Anthony Sce III is an insurance expert with more than 20 years of experience in the business. He is the CEO and president of Executive Insurance & Financial Services in Bohemia, New York, and works with all types of clients to help them meet their insurance needs. In this piece, Sce tells us the biggest misconceptions people have about auto insurance.
A lot of people have the wrong idea about automobile insurance and what they need in order to be properly covered. The biggest myth that I see people having is just this belief that driving around with the minimum amount of liability coverage is going to be enough to protect them in the event of an accident.
Another popular myth or misconception — and I love it when people tell me this — is the idea that everyone has full coverage insurance. When I ask people what type of coverage they have, the immediate response I get from everyone is almost always, “I have full coverage.” Unfortunately, most people don’t even know what this means.
I learned early in my career that what people perceive the term “full coverage” to mean is that they have the legally required amount of coverage on their vehicle. They may have the minimum liability requirement in New York State, which is $25,000 per person and $50,0000 per accident, and then on top of that they have comprehensive and collision insurance for the physical damage. Oftentimes people only have this comprehensive and collision coverage because they bought a new car and they have a loan on the car and it is required to get the loan. So they feel that they have full coverage, just because they are meeting the minimum requirements with their auto loan lender.
The problem is they are really just protecting their lien holder if the car should be stolen or wrecked in an accident. But they still are not protecting their own personal assets if they should be involved in a car accident and hurt someone else. For example, someone who owns a home, has a good job, and brings home a good paycheck should not be driving around with minimum limits of liability — that is basic. Because if something should happen, and this person were to hurt someone with his car, then the recourse that I’m sure the victim’s attorney would take would be to garnish the person’s salary and seize the equity of his home.
If you are dealing with a reputable insurance advisor, then he should be asking you how much you need to protect, and determining how high your liability should be on the policy you select, based on your current assets. I don’t expect my clients to know what they need. That is my expertise, so as a consumer or an everyday person, an agent shouldn’t expect you to be the expert in the situation.
When you sit down in front of a good, qualified agent, he should be asking a lot of questions in order to properly protect you and determine what you need. And then after you have that all that information — again, if you are dealing with an independent agent — then he should be giving you different quotes from different carriers.
If nothing else, watching out for this is a good way to make sure that the professional you are talking to is doing a good job for you. If he’s not, then I recommend finding a more qualified agent to handle your auto insurance needs.
