Want a “free” $1,000 (or more) every year? Want to have better property and casualty (home, auto, umbrella) insurance policies? Want better service from your insurance companies when you have a claim? The White Coat Investor is trying to help you get that. Even if you only save $1,000 a year on insurance, take that amount over 60 years at 8%, and that adds up to $1.25 million! Seems worth reading the rest of this post, no?
A New WCI Home, Auto, and Umbrella Insurance Partner
We have a new WCI partner in this regard, Rate Insurance. We tried implementing a partner to help WCIers with this service a couple of years ago, but that company had trouble dealing with the unique insurance situations that many WCIers have. While that company's automated systems worked just fine with most people, they didn't work so well if someone had an umbrella policy or a luxury home.
It turns out lots of WCIers, including me, have umbrella policies and luxury homes. So, we needed a “higher touch” partner to help get what you need. We think we've found that partner with Rate Insurance. You're going to have to spend a little bit of time on the phone, but it should be worth the effort. The White Coat Investor gets paid when you use this service, but it doesn’t cost you anything more. We get paid as part of the agent commission that is paid out when these types of policies are sold. More business for them, financial support for the WCI mission, and better pricing and service for you. Everybody wins.
Rate Insurance Is a Broker
Rate Insurance is an insurance broker. Like the independent agents we recommend for disability and life insurance, Rate can sell you a policy from just about any company. While the exact number varies by state, it's probably more than 100 companies in your state. There are a few “captive” companies that only let their own agents sell their policies, including Country Financial, State Farm, Farm Bureau, and USAA. But Rate can sell you a policy from pretty much anybody else: Progressive, Allstate, Liberty Mutual, Travelers, Nationwide, and all the other ones you've ever heard of and dozens that you haven't. GEICO used to be captive, but it no longer is and maybe the others will soon follow suit.
Case Studies
Let's take a look at three examples of how much one can save by shopping around for their property and casualty insurance.
Case #1 – A WCI Staffer
As we were putting this partnership in place, a member of the WCI staff was coincidentally needing new property and casualty coverage. She's married to a high-earning doctor and has a complicated insurance situation, including living in a geographic area where not very many home insurance companies are willing to offer policies. She came out of the process very happy. They switched their homeowners policy, improved coverage, and saved roughly $3,000 per year, in part by accepting a higher deductible. They understood this meant they would pay more out of pocket on certain claims before insurance kicked in, but they felt comfortable with the tradeoff and that the ongoing savings were worth it, given their financial position. They also moved their umbrella policy and saved several hundred dollars annually there as well.
What stood out most was the high-touch service. The agent took time to walk through future scenarios, including how to handle auto insurance as children leave for college. Rather than rushing a switch, he recommended waiting on the auto policies since rates in her area are expected to come down in the next few months, and he committed to continuing to shop those policies proactively. Not only did they get their home covered, but they ended up with better policies for less money. I was intrigued, and with just a little pushing from the WCI staff members working with Rate, I scheduled a phone call.
Case #2 – A Family Member of a WCI Staffer
As we were putting this partnership in place, a staff member sent their cousin, a veterinarian, through the re-quoting process. He had not reviewed his insurance in more than 25 years and had kept nearly all of his coverage with AAA—including auto, a primary home, a mountain home, two rental properties, an RV, a boat, and an umbrella policy, totaling just under $30,000 per year. By shopping around and working with a broker, he cut his insurance bill by about $11,000 per year, roughly a one-third reduction, while improving some of his coverage. He was irritated that AAA never once flagged this or proactively reached out to help him find savings over all those years, and he wondered how many others were in the same boat.
Case #3 – Jim and Katie
Like the two above examples, we also have a complicated insurance situation: three cars, two teenage drivers, a luxury home, a $5 million umbrella, and in the process of swapping out one boat for another. I knew this wasn't going to happen very quickly. I was surprised how hard it was to figure out how much I was currently paying for insurance (I actually needed the broker's help to figure it out!). But here's what we're currently paying:
- Auto: $4,959.08
- Home: $2,291.61
- Umbrella: $2,801.25
- Boat (old boat): $381.69
- Total: $10,433.63
Apparently, that's not all that much compared to Case #2 above, but it seems like a lot to me. That $10,433.63 at 8% for 60 years adds up to $13 million. So, I gave the broker a chance to save us some money. Perhaps more importantly, he really helped me understand what I already had and to see the problems with my current policy (like, it's missing a bathroom in our house and thinks our roof is five years older than it is). Here were the new amounts for policies that were actually a little better than what we had.
- Auto (Progressive): $4,202
- Home (Openly): $1,940.50
- Umbrella (Monoline): $2,763.60
- Total: $8,906.10
As I write this, we don't yet have the new boat, and we didn't bother pricing the old boat. The new, more expensive boat will cost a lot more to insure than the old boat, but we could basically have boat insurance for free with what we would save on the rest of the insurance.
The Bottom Line Is the Bottom Line
If it's time for you to dedicate a little time to saving some money and getting better coverage (and it probably is), we suggest you contact Rate Insurance today and get going. The most appealing thing about going with an insurance broker instead of captive insurance agents is the ability to just call up one person who already knows you and your insurance situation well when it is time to reshop insurance next year or, heaven forbid, put in a claim. That is such a better process than calling a 1-800 number and getting whoever picks up the phone that day. Even if the insurance costs more, it might be worth doing that to get better service and “bespoke” policies, but it's almost surely not going to cost more. And if it is, Rate's brokers will tell you.
Better service. Better policies. Better prices. What are you waiting for?
What do you think? Have you used Rate Insurance? What was your experience like? How much did you save? What other ways did you improve your coverage?
The White Coat Investor may receive compensation from White Coat Insurance Services, LLC; licensed in all states including MA and DC; CA license #6009217; NY license #1758759 (exp. 6/2027); Registered address: 10610 S. Jordan Gateway, #200 South Jordan, UT 84095. This does not affect the cost or coverage of insurance.