How To Deal With Drastic Insurance Rate Increases in 2024
EPISODE 7
The insurance industry is getting turned upside down, and you may have noticed your rates already drastically increasing. This conversation between Manna Insurance Group’s Daniel Vander Kooi and Kyle Boon uncovers what's happening behind the scenes and what you can do to minimize its impact on you, your family, and your business.
In This Episode:
The Current Landscape of Personal Insurance
Rate Increases and Why They’re Happening
The Harsh Realities From Insurance Carriers
How Manna Will Serve You with Joy in All Circumstances
What To Do About Insurance Rate Increases
Practical Tips for Managing Insurance Costs
Podcast Episode Transcription
Intro:
Welcome to the (un)covered Podcast, brought to you by Manna Insurance Group, where we pull back the curtain on the insurance industry and provide valuable insights, guidance, and truth so that you can make informed decisions when choosing the right insurance.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Hey everybody. Welcome to the (un)covered podcast. This edition is with Kyle Boon, one of our agents at Manna. Kyle, thanks for joining us today.
Kyle Boon:
Thanks for having me.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Yeah. A few years back, we tried a podcast. You were the very first person we had on here. We talked a lot about leadership.
Kyle Boon:
It was an honor. Appreciate that.
Dan Vander Kooi:
We're trying to up the game a little bit and trying to bring things back around. And the name of our podcast is The (un)covered Podcast, and the whole purpose of it is kind of peeling back the curtain on the insurance industry a little bit. And last week, I released a video that I had recorded and we sent it out to all our clients and put it on social media about just what's going on in the insurance industry. And I'll be really honest, it's something that no one's ever really seen. And we have Nancy Johnson in our office here who's been doing this for I think 38 years, and she's never seen anything like it.
And so we thought today would be really good. You deal with a lot of different kinds of clients. You do a lot of personal insurance, home, auto insurance, commercial insurance, life insurance, but to really focus in on that personal insurance, the home insurance, the auto insurance, and just talk a little bit about what we're seeing out there, what you're experiencing with your clients working with carriers on both ends of things, because it's just something that rate increases aren't coming down the road. They're here, inflation is hitting the insurance market extremely, extremely hard. And companies just either, number one, aren't willing to write stuff anymore. Or number two, they're jacking people's rates. Kind of crazy, right?
Kyle Boon:
Yep, yep, that's exactly it.
Dan Vander Kooi:
So what have you seen? What are some situations that you're seeing right now and the conversations you're having with clients? Real estate, we were just talking right before we went on a real estate agent that called you saying, "Hey, what can I expect from my clients?" Why don't you kind of give a little bit of the lay of the land, and I'll jump in a little bit too, because I think the biggest thing we want to do is just really be transparent and honest with what's going on in the industry so people know what to expect.
Kyle Boon:
Yeah. No, thank you. Thanks for that kind of introduction I suppose. Yeah, it's been probably 80% of my work week has been spent having this conversation over the last three weeks. So it's a big time-consuming thing that we're dealing with because you're exactly right. Not only are rates increasing, I'd say on the low side, 40% for most people on home, on auto, high end, I had a client's home policy last week get him on the phone and his home premium increased 117%.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Was there a claim involved in that?
Kyle Boon:
There was just no claim, no nothing. Just rate increases. So it's just really frustrating. And so it's tough on me and like you said, we want to be honest, we want to do our job with integrity. That's kind of what sets us apart honestly from a lot of insurance, the reputation that insurance has out there. And I think we've been doing a really good job. But yeah, it is tough being the middleman sometimes when things like this happen because the easy thing to do would be blame your insurance guy. So I've had a lot of candid conversations with clients saying some colorful language sometimes, but they're more frustrated at the situation where it's like, "Hey, I did nothing wrong. I didn't cause any accidents. I didn't make any claims on my home policy, and yet here I am paying 70% more on my insurance annually this coming renewal."
