Real Estate with Renee Featuring Responsive Insurance Inc

Good morning, Matt.

Good morning, Renee.

And good morning, Southwest Florida. We are going to start the week off right because today we are going to talk about everybody's favorite topic in the whole world, right, Matt?

Insurance.

If that doesn't get you pumped up on a Monday morning, right? I'm sorry, you might as well just pack it in for the week. That's true.

Well, I'm sorry, I said I'm excited.

I am too, sincerely. Um, well, listen, Renee Hahn, I'm with William Ravis Real Estate, and I put together these Connections segments as a way— actually, at the beginning of COVID as a way to connect people because so many businesses were homebound and it was changing the way they've done things. We're now into more of a steady state, so that need has subsided a little bit. And so I've selfishly hijacked my own segment to start showcasing businesses that work specifically in the industry I'm in, and that's around homeownership. And so I'm really excited today to have Matt. I, in a real estate capacity, I get to work with a lot of different people, a lot of different companies, and over time, as I'm finding, I become the recommender and referral from everything from insurance to— I get calls about where should somebody make a reservation for a Sunday brunch to who does hair. It's really caused me to think broadly about my network. But where I'm going with this is I'm in the business of connecting people as they're coming into the area, purchasing homes on the buyer side, and they're often looking for recommendations. And it's always been a, an interesting place to be as an agent because I just, I hope to goodness that the people I recommend do as good of a job as I know they are capable of. And, and sometimes that's spot on and, and other times not so much. But I will tell this audience that when I give recommendations, I always recommend multiple parties. I never want to just give somebody one person and say, here, this is your person, because I believe they should have a choice. But I guide them. I put some rails on, on some people I've had good experiences with. And Matt has been on my list from the very beginning as one of my insurance recommendations. He happens to insure my home, so I obviously, uh, you know, he's my broker. I entrust my own home with him. And I think, Matt, without fail, I would probably quote 98 to 99% of the people I recommend you— recommend you to on the list always go with you. Truly, of all my recommendations, I think you get chosen the most out of any category.

Cool. Well, I, I appreciate the referrals, and that's definitely an honor to be able to help that many of your clients. So thanks.

Well, now I've set the bar though, Matt. Let's be clear, I know that's the bar. I told everybody how incredibly awesome you are at what you do. Let's not disappoint today, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Well, great. Well, Matt Nance is from Responsive Insurance, and I'm going to ask him first before we get into the topic of insurance. Matt, share a little bit about yourself with the audience, please.

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, as Renee said, Matt and Nance, my agency is Responsive Insurance. I'm actually originally from the Midwest. I grew up in Indiana, moved around a little bit, and ended up landing in Florida in 2006. I've been down here since then. Originally, I came down to work for an Allstate agent, made a connection there as a family friend, had never really worked in insurance before, had a background in marketing in college. And, um, just got started in the industry with him. Um, that agent's name is Steve Rowe. He's kind of a mentor to me, still in the business. Um, learned a lot from him and then was there about 6 years. Uh, in 2013, um, started Responsive Insurance. A little bit about me personally, um, I met my wife Casey down here in Naples. She's originally from Sarasota. Uh, we live in North Naples, uh, in the Victoria Park area. We love our neighborhood. We love this part of Naples. We have two daughters, Maria and Morelli, 13 and 9. We actually adopted them, coming up on 3 years tomorrow, in 2017. So they've been a huge blessing to our life, add a ton of joy to our life. They're at an age where we're just having a blast. They're both doing well in school and just enjoying all that that has. We're excited because we're planning a big trip this summer to to try to take a month and do a road trip before Maria goes to high school. So that's a little bit about me personally. Professionally, I'm a member of BNI Networking Group for about 13 years now, which also, as Renee says, helps build that, that network and that support structure for vendors and other businesses that I can share with my clients with and refer to. I've served on a small role in our HOA here on the board and also within my congregation here locally, but At this point, it's just focusing on the family and, uh, and business. So yeah, thank you.

