Posted On: August 18, 2008, 12:51 pm CDT

Posted By: DK

This is a perfect example of agents failing to fulfill their responsibility to educate their clients. I have seen time and time again, agents who take zero time learning about their client's individual needs, just to get a policy issued. At their core, Agents shouldn't be salespeople, they're AGENTS (or a better word, advocates) for the interest of the people who trusted them to restore their standard of living in the event of a catastrophe.
The only reason for customers not understanding the basics of their homeowner's policies (such as guaranteed replacement v.s. extended replacement, cost per square foot to rebuilt, etc.) is the AGENT's desire for a sale winning out over their desire to protect their client.
Unfortunately, most agent's are woefully under-educated themselves (thanks to online ed courses; for example 50 hours of CE can be completed in about 4.5 hours....I know 'cuz I did it myself). Often times the onus of properly insuring a client gets passed around so much, the time they learn about what their policy covers is when they call the claims department in the middle of the night only to hear "I'm sorry, but we can't help you..."
Better insurance through better education.
Thus endeth the rant.