Jon Summers

Review of Reed Insurance

I was quoted a good rate for home insurance (with ...

I was quoted a good rate for home insurance (with Hanover/Citizens Insurance) for our new house and all seemed well... until they changed my premium a couple weeks after finalizing the policy and paying a year in advance. Instead of focusing on my inquiry and accurately explaining why the premium increased, I was instead given a long sales pitch to buy more expensive auto liability insurance. After more email exchanges, I was told I either had to pay more, cancel the policy, or accept reduce coverage. We ended up going with the reduced coverage option.

The increase was caused because my Reed Insurance agent didn't know having a mortgage affects premiums (turns out it significantly did) and didn't take that into consideration when writing up the quote and didn't recheck the numbers after putting together the official policy which included the mortgagee information. I expect insurance agents to know how their insurance products work and to give me an accurate quote as long as I provide accurate information. This did not happen and no apology was given.

A couple weeks after that first debacle, the insurance company again increased our premium, this time claiming that the cost to rebuild was significantly higher than previously estimated because of a report created by a "risk management" company after a simple drive-by inspection. The rebuild numbers were clearly inflated. It turns out the company who wrote the report used incorrect numbers to calculate the square footage. It is difficult for me to believe that a risk management company working solely for the insurance companies would perform a fair, unbiased appraisal, even with accurate information; needless to say, it was way off.

Luckily, Reed Agency was able to mediate with the insurance company and fix the policy by convincing the underwriters that they miscalculated the rebuild cost.

Overall, It was very frustrating experience having to constantly fight just to keep my insurance policy from changing each week. I mostly place the blame on Big Insurance which should be regulated better. In the end, Reed did negotiate well on my behalf, though it took some prodding on my part, which allowed me to keep my policy mostly intact.

It could have gone smoother, but in the end we still have a good coverage at a good price.