Well, and Matt has a beautiful family. Completely coincidental, but his wife works at the dental office I go to, and she works on my husband's teeth. I happen to have landed with someone else, not by, by choice, by, by assignment, but very talented family and beautiful family. So thank you for sharing that with us, Matt. What I thought, I, I, when, when Matt and I were chatting before we went live, I said, you know, insurance insurance is one of those areas we all touch it, we all think we know a little bit about it, but we really don't. And most of us have been homeowners for a very long time, so we carry insurance. Hopefully we carry insurance. But I thought what might be nice to start is just when we have people that are, you know, purchasing a home, maybe they're— they've been here and they're purchasing a new one, or perhaps they're coming from outside the area, which is even more involved because we have some insurance considerations that are unique to Florida and Southwest Florida. But Matt, what are some of the most, you know, how can owners be thoughtful in their decision and making it upfront insurance decisions? Any pointers you could share?

Absolutely. Yeah, there's a few. I think I like to use this quote and it's credited to Einstein. I think it's super applicable to our industry. I don't know, I suppose to your industry as well. I don't know if he actually said it, but it's still relevant. And the quote is, "Everything should be as simple as possible, but not more simple." And the reason I like that for our industry is there's a lot of pressure and emphasis on making things easy, which I'm certainly a proponent of, and we want to make things as easy as possible for our clients. Unfortunately, certain things don't work, um, to— you, you can oversimplify certain things. And I think that home insurance in Florida is definitely one of those things that can be oversimplified. A lot of times people are buying a property, they're in a time crunch to get the documents to the lender, they need to get closed, they just— it's another box to check. Hey, here's my credit card, let's get this wrapped up. And we certainly want to move quickly. I want to reemphasize that, and we do move efficiently and quickly to get those documents in order for the closing. I think sometimes in that process, the importance of making decisions about your actual coverage can be lost. And I would challenge anyone to think through how many things in their lives do they actually buy the cheapest possible scenario that they can purchase, whether it's their home or their automobile, their clothes, their shoes. I mean, literally down to toilet paper. Most people do not choose the cheapest option, um, for those products. And yet when it comes to insurance, partly because we do a poor job marketing it as an industry, and we tell you the most important thing about your insurance is how little you pay for it, Um, that's the decision process that most people go through is, hey, I want something that's less premium. And I understand starting there, and we always advocate for value, but I just think that some things can be lost when you put too much focus on that. Because the reality is there are few things that you will make a decision about that can potentially impact your life as much as a bad insurance decision. So that would be one of the things that I would point out. Um, Another one would be kind of in the vein of slowing down just a bit as well, is finding an independent agency, whether it's us or somebody else that you trust, that you can make yourself take a moment and ask them the questions that you want to understand. And even ask them, what am— what questions am I not asking? What else should I be looking for? Because oftentimes we don't know what we don't know, especially when you're coming from another state to Florida and the nuances of Florida coverage. And we always tell people that we have options and we're happy to share those options with them. But a critical part of that process in our mind is to make sure that the client understands how those decisions affect their coverage. Yes, it affects the premium up or down, but it also affects the coverage. And we don't want people to have surprises at claim time. And if I had a critique, one of the critiques I would say I have for our industry here is that that process is oversimplified and the coverage is not explained very well, and the consumer doesn't know what to ask. And so that gets lost in the process.

So a lot of, a lot of people learned that, Matt, after Hurricane Irma, when they for the first time perhaps ever had to call upon their insurance to see how they were going to deal with whatever damage happened to the home. And I'm sure people got educated on what their insurance was. Um, you know, we talk about— in my world of real estate, there's really two particular types of services that get brought in that I find people don't know how to compare apples to apples. So one is mortgages, right? Because people will look at an interest rate and try to make a decision without looking at fees, all those other things, right? And insurance is the other one. They look at what my insurance costs are, but are they looking at deductibles? Are they looking at what it covers? Are they, you know, all of those things, those two very similar. And I find, unfortunately, until people need it, they don't spend near enough time asking those questions to understand and be able to level load and look at what you're really paying for and not just going off of a monthly quote of what somebody says their annual, you know, an annual quote of what their insurance would be. What are some of those things? I'll call them mistakes. We'll call them learnings, whatever we want. But having gone through a big round, I'm sure with Irma, and there's, and there's others too, right? We talk about hurricanes down here, but it could be a fire, it could be theft, it could be anything. What were some of the, you know, the more common mistakes you see people make around insurance selection and, uh, and purchase?

