I’m getting tired of the games my insurance agent (State Farm) is playing and am seriously considering switching to a different agent (same company) to avoid this.
But before I do I wanted to make sure this isn’t something all agents aren’t doing already and my switching will just result in more of the same.
My wife and my driving records are clean, we owe about 1/3 of what our house is worth, we have never made an auto of home claim with our 5 years with this agent. Have never been late with a premium payment.
Basically I like it that way. I’ll send you my money on time and if I need you I’ll call you otherwise I don’t expect to hear from you.
But lately we’ve been getting these postcards from her stating: Please call us immediately about your auto insurance, or Please call us about your homeowners policy. I usually call immediately thinking there was a payment problem, they need some updated info, there was someone trying to make a claim on me, etc.
But when I call her it’s for some sales pitch on some new type of insurance she’s selling.
Before I dump her and get a different agent, is this something they are all doing now?
I have State Farm. I think my agent must know better than to try that with me, because I haven’t seen a thing. Tell your agent to stop it, or you’ll dump them. I bet they’ll stop it.
A couple of years ago my office (Nationwide) was into this. She called saying she wanted to review and when I asked if there was a problem she said no, it was just a review. I ended up going in because I had just had to replace a windshield so I wanted to add glass coverage. I also had to add renter’s since I had moved and let it lapse.
But I could tell (and I’m very slow on the uptake) that the real goal was to get me to buy life insurance and invest in the Nationwide-sponsored retirement/investment accounts. I have a good plan for both through work but I listened to it and then when she followed up I declined.
But that was the only time I’ve heard from them in nine years, and that’s with three claims. Other than the annual birthday card, of course!
I have State Farm and my agent (an awesome older dude who’s been my dad’s agent since the Stone Age) and he never sends me stuff. I think I got one thing, once, in the past 2 years and I totally forget what it was (maybe add Life onto my Home/Car insurance?)
I don’t know that it’s State Farm so much as your rep.
Now, on the other hand my MORTGAGE company is NOT shy about calling frequently and mailing me weekly with all sorts of crap. But they are nice about it - I say “well can you lower my monthly payment?” and they say “no” and go away.
If there is a real problem, then they will take the initiative and call you—they won’t politely ask you to “please call us”.
If it’s a payment problem, they want their money. If its an question of updated info, they also want their money–and probably need the info to decide how much you should be paying them.
I always ignore anything that says “please call us”.
Sounds good. If he really wants to get in touch with you, he’d call or send a real letter.
I have State Farm, and our agent has never spammed us (except maybe with a calendar.) Actually I kind of which he had done a bit more, since when a neighbor’s house burned down we looked at our coverage and decided we needed to up it.
Well, it is good to check your homeowner’s insurance policy and make sure you’re adequately covered. If you only owe 1/3 of what your house is worth, you want to make sure your policy covers you for the appreciation, etc.
State Farm was the agency that kept doing it to me. At first you think something is wrong. You get irrated fast when they keep sending them for more insurance even on stuff you don’t own. It’s a big mark against staying with a company for me. I’m sure it comes down to the individual local agency, as to how aggressive they will be.
I get a calender once a year, and a card on my B-day with some sort of promo gift. Both come with a list of other things he could do for me, but other than that he doesn’t spam me.
I had the opposite experience. My insurance agent left a phone message while I was away saying that it was time I called and checked if we needed higher coverage since our evaluation had increased considerably. So I called, spoke to a very pleasant woman who reviewed our coverage and said that there were several discounts that we were entitled to and in the end our bill went down by about 20% (and we didn’t need more coverage–we were probably over-insured). She will call when our car insurance comes due to discuss switching to them (resulting in a further discount). The company is ING (International Netherlands Group) and I don’t know if they operate in the US.
Another State Farm customer here. I also get the constant, handwritten, “please call” postcards; “urgent”-looking envelopes; and occasional voice messages. I originally went with State Farm because they’d handle both my motorcycles and autos, but I’m thinking about switching again, just to get rid of this constant annoyance.
I’ll trade piles of useless mail for lower rates, thanks.
As an insurance agent I can tell you I don’t send out spam mail for this very reason. People get all antsy thinking there is a problem and it is nothing of any interest. That being said however you should ALWAYS open your mail from your agent and ALWAYS respond to anything that says please call or something similar. I speak to many people every day who throw their premium notices in a big pile without opening it because they think it is spam and then call crying when their policy cancels. Please don’t be that guy. Just call and tell them you don’t appreciate spam mail and if they continue to send it to you you will find someone else who doesn’t waste your premiums on unnecessary postage.
Right. I always do. Immediately. Right when I get home, even though that’s often 1 or 2 am. At the agent’s home phone (which is listed on their card).
Because it must be real important, since you sent me this urgent-looking letter. Even if it turns out to be just reviewing my coverage amounts, fine, let’s go ahead and do that right now – I’m wide awake, and it probably won’t take more than an hour or so.
I only had to do this twice, before my agent got the message and did something to put me on the ‘no junk mail’ list. Since then all I get are renewal invoices, an XMAS card and calendar.
I’m with Geico and I swear that most months I get more letters/postcards from State Farm. Geico just sends me the occasional bit of junk mail about getting new and different kinds of insurance (plus the quarterly payment letters), while I get all of these “oh please call us!” postcards from State Farm. Plus I don’t get any calls from Geico; they do a yearly one-page form to re-evaluate our insurance usage and that’s been it.
I’ll second that. I have home, car, auto, life, disability, etc all with the same people. Early on he contacted me because he felt we should sit down and review things. I told him that I would call him when/if I felt it was needed, and if he contacted me again unsolicited I would be gone. It worked.