Are you a homeowner and want to save money? And have some extra peace of mind?
Darin, host of Inside Real Estate Show and Realtor of talks with Lake Stevens Insurance Agent, Aaron Boren of http://aaronborenagency.com
If you're a homeowner you'll find value in this interview, especially if you own any Lake Stevens Real Estate or a home in Snohomish County.
In Episode 017 of Inside Real Estate Show:
- As a real estate owner, do a yearly review of your homeowners insurance
- Don't just "set and forget" your homeowners insurance
- You can save money now or save money later
- Is saving money $5 or $10 a month on your real estate insurance policy the best thing?
- Do you really know what your insurance covers and doesn't cover
- Why Darin thinks ObamaCare branding of Bronze, Silver and Gold packaging was good for health insurance, and why you need to look at your home insurance premiums and deductibles like that
WHAT A SIT DOWN INSURANCE REVIEW WITH AARON BOREN LOOKS LIKE
Darin recommends to his real estate clients to review their insurance once a year. Aaron Boren, as an Insurance Agent agrees with this. A conversation with Aaron Boren for your insurance review might take 15 minutes, or 20 minutes. He does the reviews in person, over the phone or even over skype. Aaron does insurance reviews with homeowners that aren't even his clients. Aaron will show where the insurance gaps are and shares with you what isn't covered in your current insurance policy.
He goes over what your coverage is and what your discounts are. By doing your yearly review, you can have peace of mind and also possibly save money. Darin cautions people who own real estate though, "We get so focused on trying to save money and that ends up costing you money in the future.
Real Estate Resources For You:
Want to know the value of your home? Start at http://getyourinstanthomevalue.com
If you're shopping for a new Lake Stevens real estate, an Everett home, a house in Snohomish, visit http://persingergroup.com
If you're ready to sell your Lake Stevens home, or sell your Everett home or sell your Snohomish home visit http://persingerrealestate.com
If you're a homeowner in Snohomish County, check out the Snohomish County Real Estate Market Update page at http://www.persingergroup.com/real-estate-market-report/
Episode 017 of the Inside Real Estate Show transcription:
Darin Persinger: Welcome to this episode specifically for homeowners where we talk about insurance and how to save a little bit of money with that. Welcome, welcome, welcome Inside Real Estate. I am Darin with persingerrealestate.com and I have a guest with me today, Aaron Boren who's an insurance agent here in Lake Stevens. Erin, introduce yourself to the audience and let them know a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Aaron Boren: Cool, thanks Darin first of all for having me. My name is Aaron Boren, I own the Aaron Boren Agency. Yeah, I got fancy naming that.
Darin Persinger: You must have started and not bought it right? Someone else didn't start it.
Aaron Boren: Started it scratch her local in Lake Stevens. We kind of work the Greater Lake Stevens, Snohomish County area where we do auto and home, life insurance, a lot of business, condo, HOA. That's kind of the type of insurance we do. I started to partner with Darin, we've been doing it for 5 years or so. I've got 5 employees now and so we're continuing to grow in the area and excited to team up with Darin and share a little advice for you homeowners out there.
Darin Persinger: Yeah, the reason why I wanted to have Aaron on today is I talked to homeowners in the Lake Stevens area around Snohomish County. A couple of things always pop up, how do we save money, property taxes are always increasing so then you got to offset that somehow. The other thing is when I bring up insurance because when we're doing this video it's in the beginning of the year and I always send out a letter to our database of here's some things to review and check just to make sure ... A yearly checklist. Insurance seems to be something that people set and forget, and the never come back and look at it again. I just wanted to talk about saving money or at least reviewing making sure you have the right stuff for your policy of where you're at in life right now. One, saving money. You were telling me a little bit about this idea that you can either save money now or save money later. What do you mean by that?
Aaron Boren: Sure, the whole concept of insurance is that you pay a little bit each month or each year on the off chance that my home burns down and now I need a real big check and a lot of money all at once. You pay a little bit now to save the money later. What sometimes people get stuck on is saving that 5 or 10 dollars a month now, which really adds up to very little if you think about it.
