EPISODE SUMMARY
Guest: Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds is an insurance expert who owns the independent insurance agency Grimes Insurance which is celebrating 75 years of business in Lubbock, TX, this year. Before that, he worked as a State Farm agent for many years.
He is breaking down all the dos and don’ts about how to protect ourselves, our family, and the other party in case of an automobile accident. Some of the topics covered in this episode is:
Liability insurance really protects the other person.
Uninsured, underinsured motorist is very important and personal injury protection to make sure that the coverage on the policy protects you and your family.
What is Umbrella Policy?
What to do and not to do if you’re in an accident.
How to use the deductible to increase the amount of coverage.
What to do if you are a victim of a hit-and-run accident.
To contact Ryan Reynolds:, go to https://grimesinsurance.com/
https://www.facebook.com/ryan.reynolds.3532
To contact Ruth, go to https://www.blairclinic.com
ruth@blairclinic.com
https://www.facebook.com/rutelin
TRANSCRIPT
It really comes down for me Ruth, it comes down to there is nothing more important than making sure that your family is taken care of. If you're waiting in the waiting room in the emergency room while your child or your spouse is injured, the last thing you want to be thinking about is what are my limits
To What Pain in the neck, the podcast, I'm your host Ruth Elder, and today I have a special episode planned and I will want to take a minute and explain what I'm doing with this episode that's different from the other episodes. We treat a lot of injuries here at the Blair Clinic related to what has happened in car accidents, and there's a lot of confusion about what to do with insurance, what insurance to have, whether to contact your insurance, what if it's the other guy's fault.
I find that the only thing that makes the trauma of being injured and being in pain and the shock of what can have happened in a car accident worse is not getting the help you need. The insurance process, we can actually prepare ahead of time so that that piece gets a little bit easier. We can make sure we have the right coverage, we can think about ahead of time what to do if worse comes to worse. Today I have found an insurance expert that's been willing to come on the show for us. His name is Ryan Reynolds. He owns Grimes Insurance Company here in Lubbock.
An agency owner, but I was in college. I was a freshman in college and I was recruited while I was still in school to work for State Farm Insurance. At the time being a poor broke college student, any amount of money and health benefits and those things sounded really attractive to a 19 or 20-year old. I took an opportunity with State Farm and it was in their claims department in homeowner claims and whatnot. Pretty quickly on I knew I wanted to be an insurance agent or an agency owner.
Went down the corporate path to become a State Farm agent and was a State Farm agent in the Houston, Texas area for a few years. Then went on the management side of State Farm and then, ultimately, decided what I really wanted to do is to be able to serve more clients in more ways than just what I could as a State Farm agent. I purchased an independent insurance agency in Lubbock called Grimes Insurance. It's been four years since that transaction occurred, and Grimes Insurance has been here in Lubbock for this October, we'll celebrate our 75th anniversary.
Just about two or three years longer than the Blair Clinic. Actually before we move on, would you like to explain maybe the difference between working for something like State Farm versus an independent agency because, I don't know that a lot of our listeners really understand that difference.
Being a State Farm agent, State Farm agents are very similar to a farmer's agent or a Farm Bureau agent. They're considered the technical term is a captive agent meaning they're captive to that one company. If you were to call and get an insurance quote from a State Farm agent, they could only quote you State Farm or when your rates go up at your next renewal as most insurance rates do every year they go up, they tend to go up, a State Farm agent can't do anything other than maybe adjust your current coverages.
Whereas an independent agent or a broker, like Grimes Insurance, is we have access to a little over a 100 different companies. When somebody calls us for an insurance quote we can shop over a 100 companies to get them the best combination of coverage deductibles, discount and what everyone's concerned about price.
You talked about a combination of coverage and then price and then you have the-- The theme in life is you get what you pay for. Do you always want to get the cheapest?
We always tell people that same thing, you get what you pay for. Not all insurance is created equal. You'll see a lot of advertising on television that will try to lead you to believe otherwise. You'll call me for a quote, say 15% in 15 minutes or less. The problem with that is as individual as every person is, so should their coverages.
Do you want to actually talk a little bit about how that process works of pairing up your needs with your budget, and then also a lot of the next questions are actually going to deal with what do we need?