Yep, so there's a couple things I would say. One of those is exactly like you said, understanding your coverage before there's a claim. And that doesn't mean you have to be extremely well-versed and be able to cite policy language from memory. I mean, the reality is it's an industry that you never learn everything about, and that's one of the things I like about it. But you can get a solid understanding. You can flip through, and I would encourage people to flip through their policy. There's more logic there than they might realize. You know, oftentimes I'll see proposals that don't have things like screen enclosure coverage, and that's a very common claim type when there's a hurricane. And again, if you're coming from another state, that's not something you typically would have had to deal with or think through. So that would be one potentially that I would see that is presented and sometimes not discussed. And there have been people who have had losses and realized that there's no coverage for their screen enclosure for hurricane damage. Another one, although, uh, is a, is in regard to hurricane deductible. Even though the hurricane deductible, uh, in Florida is specific to named hurricanes, typically on most homeowners policies, and it's often 2%, it was a very common deductible, not thinking through what that actually means is something that a lot of people, I think, had to come to terms with after Irma. So Even someone who has the reserves may have thought, oh, we haven't had a hurricane in a while and 2% is common, which it is. But you need to talk through that with the agent. You need to think through where those reserves are going to come from, because if you have a home that's insured for $500,000, you have a 2% hurricane deductible. You're talking $10,000 out of pocket for the deductible, and maybe you could have reduced that to $2,500 for a couple hundred dollars a year. You may decide that that's worth it economically or it's not, but it's something that you need to consider, um, because you can't change it after the fact. So that would be another one. Um, and one finally that I think is still to be determined how important it's going to be is, um, we talk about this in our newsletter and we are in what some people would call right now a crisis in Florida with home insurance, with some of the claims abuse and the amount of claims and the cost of claims. And there's some discussion of some companies potentially going into receivership or out of business, and some speculate that could happen for a few more throughout the next year. So one of the things you want to think about is what's the reputation of the company, what's the claims paying experience from the agent, what insight can the agent tell you about the company, because sometimes those intangibles can be worth some premium difference as well.

So Well, that's huge. And we, and we all did experience with the magnitude of claims that were put in following Irma, most insurance premiums went up pretty significantly this year. So I always tell people, and all this will remain unnamed, but there's a couple roof companies, and I've actually worked with one of them, that I have read the Riot Act to, because these companies go out and it's one thing to replace a roof that needs to, but boy, what they charge. And it's because they can. It's just insane. But that's a topic for another day. I've not been shy with those roofing companies about how god-awful I think their practices are. But that'll be segment 2. One of the things, Matt, that I also tend to see potentially happen, and maybe you don't see it as much, maybe it's a perception on mine, but we went through it recently. We took our Lanai, and we went through a significant extension, and I had to— my husband and I had to remember, oh, you know what, we need to call Matt about this because there's a value change here, and we need to make sure as we've changed things about our, our property that we're insurance-insuring that we notate that in the insurance process. Because otherwise, if you forget to modify your insurance if it's necessary and then something happens you may find that there are things that aren't insured appropriately about your home. Matt, do you see much of that where people make improvements to homes and forget to adjust their insurance?