And so it's tough to have those conversations with people, but like you said, we're honest about it. And doing something like this is really a win to get word out there because information has to get out there. And I like to make that call first to my client and let them know what's going to happen before they receive a piece of mail in the paper and go, "Whoa, what is this about?" So good on you for making this happen.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Well, and I think too, the other thing that I always want to be careful about is I don't want to necessarily call out any specific insurance carrier or things like that, but we can give you an idea what's going on. So probably one of the largest insurance companies in the country that if I were to say a few characteristics about them, people would be like, "I know what company they're talking about." They've completely pulled out of the state of Washington, they pulled out of California, they pulled out of Oregon, they're pulling out of states all across the country at this point, commercial and personal insurance. And this is a company we did a lot of business with for a long time, and they were really good. They took care of their clients, they paid claims well, they didn't nickel and dime people and they're just like, "Hey, we're out. We're losing too much money between inflation, what it costs to fix vehicles with the technology in it, and then also just what litigation costs right now."
I mean, it is crazy, the added costs. And if you look at things and you kind of say, "Well, why is a vehicle so stinking expensive to fix now?" Well, my wife got rear-ended and we have a suburban, and there's sensors in the back bumper of that suburban. There's a camera, a backup camera that's tied to that. So what used to cost 750 bucks, 1,000 bucks maybe when I was in high school and in my twenties to fix is now five grand. And there's a labor strike. So there was a labor strike during that period of time. So we were in a rental at $100 a day for a suburban for three months. And so these things just continue to add up. And so you look at that and all of a sudden that's paid out. One of the largest carriers across the board ran 119% loss ratio last year. So that means on all their premiums they paid, they paid out 19% more than they took in. And when you start adding all those zeros behind how large those companies are, they're losing money right and left.
Kyle Boon:
And that same company, the two previous years were 98% and 96%.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Correct. And so it's one of those things where I'm not trying to get people to feel bad for the insurance carriers or us, it's just the reality of it. You have to be profitable. The other thing that comes into play is sometimes the insurance commissioner will only let carriers take a certain amount of rate increases throughout the year. And so what's happening is they've maybe filed to take a certain percentage so they could stay profitable over time, but they were only approved for a lower amount. So as soon as they can take more, they're taking that where there could be multiple increases throughout the calendar year, but if someone signed up right before that, they could get hit with two or three different increases by the time their renewal comes around.
Kyle Boon:
And these companies can't take rate fast enough, the way it's going.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Not at this point.
Kyle Boon:
And then the fallback on that, if the commissioner doesn't approve what they need to be profitable, what's their reaction from underwriting is we're going to tighten up or we're completely out.
Dan Vander Kooi:
So I'm looking, I can look just past the camera here and look at my whiteboard. Two carriers have completely pulled out, said, "We will not write anything, no new business, and we're going to start getting off of renewals." I have another company that won't do any home insurance or dwelling fires, which is a landlord policy, so if you own a rental house. I have another company that basically said, "We won't do just standalone auto and if there's any tickets or violations or accidents in the last five years, we're not touching them. I have another one who's taken 80% rate increase. We have two more I'm looking at that they're writing everything, but under a super manual telescopic lens of trying to figure out, "Hey, this is what we're willing to look at, but it's going to cost you." And then I have two more companies, the roof has to be 15 years or newer. And then two other companies that the home has to be 25 years or new. So all of a sudden we used to have this box. People would walk in, we take all your information, we plug in our rater.
Kyle Boon:
10 years ago, we're talking here.
Dan Vander Kooi:
10 years ago, even five years ago. We plug it in our rater, we can spit out 15 different companies quotes on auto and home, and does it make sense to bundle it or crisscross them and do one carrier with this, one carrier with this? And now those companies won't even rate on our rater anymore. So for us to even get a quote, we have to manually go into each system that's willing to take it off the criteria and do that. So even our turnaround time is typically 24 to 48 hours. And now sometimes before we even hear back from underwriting, it can be two weeks sometimes. So what else am I missing? I feel like I'm just rambling. I came off of a meeting and I got an email about something else that I'm kind of hot coming into this podcast.