I think our conversation with prospects or clients is around their lifestyle. What types of activities are they involved in as it relates to auto insurance? If you take the liability portion of the auto insurance liability coverage on your auto insurance is really designed to protect your assets, your personal assets. You want to have as much liability coverage as you have in assets. That's always an interesting conversation to try to help people understand that aspect of it because if they don't have adequate liability coverage and they're in an at fault accident, then their personal assets are at risk.
You can be sued for the difference.
You can be sued for the difference. We really try to take a consultative approach to understand our client, what needs they have, what assets they need to protect, what their family looks like, what their habits and behaviors are. For example, I love to ask-- we talk to a lot of stay-at-home parents, a lot of stay-at-home moms or dads that have kids at home, "Are you transporting kids, neighbor kids, neighborhood kids back and forth to soccer practice?"
That's a big responsibility.
It's a big responsibility and the general public probably doesn't think very much about the risks associated with that, but there are substantial risks.
How do you protect someone in that situation? What do you recommend, if I may? I personally have four kids, they've grown up now, they all-- Scary enough, have their own driver's licenses and their own cars and things.
It is scary.
There was a time I had four little kids and then maybe I would be transporting friends too.
What's interesting about auto insurance, Ruth, is that the general public talks about liability insurance a lot, because it's mandated by the state that you have to carry it. Everyone thinks in their mind rightfully so because of advertising and marketing that liability insurance is the most important coverage on the auto insurance in my personal opinion. Liability insurance really protects you, meaning if I have liability insurance on my vehicle--
As a dad driver in your case?
Yes, it's to protect you. Meaning, if I hit you and I'm at fault, liability insurance is going to protect you, it's going to pay your medical bills, replace or repair your vehicle. I love you Ruth, but I care about me and mine.
You're fair enough.
I want to make sure that my family's protected and my vehicle can be repaired or replaced and my medical bills are paid. We really try to help people understand how important uninsured, underinsured motorist is and personal injury protection to make sure that they have those coverages on their policy because that really protects them and their family.
Actually that is that what brought me to do this interview today. A little over a year ago, my own son was a passenger in a car that was in a horrendous wreck and is just by the grace of God that nobody died. It was a horrendous accident, as bad as it gets, and it's every person's worst nightmare. The other person was uninsured. It brought this really home to me. Also, here at the Blair Clinic, we see a lot of people are injured and they're concerned about the car, and they got their car covered, and the car is easy to replace.
If you have injuries and you have neck pain and migraines and post-concussion syndrome or horrendous. You can't turn your head from side to side because your neck is injured. Research shows that 20 years later, more than 50% of people who have those symptoms still suffer. I know research studies say 20 years later, but we have seen people here 40, 50 years later that have had pain. Can you address the difference between covering the car and covering yourself, covering your kids and maybe as part of that touch on personal injury protection?
There's lots of different coverages that make up auto insurance, but I think there's a couple of really key ones. One's obviously you're deductible, you can choose 500 or a 1,000 or more. The other one is liability insurance, which liability again is going to protect. This is maybe a corny way of saying it, but I always say liability protects them and theirs uninsured, underinsured-- protects me and mine. Liability insurance is going to protect if you are at fault and you hit someone, it's going to repair their vehicle. It's going to pay for their medical bills, and those expenses that are associated with that. Where uninsured motorist comes in is in Texas at least I can't speak of other states, but in Texas approximately 40% of the drivers are uninsured or underinsured.
40%?
40%.
That's astounding.
There's 40% of drivers driving around Texas that either don't have insurance or they're not adequately protected, meaning, underinsured. If one of them hits you, what happens? Well, if you have uninsured motorists on your personal auto insurance policy, then your medical bills and your car is going to be replaced. Short of that, there's really no coverage to repair your vehicle and to pay your medical bills.
Are there limits on that or different levels? How does that work?
Yes, generally they mirror the same limits as your liability coverage. There's really three parts. There's a per-person limit, there's a per-accident limit, and then there's a property damage limit. Property damage, meaning your vehicle. If one of these uninsured motorist hits you, there's a limit and they'll replace your car or repair your car up to that limit. Then the other limits have to do with per-person. Ruth, if you and I are riding in my car together and we get hit by an uninsured motorist there's a limit for you and a limit for me, but then there's a combined limit.
