One of the questions we get asked a lot is “Why do all the insurance agents want me to change my auto insurance to them?”.
When we start writing a policy, all of the insurance companies we work with here in Texas ask a few questions. They want to know if you own a home, if you have good credit, if you pay your bills on time. All of these questions help get you a lower price on your coverage.
When the insurance company knows that you have your auto insurance with the same agent that is providing landlord insurance for your investment property, they will normally give you a big discount in the premiums. They do this, because of a number of reasons.
Benefits to the Insurance Companies
These guys want to make sure they get a benefit. Let’s take a quick look at their side of the story before we move on to your benefits.
1. More money
Ok. That is pretty obvious. If you have your home owners insurance or your investment insurance at the same company that insures your cars, the insurance company will get more money from one client. That actually lowers their costs since they don’t have to service as many customers in order to do the same amount of business.
But… what why would you get a discount if the policies are with different companies?
2. More likely to renew
Insurance companies are typically loaded with bean-counters and number-crunchers. They love “big-data”.
Statistically, you are more likely to renew your policies if they are all at one agency.
If you have your car insurance with “#1 Texas Auto Insurance Agency” and your home or landlord insurance with “Texas Big Guns Home and Landlord Insurance Agency”, both of these companies know that someday, you will figure out that getting these together will make life easier on you and you will save some money.
It is going to cost them a customer when you put that together and switch, so they build that into the price of your coverage.
Insurance companies don’t like customers that jump ship.
They want you to stay many years with them, so they give you a pretty good discount when you do things that make it more likely for you to stay longer.
Benefits to you
3. Better Discounts
“Show me the money!” is the phrase made famous by the movie Jerry Maguire, starring Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr.
To reward you for “bundling” your policies, most insurance companies will give you 5 percent to 25 percent discount for keeping all of your insurance in one place. Some Texas insurance companies will even give better discounts.
When you save that kind of money on a rental property, you get a much better return on your investment.
4. Save Time
This may sound like just a sales pitch, but time is money.
If you have to email one insurance agent about your home policy, a different insurance agency about your car or truck policy, and a third insurance company about your landlord policy on your rental property, you are going to be spending more time with more people than someone who has these all in one place.
If we can get your policies all with the same company that will often save us time looking up information, but when we have several policies for you, we can simply pull up one page and see all of the different policies and get you the information you need quickly.
5. Stop the Gaps
When their are two unrelated companies providing insurance on your home or investment property and your car, then the two of them are involved in a crazy accident, there can be gaps in your insurance.
If there aren’t any gaps, there may be a little “finger-pointing” where each company is trying to get the other company to pay first.
When you have both policies with one agency, then it makes it a lot easier for us to work out the details of who is going to cut you the first check, while you are taking care of more important things.
6. Overall Customer Satisfaction
JD Power did a couple of studies about customer satisfaction and found that when the policies were bundled customer satisfaction went up.
http://www.jdpower.com/press-releases/jd-power-2017-us-home-insurance-study
http://www.jdpower.com/press-releases/jd-power-2017-us-auto-insurance-study
When customers have their policies bundled together, all of these factors we mention above simmer together to provide a much better customer experience.
This is really the ULTIMATE benefit.
We want you to be happier and so do the insurance companies. Life is full of challenges and we want your insurance to be a smooth, simple part of the road for you.