Transcript

[00:00:00] Voiceover: Welcome to Retirement Unlocked with Larry Heller, your life Your Way, unlimited possibilities. Join us as we explore how tailored financial planning and investments can help you navigate life transitions with confidence. Let’s dive into this week’s episode.

[00:00:22] Matt Halloran: Hello and welcome to another Retirement Unlocked podcast with your host Larry Heller. Wildfires, storms, and cyber attacks. How insurance is adapting with our guest today, Gregg Knepper. Now he’s the president of. Integrated coverage group. He’s got over 15 years of experience helping businesses navigate risk with customized insurance solutions.

[00:00:43] Matt Halloran: Currently licensed in over 10 states. His experience spans from general liability, professional liability, cyber insurance, workers’ comp, and a lot more. He understands the balance between insurance needs and financial constraints. Faced by individuals and small business [00:01:00] owners. 

[00:01:00] Larry Heller: Alright, Larry, take it away.

[00:01:01] Larry Heller: Thanks Matt. Gregg, thank you so much for joining us today. I am excited about the topic ’cause it’s something we are all seeing on TV and reading about every day, and it seems to be getting worse and, and how is that gonna affect a lot of our listening audience? So Gregg, thank you. Why don’t we just kind of just jump right into it and kind of, why don’t you guys give, uh, the audience kind of a generalization of what’s going on in the personal insurance market?

[00:01:26] Gregg Knepper: Well, Larry, first off, thanks very much for having me on your show. I appreciate it and I’m looking forward to, uh, chatting about insurance. You know, uh, with regards to the insurance market in particular, the personal lines market, it is, has been extremely difficult. Now we’re going on almost, I think the third year of this cycle.

[00:01:44] Gregg Knepper: Um, I’ll, uh, you know, as Matt indicated in the intro, I’ve been doing this for 15 plus years. This is the most difficult market that we have seen, that I have seen in. In, in my career and folks that I speak with that have been doing it for two or three times as long as I have referred to this market as, [00:02:00] as the toughest market in a generation, means that when.

[00:02:04] Gregg Knepper: Folks are used to getting an insurance renewal and it goes up 2, 3, 5, 7% and paying the premium and moving on. They’re getting insurance renewals that are going up 20, 30, 40, 50%. We’ve seen insurance premiums double in certain circumstances. Not only that, but also carriers are being much more stringent upon what they want to write, what they don’t wanna write, where they’ll write it if it’s near the water.

[00:02:28] Gregg Knepper: They don’t like it because of of wind exposures. You know, sometimes they just say, we don’t like it and don’t give you a good answer. Um, and it’s just very difficult. What I’ve been seeing a great deal is, is on, particularly on the personal line side, is that folks are, have been trained by, you know, the household names that we all know to say, Hey, you’re gonna, you know, let us quote your insurance.

[00:02:46] Gregg Knepper: You’ll save 10%, takes five minutes. It, it has become somewhat commoditized. And so what happens is people, every year or two, they come to their broker or go to their carrier and say, Hey, can you shop it around? Can you shop it around? And for about two years now, I’ve [00:03:00] been saying, anybody that has come to me with a decent insurance carrier and says, Hey, can you save me money on this?

[00:03:05] Gregg Knepper: I look at it very quickly. I say, who’s the carrier? How much are you paying? Nine times outta 10. There’s absolutely nothing we can do to save them money. They should stick exactly where there are where they are, which makes it difficult not only for us because we’re in the business of trying to help people with their insurance, but also people that are used to trying to save some money, and they hear from me and other brokers that.

[00:03:24] Gregg Knepper: They should sit tight because there’s no better option in the marketplace. 

[00:03:27] Larry Heller: Hmm. Let’s unpack that. ’cause there’s really two, two things I want to kind of talk about. So B, before we kind of get into the details about the actual insurance and what you should do and shopping around, let’s kind of just go back and start what you talking about where people are getting these huge increases or carriers and not wanting to, uh, you know, to even write.

