Ramsey's Insurance ELP Helped Us Save $962 a Year!

When we moved into our house twelve years ago, we had difficulty finding a company that would insure our new purchase. Our home, 88 years old at the time, featured a big slab of stucco that had fallen towards the ground, leaving a sizable crack. Because of the potential difficulties of repairing the crack,  a few insurance companies turned us down.  We decided to try contacting  the local State Farm agent who lived a couple blocks from our house. The agent walked over during his lunch break, took a look, and called back, saying he’d be happy to insure us. That friendly, neighborly, prompt service bought over a decade of our loyalty to that State Farm agent.

Last year we repaired the cosmetic stucco issue, and decided that it was time to rate the value of our insurance policies by shopping around. We asked our agent to review our policies for any additional discounts  towards our home, car, and umbrella policies. We learned we had maxed out all available discounts; our insurance coverage looked like this:

We recognized a few opportunities to save by raising the deductibles on our vehicles and our home. The goal of insurance is to transfer the risk of loss  from our family to an insurance company. With the changes in our financial standing in the past twelve years, we  are now able to absorb larger deductibles with our emergency fund so we can enjoy lower yearly premiums after having completed Baby Step Three. Even after tweaking the deductibles, our State Farm agent wasn’t able to compete with the insurance broker we found through Dave Ramsey’s Endorsed Local Provider (ELP) program.

Our new insurance agent, Brian DeMartino, is an insurance broker for Clear Choice. A broker is not captive to one large company and is able to sell insurance from several different companies, thereby securing the best rates for his clients. We will still deal with our agent if making a claim or adjustment would  be necessary, but our policies are with Travelers Insurance. Making this change was not difficult.   Working with our broker involved one lengthy phone call detailing our current insurance coverage, several emails regarding proposed policies, and a few more short calls to complete the transaction. It was quick, painless, and budget-friendly.  This change will save us close to $1,000 this year ($962 to be exact).

Here is the breakdown of our original quote:

While these comparisons between our original coverage and the new quote  are not for  identical policies, the overall value with the new company was clear. When we called to clarify that these were not teaser rates, we learned  that the auto insurance was considerably lower because we fell into a niche category of people that Travelers was working to insure. We decided to tweak our policies a bit more and dropped comprehensive on the Honda Civic and raised our deductible on the home to $2,500. These changes will leave leave us assuming a bit more risk for the savings of $308 annually. The description below is where we ultimately landed.

Insurance serves a valid role in a healthy financial plan. Shopping around is a pain, but it may be the best way to obtain quality policies for good value. If you do nothing else,at least take the time to evaluate your current insurance policies and determine where they can be strengthened or loosened to fit your needs.