doesn't need this toy anymore. It's like, hey, we'll use this TV in a year or two once we do this. Like, you could lose all that. Even new homes. We see like in new townhouse communities. Yeah. Where the plumbing and everything is tied in together.

[00:15:11] Even though it's new, the propensity for something to happen when you have like a cluster of homes. Yeah. That are tied in together can be even greater. So a lot of times people say, oh, my house is brand new and I don't need to worry about it. And it's like, well, you may want to reconsider that. All right. So we took home, auto. It's kind of the same. Yeah. Where you're looking at, all right, this is your price.

[00:15:40] And then this is, you know, the total outlay of what your cost could be. All right. So we talked about the things you shouldn't do. Yep. Then we talked about price versus cost. Yep. Let's talk about, let's go Garrity style. Last half full. Yeah. What you got on the things you should do. So advice.

[00:16:00] The best approach I can say to people is start with looking at your broker as like you mentioned, your ally, right? Almost. You're my boy too. Yeah. You're my boy blue. So it's like a team effort, right? Like, so my, you know, recommendation to people would be a pleasant email.

[00:16:26] That's not, uh, if only the world was so easy, vulgarity, um, interspersed there. Um, but reach out and say, Hey, listen, I got my renewal in the mouth. This is crazy. Yeah. Uh, we renew in 30 days. Do I have any options? Yeah. What do you suggest? You're an advisor. Just like I'm an advisor in real estate, you know, life decisions, like buying, renting, investing in real estate is a big decision.

[00:16:56] Again, partnering with someone for insurance, whether it's just a home, home and auto or maybe home auto business. And let's say you have like art or like jewelry and stuff like that. Like this is a big part of their budget and lifestyle because having someone you trust when things go wrong, when things go well, they're not going to call you and be like, yo dude, everything's great. Thank you again. This is awesome. It's, it's a thankless job. Yep. Just like in real estate.

[00:17:23] It's like when people love their home six months later, they don't call me up most of the time and say, Tim, we are just, thank you again. Thank you. No, it's, it's more in the moment. Like when it happens, they're very appreciative. I'm very appreciative of them. I follow up, but you know, it's after that, they're just, they're living their life. Yeah. It's when things go wrong, when something goes wrong in insurance, they're going to go

[00:17:49] right to like that morning, that afternoon, that evening, they're going right to you, right for the jugular. And they're like, dude, what is going on? What did you do? And so you're saying should is one of the first things is you're an ally. Yeah. So you're on their side. Yeah. And if you're working with a broker, right? So we talked about this in previous episodes. If you're an exclusive agent, you only write with one company.

[00:18:18] Exclusive meaning like an all state estate farm. Yeah. So your price is your price. I got one option with you. Otherwise it's hit the road, Jack. And so don't you come back. If you work with an independent broker like myself, then you're going to have much more options on the table that we'll be able to look at and decipher, right?

[00:18:44] As to what the best option might be. Okay. Got it. And so starting with that email or a phone call, hey, I got this. This is crazy. What can we do? Right. And there's going to be some things that you possibly can do with your existing policy that might be able to save you or at least cut into that increase in a sizable way. Hey, everyone.

[00:19:12] This is Tim, your favorite bricks and risk co-host. But don't tell Sean. I hope you're enjoying this episode and I'll get right back to it in a moment. Our audience grows through word of mouth. So if you would please take a moment of your time and give us a review on the platform you're on, that would be fantastic. Please also help spread the BNR word by sharing your favorite episode with a friend. We greatly appreciate your time and trust. Now, back to the show.

[00:19:46] Let's talk about auto. Okay. In auto, someone comes to you and says, how can you help me? My auto insurance premium went up. What are some things that someone could consider with their policy with you that would help them keep things similar, let's call it, without messing with the coverage too much that they're really at a much larger risk? So number one, it's the billing, right?

[00:20:13] I think a lot of people just think that their policy is what it is, right? I get this and I pay this. And one of the big things that people don't realize is that your billing, your payment plans do have an impact on your premium. And what I mean by that is a lot of carriers now out there, they really will credit your policy if you can pay that policy in full.

[00:20:43] Really? I don't think I even knew that. Yeah. Oh, so like it's lump sum versus monthly. Right. So you get a, you get your auto bill, you know, it was 500 bucks a month. It's what? 6,000 bucks a year. Yep. So if it's 6,000 bucks a year and you pay that 6,000 up, the bill comes in the mail, you go online, you pay the 6k, you know, what would be like 10% really? That's pretty good. It's, it's enough to at least give it. I didn't even know that. Yeah.