Yeah, absolutely. And that's a great segue to, you know, the other side of kind of part B of your question about mistakes is in terms of updating, uh, your coverage when necessary and risk mitigation. So, um, Absolutely. If you add an addition or you add a screen enclosure where one didn't exist or increase the size of the screen enclosure, if you get a pet even, um, depending on if you had a dog, so say before you didn't but now you do, you want to think through animal liability. So, you know, I was just reading this morning, we have an automated email that goes out for renewals and it basically says in that email if you've had any change, we try to remind people If you've had any change in occupancy, if you have a new roof, your premium could reduce. Now, if you had a new roof after Irma with an updated wind inspection, if you've made improvements, all those things are important to think about. The reality is, as you say, people don't get excited about reading their insurance policy. So once they have it set, they put it in a file and it stays there until they have to investigate how the coverage applies to whatever claim they've had. So you're absolutely right. Updating those things is important. And I would say the other thing, some mistakes, common mistakes to be aware of and that people make is, um, you know, shutting off the water when you're going away. Some of the companies now will limit or exclude water damage if it's been unoccupied for 30 days or more or something similar. Um, you can also make sure you service your AC. It's amazing how many claims we get just because an AC line hasn't been cleaned. It backs up, it overflows the drain pan and causes damage— sometimes mold, sometimes extensive damage. So that's risk mitigation and a mistake. And another one that's common that people need to be aware of is theft of certain types of items. Two of the primary items that I think are relevant to folks are probably theft of jewelry, by far and away the most common, theft of firearms. Those types of things are limited in most home insurance policies. And for example, theft of jewelry can be limited to as little as $1,500 or $2,000 in most home insurance policies. This isn't just Florida. This is around the country. The home insurance policy typically limits theft of jewelry to a small amount. So if you have, you know, engagement rings or earrings or necklaces or a plethora of jewelry, you want to schedule those things so that they're covered for broader perils and they're covered at a higher sufficient limit. And that's another sometimes overlooked mistake that people can make.

So that's a good point because I can remember I don't have a ton of jewelry. I'm a simple woman, but But I do have a nice engagement ring. I have a nice tennis bracelet. And I remember thankfully that my husband was thoughtful enough to say, Renee, what we should probably get insurance on those. I wouldn't have thought about it. And in fact, it reminds me that I probably need to work with him on increasing the value of my jewelry collection with more as the holidays are coming up. So, Jenna.

Oh yeah.

Please, if you are out buying beautiful jewelry for the holidays for your significant other, make sure you have it insured because your normal homeowner's insurance may or may not include it. Well, one last thing I want to cover, Matt, before we wrap up this segment. People don't always understand the different types of entities they can engage with for insurance purposes. You know, we know Allstate, we know Progressive, But the whole broker concept, some people perhaps wrongfully assume with that extra layer, are they paying more for insurance if they come work with Matt Nance and Responsive Insurance as a broker? I've always happened to see the benefit because I know you shop my insurance around. But talk a little bit about that arrangement. Does it cost the consumer anymore? Does it not? What are some of the considerations when you're working with a broker?

Right, great question. Um, so I would say probably even a little more specific definition for what we do is an independent agency. Um, a brokerage would typically be like somebody that we would go to that would also have access to carriers and add an additional layer for certain types of specific or larger accounts or some commercial coverage. But as an independent agency, what that basically means is that clients have choice. They're— we're not beholden to any one particular company. The, the The alternative to that is what's considered a captive agency, where in some cases the only product they have to offer is the proprietary product. Now, in regard to the question about does it cost more in the homeowner space, it does not. In 95% of cases, it does not. The premium is the premium. There's a distribution cost that the carrier builds in as an assumed cost. I will tell you full transparency, some of the companies that also offer direct coverage, like Progressive for example, We write with Progressive for auto. They also post on their website and on their commercials, prices vary based on how you buy. I don't know how much, if it would be significant, that can vary on the auto side. Um, I suspect that Progressive knows that some clients prefer to deal with agents and they want to capture them too, and they certainly see agents as an important part of their process. So the majority of the time, and especially in homeowners insurance, it typically doesn't cost any, uh, more or less when you deal with an agent. Um, even across agents, the filed rate, which is very regulated with the state of Florida, is the, is the same filed rate. So, um, oftentimes we'll get somebody saying, hey, I got this proposal with this company and it's less, it looks like it's the same. 99% of the time it's not the same if the premium is different. Um, so again, there's really no cost, there's no fee that an agent is typically adding. It's just a, a model of distribution for the company, and we get paid by the company to distribute their product.

