price – Susman

September 15, 2013

Bad Driving Practices That Will Give Your Insurance Agent A Heart Attack

I love my career. As an insurance agent in California, I get to work with many different people. Some people prefer to work in person and are very diligent at bringing the necessary paperwork. We develop close relationships and I enjoy getting to know them and their families. I also have clients who want to keep up with all the latest technologies and are full of joy to learn our office provides paperless documents. Here are stories about two of my favorite clients, Sheryl and Mike.

The Best Coffee in Los Angeles

While driving down the interstate to discuss reevaluating her family’s finances and insurance policies with me, my client Sheryl gives me a call. She was already in route and wanted to verify I was in the office. Now Sheryl is a very prompt individual. She is highly organized. Sheryl is one of my most valued clients because she believes in following everything to the letter. She has never been involved in an accident, has an excellent college and retirement plan, and takes ample insurance coverage. All of her insurance paperwork and pictures are filed electronically and updated whenever she makes new purchases. She is also a very frugal individual.

So it alarmed me a bit as she called, but she assured me she was wearing her seatbelt and using her Bluetooth which was hooked up in her truck. She told me she was passing a new coffee shop that opened and heard it was the best in Los Angeles. After I said, I’d like a cup, all I could hear was a skidding noise and horns honking. I asked Sheryl what was going on, she replied that she had to cut across the highway because this cup of coffee could probably save her on her premiums and she couldn’t afford to be late for our appointment, nor pay another toll.

Going Green to Go Red

So, my client Mike is a conservative and laid back fellow. He’s likes to treat himself well and have a good time. I was surprised to hear from Mike not long ago as he told me he was in a new relationship and believed he was falling in love. Mike really wanted to impress his new girlfriend as she was an environmentalist and always talked about green efforts.

So, without ado, Mike enrolled in the Beverly Hills Library and started taking a few computer courses to brush up on his skills. He figured he would start by recycling efforts at home and trying to reduce paper waste. He’d heard a lot of his friends were going paperless with their bills and paying them online, so he wanted to verify my office did the same. I told Mike we sure do and he can even print his insurance cards and we would not need to mail them. Mike was ecstatic. So I helped walk him through everything online and he was ready to go.

One afternoon, I get a call from Mike. Mike had received a ticket the night before. I asked him what had happened and he replied he was on his way to the airport to make a business meeting. He was running behind and speeding. However, he didn’t want to take a chance on being pulled over without his insurance card and left the one I walked him through printing online at home. Mike got pulled over for speeding and pulling his insurance card up online at the same time. Mike talked the officer out of the ticket for not having his insurance card as he h anded the laptop to the officer and told him he was holding his paperless version. However, Mike did get the speeding ticket.

September 9, 2013

So Not True

You know it can be easy to pigeonhole people. People tend to stereotype other people, it is a natural tendency. This is not something that humans like to admit about themselves, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. I used to have this impression of people in California, especially those people who lived in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. Movies, magazines, and TV commercials portrayed Californians as stuck up and unapproachable. How many people know that I should not have allowed the media to influence my impression on anything?

Well, here I am with this notion of all these stuck up people. I mean, who else but stuck up people could live in towns with names like Brentwood Hills and Pacific Palisades, except stuck up people. Needless to say, my first trip (as an adult) to Los Angeles was quite interesting. I got off the plane with an attitude. Who do these people think they are? In Texas, what we call uppity people really chap our hides. That means stuck up people draw our ire. So, I am in Los Angeles giving everybody, including the cab driver, attitude.

After a while of engaging people I realized, hey, these are some pretty cool and laid back people. Are there some people that are walking around believing that the world revolves around them? Yes, but there are narcissists in every geographical location. Here I am eyeballing and mean mugging (looking angry) everyone, with no cause. I learned a valuable lesson that day. I learned that everyone deserves a chance to express who they are as a person before someone develops an opinion about them. I can’t imagine what the people that I encountered on that day was thinking about me, but it could not have been too good.

There is one thing that the media was not off on when it comes to Los Angeles, and that is its shopping and fashion influence. You can spend a lot of money very fast in LA. I know that I have. You can buy clothes, jewelry, art and so much more. This is where we talk about insurance real quick. How many know that when you buy nice things there are people who are motivated to relieve you of those nice things without remuneration? With all of the multitudinous trips that I have take to California, I have had several occasions in which some rather expensive items came up missing out of my room. When I notified the hotel manager of the incident and the cost involved, he had me file a formal complaint and in a reasonable time, I was reimbursed for my loss. The thing is the hotel did not have to pay me out of their own pockets (yes, I know that the hotel does not have pockets, work with me here), but they filed a claim on my behalf with their insurance company. It is important to have insurance that can cover all of the contingencies in which you are at risk for loss.

As far as the person who took my property, shame on you. Every time that I am in Los Angeles, I think about looking you up. One day my friend, one day.

September 1, 2013

Paying too much for insurance? At least you’re not paying for these policies

For many California residents, the multiple forms of insurance are an inescapable cost of living. According to USA Today, the Golden State has the seventh-highest annual car insurance rates ($1,819) in the country, and Covered California announced this past May that the average cost of a st andard health insurance plan on the state’s health insurance exchange will be between $3,648 and $3,852 a year. That doesn’t even include the monthly costs of life insurance and homeowners or renters insurance.

If it feels like you’re spending too much on insurance, one way to look at things is that at least you don’t have to pay the premiums that many celebrities have shelled out to protect some of their prized assets. “It’s Not Unusual” singer Tom Jones saw nothing unusual in taking out a $7 million insurance policy on his chest hair, rock b and Kiss bassist Gene Simmons once had his famous tongue insured for $1 million and singer-songwriter Dolly Parton has $300,000 insurance policy on each of her, well, you get the idea.

Even if you are not the owner of a world famous body part, you might feel better about not shelling out the additional chunk of change for these five rather unusual policies that others have paid for:

Alien Abduction insurance — A woman in the Southern California city of Santee garnered some attention in May when she photographed what appeared to be a UFO hovering behind a historical barn, but is that enough to compel people to seek a policy in the event they encounter extra-terrestrials? The United Kingdom’s Telegraph reported that more than 37,000 people have actually bought such policies, with one of the most famous purchasers being actress Shirley MacLaine.
Supernatural attacks — Whether you’ve read “Twilight” one too many times or have been regularly viewing “The Walking Dead,” British insurance giant Lloyd’s of London does actually offer policies for those who are concerned about vampire, zombie or werewolf attacks.
Asteroid/Meteor insurance — Los Angeles residents reported seeing the bright light of a meteor streak across the Southern California sky this past February. While this might seem like a more plausible policy to take out than some of the others listed here, an object from outer space that l ands on your home would usually be classified just the same as common falling objects here on Earth, like trees. So chances are good that your home is already insured for this type of disaster.
Immaculate Conception insurance — One British company provided a policy for women seeking insurance in the event that they suddenly found themselves pregnant with the son of God. BBC News reported in 2006 that three sisters had been renewing the policy since 2000 before the company canceled it because of complaints.
Improbable insurance — If you are a couple preparing for the birth of your first child, this type of insurance can help with additional costs in the event that the mother has twins, triplets or even more than what you were expecting. In one case, an insured couple actually collected on the policy when the mother gave birth to twins—twice.

Bad Driving Practices That Will Give Your Insurance Agent A Heart Attack

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