[00:21:11] It's enough to at least give it some thought to say, and it's not for everyone because not everyone can just peel off. Most people aren't in a position to do that. Right. But also the people that are really concerned about 50 or a hundred bucks a month in that same example, you knock off 10%. I mean, you're saving some money. Yeah. Saving 50 bucks a month. Well, and then you put on a credit card and then you get some rewards and then you just pay it off. Maybe, maybe you pay off your credit card or maybe you are in the mode of, yeah, we build up credit and then we pay it all, you know, pay it off.

[00:21:41] So yeah, that may be an option. Good idea. For some people. All right. So, all right. So we talked about auto. Well, there's, there's, there's other, I mean, so, so that's one. A lot of people get a bill in the mail and they don't realize that going to an auto draft would be another discount. Really? I mean, I've always done that, but I didn't know that that's a discount. It's a discount. Well, with every, every car is different. So you have to, it's a part of the conversation, part of the review process as you're working with

[00:22:11] your broker to kind of, what I say is go through the policy colonoscopy. Where you're looking policy colonic. Yeah. So you're going through the policy, you're looking at coverages, you're doing the review and you're looking for any available credits that you might have. Would you say, all right. So you work with a lot of carriers. Would you say it's more common for the carrier to give you a discount if you go with like, you know, paperless? Yes. Okay.

[00:22:41] So you're saying, Hey, don't mail me anything. There's two right there, folks. Your chances to save money. You're going to, we're not going to pay postage to mail. We're going to do it electronically. Yep. We're going to pass on some additional credits to you by doing that. Interesting. Yep. All right. I wanted to jump on real quick. Um, let's talk about home, home insurance. Cause again, that relates more to my business. Yeah. I'll give an example from me recently.

[00:23:05] So on a past episode, I had mentioned that, um, we have two bay windows in the front of our house. Um, they're stucco, they have metal roofing. We put the metal roofing on when we did the rehab. It was like an aesthetic look, you know, better life expectancy. A metal roof will last much longer than a shingle roof. Yep. And you know, there are some quirks with it because it doesn't seal as well. Let's say as, as a shingle. Oh, a temperature and everything else. Yeah. It may shift or pull, you know, expand or whatever that may be. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:23:35] So we had, um, a leak on both sides, both bay windows, you know, in the last year. And after doing some testing with my general contractor, what's up, Zach? Um, Zach Torres. We, we pretty much pinned it to say it's actually not coming from the bay window roofs. It's coming from the windows right above them because I've talked to other people in the community and they said, yeah, there, there's like a lot of people have had problems with

[00:24:03] window flashing certain homes, window flashing. Yep. So we pinpointed the problem. A couple thousand dollars worth of repair work because the interior, Hey, you know, there's water damage. You got to pull out the drywall. You got to re drywall spackle. Well, this is, this is an important note too. Yeah. Your policy's not going to pay you for new windows. Right. Right. Let's, let's be clear. They don't say like, Oh, it's, it's leaking. How about a new set of windows? No, they're not going to do that. Right.

[00:24:32] They, the policy affords coverage for resulting damage. So it's really what I'm talking about the leaking into the drywall. They're like, Oh, you had to rip out the drywall. Yeah. Oh, you had to tape it. Uh, you had to spackle it, sand it and paint it. Oh, two days worth of three days worth of work, letting it dry, all this stuff. We'll pay you for that. But again, it was, it was so minor. The amount of damage compared to the coverage I had, I had a very low deductible like 500 bucks or something like that.

[00:25:02] I can't remember what it was. And then you had advised me, you know what, you should just take that on yourself. Like you have good contractors, like you can afford, you know, some money out of your bank account. Just make those repairs. Don't put in a claim. Yeah. Because if you put in a claim, now you got a flag, you know, they're looking at you. It's like you put in a claim, 500 hour deductible for like $2,000 worth of work. They think it's why you're doing that. So you said, don't do that. But then after, you know, we, we fixed it, then I asked you the question.

[00:25:31] I said, well, what if we actually increased our deductible? Yeah. Which to most people would be like, why would you do that? Like if something goes wrong, you know, I want it to be 500 bucks. That's all I want to pay. I only want to pay 500 bucks. And we, we increased our deductible to like a few thousand. Yeah. Because how I looked at it through your advice was that this was a few thousand dollars. The next, if it happens again, I would do it again for the reasons I just mentioned. Therefore my deductible doesn't matter.

