ATHLLC8778432892

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.400 | - Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks,

00:00:05.240 | a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel.

00:00:08.040 | I'm your host, Chris Hutchins,

00:00:09.160 | and today I wanna do a deep dive on insurance.

00:00:12.600 | I've thought a lot about insurance

00:00:14.080 | and even written a few newsletters,

00:00:15.880 | but after going through the process

00:00:17.240 | to redo most of our policies the last few weeks,

00:00:19.560 | I thought now would be the perfect time for this episode.

00:00:22.280 | So I'm gonna cover how I ran a process

00:00:24.420 | to save as much as possible on our insurance

00:00:26.920 | while I was still making sure I had good coverage.

00:00:29.660 | I'm gonna talk about the policies

00:00:30.880 | I've been focusing on recently,

00:00:32.660 | which include home, auto, umbrella, and personal articles,

00:00:36.120 | but I'm also gonna cover renters, life, disability,

00:00:39.000 | long-term care, pet, and even travel insurance.

00:00:42.420 | Consider this episode a one-stop shop

00:00:44.600 | for me to share the learnings

00:00:45.760 | from hundreds of hours of conversations and research.

00:00:49.200 | And I really hope you enjoy it, but more importantly,

00:00:51.920 | I hope it helps you save money and get the right coverages.

00:00:55.680 | But I should remind you all

00:00:56.920 | that I am not an insurance professional

00:00:58.560 | and all my research was mostly done for California,

00:01:01.520 | which may be different than your state,

00:01:03.400 | so please do your own research as well,

00:01:06.240 | but let's get into it right after this.

00:01:08.860 | Okay, before we get started,

00:01:12.320 | I just wanna talk about why this is so top of mind for me,

00:01:15.000 | just so you guys have some context.

00:01:16.980 | So a few things have been happening

00:01:18.360 | all at the same time, really.

00:01:19.980 | One, our new au pair, Stefania, is from Italy

00:01:22.920 | and we're adding her to our auto policy

00:01:24.840 | so that she can drive with our car

00:01:26.800 | and take our kids to museums and that kind of thing.

00:01:29.240 | That means that I'm gonna be adding a 24-year-old

00:01:32.680 | to our policy, which is gonna have a huge impact on rates,

00:01:36.120 | and so shopping around actually really, really matters.

00:01:39.460 | But also, I've talked in the past

00:01:41.160 | about how this year is really a year

00:01:42.920 | of consolidation for me,

00:01:44.920 | and so I've already done this

00:01:46.560 | with banking and investing accounts,

00:01:48.400 | closing things down, trying to get them all in one place,

00:01:51.160 | but I hadn't done this with insurance.

00:01:53.160 | And honestly, I'm having second thoughts

00:01:55.640 | being almost at the finish line now

00:01:57.280 | about how valuable it really is

00:01:59.240 | to get all your insurance policies at one place

00:02:01.800 | from a convenience standpoint.

00:02:03.240 | I'll talk about bundling and why it might be worth it

00:02:05.200 | from a pricing standpoint,

00:02:06.800 | but at the end of the day,

00:02:07.640 | if I can save 500 or $700 a year

00:02:10.760 | and have to pay bills to two different insurance companies,

00:02:13.260 | does it really matter?

00:02:14.560 | So I'll come back to that,

00:02:16.280 | but there are a couple reasons

00:02:17.680 | why I think this is important,

00:02:18.960 | even if there's not something like that

00:02:20.360 | going on in your life.

00:02:21.620 | First off, I was reading this stat

00:02:23.360 | that 76% of consumers who shopped saved money

00:02:26.440 | when they started shopping for new insurance.

00:02:28.000 | So if you like saving money,

00:02:29.280 | which if you're listening to this podcast, I assume you do,

00:02:31.680 | you should definitely be shopping for insurance,

00:02:33.700 | at least on a regular basis.

00:02:35.060 | That doesn't mean every week or every month,

00:02:36.640 | maybe every year or two.

00:02:37.840 | The other thing is things change.

00:02:39.840 | Your home value changes,

00:02:41.400 | the amount of miles you drive, your car changes.

00:02:43.600 | So I think there might be things happening in your life

00:02:45.880 | that make it worth re-evaluating,

00:02:47.920 | if not your insurance carrier,

00:02:49.280 | at least what your coverage is.

00:02:51.520 | But I wanna point out that this is not all just about price.

00:02:55.280 | I've read hundreds of Reddit comments

00:02:57.440 | from people about their claims experiences

00:02:59.800 | with different carriers.

00:03:01.020 | Some of those comments were written by attorneys

00:03:02.640 | who actually fight these insurance companies,

00:03:04.640 | people who've had to go through the process,

00:03:06.600 | and it seems like a big component that keeps coming out

00:03:09.300 | is that you get what you pay for.

00:03:10.920 | Now, I have some specific examples of this,

00:03:12.920 | but at the same time,

00:03:14.120 | I wanna make sure everyone also knows

00:03:15.540 | that insurance companies are heavily regulated.

00:03:17.740 | So while one insurer might be more generous

00:03:19.780 | with the cash value of your car

00:03:22.040 | or make the claims process a lot less work or hassle,

00:03:25.560 | I generally am not worried that a carrier

00:03:28.120 | might not actually pay out on a claim.

00:03:30.460 | And in California,

00:03:31.400 | as long as your policy is with an admitted carrier,

00:03:33.880 | and you'd probably know if it wasn't

00:03:35.160 | 'cause you had to sign something agreeing

00:03:36.860 | that you know they're not admitted,

00:03:38.480 | the state actually provides a backstop

00:03:40.480 | if the carrier were to fail financially.

00:03:42.660 | So when I say you get what you pay for,

00:03:44.120 | yes, that might mean an easier process,

00:03:46.280 | better customer service, faster payout,

00:03:48.780 | but it could also be the way the policy is written

00:03:51.200 | or the features it includes

00:03:52.480 | or even some of the extra features you can add on.

00:03:55.120 | For example, on homeowner's insurance,

00:03:57.040 | it might be whether your policy even includes coverage

00:03:59.440 | for water backing up in your house.

00:04:01.520 | With Lemonade, it's not included by default.

00:04:03.900 | It might be included,

00:04:04.820 | but limited to only 10% of your home coverage amount,

00:04:07.700 | which is the most common I've seen,

00:04:09.640 | or from some premium carriers,

00:04:11.680 | it might actually be covered

00:04:12.640 | up to the entire coverage level of your home,

00:04:15.120 | which is less common,

00:04:16.320 | but obviously a much better, more comprehensive coverage.

00:04:19.680 | On auto, most auto policies

00:04:21.520 | will offer some type of rental car coverage

00:04:23.480 | in case you can't drive your car because it's in the shop,

00:04:26.660 | but a lot of them have coverage

00:04:28.360 | that's like $30 or $50 max per day, up to $1,500 total.

00:04:33.360 | But some carriers like USAA

00:04:35.400 | will not only let you pick the vehicle type,

00:04:37.420 | so you can ensure you have a large SUV

00:04:39.520 | to replace your large SUV, which might really matter,

00:04:42.080 | but they might not have a cap.

00:04:43.840 | They might not have a limit

00:04:45.040 | to how many days you can rent a car.

00:04:47.320 | So those are some examples

00:04:49.080 | of why you get what you pay for

00:04:51.200 | might be a little different,

00:04:52.400 | but I will come back to all the features that I found

00:04:55.160 | when I talk about each type of policy.

00:04:56.960 | I just wanna give you a quick idea

00:04:58.680 | of what I'm thinking about

00:05:00.600 | when I talk about something

00:05:01.560 | that might be a higher quality policy

00:05:03.480 | and why it's not about

00:05:04.620 | whether you're actually going to get paid,

00:05:06.560 | and it might be about other things.

00:05:08.020 | So let's jump in first and start with auto.

00:05:10.760 | According to the Association

00:05:12.240 | for Safe International Road Travel,

00:05:14.000 | about 4.4 million Americans

00:05:16.320 | are involved in a traffic accident

00:05:17.800 | that requires medical attention.

00:05:19.560 | So there's obvious reasons

00:05:20.900 | why you might wanna ensure your car and your health,

00:05:23.560 | but that also doesn't even touch on the cost

00:05:25.340 | that you have to take off work.

00:05:27.200 | You might need to rent a car.

00:05:28.360 | You might have litigation expenses.

00:05:30.160 | So in my opinion,

00:05:31.240 | and I think almost everyone's,

00:05:32.720 | car insurance is a must-have.

00:05:34.620 | But before I talk about ways to save,

00:05:37.040 | let's do a brief run-through

00:05:38.240 | of the major components of auto coverage,

00:05:40.400 | because even after doing this multiple times,

00:05:43.440 | I still come back to it.

00:05:44.520 | I wanna make sure I understand it every year.

00:05:46.840 | So let's start with liability.

00:05:48.440 | There's usually two components of it.

00:05:49.840 | There's bodily injury and property damage,

00:05:52.400 | the first being if you injure a person,

00:05:54.160 | and the second being if you cause damage

00:05:56.360 | to a car or something else.

00:05:58.720 | So that's one thing in many states,

00:06:00.700 | if not all, it's required,

00:06:02.160 | and you absolutely need it.

00:06:04.020 | There's also uninsured, underinsured motorists,

00:06:06.740 | which is if you have an accident

00:06:07.960 | with someone who doesn't actually have enough coverage

00:06:10.320 | for your car or for any injuries that are caused to you,

00:06:13.880 | the limits on what you need to have in a lot of states

00:06:16.480 | and what you can get away with for liability are very low.

00:06:19.560 | So for example, in California,

00:06:21.600 | the minimum liability insurance requirements

00:06:24.080 | are $15,000 for injury or death to one person,

00:06:27.640 | 30,000 for injury or death to more than one person,

00:06:30.000 | and 5,000 for damage to property.

00:06:32.560 | So if you're driving around with a car

00:06:34.280 | and it's worth more than $5,000,

00:06:36.560 | it's possible that someone could hit your car

00:06:38.640 | and only have liability coverage

00:06:40.520 | for the property they caused damage to up to $5,000.

00:06:43.660 | So I think uninsured and underinsured motorists

00:06:45.960 | is pretty important,

00:06:47.400 | especially if you're driving around a car

00:06:49.200 | that's worth more than your state minimums.

00:06:51.400 | Comprehensive coverage is optional,

00:06:53.740 | usually required if you have a loan on the vehicle,

00:06:56.280 | but that covers when you're not driving.

00:06:58.200 | It covers the vehicle, if it's stolen,

00:07:00.640 | if there's a fire, vandalism, someone keys your car,

00:07:04.000 | and then there's collision,

00:07:05.220 | which is for the value of the car in an accident,

00:07:08.740 | regardless of who's at fault,

00:07:10.100 | if you hit a car or an object or something like that.

00:07:13.240 | Both of those are usually required if you have a loan

00:07:15.560 | because your lender wants to make sure

00:07:17.500 | that you can collect the value of the car if it's totaled

00:07:19.660 | and you're not gonna be underwater.

00:07:21.260 | And in fact, if you have a really high loan value,

00:07:23.300 | like 100% of the value of the car,

00:07:24.660 | you might actually need a gap insurance coverage

00:07:26.980 | just in case the value of the car when it's totaled

00:07:30.020 | is less than the amount you owe.

00:07:31.860 | And then last, there's medical payments,

00:07:33.580 | which covers you and your passengers

00:07:35.180 | and your car's medical costs.

00:07:36.860 | And you'll notice if you look at your policy,

00:07:38.420 | it's usually not that much.

00:07:39.540 | Could be $1,000, $5,000, $10,000.

00:07:41.940 | It's usually just to cover the deductibles

00:07:43.700 | and the co-pays for your health insurance.

00:07:45.740 | There's also a bunch of extra features

00:07:47.340 | and stuff that I'll get to,

00:07:48.300 | but I'm gonna talk broadly about how I think about this.

00:07:50.720 | So the first thing is that you really wanna make sure

00:07:53.020 | you're covered adequately.

00:07:54.620 | In fact, people seem to have such a problem

00:07:57.140 | deciding what adequate is that some insurers,

00:08:00.160 | like State Farm, at least in California,

00:08:02.380 | won't let you price a policy online.

00:08:04.420 | The message I've heard from talking to a State Farm agent

00:08:06.220 | is that there were just too many people

00:08:07.740 | buying policies that didn't adequately cover them.

00:08:10.380 | And then when they get in an accident,

00:08:11.900 | they try to blame the insurance company

00:08:13.500 | for letting them have a coverage

00:08:15.160 | that was lower than they needed.

00:08:16.660 | So how do you actually pick the right coverage?

00:08:19.520 | This is gonna be a really personal decision.

