Ready Set Sold with Bryan Vogt #31-04: Jaclyn Schmitz of Liberty Mutual Insurance explains the advantages of talking to a local agent vs. an online agent

Welcome back to Ready Set Sold I’m the host Bryan Vogt though as I mentioned in our earlier segment that we have a special guest today and I’m so happy to have her on the line Jacqueline Smith she is a leader when it comes to insurance at Liberty Mutual. She’s had some fantastic success Rookie of the Year all kinds of accolades that she has done.
And what I love about her she does the insurance she worked with people helping with their insurance needs but she also has a as a family of four she has four children and so she really kind of understands she gets it whether you’re a single person whether you are married and you have kids she kind of gets the whole perspective and one of the things I wanted to have her on for today is talking about the difference between having an online meaning is going online and doesn’t mean that they’re all bad that you can have some success with it when you’re looking for insurance but when you’re really trying to find out a little bit more detail nothing beats having a personal phone call.
And just before we started this program we were talking about the importance of actually having a conversation was it with an expert and maybe you can Jacqueline go on a little bit more about how important that is and how you seen success with that sure absolutely thanks Brian so when it comes to your insurance you know there people are in different places in their life all the time and it needs change we may start off you know getting off of our parents policy and you know moving on to our own to then getting married and having children getting through you know you’re working years and then coming to retirement all of these life changing situations do present an opportunity where your insurance needs will change so if you are consistently looking at just what you always had rather than consulting and making sure that you have the coverage that you actually need.
That shouldn’t be doing online so you know we typically say that consumers are not equipped to self diagnose I mean if something was changing in your medical life you wouldn’t automat run to WebMD and you know self-diagnose yourself so similar type of thing as our needs change we definitely need to make sure that they’re being addressed appropriately a quick example I had a client to write when they first got married had state minimum on their auto insurance which may have been exactly what they needed at that time fast forward 20 years later they had not reviewed their insurance or done anything I sat down with them at their kitchen table and they owned a half million dollar home and were it had a lot of liability there and were highly at risk so we got them you know set up appropriately and actually we’re able to save them money because sometimes when you’re doing what you should it surprisingly saves you money especially when you don’t review things on a consistent basis.
So that’s a big thing when it comes to having a local agent versus just going online also you know we do hear a lot when it comes to claims you know I have this little fender-bender or a windshield claim or what have you when you have an 800 number when you call in everything is recorded everything is ready to go they’re there to help you make that claim however sometimes you need consulting should I really do this how will this affect my rates next year every six months or what have you know.
Do I have this coverage do I have that because the worst thing you want is to have go in and start a claim and then not have it fulfilled or them deny it or what have you because of whatever the situation may be so again a great example as to why it’s good to have a local agent before actually heading out to make your claim another thing too is people have the perception that it’s cheaper online and that isn’t always the case especially if you’re not setting it up correctly for yourself so you know again it’s always good to make sure especially with somebody that can look at options for you know really making your local agent work for you rather than just going to this website.
And then that web site and then a third and a fourth and a fifth website to see what best rate you can get a lot of local agents do have the ability to shop carriers they pretty much have a lead line that they will go with but of course not everybody fits into the same bubble which is why there’s competition and so it’s good to have somebody that has the ability to do that for you I mean just an example the other day I was talking with a client and she actually was a longtime family friend but we kind of lost touch base or lost basis and we reconnected and she was like oh my gosh I’m having a hard time with this on a particular claim and I actually said that’s a really great company but unfortunately you just don’t have the representation that you need.
She was well I thought I would get it cheaper just by doing it online and we actually read looked at everything for her and were able to definitely save her some money and even help her through the rest of that claim so again it’s just how you handle everything and how you’re able to help people and again people are in different walks of life so it’s important to make sure that you understand where they’re coming from before even starting to make those recommendations on insurance you know what I’m hearing Jaclyn that I love and I think it’s so important it ties into real estate too with agents but also
with insurance and that is you talk about relationships that you know you’re taking the time to find out what the person’s needs and once and concerns are and not just doing a blanket policy catch-all that may or may not work for someone.
And I think that’s really important when you’re doing with your biggest asset are your second biggest asset which is usually your car all those things are so important so I love what you said about the idea that you know you don’t know who you’re going to get and you may get a good person and it does happen sometimes but you may not get that person to just signed on you know a week ago and take down they don’t have the experience they don’t have the knowledge of someone like you as a local professional the lay of the land and that’s one of the things that we hear a lot of times is that they don’t know what the st. Louis market looks like.
They don’t know where the houses are they don’t know the areas they don’t know the Metro East areas so all those things what I’m hearing from you is great things and it makes advantage of having a local insurance agent correct oh very true yes and most specifically brought that back up about real estate every markets a little bit different and making sure that we truly understand replacement value as a critical component or the roof in our lovely area and how critical it is to make sure we have the right coverage for those just because that is things that we see here that we might not see in another market so that is very true awesome.
Jacqueline we ran out of time here but thank you so much Jacqueline Schmidt delivering mutual at the top agent top person best way to contact her is Jacqueline j AC ly m dot Schmitz schmitz at liberty mutual comm with further questions again Jacqueline thank you so much and we’ll be back with Freddie said so we’ll be talking about the tip of the week be them.
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