[00:03:45] Larry Heller: You know, we’re all seeing kind of these crazy. Catastrophe type scenarios going on between not only California wildfires, but uh, long Island wildfires and obviously floods and [00:04:00] hurricanes and tornadoes. So how is really this really affecting some of the local markets? I mean, most of our listeners in New York, but we have.

[00:04:09] Larry Heller: Plenty of listeners in, in Florida. So what are people supposed to do now with, with, how do they protect themselves and what should they do? 

[00:04:20] Gregg Knepper: Yeah, so, so great question. So I, I’ll answer that in, in, in two ways. One is that oftentimes folks think of insurance as being hyper localized, meaning. Quite often my clients say to me, Hey, I’ve had no claims.

[00:04:34] Gregg Knepper: There’s been no issues. We live on Long Island. There hasn’t been any big storms in, you know, in a, in a very long time. Why is my insurance premium going up? Well, the, the fires in Florida and the floods and wind, uh, type claims in the south, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, et cetera, everywhere in the country, we’re seeing more.

[00:04:55] Gregg Knepper: An increase in frequency of storms and increase in severity, meaning bigger [00:05:00] storms, more costly for, for families, for individuals, and for the insurance carriers. And so the most, many of the insurance carriers are national insurance companies. So what happens in California affects New York. Also, the insurance companies have something called reinsurance, so they have their own sort of insurance companies, and those reinsurance companies are insuring many different insurance companies all over the country.

[00:05:22] Gregg Knepper: And so what happens in California again. Affects New York, so it’s not hyper-local like, like you might think or, or like most, you know, oftentimes people ask about, you know, the, the other piece with that is that, you know, premiums are, are going up for people that are, back to what I was saying a moment ago, that, that nothing, they haven’t done anything wrong.

[00:05:43] Gregg Knepper: They have, they don’t have any claims. They don’t live in a high risk area and the premiums are going up and, and really the only thing that we can do to help them with that is. Try and manage the premium. So making tweaks in their policies, making changes, changing property limits, increasing deductibles.

[00:05:58] Gregg Knepper: So there’s, you know, a few [00:06:00] levers that we can. Usually pull in order to help folks try and save some money while continue continuing to be insured. You know, Florida is, is a, is a whole other animal, Larry. I mean, we could have a, an entire, uh, an entire podcast on insurance in Florida if you wanted some other point.

[00:06:15] Larry Heller: Yeah, no. So I mean, uh, mean that’s a great. Point. So it, it’s not just really the premium numbers, but really how you can have these conversations with your clients because, and, and pull some of these other levers depending upon what they’re comfortable with. Maybe even kind of like self-insuring. So especially in Florida where people are saying, you know what, I’ll take a little bit more risk here on certain areas.

[00:06:40] Larry Heller: So that becomes a, a, a, a much more need for really somebody like your expertise to kind of. Talk them through what they should be covered or what they’re comfortable with. So what, can you give us an example of maybe, um, a recent client that you’ve spoken to that you’ve kind of made some of these [00:07:00] adjustments for them?

[00:07:01] Gregg Knepper: Yeah, so I mean, you know, again, self insurance is a, is a slippery slope. I mean, if you’re a homeowner for example, and you have a home that costs a million dollars to rebuild self-insuring it is. Can be dangerous because you know, there’s a reason why it’s difficult and very expensive to get insurance into a certain area, which means there’s a high chance of a claim and a large claim, which means that if you’re self-insuring it, you may very well be on the hook for that at some point.

[00:07:25] Gregg Knepper: So I always caution folks with regards to. Fully trying to self-insure their, their homeowner’s policy. Right. When I, what I meant by 

[00:07:32] Larry Heller: self-insure meant not the whole, the whole property. Okay. But maybe self-insuring some of the wind by raising the deductibles or so 

[00:07:39] Gregg Knepper: Great. Yeah, great point. And, and, but there are folks that have come to me in Florida say, I’m just not paying.