Kyle Boon:
No, I'm the same way.
Dan Vander Kooi:
But it's the reality of where we're at today, right?
Kyle Boon:
Yeah, no, I'm the same way. I finally got to the top of my inbox just before we started doing this, so I'm just kind of scrambling myself. But yeah, no, it is tough. With companies tightening up, it just makes our promise to provide an option so much smaller. And so as a company, we want to work with you and we want to do good business for you and find you the best rate out there. But it's kind of shrinking that box as well to be like, "Hey, here's the only thing we could find." I literally, I'm just kind of thinking of some scenarios that I've talked through the last few weeks, and I had one client call, he got a non-renewal notice from insurance from the home policy, and it was because the underwriter got an aerial image of their property and there was a loose pile of chopped wood in the yard.
And so I called him and I was like, "What's going on?" He's like, "That literally was just dropped off a month ago. I just haven't had a chance to stack it yet." And so it's like the companies are trying to find a way to get off a business and it's really frustrating. But yeah, I've got multiple scenarios of, I mean, I'll just kind of spitball a few here, but the saddest of them all is when a client calls and says, "Kyle, I literally can't pay this bill. I literally can't do it." So we got to get creative. And so we shop it out. And we're doing that anyways. Like even before clients ask, we're shopping out, we're ahead of it, where we want to be on it. But like you say-
Dan Vander Kooi:
Which is pretty cool. People call in and they get frustrated with different things, with the rate increases, things like that, not being able to find stuff. But I want to just take a minute, anyone working in personalized insurance, it doesn't matter what agency at right now, is they are swimming and they're trying to do a good job. And our team, Talysa, Nancy, Leslie, Lena on the phone, kudos to them. They are working hard and the conversations that we have behind the scenes is how can Manna get creative for our clients.
And not only our clients. I mean, last week we had over 60 call-ins. And not only do we get creative for our clients, but the people calling in that just want someone who's willing to take a look at it and have a conversation and serve them. And another agency that got purchased recently sent an email out to all their clients saying, "You need to call before you come in because we might not even be here." And so just the whole game of what insurance really is and how to serve people well, we want to continue to serve people well. The options might not be there, but there's still an opportunity for people to do business with us. Even if you just want to move your current stuff over to us, so you have someone that you can walk in the door, you can call and have a conversation, you can send an email, and we try to be really, really responsive on top of that, but.
Kyle Boon:
Yeah. And on top of those 60, I got 10 myself to my cell phone. And so it's just people are scrambling right now, and as they should. They should have the best deal out there. And that's what we promised them and that's what we're going to do. So yeah, it's not like we don't have any options. It's just really tighter.
Dan Vander Kooi:
And it takes longer.
Kyle Boon:
And it takes longer, yeah. Because yeah, that's a conversation I have with clients too, when it's like, "Hey, I just got my renewal. I see the rate is going up." And I said, "You know what? You're already on the list. I saw it yesterday, so you're on the list, but it might take three weeks to get back to you." And the problem with that is usually we're way out ahead of it, and I can make that call to them even before they see the paper.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Usually 45 days out at least.
Kyle Boon:
And I say, "Hey, good news, I can save you some money." Or maybe it's just, "Hey, looks like you took a little rate increase, but let's just stick with what you got because everyone else came back higher." So now the ball game's completely changed. And I like what you said in our staff meeting this week, it's like, it's kind of in the anticipation of we saw this coming and it's like, "Oh no, it's coming. It's coming. Let's get prepared for it." It's like, no, it's here.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Yeah, absolutely.