[00:25:58] And having a higher deductible is also going to lower my monthly bill, my annual premium for my homeowner's insurance. So we're really like going through that event, asking you for your advice, you saying like, no, you got to go out of pocket on this one actually ended up being a blessing because now I'm, I'm smarter about, oh yeah, that's how the insurance company would look at it. Because again, if it's 500, it's like anytime there's anything that goes wrong, it's going

[00:26:28] to be more than 500 bucks and I'm a claim risk. And therefore they don't like me. And everyone out there, not everyone, a lot of people watching this are, are thinking themselves, this agent, he doesn't want you to put that claim in. Or she, he or she, um, and it's not the truth. The truth is if you called me and said, I've got $15,000 worth of damage, I'll, I'm putting the claim, I'm putting the claim in for you.

[00:26:56] Would there be some people though that maybe push back a little bit? They just don't want to do it. What do you mean? Like you had said, you didn't want to put the claim in. There probably are characters in insurance that might not want to. Would you say that's true? That don't want to put the claim in? Yeah. Oh, you mean from an agent or broker perspective? Like, uh, shysters. Listen, there's all, there's a cast of characters out there that. Just like in real estate, plenty of people just looking to make a couple bucks and the customer service isn't there.

[00:27:26] They're not going to bother. Well, here's, here's an important, here's another important, uh, tidbit. Yep. When I write your insurance, I am writing your insurance with the thought in mind that I'm going to be the one answering the phone call when you have a claim. Yep. And I don't want a bad claim scenario for you because it's not going to be good.

[00:27:54] And I don't want that. Are there agents and brokers out there that only look at writing the insurance to get the deal? Yes. Yeah. A vast majority. Yeah. Cause they're like, I got another customer. Let's just push it through. And if they complain, whatever they can complain to the customer service line, not to me. And if they want to put a claim in, that's great because you know why they're not going to be able to move.

[00:28:22] Then they're, then they can't move the insurance and they're stuck and they're locking in that client. Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah. That's crazy. So insurance companies used to underwrite for homeowners specifically for three years and they look back, it's a look back three year window. Have you had any claims in three years? Okay. So three years is kind of like your, your sample window. Yeah. Your window. Yep. Okay. Well, that's what it used to be. What's it now? Well, it depends by carrier. Okay.

[00:28:51] Most are five. Wow. So if you made a mistake five years ago, they'll... It's not a mistake. It's not a claim. A claim. Let's call it a claim. A paid claim. Which people think they should do when they have insurance. I should make claims. That's why I have insurance. Totally within your rights to think that. Yep. Are you doing what's in the best interest for yourself? May or may not be. Yep. Some carriers, seven years. Wow. My God.

[00:29:20] And I've seen most recently one carrier go back nine years. You know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of... What does this remind you of? This reminds me of the short sale foreclosure crisis of the Great Recession. So like 2008, 2009. Were you involved in that? Hey, I was in the mortgage industry at this time working for a builder. I was working for Pulte Homes. So they're a mortgage company, Pulte Mortgage. Yep. And I saw people getting loans left and right. It's not my decision.

[00:29:47] I'm not selling the homes nor am I even selling the loans. I just managed the actual customer service process and a team of loan officers. And there were a handful of people. I'm like, they really shouldn't be getting this loan. And I remember having conversations with people and they were really just trying to push this through. And I remember just like talking, like, again, I don't want to hurt the company I work for. You know, I'm an employee. My job is to get people... Don't rock the boat. Is to help sell more homes and have people use our mortgage company.

[00:30:17] But I remember talking to a few people. I'm like, are you sure you want to buy this home? Like your interest rate has gone up 2% based on where you started this application. Just because you have a low credit score. Yeah. You know, you got some judgments. I understand you might not want to lose a deposit, but are you sure you want to do this? It's less affordable. And people would just be like, yeah, I want to do it. Yeah. But like the short sale foreclosure crisis, when people were short selling homes, what happened

[00:30:47] is they would have like a ding on their credit for somewhere around, don't quote me, about seven years. Yeah. Meaning that if you bought a house and it didn't work out, you couldn't afford it anymore. You go to sell it. Now it's worth less than what you paid. Plus when you sell a home, there are transaction costs. You got to add on money on top of that to even sell it. So if it's worth less and it costs money to sell it, you would come to closing with like 20, 30, $40,000, let's say in some of these scenarios. Yeah. No one's going to do that. Yeah. So the short sale process allowed people to sell their homes that they couldn't afford

[00:31:16] or didn't want to someone else who would buy it. The bank would take less than what they lent. But what they would do is they would ding the homeowner, the seller, the person who sold the home for about seven years. Yeah. Like, don't try and get a mortgage again because you can't. And that's, and people would be like, fine, let's go rent. I'll go live with family. If I marry someone or if I'm already married, I'll put it in my spouse's name. Like there were workarounds, but this, the insurance companies going from three to five

[00:31:45] to seven to nine reminds me of that because they're looking at is like, they want to keep record of you for an extended period of time and they don't want to let you off the hook. Well, it shows a behavior. It shows a pattern. Right. So if you're like credit history, if you had a claim seven years ago and you had another claim three and a half years ago, chances are you're going to have a claim in another couple of years. Right.