[00:07:44] Gregg Knepper: They have no mortgage. They don’t have to have insurance. And they’re trying to self-insure, which. I think is not the right move, but how you’re referring to self-insuring or retaining some more of the risk is really the biggest lever that we have to pull. Particularly, you know, we’re, we’re located on Long Island, although we help clients in, in many states, again, [00:08:00] like Florida.

[00:08:00] Gregg Knepper: But um, on Long Island in particular, one of the things that we’ve been doing is increasing deductibles for our clients. Three, four years ago, most of our clients had thousand or $2,500 homeowners deductible. That means that if they had a claim that was covered, let’s just say it was a $10,000 claim, and they had thousand dollars deductible.

[00:08:19] Gregg Knepper: It would be on the hook for the first thousand, and the balance of the covered claim would be covered by the insurance company. Now the majority of our clients have 5,000 and $10,000 deductibles. Some of our clients in larger homes with larger replacement costs even have 25 and $50,000 deductibles. So they’re taking on much of that risk.

[00:08:38] Larry Heller: Mm-hmm. Which, 

[00:08:39] Gregg Knepper: you know, you have to be in a financial position to absorb a 25 or $50,000 deductible and even a, a 10,000 deductible. Historically and statistically speaking, and it’s been proven time and time again, having a higher deductible, if it’s priced appropriately, will save you money over time.

[00:08:56] Gregg Knepper: What that means is that if we take someone from a [00:09:00] $5,000 deductible to a $10,000 deductible and they save, let’s just call it a thousand dollars a year. Chances are they’re gonna be ahead of the game because they probably won’t have a claim that exceeds five or $10,000 in the first five years. I always caution folks that we, I say, Hey, we’re gonna move you from 2,500 to 5,000 if you have a claim in six weeks.

[00:09:21] Gregg Knepper: You’re not gonna be happy and you’re gonna come back and say, Gregg, oh, we shouldn’t have done that. And yeah, if had you known you were gonna have that claim, you wouldn’t have done that. But again, statistically speaking, a higher deductible is typically the better way to go. 

[00:09:32] Larry Heller: Not only just the deductible on the property, but could they even.

[00:09:36] Larry Heller: This may be more relevant to places that have more hurricanes, but Long Island has hurricanes, so could they change like the wind deductible that only affects the, um, chance of a hurricane? Do you kind of go, go through that separately? 

[00:09:54] Gregg Knepper: I do, and I all, you know, I, I try and remind my clients and educate them on what a wind deductible even is.

[00:09:59] Gregg Knepper: I would [00:10:00] venture to guess, Larry, that most of the folks that are listening watching this, this podcast don’t even know what a wind deductible is. And if they live on Long Island or they’re in Florida, they have a wind deductible on their policy and so mm-hmm. Different carriers define wind differently.

[00:10:14] Gregg Knepper: Some. Some is a, a wind loss, so any wind that causes a loss, some, it’s a hurricane deductible, so it has to be a hurricane, a name storm when it makes landfall in your area. But generally speaking, just from, from an educational standpoint, what that means is there’s a separate deductible. So if you have a hurricane and it rips all the shingles off your roof and a tree falls in your house and it’s all related to the hurricane, you’re subject to a different deductible than your main deductible.

[00:10:39] Gregg Knepper: And so on Long Island, oftentimes we’ll see someone with a five. Let’s just say the house costs us a million dollars to replace. You’ll see somebody with a $5,000 deductible. So if you know a pipe person in their home, $5,000 deductible, and then they’ll have a 5%. Wind deductible, which means 5% of the replacement costs, which is a million dollars, [00:11:00] which translates to a $50,000 deductible.

[00:11:03] Gregg Knepper: Most folks do not have any idea that they have this on their policy. My clients do. I really, I try and tell them, but it’s on their policy. So if a tree falls on their house due to wind from a hurricane that made landfall and it causes a hundred thousand dollars worth of damage to their house. Those, those folks that have that policy are on the hook for the first $50,000.