00:08:21.260 | It's gonna depend on a lot of factors,

00:08:22.980 | like your net worth and your comfort with risk.

00:08:25.400 | But I will say on the liability front,

00:08:27.820 | you probably wanna make sure that your net worth

00:08:30.460 | and even maybe your earning potential is protected

00:08:33.220 | because what you don't want is to get in an accident,

00:08:36.260 | cause damages to a person or a vehicle,

00:08:38.980 | and not have enough coverage

00:08:40.300 | such that they can come after you.

00:08:41.980 | So someone could sue you,

00:08:43.320 | they could sue you for what you have in your bank account,

00:08:45.580 | your investments, your property, any of your assets.

00:08:48.820 | And in some states, they can also sue you

00:08:50.340 | for your future earnings potential.

00:08:52.120 | So I would be making sure that you have all of that covered.

00:08:55.860 | But if that total amount of your net worth

00:08:58.220 | is over 250 or $300,000,

00:09:01.240 | then I would not actually focus

00:09:02.940 | on trying to increase your coverage

00:09:04.680 | on your liability for your auto policy.

00:09:07.100 | I would actually focus on getting an umbrella policy,

00:09:09.700 | and I think it'll be a lot less expensive,

00:09:11.740 | and it'll be a lot more broadly applicable.

00:09:13.800 | I'll cover that a little bit later,

00:09:15.100 | but just something to keep in the back of your mind.

00:09:17.020 | When it comes to comprehensive and collision,

00:09:18.840 | it's actually optional.

00:09:19.720 | So if you've paid off your car

00:09:21.060 | and the car is very inexpensive,

00:09:23.140 | it might not make sense to you,

00:09:24.600 | but we have a Vespa,

00:09:26.140 | and the value of the Vespa

00:09:27.420 | is probably under $1,000 at this point.

00:09:30.060 | So for that, I only have liability coverage.

00:09:32.540 | I don't have any comprehensive or collision coverage,

00:09:34.820 | because I just think at the end of the day,

00:09:37.260 | having to make a claim on that Vespa

00:09:39.540 | that might impact my rates in the future

00:09:42.560 | for hundreds of dollars of loss is probably not worth it.

00:09:46.300 | On the medical payment stuff,

00:09:47.420 | I would say just make sure you have enough

00:09:48.820 | that you think you can cover

00:09:49.860 | the health insurance deductibles

00:09:51.740 | for your family or whoever's in the car.

00:09:54.480 | And then, like I said, on the uninsured motorist,

00:09:56.480 | if you have collision protection,

00:09:58.200 | you're kind of gonna be covered

00:09:59.240 | in case someone hits your car and isn't covered enough.

00:10:01.880 | So it's not the end of the world.

00:10:04.000 | And if you have health insurance,

00:10:05.620 | you might be thinking,

00:10:06.460 | "Oh, well, at the end of the day,

00:10:08.160 | all I'm gonna have to do if I have problems with my health

00:10:11.000 | to go to the doctor is cover my co-pays or my deductibles."

00:10:13.760 | And most people probably have that much insurance.

00:10:16.380 | But what if you can't work?

00:10:18.360 | What if you have to take a bunch of time off work?

00:10:20.800 | What if you have a permanent injury?

00:10:22.440 | Your health insurance might cover the treatment,

00:10:24.160 | but it won't go beyond that.

00:10:26.000 | And adding this to your policy is not that expensive.

00:10:28.460 | So for our policy,

00:10:29.600 | adding the exact same coverage

00:10:31.480 | for uninsured, underinsured motorists

00:10:32.960 | as we have for our own liability coverage

00:10:35.420 | is less than 5% of the cost of the policy.

00:10:37.400 | So for me, it was an easy thing to add on.

00:10:38.800 | I think there's two states that require it,

00:10:40.540 | but in general, it's an optional policy.

00:10:42.480 | So that's the coverages.

00:10:43.560 | But when it comes to the prices, it's kind of crazy.

00:10:45.980 | When I was looking at homeowners,

00:10:47.200 | it was like 10 to 20% variability across different carriers.

00:10:51.120 | But when it came to auto,

00:10:53.160 | I remember as soon as we first got our Tesla,

00:10:55.360 | the difference between GEICO and State Farm

00:10:57.440 | was like 2X the price.

00:10:59.280 | And even right now,

00:11:00.120 | when I'm looking at insuring both of our cars,

00:11:02.280 | for me, my wife, the au pair,

00:11:04.140 | the quotes ranged from $3,000 to $6,000 a year

00:11:07.660 | for comparable coverage for everything.

00:11:09.920 | So it's really important when you're doing this

00:11:11.940 | to also make sure you're comparing apples to apples.

00:11:14.400 | For the most part, the policies are about the same.

00:11:17.940 | There are some carriers where the liability limit

00:11:20.880 | is 300, 500 versus 250, 500.

00:11:24.320 | But for the most part,

00:11:25.160 | it's pretty easy to get apples to apples.

00:11:26.480 | There are a few places like rental car coverage

00:11:29.120 | and a few extra optional features

00:11:30.920 | that you might not be able to have.

00:11:32.420 | So for me, when I'm comparing, I turn those features off.

00:11:35.480 | I make note that those carriers have it.

00:11:37.560 | So I might decide to go with a different carrier

00:11:39.400 | because they have some extra features,

00:11:41.280 | but I wanna make sure I'm comparing price fairly.

00:11:43.400 | So the deductibles are for your comprehensive

00:11:45.440 | and your collision coverage.

00:11:46.280 | So assuming you have that,

00:11:47.560 | you get to decide how much you wanna have to put

00:11:49.940 | out of pocket before your insurance kicks in.

00:11:52.440 | So a big factor of this is how much emergency savings

00:11:54.640 | you have set aside and how willing you are

00:11:57.840 | to actually make a claim.

00:11:59.640 | For the most part,

00:12:00.480 | when you're making a claim on your auto insurance,

00:12:02.780 | you can probably expect that your rates,

00:12:04.840 | if they don't rise right away,

00:12:06.000 | might rise at the change of the next renewal.

00:12:08.840 | And so you ask yourself,

00:12:10.120 | for a while I had a $250 deductible

00:12:12.760 | and then our window got broken into

00:12:14.400 | and it was gonna cost $500 to replace the window.

00:12:17.000 | And I thought, okay, well, if I pay out of pocket,

00:12:19.720 | I'm gonna spend $500.

00:12:21.080 | But if I file a claim,

00:12:22.520 | I'm gonna spend $250 for the deductible

00:12:25.080 | and the insurance company will cover the other 250.

00:12:27.280 | But now I have a claim on my insurance history

00:12:31.200 | and I've heard very mixed feedback

00:12:33.400 | on whether a comprehensive claim like that

00:12:35.320 | will affect your rates or not,

00:12:36.720 | or how big of an effect it had.

00:12:38.400 | But for me, I ended up not making the claim

00:12:41.160 | because I didn't want the insurance rates to go up

00:12:43.220 | because even a five, 10% change in your insurance rates

00:12:46.060 | might be more, especially over a handful of years,

00:12:49.980 | than the actual savings you'd have right now.

00:12:53.140 | So for us, we actually raised our deductibles

00:12:54.980 | to all be $1,000, which yes,

00:12:57.220 | it means that if we're in an accident,

00:12:58.740 | if we need to repair the car,

00:13:00.080 | the first $1,000 is coming out of our pockets,

00:13:02.620 | but it brought the policy costs down a few hundred dollars

00:13:06.240 | a year, which means if we're not having an accident

00:13:09.140 | every couple of years,

00:13:10.720 | we're actually gonna save money in the long run.

00:13:12.500 | And fortunately, I'm knocking on the wood of my desk,

00:13:15.580 | we have not had an accident

00:13:16.820 | and we have not had to make a claim

00:13:18.020 | for almost probably 10 years.

00:13:19.940 | So given that, it actually has been a good savings for us.

00:13:23.660 | Another really important thing to track

00:13:25.380 | when you're trying to figure out how to save,

00:13:26.620 | especially in light of the post-pandemic world

00:13:29.740 | where a lot of us can work from home,

00:13:31.420 | is changing your mileage that you report on your policies.

00:13:34.860 | So if you don't drive as much as the average person,

00:13:37.180 | which is like 10 to 12,000 miles a year,

00:13:40.020 | you could actually tell your insurance company,

00:13:42.060 | please price this number of miles a year.

00:13:44.860 | And some insurance companies offer a device

00:13:46.860 | that tracks that,

00:13:47.940 | some just require that you report

00:13:49.740 | your odometer reading every year.

00:13:51.720 | But when we changed ours, which we don't drive a lot,

00:13:54.680 | we're at 3,500 miles for one car, 5,000 for another,

00:13:58.380 | the policy prices went way, way down.

00:14:00.820 | So make sure that if you're not driving a lot,

00:14:03.180 | you can actually track this.

00:14:04.820 | If you don't know where you're at, one tip here,

00:14:07.460 | if you have any service records for your vehicle,

00:14:10.340 | you can go back and look at them

00:14:11.820 | and they usually put in your odometer reading

00:14:14.760 | when you go in for service.

00:14:16.380 | So you should be able to go back and look,

00:14:18.100 | oh, if two years ago, your odometer read something,

00:14:21.060 | now two years later, it's only 5,000 miles more,

00:14:24.220 | then you're only driving the car 2,500 miles a year.

00:14:26.980 | And you could save a lot of money

00:14:28.580 | if your policy is priced at you driving 12,000 miles a year.

00:14:32.300 | Another way to save if you have the cashflow

00:14:34.580 | is that for a lot of carriers paying monthly

00:14:37.300 | comes with a little bit of an extra fee.

00:14:39.260 | So if you pay upfront in full, you might save that.

00:14:42.220 | And also when it comes to payments,

00:14:43.420 | some carriers give you a discount

00:14:44.920 | if you sign up for auto pay.

00:14:46.480 | So when I was talking with USAA,

00:14:48.180 | they told me depending on the state you live in,

00:14:49.720 | you can get up to 5% off your policy

00:14:51.560 | if you enroll in automatic payments

00:14:53.960 | and they don't charge a fee for doing things monthly.

00:14:56.800 | So it was like a double win,

00:14:58.880 | except they said it's not eligible in California,

00:15:00.760 | but it's 5% in Florida.

00:15:02.180 | So if you're in Florida, that's a great option.

00:15:04.120 | And also if you have a big insurance bill,

00:15:07.400 | one great thing is that if you pay in full,

00:15:09.960 | you can time that really nicely

00:15:11.680 | with a credit card signup bonus

00:15:13.120 | that you need to hit a minimum spend right away.

00:15:15.380 | So that's something.

00:15:16.940 | In some states also, not California,

00:15:19.260 | but insurance companies charge less

00:15:21.300 | if you have good credit,

00:15:22.620 | or if you take a driving course or different things

00:15:25.740 | depending on your record.

00:15:26.580 | So when you're going through your policy,

00:15:28.260 | ask your insurance agent or ask people,

00:15:30.260 | are there things that I can do?

00:15:31.520 | Is this being factored in?

00:15:32.960 | If your credit was being factored in,

00:15:34.620 | then it might be worth spending time there.

00:15:36.160 | If taking a driving course can drop your limits,

00:15:39.260 | it might be worth the cost depending on how much that costs.

00:15:42.000 | There are also discounts if you have anti-theft devices,

00:15:45.800 | tracking devices like OnStar and LoJack

00:15:48.120 | and that kind of stuff.

00:15:49.480 | I think it's always worth finding out

00:15:51.160 | what that discount would be

00:15:52.280 | before you go and install these things.

00:15:53.920 | A lot of them come with monthly service fees

00:15:55.660 | that might not actually make up for the savings.

00:15:57.760 | And then finally, if a student is on your policy,

00:16:00.040 | maybe your child, if they have good grades

00:16:02.600 | or are enrolled as a full-time student,

00:16:04.480 | sometimes you can get deals there.

00:16:06.160 | So that's a lot of the savings

00:16:07.320 | and the ways to think about it.

00:16:08.760 | I'm gonna talk a little bit

00:16:09.600 | about some of the extra coverages

00:16:11.260 | that you can find on these policies

00:16:13.100 | and just how I've thought about them.

00:16:14.700 | So one is ride share coverage.

00:16:16.620 | If you're driving for Lyft or Uber,

00:16:17.860 | you absolutely should have this to make sure you're covered.

00:16:20.080 | Rental car coverage.

00:16:21.760 | This is one where you've got to decide

00:16:23.180 | how important is it that I have another car?

00:16:25.480 | If you have three cars and one of them's in the shop

00:16:28.040 | and you're not gonna need to borrow a car,

00:16:29.740 | then it's probably not worth paying for this.