Kyle Boon:
We're here now. So now what do we do? And I do a lot of coaching with basketball and golf and a lot of the things that I talk about when I coach is control the things you can control. And right now, here we are, we're in the middle of it. Now what are we going to do? We're still going to serve with all of our heart. We're still going to treat people with honesty, respect. So that doesn't change. So all we can do is be honest with people about really what's happening out there and that we're working our hardest on it. And the girls downstairs have been putting in overtime just trying to keep up, but people don't see that. But at the same time, I think people know us well enough to know that we're doing those things.
Dan Vander Kooi:
We talk about control what you can control. So what are some practical things that we can actually do to help in this scenario? And there are lots of options. I mean, one last example I want to hit on is I got an email from an underwriter this morning with someone that they're looking at non-renewing. And I'm like, man, this person's got a bunch of policies with you, high credit score, all the things that you look at you're like, "Yes, that's what we want."
Kyle Boon:
An ideal client.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Yeah. And they're like, "No, they had a ticket a couple of years ago, had an at-fault accident eight years ago," and they can't use the eight years ago for rating purposes, but they can look back and say, "Is the account profitable overall for what's been?" And I'm just really, what are we getting to here? And so I think when you start to look at that now, is there's a lot of doom and gloom we can have. But one of the things that I love that Lena in our office does really, really well, she's a walking ray of sunshine.
Kyle Boon:
That's true.
Dan Vander Kooi:
She's awesome. And she does that little chalkboard outside our office. If you've ever been to our office and you walk in, there's a chalkboard there. And I think on it right now it just says "choose joy", which I think some of us need to hear sometimes. But with that is like, okay, choose joy. So how can we now think outside of the box and get creative with things? And the bottom line is if it's a smaller claim, and by smaller I mean five grand or less, or maybe even up to 10 grand depending on your situation, you have to be able to afford it. But we're not turning in claims because if we turn in that claim, you could see your rate double, triple, quadruple.
And so those are things that before you ever file anything, you need to call us. We want to be hands on through that process. Some people just give you an 800 number, but we want to be involved in that and help you walk through that decision making process. Before you call a claims number that is written on the back of your ID card, call us, let us work with you. Let us brainstorm on how this is going to affect you. We can't look into a magic ball and perfectly predict it, but there are trends in the industry that we can look at. We can say, "Okay, how are we going to attack this for this family? How are we going to attack it for this family?"
Kyle Boon:
And I have a couple examples of that if you don't mind. So yes, call us first, because I'll give two examples. One client called me and said, "Hey, my wife's ring fell out, her diamond fell out of her ring. Okay, what should I do? Should I make a claim?" I was like, "Well, we could. We absolutely could. The coverage is there, we've got you set up for that. However, if you make this claim that goes on your record and that's going to impact future rates." And the reason I gave him to consider was three years ago maybe I had a client prior to him being insured with us, he made two very small theft claims, small meaning couple thousand, something like that. So he had two claims on his record, and then he had some sort of water claim that actually needed to use some sort of catastrophic use, and that was a $50,000 claim. So now he has three claims on his record. Guess what? The insurance company does? You're out. And so now-
Dan Vander Kooi:
Which really quick, we all understand the reason you have insurance is to use it. We're in the same boat.
Kyle Boon:
But home insurance is meant to be for catastrophic use. So in this scenario then he comes to me with saying, "What do I do here? I was advised to make these claims or I made these claims," so the only option I could find him was surplus lines and exactly what you're saying. Now we're going from $1,200 a year to $9,000 a year. And so he had to do that for three years until that fell off.
Dan Vander Kooi:
And if he's got a mortgage, the bank's going to require that you have insurance.
Kyle Boon:
So then I tell this to my client and just say, "Hey, we should consider maybe not making a claim for that reason, because what if you have to use it something bigger, what it's designed to be used for?" And it is frustrating. And like you said, we're right there with everybody here. Our rates are going up too. It's not like we're absent on that. We know and we feel exactly what's going on.