Darin Persinger: It's a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
Aaron Boren: Yeah, the things we spend 5 or 10 dollars a month, not a day, is a really minor amount but what it can cost you in the future is 10's, 20, maybe 100's of thousands of dollars if there were a total loss. We're amazed too you mentioned that the consumers or homeowners sometimes don't know too much about their homeowners insurance so they don't do that annual review that we suggest people do. I'm constantly amazed by how many people I ask them about their homeowners insurance, they have no idea what their coverage is, they have no idea if things like wedding rings and all their tools and all of their bicycles and fishing gear. They don't know if any of that's covered and not only that, they don't even know what they pay. It is a put in place and forget type of concept, and that's partly kind of what the [inaudible 00:03:48] account is suppose to do is pay taxes and insurance, that it is out of sight out of mind but that coverage is yours as the homeowner and it's important that you at least understand what it does and what it doesn't do.
Darin Persinger: Your premium and your deductible ... I know these things probably aren't sexy terms for everyone watching but if you want to save money this stuff is sexy. Your premium and deductible are connected, and I do think that the good branding that ObamaCare did is they said, bronze, silver, gold packages, and that's about save money now or save money later because the bronze you're saving money each month but you're going to pay a much higher price if you find yourself at the doctor, if you find yourself at the hospital.
Aaron Boren: You bet.
Darin Persinger: With homeowners insurance, auto insurance, there's not really a package like that. It's just your premium to your deductible.
Aaron Boren: Yeah, deductible is a big factor. Darin what you're saying is if we do $1,000 deductible which is fairly low and most common for a homeowners policy. It means any damage that happens to your home, a small kitchen fire that ruins 2 feet on one wall and you could repaint over and your done. We don't file a claim for that because it doesn't even cause enough damage to get to your deductible. For some people that deductible could be $2,000, could be 25, could be $5,000. We've written policies as high as 10 or $15,000 deductibles. You can imagine those policies are very cheap and so again, how much do you want your insurance to cover. Do we want it to cover everything except $1,000 or everything except $10,000. The insurance company recognizes you've got more skin in the game so to speak and so they back off a little bit with the premium and make things way more affordable.
Darin Persinger: All right, so if someones still watching us and we're throwing around these terms premium, deductible, insurance terms.
Aaron Boren: Yeah sorry.
Darin Persinger: What does that mean? I don't really get it. What's the difference? Let's just cut to the chase a little bit and talk about what they should be doing then, and really it would be reviewing their policy and what that means. Probably the best thing to do is sit down with you, with their insurance agent and get that advice. What does a sit down review look like? Can you just share a little bit, be transparent of when someone comes into your office what's that look like?
Aaron Boren: For sure. First of all there's a reason people like you and me have to be licensed and that's because they are confusing industries and a lot of the language is different. At least once a year that's what Darin recommends to his homeowners, that's what I recommend to my clients is at least once a year come spend 10, 15, 20 minutes with me. I don't care it's over the phone or Facebook or Skype. I even do these reviews with people that aren't even my clients if they know me and just have questions I'll sit down with them.
What we would do is we would go over your coverage and you're going to see things on your policy that say, coverage A, coverage B, coverage C, coverage D, and they're not going to make any sense to you. What you can come in with me is we can play the guessing game or is this covered game. You can run by scenarios and what are your biggest fears, do you fear your home is going to burn down, do you fear an earthquakes going to happen, are you in a flood zone, are you afraid someones going to break in and steal your heirloom jewelry that's worth $100,000, or whatever the case may be. Everyone has different concerns and I think the insurance policy in a lot of ways can be that piece of mind for you if you know how it works.
We would go over the coverages, we'd go over the discounts, we'd go over what you pay per coverage. That's where you tell us if you've done any improvements on the home. Did we know you did another thousand foot extension on the back of your house? Well it's not going to be covered unless you update that policy. Your agent or your company or your broker they need to know improvements like that. Did your life change? Did you have children? Did you buy another home? There's a lot of things and factors that go in and make everyone's scenario specifically unique. Once a year and I literally mean like give us 15 minutes a year, and that piece of mind of what's covered, what isn't will be there. That understanding of, "I know exactly what I'm paying for and I didn't want these coverages so I don't want to pay for these coverages." That conversation can be had yearly as life changes, as your home ownership changes. It's important to know those things.
