The Trump Blog

Just having gotten back from a continuing education conference for my insurance license, I realized that many consumers don’t understand what their insurance covers and as important, they are not aware that they have insufficient insurance coverage.

I guess not all insurance agents are created equal. Agents that are only selling “price”, tend to leave out important endorsements that their customers need in order to compete for the business. This leaves the insured in quite a predicament when the unexpected need for a claim arises. The insured initially purchased what they thought to be a full coverage insurance policy to protect themselves against any unforeseen loss and get extremely angry when they find out they weren’t covered. The obvious solution to this problem is for agents to slow down for a moment and explain what the policy is designed to cover. By fully doing so, they can make recommendations for additional endorsements that will best protect the insured and identify the additional cost associated with doing so. If the insured chooses to decline the additional coverages, the agent should have them sign a “declination of coverages” to show that they were offered. This will keep the agent and insured out of court later when no one can remember or prove what level of service was offered.

On the flip side, insureds that only care about price are asking for trouble. They tend to overlook the coverages and policy limits and not appropriately assess what their actual needs are. They think that those endorsements are being proposed to get the agent a bigger commission. If they would stop and really evaluate their own situation and picture themselves in a loss situation, they might be more inclined to spend a few more dollars protecting themselves more thoroughly. So insureds, read your policies and make sure your agent answers your questions about what is or isn’t covered.  

Have any of my readers suffered a loss and inaccurately thought they were covered for it by their insurance policy? If so, please share!