Why Trust an Insurance Agent?

You know you need insurance. Auto, homeowners, health and life insurance all offer valuable financial protection against life's unexpected financial emergencies.

But you have a nagging doubt at the back of your mind: You're just not sure if you can trust your local insurance agent to provide you with the best possible deal.

Every industry has bad actors, workers who cheat their clients. But the vast majority of insurance agents are honest, hardworking and knowledgeable professionals. They've dedicated their lives to providing a service to their clients. And most of them work to make sure that their clients have the best possible insurance protection at the best price.

If you need more convincing that you should trust your insurance agent, consider this: Insurance agents work on commission. They make money when they close sales. If they don't sell insurance policies, they don't make money. This means that it pays for insurance agents to be honest and fair with their clients.

Bad word of mouth can sink an insurance agent's business. And bad word of mouth tends to spread quickly. Smart agents know that whatever short-term gain they'll earn by signing up clients for overpriced policies that they don't really need will quickly be outweighed by the bad word-of-mouth advertising they'll receive from such a move.

Insurance agents who don't establish trust with their clients don't last long in the business. The insurance business is a competitive one. Those agents who don't serve their clients well will struggle to build a successful business. In fact, the odds are good that they'll go out of business, especially in today's challenging economic times.

Finally, insurance agents are required to complete continuing-education classes every year to maintain their licenses. A large portion of this education focuses on ethics. Educators emphasize in these classes just how important ethics are. Those agents who act unethically run the very real risk of losing their licenses. They'll then be not just out of business, but out of a career.

In short, smart insurance agents recognize that the short-term gains of cheating customers pale in comparison to the very real risks they face when making such a poor decision.