Not that long ago, clients would come to visit us in our office to talk about their insurance. Our “customer room” was very busy. These days, people look to do more business via the internet, phone, and email and less face-to-face. This doesn’t work as well for complex products like insurance, where communication is so important. So much of how we communicate comes from facial expressions, body language and the tone of our voice. Perhaps more than we realize. Sometimes, without cues from body language and facial expressions, gaps in understanding are created. Some of us address these gaps by asking questions; for others, the less we understand about a technical topic like insurance, the less comfortable we are and that often leads to more assumptions that allow us to end the call more quickly.
Insurance has its own vocabulary and as agents we consistently seek to explain insurance concepts without exposing you to a lot of insurance vocabulary, but this is sometimes tough to accomplish. It’s made tougher when we can’t see your body language and facial expressions. Most often, if we think we’ve explained something well, and you don’t ask questions, we think we did a good job for you. Meanwhile, you’re thinking “What was THAT all about?!?” but WE don’t know it.
The bottom line: face-to-face communication is better than internet, email, and phone calls; this means your insurance decisions will likely be better when you speak with your insurance agent face-to-face. Be curious enough about your insurance to see your insurance agent in person, at least every other year, for a good conversation about how you’re spending your insurance dollars! And if you prefer phone calls, then ask good, open-ended questions like “If I’m in an auto accident, what should I expect my insurance to do for me?” or “If a storm damages my home, how does my insurance help me put it back together?” These are good questions to get you on your way to a good conversation about your insurance that you deserve!
Meanwhile… our customer room is still here for you, and to make visits even better, we brew our own blend of coffee, custom made for us by Creation Coffee, called Rummel Roast. Oh yeah. It’s good.