[00:11:22] Gregg Knepper: So it’s something to be very cognizant of. Yeah. So to answer your question more directly, mm-hmm. Some of our clients have a 2% deductible, so in that scenario, they would’ve a $20,000 deductible. You know, that’s another lever that we can pull to go from a 2% to a 3% or a 3% to a 5%. Again, clients taking more risk.

[00:11:40] Gregg Knepper: It’s a gamble. Um, we don’t know if you, you know, somebody goes from 2% to 5% today, and we have a big hurricane this summer. They’re not gonna be happy. Um, and it’s, and it’s a big a dollar amount. We usually try to reserve those types of increases for folks where there’s no other lever to pull and they really need to save the premium because frankly I would, you know, I’m more comfortable having [00:12:00] someone go from 2,500 to 5,000 or 5,000 to 10,000 than 20,000 to 50,000, because that’s a really big chunk of money to come up with.

[00:12:09] Larry Heller: Yeah. And I mean that, but that’s also good to have a person that really can discuss this. And sometimes these. Bigger carriers. Their client says, well, how can I save money? And they just find different ways of saving money and don’t realize it. It’s two that I remember kind of was a storm a few years ago, and people wanted to know exactly what the wind was because it was above a certain wind.

[00:12:30] Larry Heller: It would hit the hurricane deductible. And if it wasn’t. Yeah, it was below it and I think there was a hole big to do and what the actual wind was at that particular time. I dunno if you remember that. 

[00:12:40] Gregg Knepper: Yeah. This, you know, I don’t remember exactly what you’re talking about, but I remember, um, hurricane Sandy, which was in 2012, uh, 2012.

[00:12:49] Gregg Knepper: October of 2012 and there was a big deal, whether it was a hurricane or not, when it made landfall because the insurance carriers were trying to argue it was, and ’cause they wanted, they’d rather everyone have [00:13:00] $50,000 deductibles or 20 than two, 2000 or 5,000. It turned out and there was litigation about it.

[00:13:05] Gregg Knepper: But when, when that storm hit landfall in New York in the five boroughs on Long Island in New Jersey also, it was not technically a hurricane. And a lot of the damage from that storm was actually due to the storm surge. Mm-hmm. And not the wind. Mm-hmm. Um, and so it wasn’t great for insurance carriers, but the individual that had insurance and made claims, um, it worked out better for them because it wasn’t classified as a hurricane.

[00:13:29] Larry Heller: Right. Great point. Great information. Let’s, let’s kind of go back to the original for one of your first original comments when talked about people that are kind of shopping around for insurance and what are some of the things that they should know when they’re, when they are shopping around? 

[00:13:45] Gregg Knepper: Yeah, I mean, I think insurance like.

[00:13:48] Gregg Knepper: Pretty much anything else. People buy, um, products, services, et cetera. For the most part, you get what you pay for and, you know, there are certain things that are, have been commoditized. Personal [00:14:00] auto insurance has. Basically been commoditized. If you go to Allstate or State Farm or Geico, all these online, you know what are called captive companies, you’re pretty much getting the same product.

[00:14:10] Gregg Knepper: But when we start to get into more, um, more of the, the homeowner’s insurance, and definitely on the commercial side, you get what you pay for, you know, the high-end personal alliance carriers like National General and Pure, and Chubb and a IG, they just ensure things differently. And so. You could have one home that’s insured with Allstate and you can have it insured with Pure.

[00:14:35] Gregg Knepper: And the way that these carriers respond to claims is vastly different. So it’s very important to be cognizant of changing carriers, understanding what you have, what you don’t have, how carriers handle, handle their, their claims. Um, and just trying to move to maybe save some money is. Oftentimes not, uh, not the best way to go about it.

[00:14:55] Larry Heller: Yeah. Uh, especially on the home, maybe the car not as much, but especially on the, [00:15:00] on the home, so, you know, so a lot, I guess a lot of these companies, they, they want you to group all their coverage together. So sometimes I speak to clients and they’re, they just a lot of times focus on the premium, and so they’ll be with a.