Yes. For instance, the accident that my son was in, there was five people riding in that car. That's not counting the car who hit them and all of them were injured, but one person was critically injured and needed, I think five surgeries and spent several nights in intensive care, and then a lengthy hospital stay after that. She was expensive. Then it's the other more long-term therapies and things that everybody being checked out and all the medical visits. My son has a chipped tooth, and it just goes on and on and on and on. How would you break that down in that case? What would you recommend?
I think it goes back to what the person or what our client would have at risk. If they have a large family, for example, if they have three or four kids, and two spouses, then our minimum baseline limit is you can sell lower. The state will allow you to, and insurance companies will allow you to sell lower limits, but the lowest we personally offer is $100,000 in coverage.
I know that you have a large family.
I do.
What do you have? [laughter] Are you willing to share?
Sure, I'll share. My liability limits and my uninsured motors limits mirror each other. It's $250,000 per person, $500,000 per accident. If my family and I are involved in an accident, somebody hits us and they're uninsured, my family is going to be able to have $500,000 worth of medical bills paid for. Because I have some exposure we also have what's called an umbrella policy, a personal liability umbrella policy over the top of our auto insurance.
How does that work? Can you just say that? Explain that real quick?
Yes. If you have a visualization of an umbrella, this personal liability umbrella policy gives you additional liability protection on top of what your auto insurance provides. You can buy those usually in million dollar increments. You can buy them in $1 million, $2 million up to $10 or $15 million in additional coverage. My family's personally covered by the auto insurance limits, plus an umbrella over the top of that.
That's great. If I'm out shopping for insurance, and you're saying I can get as little as $100,000, but I'm not sure I want the minimum. What's the difference between, let's say, do what you had done with your $500,000 for your family versus getting the minimum? What is the difference in my rate?
That's a great question. Every single person based on their driving record, how old they are, whether they're male or female, how long they've had their driver's license, what kind of car are they drive, their rates are going to be different. As a general rule, what I always tell people is my personal philosophy on insurance, and this is what I try to educate our clients on, is take a higher deductible. In other words, go from a $500 deductible to $1,000 deductible, which will make your insurance premiums cheaper, but then reinvest the difference back into higher liability and uninsured motorist limits.
Great advice.
You can essentially get double the liability and double the uninsured motorist coverage for the same price by increasing your deductible from $500 to $1,000.
That sounds great.
It really comes down. For me, Ruth, it comes down to, there is nothing more important than making sure that your family is taken care of. If you're waiting in the waiting room in the emergency room while your child or your spouse is injured, the last thing you want to be thinking about is what are my limits?
Let's go there. Because insurance, that's what it's for. If I'm there waiting in the emergency room, let's say it's the other person's fault we don't know if they're underinsured, if they have good insurance, if they're completely uninsured. What do I do? Do I call my insurance?
The advice I always give people is always call, if you have a local insurance agent call and have a "off the record consultation" with your insurance agent. Tell them what's happened.
Call them and say, "I was in an accident, and I was hit, and I'm in the emergency room and somebody is hurt."
As a general rule I always advise people to file on the person that's at fault onto their insurance first because insurance companies are like any other business, they want to make a profit. If they see that you've had a claim, or you filed a claim, whether it's paid out or not, you're susceptible to having a slight rate increase. What I always say is, let's go to the other person, the at-faults party's insurance first, let's see what happens there. If they're going really slow or they're declining the claim, or there's not enough coverage, then file on your personal auto insurance.
One of the things that I see here is people are really afraid to call their own insurance agent, but I'm feeling like if I'm buying insurance from you, it's your job to direct me to get help if the worst happens, is that --
Yes. Absolutely. If you were to call our office, and tell us, "Hey, I was involved in an accident," we would ask you questions like, "Who is at fault?" If you say, the other person, then we're personally going to try to help you file a claim on the at-fault person's policy, and let's see how that plays out for a short period of time. We'll give them a little bit of grace, but a lot of times they go too slow or they're not approving the claim, or they decline the claim, or they don't want to accept responsibility, if it's taking too long, then file it on your own.
There's another thing that I have seen that also happens is you go to the other person's insurance, and say, "Yes, we've got you. Here's a paper to sign. Here's the settlement." Can you address that?
My personal philosophy is don't sign anything. Don't sign anything because the problem is, as you've experienced, and your patients have probably experienced the insurance company wants to settle that as quickly as possible, especially when it's not your insurance. They want to give you a check, and you go down the road and if you experience pain or discomfort down the road, sorry about you.