00:16:31.660 | But if you have a big family

00:16:33.180 | and you only have one car that fits all of you,

00:16:35.420 | it might be worth having enough coverage

00:16:37.540 | for a rental car on that specific car

00:16:40.040 | so that you can rent a comparable car

00:16:41.880 | and be able to go places

00:16:43.240 | without needing to drive two vehicles.

00:16:44.960 | Towing is another one.

00:16:46.320 | So if you already have AAA,

00:16:48.040 | maybe you don't need to be paying

00:16:49.440 | your car insurance carrier also for towing coverage

00:16:52.180 | and you might be able to waive that.

00:16:53.440 | But if you don't,

00:16:54.280 | I know having been in a situation

00:16:56.200 | where we have a flat tire

00:16:57.440 | and we needed to call a tow truck

00:16:58.520 | and we actually didn't have the coverage,

00:17:00.440 | it was quite frustrating.

00:17:01.780 | One simple trick here is I think most insurance companies,

00:17:05.600 | even USA has a couple day waiting period,

00:17:08.340 | but I believe that Lyft Pink,

00:17:10.220 | which is like the subscription service

00:17:12.020 | that sits on top of Lyft,

00:17:13.660 | comes with towing coverage

00:17:14.820 | and can be activated immediately.

00:17:16.580 | So if you're in a bind

00:17:18.060 | and you don't have any towing coverage,

00:17:19.620 | maybe activate Lyft Pink and schedule a tow.

00:17:22.660 | There's another coverage

00:17:23.700 | that so far I've only seen with USAA

00:17:26.580 | called car replacement assistance,

00:17:29.060 | which basically says that if your car is totaled,

00:17:31.780 | they'll just give you an extra 20%

00:17:34.020 | on whatever the value of the car is.

00:17:36.280 | And that can help with getting a new car

00:17:39.200 | that's maybe a little more expensive

00:17:40.540 | because your car's depreciated

00:17:42.080 | because it's obviously been driven.

00:17:43.760 | It could help you upgrade your car.

00:17:45.360 | It could help if there's a gap in the coverage

00:17:47.480 | and how much you owe

00:17:48.400 | and you didn't have gap insurance.

00:17:50.000 | It's not the cheapest coverage,

00:17:51.520 | can be anywhere from 10, 20 to $100 or more every six months.

00:17:56.520 | But my sister-in-law actually got in an accident

00:18:00.500 | that someone else caused,

00:18:01.520 | totaled her car in the middle of the pandemic

00:18:03.520 | when cars were really, really expensive.

00:18:05.440 | And without that extra 20%,

00:18:07.800 | she wouldn't have even been able to replace her car

00:18:09.640 | with a used car that was comparable.

00:18:11.580 | So she was so excited that they had that coverage

00:18:14.280 | because it was what enabled them to replace their car

00:18:16.880 | and not have to go out of pocket for that cost.

00:18:19.000 | Then as far as what might vary between different carriers

00:18:22.320 | and things you might wanna ask about,

00:18:23.920 | some of the higher value carriers will do things like

00:18:26.600 | only pay for the cost to repair at any facility

00:18:30.100 | at their rates.

00:18:31.560 | So in some states, I know California is one of them,

00:18:33.460 | you can choose where you repair your vehicle.

00:18:35.320 | The insurance company can't tell you where you have to go,

00:18:38.240 | but they don't have to pay the rates of every carrier,

00:18:40.440 | they have to pay fair rates.

00:18:41.920 | There are some carriers that will pay for the rates

00:18:45.160 | even at those high cost facilities.

00:18:47.600 | There are some carriers that either have add-ons

00:18:49.720 | or by default always pay for original manufacturer OEM parts

00:18:53.840 | and they don't require you to consider

00:18:55.600 | paying for cheaper parts.

00:18:57.560 | I know in a lot of cases,

00:18:58.520 | if they will only pay for aftermarket parts,

00:19:00.720 | you can request them to pay for OEM parts

00:19:03.320 | or you can pay the difference.

00:19:04.660 | There are some carriers that will replace damaged car seats,

00:19:07.620 | but it's not standard in a lot of policies.

00:19:10.200 | And so if you get in an accident

00:19:11.920 | and you had two $300 car seats, you're out that $600.

00:19:15.640 | And then there are some carriers like Chubb and Pure,

00:19:18.860 | which I'll talk about a little later,

00:19:20.440 | that are much more kind of high net worth premium carriers

00:19:24.000 | that just have really big coverages

00:19:25.680 | for things like uninsured motorists.

00:19:27.440 | I think Chubb goes up to $10 million.

00:19:29.680 | So if you were to get an accident

00:19:30.960 | that prevented you from working in any capacity,

00:19:33.760 | the state disability policies that you might have

00:19:36.480 | or even a short-term disability policy

00:19:37.960 | is probably not gonna cover the fact

00:19:39.280 | that you can't work for the rest of your life.

00:19:41.240 | And if someone's policy that gets into an accident with you

00:19:44.120 | has no coverage and your uninsured motorist

00:19:46.600 | that you have only goes to 100,000,

00:19:48.760 | then that's the max you're gonna get.

00:19:50.120 | But in Chubb's case, they have a $10 million policy there.

00:19:52.600 | So that's something that I think

00:19:54.680 | it comes at an extremely high cost, which I'll talk about.

00:19:57.600 | But I just wanna go over some of the things

00:19:59.720 | that differ between policies.

00:20:01.160 | I'm not gonna go into all the deals

00:20:03.440 | if you're trying to rent a car, how to save money.

00:20:05.360 | But if you go back and listen to episode 66

00:20:08.120 | with Jonathan Weinberg from Auto Slash,

00:20:10.380 | we went through every single rental car hack

00:20:12.540 | you could imagine.

00:20:13.380 | So if you need to rent a car after getting an accident

00:20:15.440 | or anything like that, definitely listen to that

00:20:17.480 | and see if you can save some money,

00:20:18.840 | unless your insurance company is gonna cover it all,

00:20:20.720 | in which case it's not a priority to save them money.

00:20:22.920 | One other thing I will mention though,

00:20:24.520 | is if you're listening to this and you don't have a car,

00:20:26.080 | it is worth considering getting a non-owner liability policy

00:20:29.760 | if you do drive regularly or rent cars regularly.

00:20:33.120 | That one allows you to decline the rental car coverage,

00:20:37.100 | which can be expensive,

00:20:38.120 | because if you don't have your own auto policy,

00:20:40.720 | you definitely wanna make sure that when you're driving

00:20:42.800 | a rental car, you have liability coverage,

00:20:44.920 | and you have liability coverage that matches your net worth.

00:20:48.160 | Because some of those default policies

00:20:50.300 | that are included for liability at a rental car agency

00:20:53.240 | might be $25,000.

00:20:55.240 | And that's fine if you have a $10,000 net worth,

00:20:58.080 | but it's definitely not fine

00:20:59.340 | if you have a million dollar net worth.

00:21:00.600 | So if you don't have a car,

00:21:02.400 | so you don't have auto insurance,

00:21:04.000 | but you do drive somewhat regularly

00:21:06.320 | or rent cars from time to time,

00:21:08.040 | definitely look into non-owner policies

00:21:10.560 | for liability coverage.

00:21:11.800 | So if you're wondering what I decided,

00:21:12.920 | I will get to where we ended up

00:21:14.560 | after I run through all four policies,

00:21:16.360 | because there's some bundling perspective

00:21:18.520 | that I wanna add.

00:21:19.360 | So that's auto, now let's talk about your home.

00:21:23.180 | One of the ways I like to keep my mind sharp

00:21:25.420 | is to constantly be learning new things.

00:21:27.820 | And one of my favorite ways to do that is with masterclass,

00:21:30.740 | who I'm excited to partner with for this episode.

00:21:33.340 | With masterclass, you can learn from the world's best minds

00:21:36.460 | anytime, anywhere, and at your own pace.

00:21:39.400 | You can learn to buy and sell real estate

00:21:41.000 | from Robert Refkin,

00:21:42.220 | or improve your cooking skills with Gordon Ramsay,

00:21:44.860 | or even learn gardening from Ron Finley.

00:21:47.600 | With over 2,500 classes

00:21:49.560 | from a range of world-class instructors,

00:21:52.320 | that thing you've always wanted to do

00:21:54.000 | is closer than you think.

00:21:55.700 | Seriously, I feel like every time

00:21:57.480 | I wanna learn something new,

00:21:58.580 | I can find a class on the topic

00:22:00.340 | from one of the best in the world.

00:22:02.300 | For example, if you're interested in starting a company,

00:22:04.900 | Alexis Ohanian, who co-founded Reddit

00:22:07.200 | and has invested in multiple billion-dollar companies,

00:22:09.940 | has an amazing new class that will teach you everything,

00:22:12.920 | from finding the problem you wanna solve,

00:22:15.060 | to raising money, to all the operational stuff

00:22:17.860 | like hiring and executing.

00:22:19.900 | I've spent time with Alexis,

00:22:21.160 | and he is world-class at this stuff,

00:22:23.240 | so I highly recommend you check it out.

00:22:25.520 | Get unlimited access to every class,

00:22:28.160 | and as an All The Hacks listener,

00:22:29.840 | you get 15% off an annual membership.

00:22:32.640 | Go to allthehacks.com/masterclass.

00:22:36.440 | That's allthehacks.com/masterclass

00:22:39.960 | for 15% off masterclass.

00:22:42.160 | I wanna tell you all about the most amazing way

00:22:45.920 | to buy a second home,

00:22:47.320 | and I know because we actually bought one

00:22:49.320 | for 1/8th the cost.

00:22:51.180 | And don't worry, I'm not talking timeshares.

00:22:53.300 | I'm talking about Picasso,

00:22:54.940 | and I'm excited to partner with them for this episode.

00:22:57.460 | So how does it work?

00:22:58.420 | Picasso buys amazing luxury homes

00:23:00.800 | in over 40 world-class destinations,

00:23:03.300 | creates an LLC for each home,

00:23:05.300 | and you can buy as little as 1/8th of the property.

00:23:08.340 | But it doesn't stop there.

00:23:09.660 | Picasso also professionally manages the home,

00:23:12.540 | handling design, cleaning, bills, repairs, taxes, and more.

00:23:17.700 | And the scheduling system makes it fair and equitable

00:23:20.480 | for everyone to enjoy their home.

00:23:22.760 | When we found Picasso, it felt like it was made just for us.

00:23:26.440 | That same week, we found the perfect place in Napa,

00:23:29.560 | we toured it, and the next week, we were closing.

00:23:32.480 | Since then, it's truly become our second home,

00:23:34.920 | and it's been so amazing.

00:23:36.560 | And it's true real estate ownership.

00:23:38.840 | Owners can sell at any time, set their own price,

00:23:42.240 | and tap into Picasso's active marketplace of buyers.

00:23:45.520 | In fact, on average, Picasso listings resale in 12 days

00:23:49.700 | with a 12% annualized gain.

00:23:52.060 | For a modern way to buy and own a second home,

00:23:55.300 | go to allthehacks.com/picasso,

00:23:58.380 | where our listeners will get a free Picasso access account,

00:24:01.940 | which means you can see new listings

00:24:03.580 | before they go on the website

00:24:05.380 | and get up to $10,000 in credit towards closing costs.

00:24:09.460 | Again, that's allthehacks.com/picasso,

00:24:13.380 | P-A-C-A-S-S-O.

00:24:16.440 | So generally, homeowner's insurance covers

00:24:18.520 | the destruction and damage to your home,

00:24:20.560 | the loss or the theft of possessions,

00:24:22.800 | personal liability if something were to happen

00:24:25.240 | to someone on your property,

00:24:26.800 | or if you need to be out of your home,

00:24:29.040 | your ability to stay somewhere else

00:24:31.080 | while your home's unable to be lived in.

00:24:33.680 | I don't think there's really a question

00:24:34.760 | of whether or not you should have homeowner's insurance

00:24:36.920 | or renter's insurance, you should.

00:24:38.380 | Most mortgage lenders require it,

00:24:39.840 | so it's not even an option.

00:24:41.440 | But I will remind people that depending on where you live,

00:24:43.920 | natural disasters like floods, hurricanes, earthquakes

00:24:46.520 | are often excluded from a policy

00:24:48.400 | and you might need a separate policy.

00:24:50.000 | Renter's insurance is very similar

00:24:51.320 | to homeowner's insurance.

00:24:52.540 | It protects your property, offers liability coverage,

00:24:55.720 | damage to the goods you have,

00:24:57.160 | covers the cost of another place

00:24:59.420 | if you can't live in your current place.

00:25:01.120 | But damage to the building

00:25:02.480 | is actually still the responsibility of the landlord

00:25:04.520 | and covered by their insurance policy.