Dan Vander Kooi:
I think the biggest point on that is we have built, I think, the agency and our team approach, one of the things that we talk about is providing unreasonable service. By unreasonable, we mean going above and beyond that the outside world would look at that and be like, "Man, you're spending way too much time on that." And so that's one of our core values and serving people well and being competent in the situation. And yet, sometimes just feeling like we don't have anywhere else to turn and understanding that, hey, we're going to look at every option and we're going to turn over every stone. But the reality of this is we can typically right now look at a policy and tell you, "You better stay where you're at." Or, "Hey, I think we might have an option for this based on your criteria and your claim's history."
Kyle Boon:
Yeah. And the other practical thing, I think that's been more commonly used for me recently then shifting companies, because that's exactly right. We could re-quote it, oh, the auto came back super high with this other company because you got a young driver here, but they'll take the home, but we don't really want to mismatch because then you lose out on those discounts. So we're looking at all that stuff. The most practical thing I think that I've been doing as of recent has been increasing deductibles. And that's an easy way to do it, but, "Hey, I just got an $800 increase on my home policy." Well, if we move your deductible on your home from 1,000 up to 5,000, you take more risk, but your premium's going to go down 600 bucks.
Dan Vander Kooi:
And if we're not going to recommend that you file a claim under five grand anyway because your rate is going to go here or they're going to drop you, in this scenario, in this marketplace right now, they call it a hard market, it makes a lot of sense.
Kyle Boon:
And so we're advising our clients to take more risk, but to save on premium and keep that money in your pocket. So yeah, that's probably the most practical thing I would say, if you're not already insured with us, let's have that conversation.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Yeah, I think the other thing too, and there are areas where we can shave some things and raise deductibles and other things. One of the areas that I would really advise if you're not currently a Manna client and you're going into your current agent and they're like, "Well, we can cut this coverage." One of the coverage I would highly recommend not cutting right now is your liability coverage. I know Dave Ramsey's a really big guy on this. I'm a big Dave Ramsey fan on most of his stuff, but one of the things that I would highly recommend is not cutting your liability coverage. Because what's happening with all these situations and inflation happening, medical expenses are going up, vehicle costs are going up when you hit somebody. And so all of a sudden now those are the two most expensive areas that if you... Let's just walk through it.
Let's walk through a policy. So when I got in the industry, the average policy I saw on an auto policy was they call them split limits and it was 100/300. And basically what that means is let's say Boonie's driving. He doesn't like it when I call him Kyle, I got to call him Boonie. When Boonie's driving his vehicle, he's driving his rig and he rear ends me and my family, I got my wife and three kids in the car. He has coverage on his policy at 100/300 for up to $100,000 in medical per person damages per person in my vehicle. But it caps at a max $300,000 for the accident. So if all five of us had $100,000 worth of medical bills in that situation necessarily, I don't have to sue Kyle to go and get that, but I can file that claim because he was at fault and he was found at fault.
Once it crosses either the $100,000 per person threshold or the $300,000 cap for that accident, that scenario, he's on the hook for that money. They can come and garnish wages, they can come after his assets, his house, his vehicles or whatever it might be, future paychecks. So those are things that you then become on the hook for. And the reality is, while our premiums keep increasing here, the amount of risk in the liability market's increasing as well. Because when you go to the doctor now or the hospital, everything costs more there too. The vehicles cost more. The vehicles cost more to fix. So now all of a sudden if you're like, "Hey, I want to go to state minimum limits," which in the state of Washington is just crazy to me, is $25,000 per person and $50,000 total for an accident and $10,000 in property damage liability, if Kyle's writing that and he hits me and I'm driving a new suburban, he's going to owe me another 70, 80 grand out of his pocket.
Because that's just what they cost now. So those are things to consider is like, all right, we want to protect our premiums. We want to try to reserve on our rate a little bit, but we also don't want to get caught up a creek where we have such low liability coverage that if I hit Boonie or I hit Mark or whoever it might be, then all of a sudden I'm responsible for all this extra money. And that's what happens, honestly, when we see people go online.
