INSURANCE BROKER INSIGHTS
BY: TIM TOKRUD COMMERCIAL LINES MANAGER AND PARTNER AT GIFFORD ASSOCIATES
What Keeps Your Insurance Broker Up At Night?
Insurance— it is one of those evil necessities in life, isn’ t it? We need to buy it but would prefer that we did not have to. As a necessary evil, most of us are inclined to be somewhat non-committed to the whole insurance thing. If we have never experienced an insurance claim, an annually renewing policy is just one more expense.
But talk to insurance brokers and listen to what keeps them awake at night. They do worry about insurance and your need for it. They worry that you are properly covered under the right policy for the right limit. When you submit a claim, they really want it to go smoothly for you and to find you at the end of the process happy to have bought the policy in the first place. That it served you well. Not one of them wants you to be overinsured nor do they ever want you to be underinsured.
Underinsured claims happen with a certain frequency, and though efforts are made to ensure insurance to value
and correct coverage is in play, generally, the truth hits home only after a claim. It’ s at that time everybody involved starts asking why.
The role of the insurance broker is to help you assess your risks and find policies to lessen them. But they cannot guess at what you own, and they certainly cannot assess the value of it. They need your participation.
So the question that needs to be answered before a policy is purchased or renewed is, what would it cost to replace
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