00:25:06.440 | So renter's insurance is less expensive

00:25:08.640 | because the big bulk of that policy

00:25:10.880 | is actually gonna be held by your landlord.

00:25:12.920 | So the main coverages you'll have in a policy like this,

00:25:16.160 | and very nicely, they have letter labels,

00:25:18.880 | so it's A through E,

00:25:20.040 | as I'm pulling up one of the quotes I have.

00:25:21.620 | So coverage A is your kind of main dwelling

00:25:24.200 | and attached structures.

00:25:25.240 | That covers your house, if your garage is attached,

00:25:28.140 | if you have decks, that's the main coverage thing.

00:25:30.820 | That's the number that it's gonna cost to replace your home.

00:25:33.920 | And that's only on homeowners.

00:25:35.840 | Then there's a coverage B, which is other structures.

00:25:38.120 | So that's if you have a detached garage

00:25:39.840 | or a shed or any other buildings on your property.

00:25:42.200 | Those two, A and B,

00:25:43.360 | are ones that are the responsibility of the homeowner.

00:25:45.560 | The rest of these coverages,

00:25:46.760 | while they might not have this letter on a renter's policy,

00:25:49.200 | you have them on renter's policies as well.

00:25:51.320 | Coverage C is for your personal property.

00:25:53.400 | That's your furniture, your clothing, anything in the house.

00:25:56.340 | Coverage D is loss of use.

00:25:58.080 | That's if you can't be in your home

00:25:59.440 | and you need to rent a home or stay at a hotel.

00:26:02.260 | Coverage E is liability.

00:26:03.680 | That's if something were to happen to someone on the property

00:26:06.000 | and that covers your liability.

00:26:07.800 | And then coverage F, like auto, is medical payments.

00:26:10.440 | That covers the cost of the co-pays or the deductibles

00:26:14.360 | or any medical issues.

00:26:15.960 | And there's two interesting things.

00:26:16.920 | One, your deductible doesn't usually apply here

00:26:19.200 | for medical payment coverage.

00:26:20.680 | But also, if you're able to help someone

00:26:23.320 | who got injured on your property

00:26:24.880 | pay for all of their deductibles or their co-pays,

00:26:27.600 | you might actually prevent them

00:26:29.240 | from suing you for any monetary compensation.

00:26:31.880 | And so that medical payments coverage

00:26:33.660 | might prevent you from needing to take a liability claim,

00:26:37.040 | which even if your insurance policy

00:26:38.400 | will cover that liability claim,

00:26:40.100 | it's certainly gonna be better in the long run

00:26:42.320 | for your rates to not have to tap

00:26:44.360 | into that liability coverage

00:26:45.680 | and just focus on that medical payments coverage,

00:26:47.400 | especially because the deductible also won't apply.

00:26:49.640 | When I was thinking about this,

00:26:50.560 | the most important thing is to have enough coverage.

00:26:52.920 | One thing that we realized in San Francisco

00:26:55.240 | a handful of years ago is that our home appreciated

00:26:58.660 | a lot faster than we had realized,

00:27:00.620 | which was a great thing to have happen.

00:27:03.040 | But when that happened, the rebuilding costs

00:27:05.000 | to build that home went up

00:27:06.520 | and our policy wasn't actually covered enough.

00:27:08.740 | So I definitely think you wanna keep an eye

00:27:11.640 | on the value of your home,

00:27:13.320 | the cost to replace it, rebuilding costs,

00:27:15.880 | and make sure you adjust your policies as needed.

00:27:18.440 | A lot of policies have something

00:27:19.640 | called extended reconstruction,

00:27:21.480 | which basically says, oh,

00:27:22.800 | if at the time that something happens,

00:27:24.680 | costs have gone up, it will cover the difference.

00:27:26.800 | So that's definitely something that I would add

00:27:28.760 | because you never know what the circumstances will be like.

00:27:31.520 | During COVID, lumber prices were super expensive.

00:27:34.360 | So you probably would have needed more coverage

00:27:36.800 | than you did the year before.

00:27:38.280 | And so similarly, as we kind of grew up in life

00:27:41.000 | and we upgraded from Ikea furniture

00:27:43.000 | to more expensive furniture,

00:27:44.440 | you'd wanna make sure you have enough coverage

00:27:45.900 | on your personal property as well.

00:27:47.520 | So I just like to take a quick evaluation every year

00:27:50.600 | of home values, what's gone up,

00:27:52.180 | maybe ask a real estate agent what empty lots

00:27:55.240 | or teardowns are going for.

00:27:56.920 | And if you could say, okay, well,

00:27:58.240 | I live on a lot this size.

00:27:59.860 | If I could buy a teardown for this much

00:28:01.920 | and I could sell my home for this much,

00:28:03.320 | that delta is probably what it's gonna cost

00:28:05.600 | to build something nice.

00:28:06.720 | You could also just ask around.

00:28:08.320 | People often know the cost to build

00:28:10.160 | on a per square foot basis.

00:28:12.080 | Or a lot of the insurance carriers have these estimators.

00:28:15.600 | I found that every time I talked to a carrier,

00:28:18.480 | their estimator came in about 20% lower

00:28:21.440 | than when I talked to someone who knew

00:28:22.920 | about the cost to build in the area.

00:28:25.040 | The good news is that as long as you let the carrier decide

00:28:30.040 | what they think you need to be covered by.

00:28:32.320 | So for example, if your carrier says you need

00:28:34.400 | to have $700,000 of coverage on the house,

00:28:37.640 | and you think, well, it might be more like 800,

00:28:40.200 | as long as they're signed off on the 700

00:28:42.600 | and that's the cost, the extended reconstruction

00:28:45.240 | might kick in if they're wrong.

00:28:48.000 | That said, personally, I just wanna make sure

00:28:50.600 | that I am as close to covered as possible

00:28:52.640 | and that that extended reconstruction only kicks in

00:28:55.320 | if there's actually incremental costs that were unplanned.

00:28:58.480 | So I tried to get as much coverage

00:29:00.520 | and not try to save here by using their low estimates,

00:29:04.320 | but I would definitely make sure you have

00:29:05.880 | that extended reconstruction coverage

00:29:07.600 | if the carrier allows it,

00:29:08.800 | or maybe look for a carrier that does.

00:29:10.560 | And some of the high value carriers like Chubb and Pure,

00:29:13.160 | which I'll get to, might even have something

00:29:15.040 | that goes beyond that.

00:29:15.960 | So this extended reconstruction thing's interesting

00:29:17.800 | because you can add 20%, you can add 50%,

00:29:21.080 | some carriers let you add 100%,

00:29:23.000 | meaning if that coverage A amount for your home is $700,000,

00:29:27.400 | they'll cover you up to 1.4 million to rebuild the home,

00:29:30.800 | but there are some carriers

00:29:32.200 | that offer guaranteed replacement value.

00:29:34.680 | So it's like, it goes beyond whatever percent is,

00:29:36.920 | it's just, we're gonna pay to do that.

00:29:39.000 | And then even more than that, some carriers,

00:29:41.280 | and it's really only the high value ones,

00:29:43.160 | so unfortunately, it's not something that I think

00:29:45.160 | I'm gonna take advantage of right now,

00:29:47.040 | but they'll give you an option to just take a cash payout,

00:29:49.720 | whereas most carriers will just reimburse you along the way

00:29:52.880 | for rebuilding the home.

00:29:54.360 | So if you don't wanna go through the process

00:29:56.120 | of rebuilding your home, some of those high value carriers

00:29:59.200 | like Pure and Chubb and Cincinnati

00:30:01.120 | will offer you just this one time, here's the cash payout,

00:30:04.320 | you can take this and sell your lot

00:30:06.200 | and not worry about rebuilding.

00:30:07.560 | So when I'm thinking about these coverages,

00:30:09.480 | I wouldn't think about dialing back any of the coverages

00:30:12.640 | to save money unless you really don't need them.

00:30:15.320 | So a few of the ones that I think you can consider

00:30:18.200 | playing around with, but I will point out

00:30:20.000 | that many carriers just have a fixed number.

00:30:22.640 | So your loss of use might be 10 or 20%

00:30:25.720 | of your dwelling coverage.

00:30:26.840 | Your other structures might be 10 or 20%.

00:30:29.840 | So you don't really get to play with a lot of the dials.

00:30:32.240 | Some carriers, though, will let you.

00:30:33.720 | So Lemonade, for example, lets you play

00:30:35.480 | with your loss of use and your property coverage.

00:30:37.760 | Some carriers say, "Do you want 10 or 20%?"

00:30:40.720 | When it comes to a few things, on personal property,

00:30:43.520 | you probably have some sense walking around your house

00:30:45.880 | that whether you have a bunch of really expensive things

00:30:48.400 | or not, whether your kitchen is done

00:30:50.560 | with really expensive appliances or not,

00:30:52.760 | so you might not need as much personal property coverage

00:30:55.720 | as is default.

00:30:56.680 | So you could dial that back if you don't think you need it.

00:30:59.040 | On loss of use, if you happen to have two homes

00:31:01.880 | or you have family that lives nearby,

00:31:03.720 | plenty of space for you, you might consider

00:31:06.000 | not having as much loss of use coverage.

00:31:08.520 | But if you don't, you might wanna consider having extra

00:31:11.080 | just so that you aren't forced to go live too far away.

00:31:14.480 | Some carriers even guarantee that they'll find you

00:31:17.280 | a place comparable in your school district,

00:31:19.640 | while others might just give you a budget

00:31:21.280 | and you have one year to spend it,

00:31:22.920 | which if you know anyone who's built a home,

00:31:24.680 | one year might not even be enough.

00:31:27.000 | Some of the other extras, earthquake is one.

00:31:30.120 | I think it's a really personal decision

00:31:31.600 | because it's very expensive in the Bay Area.

00:31:34.240 | Your earthquake coverage might actually cost as much

00:31:36.680 | or potentially more than your homeowner's coverage.

00:31:38.880 | Then there's coverage for things like floods are the same

00:31:42.360 | or hurricanes, so look into those.

00:31:44.080 | Maybe ask some friends how they've thought about it

00:31:46.320 | who live in the area you live in.

00:31:48.280 | A lot of other small coverages that you need to consider,

00:31:51.080 | whether you need jewelry coverage, both on the policy,

00:31:54.600 | sometimes you can increase the amount that will be covered.

00:31:57.320 | Sometimes it might say we only cover jewelry up to $500,

00:32:00.160 | but you can add something on that will cover any items

00:32:03.200 | up to 1,000 or 2,000 or 5,000.

00:32:05.320 | If you have something that costs 10,000, 50,000,

00:32:08.080 | you probably wanna get a separate policy

00:32:09.600 | and I'll talk about that.

00:32:10.440 | There's water backup coverage in case your sump pump fails

00:32:13.840 | or there's water coming through the sewers into your home,

00:32:16.480 | identity theft, worker's comp,

00:32:18.400 | if you have someone living or working in your home,

00:32:20.720 | like an au pair, those are all things.

00:32:22.720 | There are some carriers that offer

00:32:24.320 | what's called a large loss deductible waiver,

00:32:27.040 | which basically means if there is a large loss,

00:32:30.160 | they usually have a limit.

00:32:31.000 | If there was a loss over $500,000 or over $100,000,

00:32:35.000 | they'll waive your deductible.

00:32:36.120 | That's something interesting.

00:32:37.240 | And then that thing I mentioned earlier,

00:32:38.400 | guaranteed replacement cost.

00:32:39.840 | If it's offered, would be great.

00:32:41.080 | They're just gonna guarantee they'll replace your home.

00:32:42.880 | You don't have to worry about changing the amounts

00:32:45.120 | or having enough extended reconstruction.

00:32:47.600 | So when it comes to picking these coverages,

00:32:50.680 | gonna be a unique question,

00:32:51.760 | but when it comes to ways to save,

00:32:53.920 | I think there are a few things.

00:32:55.000 | So one, similar to what I was talking about with auto

00:32:58.440 | is think about your deductibles.

00:33:00.160 | For us, I think on the homeowner's policy,

00:33:03.160 | we really want this for like major catastrophic issues.

00:33:06.320 | So we're comfortable with a higher deductible,

00:33:08.600 | knowing that if something small were to happen,

00:33:11.280 | we're just gonna have to pay out of pocket.

00:33:12.920 | And that's what our emergency fund is for.

00:33:15.480 | I don't know what the impact of having a homeowner's claim

00:33:17.520 | is when it comes to rates,

00:33:18.800 | but I know that as we were shopping around

00:33:20.560 | for homeowners right now, every single carrier asked,

00:33:24.320 | have you had a claim in the last three years?

00:33:25.920 | Have you had a claim in the last three years?

00:33:27.160 | So I can't imagine that it doesn't have an impact.