Kyle Boon:
When you're your own agent, you don't know the ins and outs of this.
Dan Vander Kooi:
No, I can't tell you how many people in 14 years of doing this that walk in and they're worth five, $10 million and they got state minimum limits. I'm like...
Kyle Boon:
And drivers, yeah. And the interesting thing too, when you say if you're ever considering cutting that down, you could cut down say from 250, 500 down to 100, 300. You're cutting a significant risk there, but you're only going to save a $100 per year on doing that. So that's really not the most cost effective.
Dan Vander Kooi:
$150,000 worth of coverage. So those are the hard things, the conversation to have. But then on the flip side, you got to be able afford to pay your insurance premium too.
Kyle Boon:
And that's the most heartbreaking conversations I've had with clients where it's like, "I can't pay this. We've got to find a different option." And so we got to work with you. We want to serve well, and I'm an optimistic guy. I'm going to do it as joyfully as I can. But yeah, we're all in it together here.
Dan Vander Kooi:
I think too, another reason a bit behind really jumping on this and recording this today is people can typically process bad or poor information better than they can process the unknown. If we don't know what's happening and we don't know the reason behind it, our brains then can start to create stories. There's been so many studies done on this. The brain is so powerful. And so all of a sudden if we're just like where they're just seeing it and they don't understand the why behind it's happening, and I don't necessarily even agree with the why on all of it, but it's the reality of what's happening in our society today across the country, and it is just where we're at. And so I think the biggest thing is if you guys can hear anything, is things aren't how they've always been and the times have changed.
And if you are looking for someone that's actually going to be an advocate for you and be honest with you and tell you where things are at upfront, that's going to be us. We're here, we're locally owned, we're not going anywhere. We're not passing people off. We want to serve people, but just understand there might not be a ton of great options and rates are increasing and it's part of people's budgets that they're going to have to start to adjust and live with.
Kyle Boon:
And the bigger conversation there too is if you were thinking the same as we were last month being like, "Oh, it's coming. It's coming. It's coming." No, we're telling you now. It's here. And so let this be an opportunity to start budgeting if you don't do that. Let's be intentional on that. And we'd love to have that conversation with you too. We're here to help guide you through that. Not the budgeting process, but you know what I mean, just to start that conversation.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Well, we do have resources we can give them and send them places for that.
Kyle Boon:
But yeah, no, it's been a real challenge. But yeah, we're just going to continue to serve well and do it joyfully and make the best out of a situation we can, because we're all in it together.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Yeah, I think one of the last things I had to just share a little bit is, number one, it's good to understand what you're purchasing. A lot of times we buy stuff and this isn't just in insurance and other things, but we just buy it and we don't necessarily understand everything that it does. And so I think too, if you don't know what you have, bring it into us. We'll sit down with you, we'll spread it out across the table or the desk and we'll look at it and we'll tell you what you have and we'll tell you whether we can help you or you're better off where you're at. I think that's the approach, is I got done doing an enrollment with a company today and we were talking through with all their team members.
And I said, "Hey, we got two philosophies in our office. Number one, your handshake and your word got to mean something. And number two, don't be the weird guy at the barbecue." And I think that's something that we do really well and we really want to just serve people well and explain what you're buying, what you have, how it works.
Kyle Boon:
And insurance isn't always the funnest thing to talk about.
Dan Vander Kooi:
I don't know what you're talking about.
Kyle Boon:
But I tell some of my close friends that are also clients like, "Hey, you don't have to like my job, but I still have to do it."
Dan Vander Kooi:
Exactly.
Kyle Boon:
To protect you and your family.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Exactly.
Kyle Boon:
And so even though you might understand it, that's my job and for me to explain that to you clearly and efficiently, and let's make sure we're taking care of our families here, because that's important.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Absolutely.
