Now THAT's how you shop for Home & Auto Insurance!

Transcript:

Hey guys Mike Frontera here back with another retirement Theory video. So today I'm going to talk about something that I think is often overlooked in the context of a financial plan. It's something that can truly lay dormant until there's a major problem and then you scramble to make sure that you have everything set up properly. And that is the importance of proper home and auto insurance. Now, I am a licensed Property and Casualty agent but it is not my area of specialization. So today as a special treat we're going to be talking to an expert who I have known for the better part of twenty years.

 His name is Nick Taylor Jr. and he’s of Taylor and Leonard, located in Glens Falls New York. And a number of years ago I formed a strategic partnership with Nick where I would send my clients to him. He would run a proper analysis of their home and auto insurance and in a lot of cases save my clients money. 

Every client I have ever sent to Nick has come back to thank me for putting them in touch with him. So we're very lucky to have him here today. 

So without further ado let's welcome Nick Taylor Jr.

Hey Nick how's it going today?

It is going great Mike, thanks for asking thank you so much for having me. How are you doing today?

I'm doing great. So, I think a lot of the people are probably thinking hey I haven't really thought about my home and auto insurance pretty much ever. Why is it so important?  So I think a great place to start would be maybe to go  through some of the major Financial repercussions, maybe an example of what you've seen in your line of work. And maybe how it ties into the overall financial plan. 

Absolutely. I mean I look at it actually as part of your financial plan. Like you Mike I'm a financial planner and you know the very first thing that I discuss with my clients is risk management. And what that really means is you know the world of insurance. And you know the very first thing that folks should really do is make sure that you know that they're covered or their families covered in the event of a premature death disability lawsuit or catastrophe.

So those last two words lawsuit and catastrophe they're really referencing you know among other things home and auto insurance. 

so those last two words lawsuit and catastrophe they're really referencing among other things home and auto insurance. you know we live in a litigious society and so your legal liability coverage is extremely important when you're driving around your car or you're having people over at your house or things like that so in my view the liability piece of a home and auto insurance policy is if not the most important one of the most important coverages to discuss. and really but many folks have not had a discussion with their agent or themselves or a financial planner like yourself in terms of how this coverage can come into play how it protects them and how much coverage they should actually have.

Home & Auto: Legal liability

Yeah one example of the lawsuit speaks to the legal liability piece. you know when people bring over their auto insurance policy for me to review for the first time i almost always see a hundred thousand dollars of bodily injury coverage on these declaration pages and that basically means their legal liability coverage. So that basically means if they cause an accident  they're deemed to be negligent, let's say they they hit me, all right and I had a $300,000 medical event - and it's funny i just had this happen about 18 months ago. My poor client  fell asleep at the wheel he was kind of a young driver. Before he came to me he had state minimum liability limits  caused a 300 accident was sued of course for the $300,000. And i had raised his coverage up to the point where the insurance took care of the whole lawsuit. Versus  in the past he would have had you know an issue. 

So to get back to my example you got a hundred thousand dollars of liability you have a three hundred thousand dollar lawsuit, the insurance company is gonna pay for the first hundred thousand dollars but you got a $200,000 problem on your hands. And what most people don't know is you can alleviate that issue for basically a fifty dollar bill.

Home & Auto: Catastrophe

On the catastrophe piece you're thinking more about the the home. God forbid there's a total or major loss you want to make sure your house is insured correctly and a lot of folks come in and and I see that they're grossly underinsured. And so so we make sure that we kind of patch that part up of their policy as well

Interesting and I can't even imagine thinking about the the financial ramifications for this poor kid if he did not have the proper  liability insurance in place. That would probably change the whole trajectory of his life.

Absolutely absolutely you know and it's just it takes a second  to have something happen, and so yeah the last thing you want to do is have to worry about  several hundred thousand dollar issue.

Okay so a lot of times when i'm talking with clients i'll ask them to see a copy of their declarations pages. And those declarations pages right they're they show the limits of liability and the deductibles and you know all those kind of things summarized out. And most of the time when i ask people for this or maybe if i just ask  what kind of coverage do you have, I'd say probably nine plus times out of ten they have no idea. And i mean and you know when i first got my first car insurance policy, i think i probably called Geico or you know some insurance company that i'd seen a commercial for something like that, and i just said  give me whatever you think is good at the same time. They were happy to you know recommend me a policy that would be right for me and so and of course i took it. So when you're how do you determine what is the right level of insurance to have and and why do you think most people really don't know what they have, or even you know why they have it?