Darin Persinger: I'm wrapping this up a little bit and you tell me if I'm wrong with this. I've worked with a lot of business owners and I see business owners do this, where they'll step over dollars to to pick up dimes. I think sometimes as consumers we get focused too much on trying to save money where it ends up costing us money and that's kind of what the review you need to be looking at. Sure you might be saving a little bit now but is it going to end up costing you later in the future.
Aaron Boren: Sure, absolutely. That's the whole concept is how much protection do you want, how much insurance do you want and how much piece of mind do you want. The truth is you don't know what you don't know and we understand that sometimes during buying a home, during all that process, sometimes isn't the best time to come sit down with an insurance agent because you're dealing with so many other things. Sometimes it is like next year or 6 months later or a month later. Go move in, get settled then call us but you do need to know what your homeowners insurance policy does and does not do, and that's where the agent or a local agent like me can help do that.
Darin Persinger: All right, so if the people watching have a specific question on reviews, premiums, deductibles how do they get in touch with you? What's the best way to get in touch with you?
Aaron Boren: Sure, there's 2 ways. If you want to go to my website aaronborenagency.com there's a whole product library. It's literally pages and pages and pages if you want to do some self-study or some online research. We've put everything there for you to go watch the videos and do the homework on your own. If you want to get in touch with me there's a link on there that you can just say contact the agent. There's a link that says get a quote now or you can just give our office a call and any one of our staff are licensed and can answer any questions you may have. Again, I don't require that you're a client for us to give you any advice so if you want someone to look over your policy and maybe you don't have an agent because you bought your policy online or whatever. Please call and we'll be happy to go over those coverages and break it down, and answer any questions you may have.
Darin Persinger: Excellent, a great way to save money and save yourself some piece of mind is just review your insurance policy and talk to someone like Aaron. Thanks for joining us Aaron.
Aaron Boren: Yeah, thank you.'m wrapping this up a little bit and you tell me if I'm wrong with this. I've worked with a lot of business owners and I see business owners do this, where they'll step over dollars to to pick up dimes. I think sometimes as consumers we get focused too much on trying to save money where it ends up costing us money and that's kind of what the review you need to be looking at. Sure you might be saving a little bit now but is it going to end up costing you later in the future.
Aaron Boren: Sure, absolutely. That's the whole concept is how much protection do you want, how much insurance do you want and how much piece of mind do you want. The truth is you don't know what you don't know and we understand that sometimes during buying a home, during all that process, sometimes isn't the best time to come sit down with an insurance agent because you're dealing with so many other things. Sometimes it is like next year or 6 months later or a month later. Go move in, get settled then call us but you do need to know what your homeowners insurance policy does and does not do, and that's where the agent or a local agent like me can help do that.
Darin Persinger: All right, so if the people watching have a specific question on reviews, premiums, deductibles how do they get in touch with you? What's the best way to get in touch with you?
Aaron Boren: Sure, there's 2 ways. If you want to go to my website aaronborenagency.com there's a whole product library. It's literally pages and pages and pages if you want to do some self-study or some online research. We've put everything there for you to go watch the videos and do the homework on your own. If you want to get in touch with me there's a link on there that you can just say contact the agent. There's a link that says get a quote now or you can just give our office a call and any one of our staff are licensed and can answer any questions you may have. Again, I don't require that you're a client for us to give you any advice so if you want someone to look over your policy and maybe you don't have an agent because you bought your policy online or whatever. Please call and we'll be happy to go over those coverages and break it down, and answer any questions you may have.
Darin Persinger: Excellent, a great way to save money and save yourself some piece of mind is just review your insurance policy and talk to someone like Aaron. Thanks for joining us Aaron.
Aaron Boren: Yeah, thank you.
