I am a former employee. I worked there for three years and was appalled by the practices that this agency taught me. I have since moved on and learned that many of their methods are not only dishonest, but against the Department of Insurance regulations. Here are a few of their practices to watch out for:
When you sign up, they will charge you a large amount to start up the policy and tell you that it covers your first and last month of insurance. This is not true. It is your first month and a broker fee. The agents are trained to charge the largest broker fee they think they can get out of you without losing your business. They will never tell you that there is any broker fee which is against the Dept of Ins rules.
Practically every client we had would call back expecting that they had already paid for their last month of insurance (weather it was explained as the last month of that policy term or the last month of their policy before they cancel it). The office has perfected a number of confusing explanations for their huge number of disgruntled customers.
Typically when a customer finds out about this, they will cancel. The problem then becomes that they receive no refund for that huge down payment because they will have already signed paperwork authorizing that it is non-refundable. Number 1 Insurance makes a lot of their money this way.
The agents are trained to hide the broker fee. They will make up reasons to make clients feel rushed to just sign and send back the papers without reading. If a client comes into the office they will even slide a page over the top portion of the broker fee disclosure so you can't see what it says when you're signing it.
Another practice of theirs is to leave things out of your coverage. The agent will explain coverages incorrectly so you think you are paying more for something that you actually are not getting. Most of the time this goes unnoticed until someone gets in an accident and are horrified to find that they do not have the coverage they expected. Number 1 Insurance never has to face reprocussions because they have the clients signature on the paperwork stating what coverages they have - and the client has no proof that they were misinformed.
They will also apply discounts to you that should not be applied; ie... Good driver, good student, Married (to people who are not married), low mileage... Example: Clients who disclose their accidents and traffic violations to the agents will have their policy written with a "good driver discount." The agent will list the discount on the application without informing the client. The client will either not pick up on it; because very few people read through the 13 page application; or they will question the agent who will tell them it is accepted by the company they are placing them with. A month later, after the insurance company has pulled the clients motor vehicle report or clue report, the client will receive an increase in premium - sometimes double their original quote. At this point they are stuck. They have already signed paperwork accepting that policy. They must either cancel (if they can't afford the new monthly payments), but they will be charged an "early termination fee" from the insurance company they were placed with. They also lose the initial payment they made including the broker fee (which is typically no less than $100). If they decide to keep the policy, they must pay an increased amount that is most likely more than they could have found somewhere else.
Sometimes they will blatantly tell the client that they are doing something dishonest, but that they will not get caught. Such as listing them as living in a parents residence, or making up a fake wife. Some companies will not ask for proof and the client will get away with it. Some clients receive uprates because they are later asked for proof of marriage or proof of low mileage.
I have also seen them also purposely not ask clients all the information they are supposed to for the sake of keeping a quoted premium low/competetive. The client will receive an uprate because an accident was not listed with the correct amount of points or a ticket was not listed at all. The agent will make sure they have the clients signature on all necessary paperwork and then simply state that the client didn't disclose that information.in reality, the client didn't tell because the agent didn't ask. The clients don't always know everything they are supposed to disclose for an accurate quote.
I don't know myself what the rule is for this, but I know the agents didn't always pull a motor vehicle report to write a policy unless it was going to be an important policy with a worthwhile premium. I have also seen agents pull the "MVR" and purposely not list accident/tickets, or purposely list them incorrectly to lower the initial quote.
On a few occasions, especially when audited, the owner/office manager has Forged signatures on documents or instructed employees to do the same to stay out of trouble.
The agents constantly change their names to hide from troublesome clients. People who know that what was done to them was not right, and contact authorities. The agents there do not give you their real names (some do, but the ones who have gotten into trouble don't).
Finally, This company has had a few Insurance companies that they aredirectly appointed with, which means that they are not allowed to charge any broker fee to write policies for those companies. They have though, many times. When they know they can get away with it, they will charge broker fees. They charge as much as they think you are willing to pay. I have seen hundreds of trusting people ripped off in the years I worked for this agency. Please do not be one of them.
If anyone has any further information as to what steps may be taken to stop this, or even to bring justice to the people who have been taken advantage of already. Please contact me.
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