[00:32:14] It's just, you know, maybe tomorrow actuarial, you know, if you look at the pattern. Um, so they're definitely, um, changing the way that they underwrite people specifically for claims when it comes to homeowner. And I think that in my scenario, like I'm talking you out of that claim, not telling you not to put the claim, but I'm trying to have you look at it from 360 degrees.

[00:32:42] And I often tell people when I'm advising you, I'm telling you what I would do if I was in your seat. Yeah. If it were you, this is what I would do. It's a recommendation. Now you may say, I'm going to roll the dice. This is what I want to do. I talked to, talk to my spouse and we do want to move forward. That's fine. It's actually, the funny thing is like, I just explained that scenario where agents are like, yeah, file the claim. That's great. Cause they can't go anywhere. Right.

[00:33:11] I'm actually advising you not to do it. So I'm actually like, I don't want to say like hurting myself. Yeah. You're, you're doing, you're looking out for the client, not necessarily, necessarily for like the transaction. This just came up in the statewide episode. Do you remember what we were talking about? He was talking about, Hey, if you put a dollar in of paint, you get $2 back, which, which I totally agree with. But if your roof is like, let's say it's a 25 year shingle roof and you're at, you're

[00:33:38] like 20 and someone says, I'm going to put a new roof on Ryan had said, he's like, you don't really need to do that. It's one, it's not leaking. Yeah. And two, it might have a couple more years left. Yeah. So you're almost telling people not to do it, even though they want to do it. But hold on. This is exactly the same because in Ryan's scenario, if you think about that scenario, if that customer, if that client who's selling the house, what's that roof on?

[00:34:04] It's actually better for Ryan because it's probably going to sell at a higher price, make more money and more people would be inclined to buy that home. Right. So maybe, maybe not, but still the chances, the listing price will be higher for sure. Correct. So Ryan is advising the client to basically, how do I put this in a, in a, in a way, improve

[00:34:33] your home, but like to the disadvantage of myself. Yeah, exactly. Right. So, so it's better for you. It's not better for me. Yeah. He's not looking out for himself. He's looking out for the client. Right. I wouldn't do that if it were me or my house and I were selling it. And I know there's a couple of years left on this roof. I'm not going to do it because I want to wait until someone inspects it. And they may not even have a problem with it. They may say, your price is fair. The roof's got five years left. I'll buy it anyway.

[00:35:00] If you assume that they're going to have a problem with that, you spend 25 G's on your roof and they come in there and they don't care. They're not going to give you your 25 G's back. That's not how it works. So similarly, there's real estate agents that will advise clients to do what's in their best interest. Yep. The same with insurance agents and brokers.

[00:35:23] We, as our brokerage is, is always going to try to advise in the best interest of the client. Like, you know, when you talk about financial advisors and there's that, you know, fiduciary responsibility, it's almost like that. Like we, I feel like we have a responsibility for our clients to look out for their best interest. Are you guys considered fiduciaries like contractually? Do you know? No. We are not.

[00:35:54] Real estate is. Yeah. We are not. It's dude. It really like all of this really the crux of this show. This is, this is a show now folks. Like we have, we have hit the point where people are calling this a show. We got regular listeners and watchers. People enjoy getting this every week. Part of the foundation of the bricks and risk podcast. Our show is relationships. Relationships stem from trust.

[00:36:22] If people trust you, they will continue to do business with you. They will refer to you to friends, family, neighbors, and you're, you're probably going to be friends too. So it is like a triple win relationships. Here's, so here's a question. So we have a note here that says like, it's starting to be like losing the whole reason that someone has insurance. Yeah. Like, let's go back to that example.

[00:36:51] You're telling me to raise my deductible? Like my right as someone who's insured is to put in a claim when I want to put in a claim. If I got $2,000 of damage in my house, I'm Tim. I just had the $2,000 of damage. It's my right to put in a claim because I got a $500 deductible. Why wouldn't I do that? I pay you every month. I pay you on time. I never put in claims. So it's like losing the whole reason you have insurance.