[00:15:14] Larry Heller: You know, uh, a big carrier for the car and then they’ll move their home there. And I don’t know if they always really understand that. So, is grouping coverage with one carrier, does it end up really being the best for everybody? I. 

[00:15:27] Gregg Knepper: Yeah, so like most things, it depends on the exact scenario. The carriers want a, what they call bundle insurance.

[00:15:33] Gregg Knepper: They want your home and auto umbrella and jewelry, and they wanna insure it all because they want more business typically. And so they give you discounts for bundling them. And so sometimes it, it’s great and it works well sometimes. It’s not the best scenario in, in, in your, uh, example. I think a lot of times what happens, and we see this all the time, is somebody will have all of their coverage with a certain carrier and they say, oh, well I’m, I’m with this company and, and I got a better rate on my auto.

[00:15:59] Gregg Knepper: And they move their [00:16:00] auto and then two months later they get a bill from their, the other carrier and insures their home and says. You know, you just lost your 15% credit on the home ’cause you moved your auto. So it’s important to look holistically and see what’s going on there. You know, there are some carriers, one carrier that we write a lot of business with back to kind of what I was saying earlier.

[00:16:16] Gregg Knepper: I think carriers are being much more stringent. They’re, they want, you know, it’s gotta fit in this perfect little box or they don’t wanna write it. We want carrier now that does a great job. They’re very competitive. It’s a great option if it works. But they will only write homes on Long Island if they’re single family homes and they write.

[00:16:33] Gregg Knepper: Two automobiles and an umbrella for you. And so it becomes difficult. We have folks that are moving out from the city to Long Island. They have no cars or they have one car and we wanna ride it with them. Everything is perfect, but if you don’t have two cars, they won’t ride it. So, you know, you got, we have to play, you know, within the bounds of, of, of all the nuances of each of the carriers.

[00:16:51] Larry Heller: Yeah. I mean that’s why it’s so important to work with somebody who’s got great experience. I just wanna touch on one, one item. You mentioned umbrella coverage and kind of, this is one [00:17:00] of the things that are kind of. I didn’t know about a few years ago, and since when I found out about it, I, I always ask my clients this, this comment, A lot of times they say, I have no idea.

[00:17:11] Larry Heller: And that really has to do with uninsured motorists. So I, I, I can’t really talk to somebody in the business without really kind letting our audience know what an uninsured motorist is and kind of what they should be on the lookout for. So can you kind of let everyone know about that? 

[00:17:28] Gregg Knepper: Sure. So I, I often talk about unin, uninsured and underinsured motorists in the same conversation as hurricane deductibles because they’re two of the most misunderstood and, and, and unexplained types of coverage.

[00:17:40] Gregg Knepper: So I’m glad you’re asking me about that. So there, there is a type of coverage both on your auto policy and an umbrella that you can have, which is called uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. You can be out on the road, whether you’re on Long Island, New York City, Florida, wherever it is. And the person in front of you, behind you next to you may have no insurance at all.

[00:17:59] Gregg Knepper: Or they might [00:18:00] have the New York state limits of $25,000 of liability. So if you get into an automobile accident with somebody that has no auto insurance, and let’s say it’s their fault, they rear end you, you’re stopped at a red light, they rear end you a hundred percent culpability on their part, and they should be, and you, unfortunately, you get injured.

[00:18:16] Gregg Knepper: You go to the hospital, maybe you need surgery, and they, and they should be, their insurance company should be paying you. $400,000 a very, you know, quite large claim, but they have no insurance and they also have no assets. So where does that leave you? Now you can use your own auto policy. You pay for those under the uninsured underinsured motorist coverage.

[00:18:36] Gregg Knepper: Now again, you can elect $25,000 there, and I won’t name the company, but there’s a very large auto insurance company that always comes on on their ads and says, what do you wanna pay? Name your price. Mm-hmm. And if you name your price and it’s a really low number, chances are you’re gonna have. State minimum limits in New York of 25,000.