So makes sense. It happens in many industries, so that's very helpful. I just think it's— I think there's people automatically assume things when they see, um, somebody working across multiple vendors that somehow there it's going to cost them more. So I wanted to get that that elephant out of the room right away. Well, Matt, anything that you think is important for those that are watching us live, or perhaps watching us on replay later, that you'd like to share about the world of insurance in Southwest Florida?

Yeah, I would just say in summation, just very, very briefly, um, you know, we try to always at our agency, um, leave people with value. One of our goals is adding value, and In the absence of value, price is king. I like to say that a lot. If, if we can't help you as an industry, or our agency specifically, as a consumer see value, then insurance remains frustrating and it becomes, I don't really understand it, I didn't get an explanation, I'm just going to choose this one that looks like it's $200 less, or whatever the case may be. So I would just encourage people to find somebody you trust, work through that process. We'll let you know what differences there are, if there are, what our experience with the carrier is, and maybe help you see some things that you're not seeing. I just would caution people, and I understand this as a consumer, I ask my peers as well. A lot of times I'll hear people say, well, my neighbor doesn't buy flood insurance, so I'm not going to buy flood insurance, as if their neighbor is some expert on like, uh, the effects of tidal surge during hurricanes. And so we want to, we want to feel a part of the overall decision. We want to make sense of the decisions we make and reinforce those. But I would just say, you know, make sure that you're talking to people who can help you actually understand the realities. There's a lot of misconceptions about insurance. So that's what I'd say on the insurance piece. And really quickly, Renee, if I can pivot and say thank you for having me on. I very much appreciate it. I will say that your background in marketing is obvious, and I think I've mentioned this to Casey, um, my wife, over the years, that you have carved out a space very rapidly in this market, in your industry. And I honestly think the only way you can do that in such a way is to deliver and add value. So obviously you're doing that, and thanks for having me on.

My pleasure, my pleasure. And one of the things, as we were talking about the insurance space and all of that, I would strongly encourage people— when I talk about, you know, different points along the purchase continuum of when I introduce vendor recommendations, I think my insurance recommendations happen in like one of the first couple correspondences I have with buyers, because a partnership with someone like Matt or whomever you've chosen insurance agency and provider are allows you to make educated decisions even on the buying side. You know, I don't know that everybody engages that early, but I give them the opportunity to do that because it can be so helpful to understand your full ownership cost as you're going into these decisions. Because so often when I first come into contact with people and I talk about budget, the only thing they tell me is what the home purchase price is they can afford. And we all know that the cost of ownership is so much more with taxes, insurance, associations. And so having someone like Matt and his team be able to connect in early during that process when we're out looking at homes, you know, and, and whether it's the question of, oh my gosh, my, you know, my buyers are thinking about this concrete home or this, um, wood frame home, is there a difference in insurance in those? Or This home on the flood map that we have access to, which may be very outdated, says this. What is it in more current insurance terms? And all of those things are really intended to help, um, educate people and then engage in the right insurance policy when it's time to make that purchase. So I'd encourage you guys to think about that if you're not already a little bit earlier in the process of thinking who your insurance partner is, just like you thought through who your real estate partner was going to be, so that you are equipped with the best knowledge to make the wisest decision for yourself. So Matt, I so appreciate your time. I know that your growth, speaking of growth, has been insanely good, which is also an indication that you're doing a good job both on the front end and the back end of servicing your clients. So thank you for carving time out of your day and joining us. I've found it to be a very helpful segment, and I hope again, those that are watching live or on replay, take the time and grab a couple nuggets from this discussion. So enjoy the rest of your week, have a wonderful time going into the holidays, and everyone be safe.

Thanks everyone.

Thank you, Matt.