Sometimes you don't know the extent of the injury until some time have passed, it's not always instant. Then also in the shock of the moment, how do you have the waits about you to sign? Don't sign anything.
Don't sign anything.
[laughs] Good advice.
General rule, don't sign anything.
All right. [crosstalk]
At least don't sign anything that's going to prevent you from filing additional expenses or claims later in the future as a result of this claim.
What is personal injury protection, and how does it work?
That's a good question. Personal injury protection is probably the most widely misunderstood coverage on the auto insurance policy.
That's what I've seen. That's what we most often file here for people that have been injured, and I see that people have no idea how it works. From an expert, explain it.
Personal injury protection, you're involved in an accident could pay for lost wages. It could pay, let's say you had to take a day off work to go to court to testify, or something-- something like that it could reimburse you for those types of things. It can pay for medical expenses medical bills. If you go to the chiropractor it could pay for those types of bills. the--
What's the deductible on that?
There's no deductible on a personal injury protection.
How does it affect coverage? Your right if you file on that.
That's probably another widely, maybe not misunderstood, but just not very common. Every claim on the auto insurance because insurance companies need to make a profit to continue providing the promises that they do. I always tell people there's a potential that any claim could increase your rates. You've got to balance that, right? If you're injured or you're ill and you need care, go get the care. File the claim and let us deal with that later. If you work with an independent agent like Grimes Insurance or another one of the 40,000 independent agents across the country, if your rates do go up as a result of that claim, well then there's other markets other insurance companies that can write you and probably save even more money.
Yes. I've found that the rate is negligible compared to the peace of mind. What's available.
Yes. I agree with that.
We've seen a lot of relief not just from people getting the physical care they need, but just the stress coming off and they realized, oh, I have this protection. Something else that came to my attention when my son was injured, he was a passenger in someone else's car. The fact that we have personal injury protection on our vehicle and he's one of the drivers on our insurance policy, our personal injury protection could cover his injuries in another car.
Yes. That's a great thing about it. Here's a real-life example. I've shared this with you before, Ruth. We had a client that had a motorcycle insurance policy with our agency and also an auto insurance policy. Two separate policy so the coverage limits were different, on the motorcycle policy he did not have personal injury protection, but on the auto insurance policy he did, he was unfortunately involved in a motorcycle accident that took his life. There was no coverage for the personal injury protection or anything like that for his family that he left behind. We were able to go back and file it on his auto insurance.
That's amazing. Yes.
-Even though he wasn't in the car, it's still paid out and paid out the limits to his spouse.
That's good yes.
It could be something I've seen claims where someone is walking in the crosswalk, and they're struck by a vehicle. They can file on their own even though they weren't in a vehicle. They can file a personal injury claim on their own auto insurance policy and potentially get covered that way.
Okay. That's good. Are there different levels on the personal injury protection? Can you up that limit too?
Yes, you can up that limit too. They've I think the lowest route they start at is 2,500.
That's what I'm [unintelligible 00:23:19]
2,500, 5,000, 10,000. They probably even go higher than that. 10,000 is about the highest that we generally see though.
Okay. All right so you talked about if it's the other person's fault you may want to file with them. What if it is your fault, what do you do?
Good question. If it's your fault I think what I would encourage you to do is just to pick up the phone and call your insurance company and notify them right away to put them on notice. That's contractual in your auto insurance contract that you have to notify them as soon as possible. If you're at fault or believe that you're at fault or potentially at fault. To notify your insurance company it's not a scary or a dangerous they're not going to be mad or upset.
They're going to yell at you.
They're not going to yell at you. They're in the insurance industry. It's a service industry. They want to take care of people. They want to help you. That's what we're there for.
Isn't that why we have insurance?
Yes. It's exactly right no one certainly wants to use insurance because that means you've been involved in some crisis. You need to use it when you need it. I always encourage people to file a claim and file it right away.
Yes. Are there special considerations? If it's a hit and run, you're injured and you're left there?
Yes. My personal advice is, no matter if it happens in a parking lot of a grocery store or it's in an intersection or on the freeway, or it looks like a little ding or just something small, always call the police. I always call the police because your insurance company is going to want a police report. Even if the person hits you and then runs stay there, stay calm, call the police they'll come and they'll file the police report and you'll need that for your insurance coverages to kick in.