[00:18:53] Larry Heller: Just to clarify, this is somebody now hits you and like you said, the the limit is 25,000 [00:19:00] on their policy, but now if you have uninsured motorists, it would be covered under your own policy. So you really wanna know what your own policy is gonna cover for this. 

[00:19:10] Gregg Knepper: Exactly. So if you had, what would I typically recommend?

[00:19:14] Gregg Knepper: Over $250,000 of uninsured underinsured motorist coverage, that’s gonna cover most claims. And you know, if somebody hits you that doesn’t have the right insurance, then you know you’re in a much better position. And then to take it one step further, if you have an umbrella, which. Certain folks should have.

[00:19:31] Gregg Knepper: You can also have excess, uninsured underinsured motorist coverage, which will give you, typically carriers will give a maximum of million dollars of uninsured underinsured motorist. So if you have that on your umbrella plus your auto, you know, you can have up to 1.25 million of uninsured underinsured motorist coverage.

[00:19:48] Gregg Knepper: Again, something to look out for many of the big companies, you know, like travelers is notorious for it. They’ll offer you an umbrella. They don’t offer uninsured underinsured motorists quite often. So you get this umbrella, you think [00:20:00] you have an additional million or two or 3 million of liability, which you do, but there’s no uninsured underinsured motorist.

[00:20:06] Gregg Knepper: So whenever we can, we try and help our clients to make sure that they include. Uninsured underinsured motorist coverage? 

[00:20:13] Larry Heller: Yeah, because I mean, I mean, we all hear the stories. People fortunately have some severe car accidents that need a lot of medical coverage or need a lot of pt, um, physical therapy afterwards.

[00:20:25] Larry Heller: So it can easily all, it can easily, uh, yeah, lost 

[00:20:27] Gregg Knepper: wages as well can potentially be covered there. Um, I’ve, I’ve, fortunately I haven’t had too many of those claims in my career, but I had one, it’s probably six or seven years ago now, where you don’t act. This person actually wasn’t even in their own vehicle.

[00:20:40] Gregg Knepper: They were in New York City in Manhattan, walking in the street in a crosswalk. And, uh, um, a black like livery cab. Hit them had state minimum limits of 25,000. Unfortunately, this woman had, you know, uh, I don’t know, multiple, at least one surgery, multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars claim. And, and she was [00:21:00] walking and it, her uninsured underinsured motorist coverage covered that claim is, uh, several hundred thousand dollars.

[00:21:05] Gregg Knepper: Um, so you never know, you know. Same as any insurance. You never know when or if it’s gonna happen. And that’s why it’s important to, you know, be covered properly. Yeah, 

[00:21:13] Larry Heller: but that’s interesting. No car, but she was able to get uninsured motorist through their, through her umbrella. So, uh, yeah. Yeah. Uh, uh, extremely, extremely important.

[00:21:22] Larry Heller: Uh, before we finish up one area, I kind of want to switch gears a little bit to, I’m know if it, it, it covers really individuals, maybe more business oriented, but, uh, you know, with the world that we’re living in, the tech world that we’re living in in these days and we’re seeing more. Cybersecurity attacks.

[00:21:39] Larry Heller: Um, is that something really individuals really need to worry about? It’s really more businesses. 

[00:21:44] Gregg Knepper: Yeah. I was actually just talking about someone with someone about this earlier today in that everyone needs to worry about it. Um, individuals and businesses. Unfortunately, there’s not a great affordable product in terms of insurance for individuals.

[00:21:58] Gregg Knepper: There are a couple of carriers [00:22:00] that are writing it. It’s just too expensive. I mean, one of the ones I looked at, I don’t know, three or four months ago, it’s like $1,500 for a policy and it’s just expensive for an individual that’s annually, so that really hasn’t gained too much traction. What I would say is separate from the insurance side.

[00:22:15] Gregg Knepper: It’s just very, very important these days to have the proper, you know, online hygiene, protecting your data, having correct like good, strong passwords, different than the passwords for your other online logins using multifactor authentication. I mean, all of these things are, it’s just so important, you know, not having a, you know.

