With the pandemic overtaking us, many of us are taking our financial planning more seriously. Who would have thought a virus could destroy what we/ve saved and planned for?
ValChoice has some important financial planning tips, including what I learned the hard way. It’s the totally unexpected event that throws our life off track. For me it was getting hit by a car. For others, it may be a pandemic. One of the most important items for recovering is having good insurance. We’re not talking as much about the policy as we are about the company. While we don’t recommend this, policy language can be fought in expensive court battles. However, management with a culture of helping policyholders can’t be created by policyholders. Either companies have this, or they don’t At ValChoice, we help consumers find the companies that really care about you.
Find out the best home and auto insurance companies in your state by clicking the buttons below. We are naming the five best companies in every state.
We Make Financial Planning Easy
When starting a financial planning process, begin by “following the money.” What we mean by this is to start by looking at your biggest expenses. For most families those expenses are something like the following:
- Housing
- Automobiles
- Food
- Insurance (if you buy individual health insurance it’s likely you pay more for insurance than for food and automobiles)
If you own your home you probably already refinanced to a low interest rate. Therefore, unless you’re ready to downsize, there may not be much savings to be had in your housing costs. Automobiles are similar. Unless you drive exotic cars, there probably isn’t you can do to save money on automobiles. Even if you park the car and start taking public transportation, that still costs money. However, if you work in a city and spend a lot on parking, saving money on commuting and parking may be a good option.
Then there’s food. The options here are poor at best. You can’t stop eating. While you’re trying the save money, the doctor says to eat a healthier diet. That means more expensive food. Cutting out junk food can be a good savings. But even the healthiest people crave that occasional salty, high carb snack. Good luck cutting the food budget, unless you move to the country and become a farmer.
That leads us to insurance. This is a real opportunity for many people.
The Low Hanging Fruit
Two-thirds of Americans rarely shop their insurance. If you’re one of those, odds are, you’re paying too much. Shopping your insurance satisfies your financial planning needs in two ways:
- Save money
- Get better insurance
Yes, with insurance, saving money comes in two forms. First, a lower cost at the time you make the purchase. Even more important, better protection when something happens and you need to file a claim. The upfront cost is important. However, for anyone that files a claim, better protection is even more important.
If you haven’t shopped your insurance in a few years, you can probably save money by shopping now. Unlike other industries that reward loyal customers, the insurance industry doesn’t operate that way. Instead, much of the insurance industry raises prices faster on their loyal customers. Insurance companies know that you don’t like thinking about insurance and shopping for insurance. Therefore, if you’re a person not inclined to shop around, your price goes up faster than it does for others.
Start Your Financial Planning with Insurance Shopping
Set two insurance related goals for your financial planning process this year.
- Goal 1: Save money.
- Goal 2: Get better insurance.
Achieving both of these goals is surprisingly easy to do. Here’s how.
Three Steps to Saving Money and Getting Better Insurance
Step one
Throw out the notion that you know your insurance company. You may have been with the same company for decades. Your parents may have even bought insurance from the same company before that. None of this means you know anything about your insurance company. This is because most people rarely file claims. Therefore, if you haven’t filed a major claim, you have no way of knowing how the company will perform when you do.
That’s all changed. With transparency, you can now know exactly how a company performs relative to other companies. Transparency is new to insurance. In fact, transparency is so new that many insurance companies haven’t even analyzed how they compare with their competition. Now you can know this important information, for free.
Step Two
Get a Compare Insurance Companies Report from ValChoice. You need the comparison report for the following reasons:
- You need to know how your company compares to others
- The comparison report gives you the name of three excellent companies so you know from whom to get quotes
To get a comparison report, just click the button below.
Step Three
If your insurance company was graded as highly as the three companies presented by ValChoice, your decision is easy. You’re with a great company. As long as the price is fair, stay where you are. To determine if the price is fair, you don’t even need to talk to anyone. Instead, use our calculators.
If your insurance company scored lower than the three companies presented by ValChoice, you need to get price quotes from each company. If the other companies offer better protection at a better price, that’s easy. This is the perfect opportunity to satisfy your financial planning goals of both saving money and getting better protection.
However, if the other companies score higher and charge a higher price, the decision becomes a little more difficult. Now you need to decide if you’re looking for the short term savings or the long term protection.
Why is transparency in insurance new?
There are a few reasons transparency in insurance is new. First, consumers haven’t had the ability to demand transparency. Because consumers are mandated to buy insurance, what choice did they have? Second, the multiple billions of dollars spent on advertising by insurance companies leads many consumers to trust these companies. Instead, consumers should be asking why these companies don’t allocate these billions of dollars to providing better protection for their customers? Third, how companies behave is largely hidden from consumers.
Lawsuits are frequently settled in arbitration or mediation with a confidentiality agreement that prevents reprehensible behavior from becoming public. Market conduct studies are considered confidential information. Until now, these multi-billion dollar companies have had the ability to operate within a shroud of secrecy, without the public being able to know the information they need to know in order to best protect their family and their finances.
What You Need to do Next
Do you think you’re well insured? How would you know? Have you ever filed a large claim? Most people haven’t. We find that many insurance companies are living off the brand name they established decades, even generations ago. Many of these companies have since gotten new Management and likely no longer perform anything like they did when earning a reputation.
Find out how good your insurance company is. The information is free. Just click the buttons below.
Note: ValChoice does not receive any form of compensation from insurance companies for presenting them as a good option in our car and home insurance reports.
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