Kyle Boon:
But I did have one other thing I was going to mention too. I had a real estate agent reach out to me, which I thought this was very forward-thinking, so I don't know if anyone else is in that industry that's listening to this, but she called me and she was like, "Hey, let me know what's going on because we're obviously working with the same clients here that are purchasing a home. Can you inform me, educate me on what's going on on your side of the coin so I can share with them that information to prepare them for buying a house?" And I applauded her because I was like, "Wow, that's really good of you to do that and think ahead for your clients there."
And so we had the same conversation. And so she's now bringing that information and educating them prior to them buying a house so they can make the best decision possible. And on their end too, the ins and out, the tax line item here, the fee here, those are all going up 100% on her end too, on multiple lines. And so everyone is feeling it. So it's really tough right now.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Yep, yep. And if you want more information on that, I think probably this week, we're going to create just a PDF that you can download from our website. It'll pop up right there on the beginning of the website just for some practical tips and things to look for. And so that's something we can do. And if you're in an industry, the mortgage industry, same thing. They're dealing with a lot of that. They're working with real estate insurance, all that. We get the insurance binder requests. We are more than willing for myself or Kyle, I don't want to volunteer you, but...
Kyle Boon:
My name's Boonie.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Boonie, sorry. Sorry. One of us to come out and just share with your team and your staff on what's going on. Our biggest thing is we want to educate people well, and we want you to understand what's out there, what's happening, and we want to be an advocate for you. So don't hesitate to reach out to us, mannainsurancegroup.com, and you can find our information there and get ahold of us. But any last minute things or, "Oh, by the ways" that you want to throw out there before we wrap this episode up?
Kyle Boon:
I can't think of any off the top of my head, but yeah, I mean, like I said, for the last months I've been having this conversation over and over with clients, but I'm happy to do that. We're happy to serve and we want to change the reputation of the insurance industry, and we're going to tell you the truth. It might not be what you want to hear all the time, but it's better to hear the truth and the hard news.
Dan Vander Kooi:
And again, if we think you're better off where you're at, we're going to tell you that.
Kyle Boon:
Absolutely.
Dan Vander Kooi:
But if you feel like you're not getting the service where you're at and you want someone that you can walk in and talk to, we can make it really easy. If we have those carriers, you can just switch it over to us. Everything stays the same until we get in there with you and start tweaking stuff to make it really fit what you need. And that's really simple. It's a couple signatures, so don't hesitate to reach out to us. We appreciate Kyle and our team here at Manna is doing an awesome job, even though they've been under the gun and working really hard and long hours. I really appreciate them. They serve our community really well, and it's something I'm really proud of for how they conduct themselves and how they go above and beyond for our clients. So shout out to the Manna fam for all their hard work. And just to thank you to our clients too. A lot of you guys have stuck with us.
Kyle Boon:
And given us grace through the process.
Dan Vander Kooi:
Yeah, yeah. It's refreshing to have a relationship with clients that it's not always like if something's not perfect or something goes sideways or the rates go up, things like that. There's a relationship there and it's important and we're working through that and we're trying to serve people well. And so we just appreciate having an actual relationship with our clients that we're not an 800 number and they're not just some person on the other side of a website that is signing up for something. We take that seriously and we value that a lot. Relationship is extremely important in business. It's extremely important in the vendors that you choose. And I think we've gotten so far away from what used to be, we were going and sit down at the kitchen table and things like that. I still do that a fair amount with retirement planning and other things like that.
But I feel like that pendulum is starting to swing back where people want to have someone that they can talk to and be like, "What is going on? Can you explain this to me?" And that's what we're here for. That's what Manna is here for. We are here to serve people and serve our community well. I think that's why we got voted best insurance agency in 2023, so that's pretty sweet. But thank you everyone for listening. Hopefully this was informative and helpful. Boonie, thanks for all you do, and we'll see you guys next time on the (un)covered Podcast.
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