[00:22:35] Gregg Knepper: A spreadsheet with all of your logins and passwords. I highly recommend using some of these password managers Now. LastPass Or one password? 

[00:22:45] Larry Heller: One password. We use one password, yeah. 

[00:22:46] Greggg Knepper: Yeah. And it works. It works really well. The passwords are much stronger. You’re, you know, you can even share passwords within an organization that way, and you’re not emailing them or, you know, so.

[00:22:55] Gregg Knepper: You can easily change them. So I highly recommend them for, for individuals. [00:23:00] And then there’s the same, you know, in the same context for, for businesses, I mean, being careful not opening emails if you don’t know who it’s from, not clicking on attachments, having updated antivirus. All of these things are, are just so important.

[00:23:12] Greggg Knepper: The multifactor authentication is just, is paramount. All businesses, one employee, 15 employees, 500, 5,000 employees. Every business should have cyber insurance at this point. It is affordable for businesses. You should have it. We see more cyber claims other than workers’ compensation. We see more cyber claims than in any other space.

[00:23:30] Gregg Knepper: It is pervasive and you just have to be on guard and in, in all aspects of, of your online presence and, and your money transferring, money protecting your bank accounts. It’s so important. 

[00:23:42] Larry Heller: Yeah. That’s our world. And we can have a whole conversation on some of the things that we’ve seen and scams that are.

[00:23:48] Larry Heller: Uh, that, that are out there with, uh, people stealing businesses, identities and coming in with their own escrow accounts. It’s, it’s a crazy world out there. Yeah. So we, that could be a [00:24:00] whole nother separate, separate podcast. So, Gregg, I mean, there’s a, a ton of information for, uh, listeners out there, and I think everyone that has, has listened to this or is watching this has, has learned something.

[00:24:12] Larry Heller: Any final, um, comments you wanna make? 

[00:24:15] Gregg Knepper: I think that, I think it’s important for people to be patient with the insurance market these days. I think it’s starting to turn, and I think in the next, you know, hopefully the next six months or so, I think you will, people will be more, uh, you know, hopefully we see some rates come down.

[00:24:29] Gregg Knepper: I would just say commercial, personal, like I, I already mentioned, insurance is very important to have, get what you pay for. It’s important to work with an advisor like me that is an expert that can help you and. You don’t have to pay me, right? We get paid by insurance carrier. You pay the same amount, whether you work with a broker or not.

[00:24:49] Gregg Knepper: Work with an independent broker that knows what they’re doing, that has the experience in the space that you’re in. 

[00:24:53] Larry Heller: Yeah. So important. Gregg, uh, thanks for joining us. If, if someone wants to reach out to you, what’s the best way of them [00:25:00] contacting you? 

[00:25:01] Gregg Knepper: Yeah, sure. So the, the name of the company is Integrated Coverage.

[00:25:04] Gregg Knepper: Our website is, uh, www.icgrisk.com. My email is G-K-N-E-P-P-E r@icgrisk.com. 

[00:25:15] Larry Heller: Great. Thanks so much again for, uh, for joining us today, Gregg. 

[00:25:19] Gregg Knepper: It was my pleasure. Thanks so much for the opportunity. Anytime. 

[00:25:22] Matt Halloran: Well, here’s the deal, everybody working with an independent insurance agent is a lot like working with an independent financial planner.

[00:25:29] Matt Halloran: Everything is on the table just like Gregg. Larry has access to. All sorts of products and services that if you’re working with a captive or a broker, uh, they don’t have the same sort of stuff. So this has been a great episode, Gregg, thank you very much for all of your thought leadership here. This is one of those episodes too, everybody that you know as well as I do, that there are people who really need to know about this stuff.

[00:25:52] Matt Halloran: So clicking that share button makes everybody happy. Make sure that you go to integrated coverage.com to find out more about Gregg, and of course, Heller Wealth Management. To find more about [00:26:00] Larry. And for Larry and Gregg, this is Matt Halloran, and we’ll see you on the other side of the mic. Very soon.