LL you are absolutely right about boycotting the sale of Citizens. My cousin (who is also an agent) and I were talking about that very thing and many agents have the same feeling since politicians sought to blame agents commissions as the primary reason for cutting Citizens expenses. Enough is enough, you want to pay us a $25, $50 or $75 fee for providing consumers a service of last resort, then write it yourself. Hire 100\’s of people to write, go take pictures, pay work comp, rent and then try and service the policy. It\’s business 101. But when you have a bucket of taxpayer money to run your government entity, watching your expenses is not priority one. Agents are not the problem for Citizens, despite what our elected officials think.
I am sorry I was unable to respond sooner. I have been very busy responding to a new batch of client calls that came in to our agency due to non renewal notices being sent out (these were not only my clients but several prospective clients receiving the same non renewal notices from their carriers and that have not received a call back from their current agent and/or are being told that their agent cannot help them.) Unfortunately, more than half of these clients did not fit the underwriting guidelines that have been changing on a continuous basis and therefore we were unable to write these with our few remaining standard markets. I then had to explain to them why I am quoting them with Citizens after all the bad publicity Citizens has received this year and then make them jump through hoops just to purchase a DP1 policy. Please understand that I wish to have a more competetive market place, however, the fact is- we need markets first. So what do I do with the clients that have called every agency in town and are being told the same song and dance? We are not talking just the little guy we are talking the middle & upper class as well-we are talking about business owners, churches, people with a savings account, people with children that they want to put through college, the elderly. These are not people looking for hand outs these are people that are looking for relief…. I think we need to request that Citizens set up an 800# and start writing these policies themselves just to get an understanding of how massively important this issue is.
Citizens have been heaping the crap on agents, that VOTERS have been heaping on Citizens. They just keep passing the dirty buck onto agents who are absolutely snowed-under by Citizens-generated paperwork. It\’s time we say to pandering politicians: Torturing insurance agents still won\’t lower your rates! We hope to wash our hands of Citizens soon: Let them all nonrenew!
That is a nice idea, but the reality is that if some agents let the Citizens policies go, so other agency or bucket shop/street front agency will pick them up. Most of the PIP/PD and Tag agencies only have Citizens as a market and live off of that and non-standard auto.
It would be nice to see our politicians study the problem instead of studying the demographics of the voting public. The reality is that much of Florida\’s residents are on a fixed income and so our elected leaders are bowing to their wishes, vying for re-election instead of fixing the problem in an intelligent way.
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LL you are absolutely right about boycotting the sale of Citizens. My cousin (who is also an agent) and I were talking about that very thing and many agents have the same feeling since politicians sought to blame agents commissions as the primary reason for cutting Citizens expenses. Enough is enough, you want to pay us a $25, $50 or $75 fee for providing consumers a service of last resort, then write it yourself. Hire 100\’s of people to write, go take pictures, pay work comp, rent and then try and service the policy. It\’s business 101. But when you have a bucket of taxpayer money to run your government entity, watching your expenses is not priority one. Agents are not the problem for Citizens, despite what our elected officials think.
I am sorry I was unable to respond sooner. I have been very busy responding to a new batch of client calls that came in to our agency due to non renewal notices being sent out (these were not only my clients but several prospective clients receiving the same non renewal notices from their carriers and that have not received a call back from their current agent and/or are being told that their agent cannot help them.) Unfortunately, more than half of these clients did not fit the underwriting guidelines that have been changing on a continuous basis and therefore we were unable to write these with our few remaining standard markets. I then had to explain to them why I am quoting them with Citizens after all the bad publicity Citizens has received this year and then make them jump through hoops just to purchase a DP1 policy. Please understand that I wish to have a more competetive market place, however, the fact is- we need markets first. So what do I do with the clients that have called every agency in town and are being told the same song and dance? We are not talking just the little guy we are talking the middle & upper class as well-we are talking about business owners, churches, people with a savings account, people with children that they want to put through college, the elderly. These are not people looking for hand outs these are people that are looking for relief…. I think we need to request that Citizens set up an 800# and start writing these policies themselves just to get an understanding of how massively important this issue is.
Citizens have been heaping the crap on agents, that VOTERS have been heaping on Citizens. They just keep passing the dirty buck onto agents who are absolutely snowed-under by Citizens-generated paperwork. It\’s time we say to pandering politicians: Torturing insurance agents still won\’t lower your rates! We hope to wash our hands of Citizens soon: Let them all nonrenew!
That is a nice idea, but the reality is that if some agents let the Citizens policies go, so other agency or bucket shop/street front agency will pick them up. Most of the PIP/PD and Tag agencies only have Citizens as a market and live off of that and non-standard auto.
It would be nice to see our politicians study the problem instead of studying the demographics of the voting public. The reality is that much of Florida\’s residents are on a fixed income and so our elected leaders are bowing to their wishes, vying for re-election instead of fixing the problem in an intelligent way.