[00:37:21] Let me give you a recent example that we just had with a client who's buying a place in Florida. Okay. Right. Maybe like 45 minutes outside of Clearwater. He calls me up and he says, Hey, Sean, I'm buying this place, you know, and the new guy, the agent down in Florida, you know, put it in per history and pulled our claims activity. And he goes, there's a claim from 2021. He goes, he goes, I don't have a claim from them. I go, I don't know.

[00:37:49] Let me, let me pull it up and shoot it to me and I'll take a look. Yep. I got one of our very good clients, Steve Bregman. What's up, Steve? I don't know you, but what's up, man? He is a listener. Yeah. What's up? And we just, we just had the conversation. He's going to be moving to Florida, but it was the conversation of, hey, we started out as you know, a client and have gradually moved towards being friends. Nice. Um, is he GF too?

[00:38:18] Or is he, does he drink beer? Like, like normal? I think he's a beer guy. If I were to take a guess, but we, it was one of those ones we met like in the mall to do paperwork, you know, years and years ago. Oh, that's cool. So anyway, he calls me, we kind of pulled up and we get to the root of like what this was on his record. And his son was washing a dog in a bathtub and it was, uh, he called the carrier or something

[00:38:46] happened that triggered a claim. Okay. And it was minimal damage. So he's like, Oh, I don't want to pursue a claim. Like water got everywhere type of thing. Yeah. Like water damage. Uh, I talked to the contractor. We'll clean it up. Gotcha. It was a zero pay claim. What does that mean? A claim is initiated. It goes onto your report and it states zero dollars were paid. So the insurance company paid zero to deal with that. Correct. Gotcha.

[00:39:16] Florida agent. Well, because of that, we can't write with like these carriers. Well, just cause it's a huge red flag. The dollars doesn't matter what the dollars and cents are. You put one in, we're going to hold you to it. So when I tell people that you really need to understand what the, the, the tail of that

[00:39:42] claim is like how that impacts you right now or a year from now or two years from now, Yep. You have to understand that we're in a position. When I tell you, you may, I don't, I never say don't put that claim in. I always say you may want to consider not putting the claim in because of X, Y, and Z. Like, let me give you the Steve example. Right.

[00:40:08] And so because it's, it's to your benefit. Yeah. You're trying to look out for them. Like your whole goal is to make sure people are insured. Correct. If they can be insured and save money, great. If they can be insured and save money and work with someone like you, who's an ally, even better. Yeah. But that's, then that's really where the relationship comes in here. It's, it's your, you're in it for the long haul and you want them to be there with you.

[00:40:37] Well, I want to pick up the phone when there's a claim, a bad claim. Yep. And be like, don't worry about a thing. Yep. It will be taken care of. You have the right coverage. And so that's what my North star is. That's what drives. I don't want to ruin your day or week or your month. Yeah. That's awesome. All right. This one was awesome, man. Why don't you close this out? Yeah. So we have our streams up on Apple and Spotify. Yes, we do. Oh, and Spotify.

[00:41:07] Now we have videos on Spotify if you're a Spotify fan. So if you pull it up and you don't normally listen to Spotify, you can watch the video. And we have clips. We're on their, we're on their beta test. Man, I forgot about that. That's my end of the broadcasting. I do. I do the video to Spotify and I do the clip with little, little sentence underneath a little extra juice. I wonder if we were in their top 50% of year end video podcast. We were 20. Top 20% on Spotify.

[00:41:37] Love it. That's great. Um, so reach out, write a review on Apple or Spotify, drop us a note, shoot an email, bricks and risk at gmail.com. We'll be sure to read reviews online if you do that. And you can find us on social media, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube right now. Our subscriber count is really going up. And YouTube is a great one because if you subscribe, you get all the shorts, you get the updates,

[00:42:06] you get the update when the episode comes out. So if you prefer to watch and not to listen, and you don't want to pay for a streaming service, YouTube's where it's at. Go out and find us on YouTube. Yeah. All right. Well, that's all we have for this one, folks. Thank you for tuning in again to another episode of bricks and risk. See you soon. Thank you for joining us on another episode of bricks and risk. Our goal is that you walk away with one or two valuable nuggets, and we greatly appreciate you sharing your time with us today.

[00:42:35] You can find all BNR episodes on Spotify, Apple music, YouTube, and anywhere else you get your podcast content until next time. Keep learning and keep growing.