00:33:29.560 | Also, there are a lot of discounts for homeowners

00:33:31.800 | that you wanna look into.

00:33:33.560 | Obvious ones that they always ask are about alarms,

00:33:35.920 | but especially alarms that report to local fire

00:33:38.640 | and police stations or central monitoring,

00:33:41.000 | fire sprinklers, security cameras,

00:33:43.560 | all those things can reduce your policy by 15, 20%.

00:33:47.280 | But there are also a few extra things to consider.

00:33:48.680 | So we have Ring for our alarm system,

00:33:50.600 | and they make these smoke alarm listeners.

00:33:53.000 | We have Nest Protects around the house for our smoke alarms.

00:33:55.560 | And if you put one of these listeners

00:33:57.080 | next to your Nest Protect,

00:33:59.280 | what you can actually do

00:34:00.600 | is turn your Ring monitoring system,

00:34:02.440 | that's normally just a burglary alarm

00:34:04.160 | in case someone breaks in,

00:34:05.360 | but it'll listen for the smoke alarm

00:34:07.000 | and report that as well.

00:34:08.840 | And so now you all of a sudden

00:34:10.360 | have a fire and smoke central reporting alarm,

00:34:13.160 | which qualifies you often for more discounts.

00:34:15.840 | They also make a flood and freeze sensor

00:34:19.440 | that you can put in that might qualify you for discounts.

00:34:22.160 | There are also a handful of organizations

00:34:24.480 | that offer discounts.

00:34:25.640 | So when we were looking at travelers,

00:34:27.560 | I started searching for travelers discount,

00:34:29.920 | and I found that members of PenFed,

00:34:32.480 | which is a credit union, get a discount on travelers.

00:34:35.160 | It's like an affinity discount.

00:34:36.800 | And so I just joined PenFed

00:34:38.680 | so that I'd be eligible for the travelers discount.

00:34:40.840 | We didn't end up going with travelers,

00:34:42.200 | but it was free to join PenFed,

00:34:43.840 | and I wanted to see what the discounted rate would be.

00:34:46.040 | There are also some carriers like USAA

00:34:48.360 | that are only available to specific people.

00:34:50.880 | I wouldn't say you necessarily save money,

00:34:52.680 | though in our case for home,

00:34:54.240 | USAA was definitely the best rate.

00:34:55.960 | For auto, it was a little bit higher,

00:34:58.160 | but by having a father who was in the military,

00:35:01.240 | I was eligible and you're required

00:35:03.480 | to have some relationship to the military

00:35:05.200 | like that to be eligible.

00:35:06.600 | But now that I'm eligible,

00:35:08.040 | so will my children, et cetera.

00:35:09.520 | So if anyone in your family is in the military

00:35:12.200 | or maybe was a grandparent that's still alive,

00:35:14.320 | if they join, then your parent can join

00:35:16.600 | and then you can join.

00:35:17.640 | So definitely something worth looking into

00:35:19.960 | if that's a situation you're in.

00:35:21.480 | And then the other big way to save

00:35:22.680 | is to just comparison shop like I've talked about before.

00:35:25.640 | Unfortunately, there's no great perfect comparison site.

00:35:29.120 | I've looked at a lot of the sites that say,

00:35:31.520 | "Oh, we'll shop across all the carriers."

00:35:33.720 | They usually only shop across some of the carriers.

00:35:36.280 | So I had to go through and kind of do it manually

00:35:38.760 | and it was a lot of work.

00:35:39.920 | And I actually am wondering whether this would have been

00:35:41.960 | a great virtual assistant task in hindsight,

00:35:44.480 | but knowing I was gonna do this episode,

00:35:46.760 | I think it was something I wanted to do myself.

00:35:48.880 | But one hack that might save you a little time

00:35:50.440 | when you're doing some comparison shopping,

00:35:52.120 | they have all these quizzes about your home,

00:35:54.040 | the size, the roof material.

00:35:55.600 | Some of them get very complicated.

00:35:57.160 | I think the one on USAA is like hundreds of questions

00:35:59.840 | like what square footage is each bathroom?

00:36:01.840 | Does it have a tub or does it have a shower?

00:36:03.760 | Do you have a chandelier?

00:36:05.000 | And then some of them just ask five or six questions.

00:36:07.440 | But usually at the end of that process,

00:36:10.080 | you can just choose the coverage amount

00:36:12.680 | as long as it's above what they estimated.

00:36:15.040 | So if you want a comparison price, some insurance policies,

00:36:18.600 | you could just run through that quiz

00:36:20.440 | knowing you're gonna get some of the answers wrong,

00:36:23.080 | get to the end, change the coverage to what you want

00:36:25.800 | so you can compare policies.

00:36:27.280 | And then once you find the right one,

00:36:29.560 | I would definitely make sure that when you actually go

00:36:31.760 | to get that policy, you redo it,

00:36:33.920 | answering the questions perfectly.

00:36:35.560 | But when you're just price shopping

00:36:37.000 | and trying to get a quote,

00:36:37.920 | you might not need to answer all those questions

00:36:39.880 | because you can change the coverage amount at the end.

00:36:42.120 | And then another big one, I'm gonna talk about bundling,

00:36:44.280 | but it's definitely something to consider.

00:36:46.640 | But I wouldn't always assume it was the best.

00:36:48.640 | For a while, we were with Lemonade and it was cheaper

00:36:52.080 | even though we didn't bundle with auto for us.

00:36:54.920 | But now looking at policies,

00:36:56.520 | I think bundling actually is gonna be a better deal.

00:36:59.160 | And then one last thing

00:37:00.040 | that isn't really gonna save you money now,

00:37:01.920 | but it definitely will in the future.

00:37:03.680 | And it came up in episode 35 with Joe Salsihai

00:37:07.680 | is to make sure you document everything you have

00:37:10.200 | in your home for any potential property claims.

00:37:13.440 | So I would walk through with your video on your phone

00:37:16.800 | into every room and just make sure that you point out,

00:37:19.840 | here's our TV, here's our stereo, here's our couch,

00:37:22.680 | here's the person who makes it.

00:37:24.480 | Obviously some of these things like furniture

00:37:26.400 | or major purchases, you probably have the receipts for,

00:37:29.360 | but I think it would be very, very important to go around

00:37:32.520 | and make sure you've documented everything,

00:37:34.080 | at least in a video.

00:37:35.440 | Go in your closet, here's our clothes,

00:37:37.280 | go in your room and everything.

00:37:39.120 | That's something that I would do.

00:37:40.560 | Garage, tools, all of that.

00:37:42.560 | And I would even consider for really expensive things

00:37:45.560 | like a TV or a computer,

00:37:47.280 | just write down the model and the serial number somewhere

00:37:50.080 | just so you can kind of prove what it is

00:37:52.000 | and make sure you get properly reimbursed

00:37:54.520 | if something were to happen.

00:37:55.560 | Now, I mentioned earlier that some of the high value things

00:37:57.840 | like jewelry aren't covered.

00:37:59.200 | And so if you have any expensive jewelry,

00:38:01.400 | art, bikes, cameras,

00:38:03.680 | you probably need an additional rider on your insurance,

00:38:07.000 | often called a personal articles policy.

00:38:09.320 | It varies by carrier.

00:38:10.480 | Oftentimes the threshold is about $1,000

00:38:13.080 | and the policies aren't that expensive,

00:38:14.720 | maybe about 1% of the value of the item.

00:38:17.920 | It's definitely something that

00:38:19.200 | if you have an expensive engagement ring

00:38:21.160 | or a really nice bike,

00:38:22.720 | I would look at covering separately.

00:38:25.040 | The policy that we have for Amy's ring

00:38:27.720 | is less than $100 a year.

00:38:29.520 | And I think it has no deductible.

00:38:30.960 | So definitely something worth looking into

00:38:33.200 | if you have any of those items.

00:38:35.120 | Previously, we talked about liability

00:38:36.760 | and umbrella very briefly.

00:38:38.600 | But while your home policy

00:38:40.320 | will cover the liability in your home

00:38:41.920 | and your auto policy will cover the liability in your car,

00:38:44.600 | it might not be enough.

00:38:45.880 | For example, if you have $250,000 of liability,

00:38:48.920 | that doesn't mean that someone couldn't sue you

00:38:50.560 | for a million or 2 million or 5 million.

00:38:53.000 | Now, if you don't have $2 million,

00:38:55.480 | it's unlikely that they're gonna try to expect

00:38:57.800 | to get 2 million from you.

00:38:58.920 | So they're probably not gonna bring a suit like that

00:39:01.080 | against you.

00:39:02.240 | But if you were in an accident

00:39:03.640 | and you caused serious injury or even death to someone,

00:39:06.720 | I could see a suit coming for more than 250,000,

00:39:09.680 | especially if you have more than that.

00:39:11.520 | And so that's where umbrella or excess liability

00:39:14.160 | or personal liability insurance comes in.

00:39:16.320 | And it sits on top of your home and auto policies

00:39:19.160 | and it covers the liability

00:39:20.480 | for as much as you wanna pay for, depending on the carrier.

00:39:23.120 | They aren't that expensive.

00:39:24.640 | They're usually a few hundred dollars

00:39:26.520 | for your first $1 million of coverage

00:39:29.000 | and then maybe another 100 or 200

00:39:30.680 | for every 1 million after that.

00:39:32.200 | Definitely check to see.

00:39:33.760 | They do require usually that one of your home

00:39:37.280 | or auto policies are with that carrier.

00:39:39.920 | It's not always the case,

00:39:41.680 | but I know GEICO won't write a umbrella policy

00:39:44.600 | unless you have auto with them.

00:39:46.240 | I know USAA won't write a umbrella policy

00:39:48.560 | unless you have auto and home with them.

00:39:51.320 | So definitely worth talking to someone about that.

00:39:54.160 | When it comes to how much to have,

00:39:56.200 | I think there's a lot of people

00:39:57.280 | that will give you different answers.

00:39:58.760 | I know some people that cover their net worth in full.

00:40:01.800 | I know some people that are comfortable with just a million.

00:40:04.360 | I know some people with a huge net worth

00:40:06.440 | that only think five or 10 million is necessary.

00:40:09.520 | And so I don't know a lot of people

00:40:12.080 | that have more than $10 million of umbrella coverage

00:40:14.960 | no matter how much money they have,

00:40:16.840 | but because some states allow you to go after someone

00:40:20.840 | not just for the money they have and the assets they have,

00:40:23.600 | but also their future earnings,

00:40:25.080 | it's definitely something that I think

00:40:27.040 | many people might not have, but probably should.

00:40:30.720 | Obviously when you're young and early in your career

00:40:33.080 | and you don't have a huge net worth, it's not as important,

00:40:35.480 | but as you start to save and have assets

00:40:37.400 | and have significant earnings potential,

00:40:39.600 | definitely worth considering.

00:40:41.240 | So that's the four main policies

00:40:43.840 | that I've been focused on recently.

00:40:45.800 | Let me talk a little bit about how I decided

00:40:48.560 | and evaluated carriers and figured out what to do.

00:40:53.040 | Getting the crew together isn't as easy as it used to be.

00:40:55.960 | I get it, life comes at you fast, but trust me,

00:40:59.480 | your friends are probably desperate for a good hang.

00:41:02.360 | So kick 2024 off right by finally hosting that event.

00:41:06.440 | Just make sure you do it the easy way

00:41:08.400 | and let our sponsor Drizzly,

00:41:10.320 | the go-to app for drink delivery, take care of the supplies.

00:41:14.040 | All you need to come up with is the excuse to get together.

00:41:16.880 | It doesn't even have to be a good one.

00:41:18.720 | It could be your dog's birthday,

00:41:20.120 | that the sun finally came out,

00:41:22.120 | or maybe you just wanna celebrate

00:41:23.600 | that you got through another week.

00:41:25.680 | With Drizzly, you can make hosting easy

00:41:27.760 | by taking the drink run off your to-do list,

00:41:30.320 | which means you can entice your friends

00:41:32.080 | to leave their houses without ever leaving yours.

00:41:35.160 | And since I know you like a good deal,

00:41:36.840 | Drizzly compares prices on their massive selection

00:41:39.400 | of beer, wine, and spirits across multiple stores.

00:41:42.380 | So when I really wanted to make a few cocktails

00:41:44.420 | while we were hosting family last week,

00:41:46.240 | not only could I get an Italian Amaro

00:41:48.320 | delivered in less than an hour,

00:41:49.960 | but I found it for $15 less than my local liquor store.

00:41:53.440 | So whatever the occasion,

00:41:55.080 | download the Drizzly app or go to drizzly.com.

00:41:58.360 | That's D-R-I-Z-L-Y.com today.