Yes. Ryan, is there one thing that you just wish every single person understood about this?
I think there's two things that I would probably say that I wish more people understood. One is, we talked about this concept earlier of taking higher deductibles and reinvesting the rest into higher limits. Because if you think about it, nowadays most people are running around town with $100,000 or less of medical coverage. If somebody's involved in an accident you go to the emergency room and you're there for a few hours there's $100,000.
Yes, and you need surgery and intensive care unit and hospitalization. That runs up quite a bit.
Yes so use your insurance wisely, be willing to pay a higher deductible to offset and to increase your coverages, both your liability and your uninsured motors coverage, the other--
Maybe the PIP too.
Yes. Make sure that you have personal injury protection. I think that's more and more as families and individuals struggle economically with the current state of the economy people are looking to cut expenses. Personal injury protection is a few dollars a month.
A few dollars a month.
A few dollars a month.
It can take care of injuries that potentially could keep you from working or--
Yes. They reimburse you for lost wages, things like that.
Yes. That's the bottom line that we see here. Yes, we help people with injuries and pain, but really what it is, is I've seen in car accidents in a moment, you can't function. One of the last people that we saw in here and she was extremely anxious about contacting her insurance company but she couldn't work. She had injured her back so much that she couldn't go and do her work. What impact does that have on your personal finances and your life. She couldn't do her work but she also was a mother and a grandmother and she couldn't pick up her kids or anything like that. Then when you get the personal injury protection and she healed up, she got her life back. She got her career back. She could go back and do her work. She could go and kiss her and play with her grandbabies. That's the bottom line for a few dollars a month.
Yes, for a few dollars a month. It can add a lifetime of peace and just security.
Yes. Then make maybe the difference of living in a lifetime of pain and limitation versus actually getting those injuries addressed and heal up.
Yes. I would say back to your question, I would say that the second thing that I would encourage people is to make sure that they have uninsured underinsured motorist. Because even if someone does have insurance that hits you if they don't have enough, that's when your uninsured underinsured motorist kicks in because you want to make sure that your family is taken care of. I said, the last thing you want is your child or spouse to be injured and you're sitting in an emergency room wondering if there's going to be adequate coverage to pay for the surgery they need or the medical care that they need. Those are the two things that I would encourage people to do.
Yes. Is there anything else that I haven't thought to ask that you as an expert want to share?
No, I think sure this is not cheap. It continues to go up. I would encourage people to not be afraid to reach out to an independent agent who can shop multiple companies and can go over in a real thoughtful methodical way. Your coverage is what you're protected for, what you're not protected for. To be able to get you the best possible price on that,
Yes, and I like that. You're talking about it's not just what you pay per month but what are you paying for? What is your coverage? Then be educated. Good advice is there anything else you would like to say?
No. I think I love what you're doing here and I think this is fantastic. I appreciate the opportunity to share some thoughts.
Before we close out, if somebody wants to ask you an insurance question or get a quote from you or have any other questions, how do they find you? Our office website is www.grimesinsurance.com.
I'll put a link in our show notes.
Oh, okay. Appreciate that. We have 35 members of our staff that are anxiously awaiting to help people call in with questions or concerns. They're welcome to email me too. My email address is rReynolds@grimesinsurance.com and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Great. Then you have a podcast. Do you want to say something about that?
Sure, sure. As an insurance agency owner, I spend a portion of my time helping other independent insurance agency owners get a start and to build their business. A friend of mine, Daniel Song, and we started a podcast called Insurance Leaders podcast, and it's designed to help other insurance agents improve their leadership skills and abilities to scale their business.
We are great, and it was great leadership of you to come and educate my listeners today.
Happy to. Thanks for the opportunity.
You're welcome. Thank you. Now, usually, I ask every guest that I have on my show if you have a life verse or a motivational quote, or habit, or something that you do day in and day out to keep you grounded and motivated.
I have a lot of people, in my life to keep me grounded and motivated. My fiance and I, we have seven kids together and the kids do a really good job of keeping us grounded. I'm a person that subscribes to a lot of motivational-type things, and I think that's really important that you find something in your life that you're passionate about and especially if you can align that passion with helping other people and that's what fuels me and keeps me grounded, is helping and serving other people.
You've done that today, so thank you for your time.
Thank you.