San Leandro, CA Oakland, CA Different Insurance Companies for Home and Auto? Best to Check it Out!

Did you know that some of the “direct carriers“ that  offer one line of insurance such as car insurance but will sell you another line of insurance such as Homeowners or Renters from a different insurance carrier? The insurance company is essentially acting as a “broker” for the other lines of insurance placed with the second carrier. Why does this matter?

Most insurance companies that offer one of insurance, can only “broker” to carriers that offer non-competing products.  “Multi-line carriers” will not work with these insurers because they know that the best policies will get cherry-picked!  This limits the one-liners as to which carriers and what types of policies they can sell you. 

The real question is Are you may be getting a good rate and good policy on the one line of insurance? The lines of insurance that are brokered to another carrier may not be of the quality you expect.  The reason is carriers that offer several lines of insurance will not cooperate with a competing insurance carrier so often the relationship and that being one with an insurance company but doesn’t have the best policy options or rates.

As an independent broker, we do not have this dilemma. We do not compete against our insurance company partners, we are their sales and service department. So, they view us as a provider not a competitor. This allows us to have relationships with the major carriers and still place policies without having to worry about the adversarial relationship that an insurer/broker has to overcome.

Next time you get a quote from a direct insurance company and they sell you a policy from another insurance company AND you haven’t bought either of these from an independent agent, we encourage you to give us a call immediately. We should be able to improve your situation.  IN fact, we just helped someone with this very situation earlier today!