00:42:02.360 | Must be 21 plus, not available in all locations.

00:42:05.620 | Did you know that someone new gets impacted

00:42:09.460 | by identity theft every two seconds?

00:42:12.200 | It makes sense when there's so much

00:42:14.020 | of our personal information getting shared online

00:42:16.640 | without our consent.

00:42:18.160 | I found a listing for my dad on a site

00:42:20.480 | called Family Tree Now that had his name, age, address,

00:42:24.320 | phone number, email, past addresses,

00:42:27.200 | and the names of his relatives.

00:42:28.920 | And that was just one of the 69 listings that had his info.

00:42:33.480 | Fortunately, instead of spending hours

00:42:35.600 | finding all the sites with his info

00:42:37.440 | and submitting the request to take it down,

00:42:39.600 | I got it all done in minutes with Delete.me from Abine,

00:42:42.840 | and I am so excited to be partnering with them

00:42:45.160 | for this episode.

00:42:46.120 | Delete.me is an amazing service

00:42:47.880 | that will not just find and remove your personal information

00:42:51.160 | from over 500 data broker websites,

00:42:53.960 | but they'll continuously scan for new data that shows up

00:42:57.080 | and get that removed as well.

00:42:58.720 | On average, Delete.me finds and removes

00:43:00.640 | over 2,000 pieces of data for a customer

00:43:03.020 | in their first two years,

00:43:04.360 | and to date, they've removed over 35 million pieces of data

00:43:08.400 | for their customers.

00:43:09.360 | So if you wanna get your personal information

00:43:11.400 | removed from all these listings on the internet,

00:43:13.920 | go to allthehacks.com/deleteme

00:43:16.960 | and get 20% off a plan for you or your entire family.

00:43:21.440 | Again, that's allthehacks.com/deleteme.

00:43:25.400 | I just wanna thank you quick for listening to

00:43:28.480 | and supporting the show.

00:43:29.960 | Your support is what keeps this show going.

00:43:32.800 | To get all of the URLs, codes, deals, and discounts

00:43:36.320 | from our partners, you can go to allthehacks.com/deals.

00:43:40.800 | So please consider supporting those who support us.

00:43:44.160 | I'm sure people will come back and say they disagree

00:43:46.920 | or they had better experiences with some of these or worse,

00:43:50.520 | but in general, when I talked to people

00:43:52.440 | and I read through lots of comments on forums

00:43:54.560 | and Reddit and everything,

00:43:55.960 | it seemed like all the carriers

00:43:57.200 | kind of fell into three buckets.

00:43:58.880 | There were your standard carriers,

00:44:00.320 | your GEICO, your Progressive, your State Farm.

00:44:03.280 | There were carriers that were still kind of mainstream,

00:44:05.720 | but people categorized as better or more premium.

00:44:08.480 | Travelers came up here, Safeco, Amica, USAA,

00:44:13.200 | and then there were actually the premium insurers.

00:44:16.240 | So these are carriers not just that will write coverage

00:44:20.040 | beyond what traditional covers do,

00:44:21.520 | but just have a much more high-end experience.

00:44:24.200 | Two of the bigger ones are Pure and Chubb,

00:44:26.480 | but other ones are Cincinnati, AIG,

00:44:29.160 | Nationwide Private Client, Hartford, et cetera.

00:44:31.880 | One thing to note is that a lot of them have minimums.

00:44:34.640 | So even if you had a home only worth a million dollars,

00:44:37.160 | some of them might write the limits to 3 million.

00:44:39.800 | So it's never gonna be a reasonable price.

00:44:41.800 | When I looked at the premium insurers,

00:44:43.640 | it was gonna be almost 30, 40% more to use any of them.

00:44:48.160 | And while I talked earlier about some of the things

00:44:50.960 | you get from those expensive, nice policies

00:44:53.280 | like guaranteed replacement or better, faster claims,

00:44:57.040 | use any repair shop, OEM parts,

00:44:59.200 | paying 30, 40% more just wasn't worth it for me.

00:45:01.720 | Also to do some research for this episode,

00:45:03.720 | I went and paid for Consumer Reports

00:45:05.960 | and I wanted to look at their data.

00:45:07.760 | When you look at home and auto,

00:45:08.980 | the top three carriers on both are the same.

00:45:12.060 | It's USAA, Amica, and NJM.

00:45:15.040 | And NJM, which is New Jersey Manufacturers,

00:45:17.600 | they definitely stood out as the top three rated

00:45:20.480 | on all different aspects.

00:45:22.480 | But a few of the ones that were below those top three

00:45:25.320 | that stood out a little bit on both auto and home

00:45:28.620 | were Chubb, Cincinnati, Auto Owners,

00:45:31.600 | Erie, and Country Financial.

00:45:33.520 | I looked at Chubb and Cincinnati

00:45:34.700 | and they were too expensive.

00:45:35.920 | I looked at a few of the others.

00:45:37.240 | Erie, for example, doesn't operate in California,

00:45:39.940 | but that's just save you some time from Consumer Reports.

00:45:42.240 | That doesn't mean that other carriers aren't great.

00:45:44.560 | I've heard lots of good things about Pure.

00:45:46.380 | I've actually heard lots of good things about Travelers,

00:45:48.160 | though Consumer Reports didn't think they were great.

00:45:50.240 | But I figured I'd just share, save you some time,

00:45:52.040 | or save you the $39 a year to get access to those ratings.

00:45:55.920 | That's a lot of the carriers,

00:45:56.980 | but how do you actually go about doing this?

00:45:58.740 | And I wish that I could tell you it was easier,

00:46:01.480 | but some of these carriers,

00:46:03.560 | a lot of this kind of standard Geico,

00:46:05.400 | progressive, State Farm, you have to go direct to them

00:46:07.960 | and they don't work with brokers.

00:46:09.680 | And then a lot of the other carriers like Travelers

00:46:12.220 | and Safeco and Pure and Chubb,

00:46:14.100 | they only work through brokers.

00:46:15.540 | So you can't go one place

00:46:18.060 | and get access to all of the policies.

00:46:20.260 | I did go to a couple brokers.

00:46:22.220 | And I will say that, especially in California,

00:46:24.620 | I think nationwide,

00:46:26.140 | but all the insurers have very specific rates.

00:46:28.260 | So you're gonna get the same rate

00:46:29.360 | no matter which broker you work with.

00:46:31.260 | And like travel agents,

00:46:32.900 | the commissions are kind of baked in.

00:46:34.660 | And so I wouldn't worry about,

00:46:36.020 | "Oh, I don't wanna pay a broker's fee."

00:46:37.500 | 'Cause that's just kind of built into the price

00:46:39.580 | and it's not really gonna cost you directly.

00:46:41.720 | I went to a few.

00:46:42.800 | If you need a recommendation, I'm happy to send one,

00:46:45.100 | but it might vary by state and where you live.

00:46:47.460 | And so I'd definitely reach out locally.

00:46:49.420 | So what I did was I went online

00:46:51.060 | and I tried to do the quotes where I could online

00:46:52.940 | 'cause it was way faster.

00:46:54.540 | I focused on carriers that had good reviews

00:46:57.380 | and that were easy to get in front of.

00:46:59.340 | And then I found a broker who could reach out on my behalf

00:47:02.580 | and pull quotes for a few of the other companies.

00:47:04.660 | So the match was me doing it for most of the carriers

00:47:07.660 | and then working with one broker

00:47:09.340 | to look at something like Travelers, Safeco

00:47:11.420 | and some of the premium insurers.

00:47:13.460 | While I ultimately didn't even come close

00:47:15.460 | to doing something like Pure or Cincinnati or Chubb,

00:47:18.060 | I did wanna know what it costs

00:47:19.780 | both for the purpose of this episode,

00:47:21.300 | to understand the benefits.

00:47:22.780 | And a part of me doesn't know how to value that, right?

00:47:25.580 | How do I value the fact that I'll be able to send my car

00:47:29.220 | to any repair shop if there's an accident?

00:47:31.500 | I'm sure I could do some kind of statistical model of,

00:47:34.540 | "Okay, well, what's the likelihood it's gonna happen?

00:47:36.180 | And what's the cost of it? And is it worth it?"

00:47:38.740 | But when I looked at it

00:47:39.940 | and it was gonna be an extra four to $5,000 a year

00:47:42.540 | for all our policies and require usually higher deductibles,

00:47:46.900 | I kind of took all of the super premium carriers off.

00:47:50.340 | And I'll keep in mind, I might mention carriers

00:47:52.700 | that I found to be expensive or not.

00:47:55.060 | And then I found plenty of people in forums

00:47:58.140 | or on Reddit that said, "That's so crazy.

00:48:01.220 | I compared USA to State Farm

00:48:03.020 | and State Farm was so much cheaper."

00:48:04.740 | And then the other person's like, "That's crazy.

00:48:06.180 | For me, USAA is so much cheaper."

00:48:08.340 | It really varies so much state by state, person by person,

00:48:12.740 | zip code by zip code, type of car, et cetera.

00:48:15.540 | So I wouldn't read too far into me saying

00:48:18.020 | that I had a better price at one.

00:48:19.780 | I would definitely do your homework.

00:48:21.300 | There are some sites like Policy Genius

00:48:23.300 | that are brokers online that can save you the time

00:48:25.220 | of having to get on the phone and do a lot of this.

00:48:27.420 | I did try to do that, but for some reason,

00:48:29.540 | the page where you hit submit never loaded.

00:48:31.660 | So it didn't work so well for me.

00:48:33.260 | But I will say that at least in California,

00:48:36.900 | the value of bundling made this a much harder decision

00:48:40.980 | because I would look at the prices and say,

00:48:43.700 | "Wow, State Farm, for example, was really great,

00:48:46.740 | but their umbrella policy was twice as expensive.

00:48:49.500 | And USAA was really competitive,

00:48:51.220 | but their auto was twice as expensive."

00:48:53.260 | So I kept going through this and being like,

00:48:54.820 | "I just want a cherry pick from each of them,"

00:48:57.220 | except the cost of the homeowner's policy would go up 20%

00:49:02.060 | if you didn't bundle it with auto.

00:49:03.940 | So it was very frustrating experience for me

00:49:07.100 | looking at all of these policies and saying,

00:49:09.540 | "I have to go with this company.

00:49:10.940 | I have to pay more for the auto policy

00:49:13.380 | because the savings for bundling makes up for it."

00:49:16.860 | I wish that wasn't the case.

00:49:18.100 | I wish I could pick and choose,

00:49:19.620 | but that's just the way it is.

00:49:21.340 | I actually looked at the total cost for each carrier

00:49:24.860 | instead of just policy by policy

00:49:26.940 | because that bundled savings ended up being so high on home.

00:49:30.940 | In California, best I can understand,

00:49:33.020 | there is no bundled savings for auto.

00:49:35.140 | So if you find a really great home price

00:49:37.420 | that doesn't require bundling,

00:49:38.660 | you get a little bit more flexibility,

00:49:40.380 | but it can make it hard for certain insurance carriers

00:49:43.700 | that don't offer everything.

00:49:45.340 | So for example, someone emailed in and asking

00:49:47.340 | why I didn't look at Tesla insurance for my Model 3.

00:49:50.540 | And the reality was it was a little bit less expensive.

00:49:54.340 | I was reasonably confident, though not 100%,

00:49:56.820 | that if I have Tesla insurance,

00:49:58.440 | they're at least not gonna make me go

00:49:59.940 | to some random repair shop

00:50:01.580 | and that they'll actually repair it at a Tesla dealership.

00:50:04.380 | But if I get Tesla insurance,

00:50:06.860 | I can't get any bundling discount

00:50:08.820 | and it's gonna raise the price of that homeowner's policy

00:50:11.060 | by $500 to $1,000 a year,

00:50:13.360 | which actually makes any discount

00:50:15.420 | from Tesla insurance not worth it.

00:50:17.540 | Ultimately, I looked at all the prices.

00:50:19.860 | I'm so close to the finish line, but not quite there.

00:50:23.080 | I'm waiting to hear back from one question on travelers.

00:50:27.380 | When you live in California,

00:50:28.900 | especially with being in proximity

00:50:31.180 | to places with wildfires and that kind of stuff,

00:50:33.520 | we're fortunately not in those zones,

00:50:35.500 | but it does require a lot of our quotes

00:50:37.300 | sometimes to go through underwriting

00:50:38.900 | to make sure it's all approved.

00:50:40.420 | So the process can be a 24, 48-hour turnaround.

00:50:44.220 | Ultimately, I think we'll end up at USAA or Travelers.

00:50:48.220 | That's my instinct.

00:50:49.340 | But it's gonna be close because GEICO right now

00:50:53.340 | is about $1,000 a year cheaper on auto,

00:50:56.380 | maybe because we've been there for a while,

00:50:58.440 | maybe because they're more generous

00:50:59.980 | with an international young driver.