 Well first off Mike people are busy you know they've got a lot on their plate these days but you know people would be surprised just how quick and simple of a conversation with an agent can be where you're going to uncover some of these more important considerations as it pertains to to their life, and like i said one of the things i simply do is explain the issue to folks. Like for instance the liability issue almost almost always they'll kind of you know talk to me and say no one's ever explained that to me. that's really important. I said yeah it really is if you walk out of my office feeling so much better that they can get down the road knowing they've got the protection. You know most most agents or companies aren't financial planners like you and I. They're not looking at those sorts of things.

Insurance almost sometimes is looked as a commodity. Let's save money and really  home and auto insurance is a financial tool, and it's a huge piece of protection for folks, i'll basically explain to them the issue and even better when i work in concert with you and we have and we have a joint client will oftentimes they'll say hey look Nick talk to Mike about my situation and make sure that this policy makes sense in the overall context of my financial plan. And kind of to have mike you know bless it to a degree you know and so a lot of times it just comes down to simple, honest communication between the client and myself. And like i said when i'm working with folks that work with you with their finances, to have that extra element of their trusted advisor kind of overseeing this and it's a big win for the client and it really is really all we need just a little little quick conversation about the important things so

Alright well listen we talked a lot about you know getting the proper coverage and you know why that's important and i think it may lead people to think wow you know this is probably going to be expensive to actually do this the right way. Especially if we start bringing up things like hey you know you should look at umbrella liability policy but i mean that's not really the case i mean having the correct coverage doesn't necessarily mean being more expensive right?

 Yeah it's a common misconception you know it's funny in this day and age it's almost better to be a new customer than a loyal customer of a company for 20 years. I know it's alternative but the insurance business is almost  like you know Spectrum. If you've been with them for five years you're paying 150 bucks for your for your internet and your cable, if you're a new customer it's that $79.99 promotion. You know so every couple of years plan on us doing a true review of your policies to make sure that that you can get the very best rate with us.

Sounds like it's yeah that's super important

Well listen alright nick i really appreciate you giving me and giving us such great information. i learned a lot of stuff uh and what an asset to have someone like you who can do all this and take this whole thing off of a client's plate entirely. so what is the best way for people to get in touch with you if they are looking for you to help them and analyze their situation uh and maybe even save them some money in the process.

Absolutely i mean that that's our goal mike i mean the whole business our whole business is basically to make clients lives, simpler, easier and better. To guide them to the right coverage save them money, but almost more importantly, after that once we get all that done is to service them on a 24 7 basis. and a lot of times people think that's lip service but as you know and as my clients know uh they're encouraged to use my cell phone which is the best way to get a hold of me. Monday through Sunday 24 hours a day and  i've had 11:30 pm calls i've had six a.m on sunday calls with the basements flooding and really that's my time for clients. When you really need you know someone to to basically walk you through a very  stressful situation, you're not going to call an 800 number you're not dealing with someone out in some state that you don't know, you're dealing with me. And you're dealing with me personally and i think that the the face-to-face and the neighborhood you know way of doing business is kind of making a comeback and i love that.

But yeah my cell is is best phones uh phone calls text messages emails all go to it. And like i said i check it 24 7. And if you want to learn more about our agency you know we're a three generation family business here in glens falls just recently won the best of the region award for the third year.

Congratulations

Yeah we're really proud of that so if you want to read up more about us and how we do business our our web address is www.taylorandleonard.com and again thank you for  joining me and i'm sure i'll be  talking with you soon

Sounds great mike appreciate you having me sir all right talk to you later all right bye.

Alright i love talking to nick such a good guy. So do you have questions for me if so come visit me at www.retirementtheory.com or send me an email  at mikefrontera@retirementtheory.com. Did you click subscribe at the bottom of this video or follow me on facebook? i think that you should!

You'll get to see videos like this on everything retirement planning. Once again thank you very much for joining me and we'll see you next time.

Nick Taylor Jr. Contact Info:

Cell: (518) 321-7503

Email: nickjr@taylorandleonard.com