00:51:02.220 | So I think it'll either be USAA or Travelers for home,

00:51:05.580 | and then GEICO there or not,

00:51:08.020 | depending on whether the GEICO discount

00:51:09.820 | is better or worse than the bundling discount.

00:51:13.040 | Also, I don't know how to think about the value

00:51:15.340 | of having everything in one place.

00:51:16.780 | There's like this peace of mind

00:51:18.540 | that I wanted going into this process

00:51:21.020 | of, ah, it'd just be nice to have one insurance company

00:51:23.860 | that I could deal with for everything.

00:51:25.740 | And when it came down to it, it was like,

00:51:27.460 | do I wanna pay $800 a year to have that peace of mind?

00:51:31.060 | I'm sure if I went back and talked to Dan Martell,

00:51:33.380 | he would tell me I'm definitely not valuing my time at all,

00:51:37.100 | and that I spent way too much time on this whole project.

00:51:39.740 | But whenever I spend time on this,

00:51:42.260 | I feel like I'm getting a lot of enjoyment,

00:51:44.740 | I'm getting a lot of satisfaction,

00:51:46.220 | but I'm also creating content

00:51:47.720 | that hopefully is valuable to a lot of you.

00:51:49.340 | So the leverage on my time isn't what I can do from it,

00:51:53.220 | but it's the satisfaction of knowing

00:51:55.040 | that hopefully lots of you listening

00:51:56.420 | are gonna save money or be better insured.

00:51:58.700 | And so I feel good about spending 50 hours on this project,

00:52:02.580 | which might only save me $1,000 a year,

00:52:04.460 | but hopefully will save tens or hundreds of thousands

00:52:07.020 | of dollars across everyone listening.

00:52:08.580 | So that is all the major policies that I price regularly

00:52:12.160 | that I just recently went through a process of.

00:52:14.580 | I would absolutely love if anyone listening to this

00:52:16.860 | has questions, thoughts, feedback, things to share.

00:52:19.880 | I'm gonna do a Q&A episode,

00:52:21.460 | and I'm gonna share anything anyone here has heard.

00:52:23.780 | I know there are one-off situations

00:52:25.780 | that can be good or bad.

00:52:26.780 | But if you've had a really bad

00:52:27.820 | or a really great experience with a carrier, let me know,

00:52:31.420 | even if it's just a quick email.

00:52:32.980 | I'll share all the recap learnings

00:52:35.040 | that I've gotten from you all in the next episode.

00:52:37.620 | So definitely do that, chris@allthehacks.com.

00:52:40.340 | You can DM me on social anywhere as well.

00:52:42.700 | I also wanna touch on a few other types of insurance.

00:52:45.300 | So let's jump into it.

00:52:46.640 | Life insurance is one of those important things

00:52:48.780 | that I think can have a huge impact on your spouse,

00:52:52.700 | your family, your children, even your parents sometimes,

00:52:55.140 | should something happen to you.

00:52:56.660 | So its primary goal is to replace the loss

00:52:59.460 | of your future income for anyone you leave behind.

00:53:02.180 | It can also help cover things like funeral expenses

00:53:04.400 | or pay off debt.

00:53:05.380 | And I think if you have young kids

00:53:07.020 | or anyone who really depends on you

00:53:08.660 | and your income to survive,

00:53:10.380 | it's really something you should consider.

00:53:12.700 | And when it comes to what kind,

00:53:14.380 | this is where it gets very confusing,

00:53:16.980 | but I have a very specific point of view.

00:53:19.580 | Term life.

00:53:20.420 | It's a policy that has a limit for how long it's active,

00:53:23.060 | 10, 20, 30 years, for example.

00:53:25.280 | If you pass away within that term,

00:53:26.860 | your beneficiaries get the face value of the policy,

00:53:29.820 | also called a death benefit,

00:53:31.020 | and it's usually tax-free.

00:53:32.920 | And if you pass after the term expires

00:53:35.440 | or you just stop paying your bills, they get nothing.

00:53:37.980 | So if it expires, why would you go with this

00:53:40.860 | when there's these other policies

00:53:42.300 | that are marketed as amazing savings vehicles

00:53:44.640 | that you can earn all this extra money

00:53:46.320 | and save compound tax-free permanent life,

00:53:49.780 | whole life, universal life.

00:53:51.180 | They all market themselves as offering you a benefit

00:53:53.820 | that lasts your whole life and helps you build wealth,

00:53:56.900 | but they have complex rules,

00:53:58.640 | they have high premiums and high fees,

00:54:01.100 | and I think you're almost always better off

00:54:04.220 | taking what you save with those lower premiums

00:54:06.620 | of a term policy and investing the difference

00:54:09.340 | in low-cost index funds yourself

00:54:11.620 | instead of trying to bundle together your life insurance

00:54:14.980 | and your investment savings.

00:54:16.620 | It's not always easy to find that advice.

00:54:18.740 | I think if you look in the right places, you'll get it.

00:54:20.700 | I'll link to a couple articles

00:54:22.100 | from NerdWallet and The White Coat Investor.

00:54:24.340 | The Reddit personal finance group will say the same thing,

00:54:27.540 | but it's hard because permanent, whole,

00:54:30.440 | and universal life policies have such high commissions

00:54:34.140 | that there are so many people

00:54:35.300 | that make so much money selling it

00:54:36.960 | that it is worth all the marketing, all the conversations,

00:54:40.520 | and why it's very easy to find someone

00:54:42.420 | that will try to convince you that it's the best.

00:54:44.260 | But in my personal opinion, term life is great,

00:54:47.700 | and I think that's what I would focus on.

00:54:49.340 | As far as how much to get and for how long,

00:54:52.260 | you don't have to get just one policy.

00:54:54.120 | So a great hack here is called laddering

00:54:56.400 | or layering your policies.

00:54:58.180 | So if you wanna be able to replace your income

00:55:00.820 | until your children are 18,

00:55:03.580 | you're gonna need a lot less money.

00:55:05.240 | Let's say you have one child and they were just born.

00:55:07.460 | If you were to pass away today,

00:55:08.660 | you might need a lot more

00:55:09.640 | than if you were to pass away in 17 years.

00:55:11.820 | So you could get a 20-year policy for one amount

00:55:14.540 | and a 10-year policy for the other,

00:55:16.500 | knowing that by the time your child is 10,

00:55:19.700 | you're not gonna need as much life insurance.

00:55:22.260 | That might be different

00:55:23.300 | depending on how much money you have saved,

00:55:24.900 | whether your spouse works.

00:55:26.060 | There's a lot of questions.

00:55:27.260 | I'll link to a Policy Genius article

00:55:28.760 | that I thought was pretty good

00:55:29.600 | about explaining the laddering policy.

00:55:31.860 | Another thing that could be laddered,

00:55:33.380 | not just your children's ages,

00:55:34.660 | but maybe it's when your mortgage gets paid off,

00:55:37.020 | or maybe when you're eligible for retirement,

00:55:39.660 | or you can tap into your retirement accounts,

00:55:42.220 | your 401ks, your IRAs.

00:55:43.620 | That's generally my advice.

00:55:45.740 | If you're someone who's listening to this

00:55:47.140 | and thinks, "Oh my gosh, I have a permanent life policy

00:55:49.300 | or a whole life or a universal life,"

00:55:51.620 | I don't think it's the end of the world,

00:55:52.780 | but I definitely would look into,

00:55:54.580 | and I'm not the expert here,

00:55:56.140 | what would it cost to cash in on that policy now

00:55:59.020 | and switch to term life?

00:56:00.160 | It's something to consider, but I'm not the expert.

00:56:02.620 | So I don't know whether that's always a good deal,

00:56:04.520 | never a good deal.

00:56:05.700 | I can't answer that.

00:56:06.660 | But if you don't have a policy now,

00:56:08.420 | I would definitely look at term life.

00:56:10.180 | I know when I went through this process

00:56:11.940 | of shopping for insurance policies,

00:56:13.900 | I actually priced out a ton of term life policies.

00:56:16.700 | And part of the reason that I ended up partnering

00:56:18.420 | with Fabric on the show as a sponsor

00:56:20.960 | is because I looked at their policies,

00:56:24.280 | I looked at their reviews, and I looked at their prices,

00:56:26.420 | and they were really competitive.

00:56:27.660 | They also had an A+ rating,

00:56:28.960 | so you can check them out at meetfabric.com/allthehacks.

00:56:33.340 | So that's definitely one option to look at.

00:56:35.420 | There's another great site called Term4Sale,

00:56:38.060 | the number four dot com, so term4sale.com,

00:56:41.680 | which has a bunch of information

00:56:43.940 | about various different term policies and prices, et cetera.

00:56:46.480 | So that's another place to look.

00:56:49.000 | The pricing isn't that variable,

00:56:50.760 | but it could be as little as a million dollars of coverage

00:56:54.160 | for a dollar a day, and it can go up from there

00:56:56.340 | depending on the term length you have.

00:56:58.280 | Funny enough, when I was comparing the cost of term life

00:57:01.000 | of a million dollars of coverage to pet insurance,

00:57:03.280 | which I'll cover later,

00:57:04.200 | it was much cheaper to get term life than pet insurance.

00:57:06.580 | So I find that interesting.

00:57:08.780 | I also got a great email,

00:57:09.800 | thank you for writing in from someone

00:57:12.380 | who I don't wanna say their name

00:57:13.540 | 'cause I don't wanna call them out,

00:57:14.440 | but they work at a big whole life company,

00:57:16.140 | and they definitely said,

00:57:17.680 | "I do not recommend whole life to the average person."

00:57:20.500 | They said, "If you're really wealthy

00:57:21.680 | and doing some estate planning tactics,

00:57:23.480 | there are some ways that you can use life insurance

00:57:25.700 | to avoid taxes and save money

00:57:27.800 | in a more tax-efficient manner.

00:57:29.800 | But for basic financial security,

00:57:31.920 | they even work at a company that offers this product

00:57:33.980 | and would not recommend it."

00:57:35.160 | I'm not gonna get into the kind of advanced tactics

00:57:37.820 | of using a whole life and universal life

00:57:40.120 | in kind of estate planning,

00:57:41.480 | high net worth tax savings ways,

00:57:43.920 | but for the average person, I think,

00:57:45.200 | it's probably not the right policy.

00:57:47.320 | Of course, I'm not an insurance expert.

00:57:49.020 | Do your own work, talk to a professional,

00:57:51.000 | but just please make sure that professional

00:57:52.900 | doesn't make a commission

00:57:53.840 | selling you permanent, whole, or universal life.

00:57:55.680 | I'll touch briefly, like I said, on pet insurance.

00:57:57.840 | I don't have a strong opinion here,

00:57:59.420 | but I'll share what I learned.

00:58:00.680 | A lot of people seem to think

00:58:02.440 | that if you have an exotic animal

00:58:04.160 | that it requires special care,

00:58:05.540 | or maybe you have a breed

00:58:06.760 | that's really prone to health issues,

00:58:08.840 | it could be more important to others.

00:58:10.480 | The premiums, depending on what kind of coverage you want,

00:58:13.080 | it could be anywhere from 15 to $150 a month,

00:58:16.540 | depending on the age of your pet,

00:58:18.120 | their breed, the species, their health history.

00:58:20.720 | The older the pet, the higher it is.

00:58:22.720 | I've taken the path of self-insurance myself

00:58:25.360 | with our dog, who is about eight now.

00:58:28.380 | We've had years where we've spent $100 for a vet visit,

00:58:31.320 | and we've had years where we spent $1,000

00:58:33.120 | trying to diagnose an issue.

00:58:34.600 | In that $1,000 a year, I kind of thought,

00:58:37.200 | "Oh gosh, should I have gotten pet insurance?"

00:58:38.920 | I reconsidered.

00:58:40.280 | I actually saw a bunch of positive feedback

00:58:42.720 | for Lemonade's pet insurance.

00:58:43.880 | I priced it out.

00:58:44.820 | I thought about it more.

00:58:45.920 | Ultimately, we didn't do it.

00:58:47.820 | But I think that's because this is such a personal decision

00:58:50.540 | that really comes down to how much you'd be willing

00:58:52.760 | to spend on your pet for medical treatment.

00:58:54.700 | If that number is,

00:58:56.360 | if something were wrong with my dog or my cat,

00:58:58.640 | and I would spend anything, $50,000, if that's what it took,

00:59:01.900 | pet insurance might be a better fit for you.

00:59:03.840 | It's also worth noting that it's not always

00:59:05.740 | the kind of reimbursement style insurance.

00:59:07.680 | So you might have to pay for your services up front

00:59:09.420 | and submit your claims.

00:59:11.160 | And depending on the cost of living where you live,

00:59:13.640 | the amount they cover for various things

00:59:15.520 | might not be that much.

00:59:16.560 | I know I just looked at one of these policies yesterday

00:59:18.660 | to brush up, and the amount that they reimbursed

00:59:21.200 | for vet visits was definitely less

00:59:24.000 | than the vet visit cost in the Bay Area.

00:59:26.160 | So a few things to keep in mind.

00:59:28.000 | There are a lot of things you can add on

00:59:29.720 | that I would just kind of maybe go look at some vet bills

00:59:32.220 | to try to decide whether they make sense.

00:59:34.400 | Some policies will cover preventative care.

00:59:36.440 | Some policies will cover routine emergency visits

00:59:39.200 | versus major surgeries.

00:59:41.040 | It can add up if you get that policy

00:59:43.000 | that I looked up for our dog with everything,

00:59:44.800 | preventative care, lower deductibles.

00:59:46.760 | It was almost $150 a month, which is quite expensive.

00:59:49.360 | If you have strong opinions

00:59:50.360 | or you've had good or bad experiences on pet insurance

00:59:52.480 | on any of these policies, let me know,

00:59:54.200 | 'cause I wanna do a recap in the Q&A episode

00:59:57.120 | in a week or two covering feedback from you all,

00:59:59.900 | because I've learned so much from everyone listening.

01:00:02.080 | So I'd love to get that added to this episode.

01:00:04.360 | I'll talk quickly about disability insurance.

01:00:06.720 | Anyone at any age can become disabled or unable to work.

01:00:09.960 | It could be from illness.

01:00:10.800 | It could be from injury.

01:00:12.200 | While I don't love this stat, it was the best I found.

01:00:14.520 | Before reaching the age of 67, if you're 20 now,

01:00:19.120 | there's a one in four chance

01:00:20.280 | that you might become disabled at some point.

01:00:22.160 | Now, is that at 66?

01:00:23.280 | Is that at 30?

01:00:24.420 | It doesn't know.

01:00:25.360 | I just think it's something to keep in mind

01:00:27.120 | that it might be more common than you think.

01:00:29.020 | That doesn't mean you'd be disabled your whole life.

01:00:30.960 | I know I had foot surgery once

01:00:33.040 | and I was gonna be out for six or eight weeks,

01:00:35.960 | and it turns out it was more tax efficient

01:00:37.600 | to go on short-term disability than to not, so I did that,

01:00:41.160 | but I probably would be included in that statistic.

01:00:44.160 | But there are a lot of circumstances

01:00:46.120 | where that situation of disability

01:00:48.440 | could have a huge impact on your financial life,

01:00:50.720 | and you wanna be covered should you have an accident

01:00:53.280 | or a sudden illness that would prevent you from working.

01:00:55.340 | So there's two types.

01:00:56.420 | There's short-term disability,

01:00:57.520 | which is usually up to six months,

01:00:59.440 | and long-term disability that can cover you for years

01:01:02.520 | or even until you retire,

01:01:03.920 | but usually has a waiting period of three to 12 months

01:01:06.520 | before it kicks in,

01:01:07.400 | where short-term disability would be there.

01:01:09.720 | You might have some coverage through your employers

01:01:12.200 | or through a state fund like we have in California.

01:01:15.040 | While those funds might say

01:01:16.140 | they recover 60 to 80% of your income,

01:01:18.200 | they often have weekly or monthly caps

01:01:20.420 | that might result in them replacing

01:01:22.280 | a much smaller percentage of your income.

01:01:24.600 | So if those policies aren't enough

01:01:26.180 | and what you have from work isn't enough

01:01:28.060 | and people really depend on your income,

01:01:30.040 | it could be worth having a supplemental

01:01:31.800 | or even full policy on your own.

01:01:33.800 | If you have enough of an emergency fund

01:01:35.840 | to cover your full income for three to six months,

01:01:38.300 | which I generally recommend,

01:01:39.580 | you might be able to self-insure

01:01:40.720 | your short-term disability needs,

01:01:42.400 | or at least self-insure the difference

01:01:43.940 | between the coverage you have and your full income,

01:01:46.040 | whether that's from work or from the state.

01:01:48.160 | But unless you're financially independent,

01:01:49.800 | you probably won't be able to self-insure

01:01:51.760 | against the chance that you become disabled

01:01:53.240 | for a really long time.

01:01:55.320 | So if you don't have a policy through work,

01:01:56.920 | definitely look into whether this might be

01:01:59.140 | a good option for you.

01:02:00.300 | Look into what your state and your work offers

01:02:02.240 | and try to look at what you would need

01:02:03.920 | to kind of be comfortable until retirement,

01:02:05.820 | taking into account your spouse's income and all that.

01:02:08.920 | I did some research last year for my newsletter

01:02:11.080 | and a Guardian and MassMutual came up

01:02:13.200 | as two top providers for long-term disability,

01:02:16.800 | but I don't have any experience with either.

01:02:18.940 | It's also worth pointing out

01:02:19.980 | there is a social security disability insurance

01:02:23.020 | that comes from all the social security tax you pay

01:02:25.860 | from your paycheck each month.

01:02:27.080 | You do have to have paid into these services

01:02:28.880 | for a certain amount of time to use them,

01:02:30.520 | but usually that's 40 credits, which you get each quarter.

01:02:33.760 | So it's about 10 years of employment.

01:02:35.740 | You can always go to the social security website

01:02:37.280 | and see how many credits you've earned.

01:02:38.680 | But I will say that the maximum benefit you can receive

01:02:41.860 | is kind of in the three to $4,000 range per month.

01:02:45.280 | So depending on where you live,

01:02:46.320 | that might not be enough to cover your life,

01:02:48.920 | but you could also factor in

01:02:50.520 | whether you'd be willing to move

01:02:52.260 | or what kind of changes you'd be able to make

01:02:54.200 | in a situation like this.

01:02:55.520 | So that's something to think about.

01:02:56.840 | Last, I'll touch on travel insurance.

01:02:59.520 | In the past few years,

01:03:00.820 | airlines have been pushing travel insurance so hard

01:03:03.220 | that I feel like I've gotten lots of questions.

01:03:05.420 | And every time you check out from a website

01:03:07.940 | buying an airline ticket, it's like,

01:03:09.000 | "Do you want the travel insurance?

01:03:09.960 | "Do you want the travel insurance?"

01:03:11.260 | Most of those travel insurances cover things

01:03:13.600 | like delayed lost bags, trips delays,

01:03:15.860 | cancellations, interruptions, that kind of stuff,

01:03:17.960 | maybe medical evacuation, rental car damage.

01:03:20.680 | Almost all of those are things that you get

01:03:22.760 | from a great travel credit card.

01:03:24.800 | So I'll link to an example of the guide to benefits

01:03:28.760 | for the Chase Sapphire Reserve,

01:03:30.020 | but you should definitely look at your travel card

01:03:32.560 | and see what kind of benefits those include.

01:03:35.040 | I don't think I've done a full episode.

01:03:37.040 | Maybe I should.

01:03:37.880 | Let me know if you want one on a guide to all the benefits.

01:03:40.820 | I know I've written a newsletter about it.

01:03:42.180 | I'll link to it in the show notes,

01:03:43.660 | but just walking through all the credit card benefits

01:03:46.000 | you might have, whether they need to be supplemented

01:03:48.760 | or whether they're enough, how to use them, et cetera.

01:03:51.600 | That's kind of how I think about a lot of the policies

01:03:53.720 | that are being sold as you're checking out from an airline.

01:03:56.120 | I've never accepted those policies,

01:03:58.400 | but policies worth considering are

01:04:00.880 | if your health insurance doesn't cover you

01:04:02.360 | when you're traveling abroad,

01:04:03.440 | definitely look at a policy

01:04:04.640 | that covers medical treatment abroad.

01:04:06.760 | If you're worried about getting stuck abroad

01:04:09.160 | with medical situations and you want something

01:04:11.040 | that will cover a flight back,

01:04:13.380 | you can get medical evacuation insurance.

01:04:15.800 | The policy I have gotten and I did get during the pandemic

01:04:19.640 | was a policy from Trawick.

01:04:21.680 | They had this policy called Safe Travels Voyager.

01:04:23.800 | I've purchased it a few times.

01:04:25.560 | It covers more than you will get

01:04:28.020 | if you have a circumstance

01:04:29.280 | that your credit card would cover.

01:04:30.740 | Things like if you need to quarantine somewhere,

01:04:32.640 | it'll cover your hotel.

01:04:33.780 | If you need to get back to the US, it'll often cover you.

01:04:37.040 | But if you really wanna get back to the US

01:04:39.080 | and you want like no questions asked,

01:04:41.320 | get me home immediately,

01:04:42.880 | there's a company called Kovac Global

01:04:45.160 | that is pretty expensive,

01:04:46.940 | somewhere on the order of like $600 per person for a trip,

01:04:50.500 | but they will charter you a private flight and get you home

01:04:52.860 | even if it's just testing positive for COVID.

01:04:55.700 | So that's something to consider.

01:04:57.520 | And then if you're doing a bunch of adventure activities,

01:04:59.600 | a lot of basic travel insurance policies,

01:05:02.000 | maybe even your health insurance policy might not cover you.

01:05:04.380 | In years past, I've used a company called World Nomads

01:05:07.280 | to cover those activities.

01:05:08.640 | I haven't done it recently,

01:05:10.160 | I think probably 'cause I haven't been doing as much

01:05:11.900 | rock climbing on our travels.

01:05:13.440 | And then last, if you're going on any kind of trip

01:05:16.180 | that's really expensive,

01:05:17.120 | I had a friend that went on a cruise to the Galapagos

01:05:19.580 | and their connecting flights

01:05:21.680 | made it such that they missed their flight.

01:05:23.520 | It was not a great circumstance.

01:05:24.920 | So if you're doing anything

01:05:26.160 | where it's a very expensive endeavor,

01:05:28.480 | like a Galapagos cruise,

01:05:29.680 | I would definitely double check

01:05:31.480 | that you have something to protect you

01:05:33.300 | in case your flight gets canceled or delayed

01:05:35.340 | and you can't make the boat,

01:05:36.740 | or something happens, you get sick,

01:05:38.440 | whether that's your credit card policy or another policy,

01:05:41.120 | you'd really not wanna miss the departure

01:05:43.320 | of a very expensive trip.

01:05:44.600 | So that's all the policies I wanted to cover

01:05:46.800 | for this episode.

01:05:47.840 | I know that's a lot of information.

01:05:49.940 | Maybe I'll put together a recap newsletter.

01:05:52.180 | I know I've done two in the past

01:05:53.380 | that I'll link to in the show notes

01:05:54.460 | that had a good amount of this information,

01:05:56.380 | but I really hope it was helpful.

01:05:58.220 | I'll just recap some of these tips.

01:05:59.920 | So definitely shop around,

01:06:01.560 | definitely read through the policy terms and understand them.

01:06:04.760 | Definitely consider whether it makes sense

01:06:06.260 | to up your deductibles.

01:06:07.700 | That is something that I think

01:06:08.820 | I've lowered a lot of my insurance costs

01:06:10.540 | by getting more comfortable

01:06:11.740 | with just setting aside some money in an emergency fund

01:06:14.700 | instead of having to rely on a low deductible,

01:06:17.880 | and definitely document everything in your house

01:06:20.160 | just in case.

01:06:21.100 | And finally, like I said,

01:06:22.280 | I hope we never have any of these issues.

01:06:24.040 | I hope you don't have a car accident or a flooded basement,

01:06:26.720 | but realistically these things happen.

01:06:28.740 | So I hope that this episode was helpful.

01:06:31.520 | I hope that you picked up a lot of tips.

01:06:33.240 | I hope that you can use it to protect yourself adequately

01:06:35.800 | and save some money.

01:06:36.900 | Thank you so much for listening.

01:06:39.840 | If you found this valuable, send it to a friend.

01:06:42.320 | The highest praise that you could give me

01:06:44.240 | for any of the work I'm doing

01:06:45.560 | is to help bring new people to the podcast.

01:06:47.600 | So if you know someone that wants to save money

01:06:50.080 | or adequately insure themselves,

01:06:52.000 | send them this episode, tell them to have a listen,

01:06:54.600 | tell them to reach out if they have questions.

01:06:56.240 | I would love to be helpful

01:06:57.720 | and find ways to help you all save more

01:06:59.760 | and be better insured.

01:07:00.960 | So that's it.

01:07:01.800 | Thank you for listening.

01:07:02.680 | I will see you next week.

01:07:04.660 | (upbeat music)

01:07:07.240 | (whooshing)

01:07:09.560 | [BLANK_AUDIO]