Insurance answers
Twenty questions, answered properly
No acronyms without a translation and no percentages without the dollar figure behind them. If your question is not here, the office will answer it in about two minutes.
Quotes and switching
5 questions in this section.
A captive agent can only sell you one company's policy. We are appointed with fourteen carriers, so we enter your information once and compare real quotes across all of them. When your carrier files a rate increase, we reshop instead of asking you to accept it.
About five minutes online through our quote form, or roughly fifteen minutes on the phone if you want us to review limits as we go. If you send a photo of your current declarations page, we can usually return a written comparison the same business day.
No. Insurance carriers use a soft inquiry for a credit-based insurance score. It does not affect your credit score and does not appear to lenders as a hard pull.
Yes. Most carriers refund unearned premium on a pro rata basis. We time the new policy to start the moment the old one ends so there is never a lapse, which is one of the most expensive marks on an insurance record.
No. We are paid a commission by the carrier that writes your policy, and that commission is already inside the rate the carrier files. Working with us does not make the same policy cost more.
Coverage basics
5 questions in this section.
As a floor, enough to protect what you could lose. For homeowners in this metro we usually recommend 100/300/100 on auto and $500,000 of personal liability on the home policy, then an umbrella above both if you have savings, equity or a professional income.
Most Kansas City homeowners policies now apply a separate deductible for wind and hail damage, written as a percentage of the dwelling limit. On a $400,000 dwelling limit, a 2 percent deductible means $8,000 comes out of your pocket first. We always convert it to dollars so there are no surprises.
No. Rising water is excluded from every standard homeowners policy. Flood coverage is a separate policy through the NFIP or a private flood market, and we can quote both. Water backup from a drain or sewer is different again and is added by endorsement.
Replacement cost settles a claim at what it costs to buy the item new today. Actual cash value subtracts depreciation first. The difference on a ten-year-old roof or a five-year-old sofa can be thousands of dollars, so we confirm which basis your policy uses.
Yes. The landlord's policy covers the building, not your belongings and not your liability. Renters insurance is usually the least expensive policy in this office, and most leases in the metro now require it.
Claims
5 questions in this section.
Call either. Our 24/7 claims line routes to the carrier intake team after hours, and a Clearpath advocate picks up your file the next business morning. Calling us first means someone local is tracking the claim alongside you.
Often not. A claim close to or below your deductible rarely pays anything meaningful and can affect your rate and eligibility for three to five years. Call us before you file and we will walk through the math honestly.
After a widespread storm, adjuster scheduling is the bottleneck. A typical roof claim in this market runs three to six weeks from inspection to final payment, longer when contractors are booked out. We chase the file so you do not have to.
Make sure everyone is safe, call the police, photograph all vehicles and the scene, and exchange insurance information. Do not accept fault at the scene. Then call our claims line, day or night.
It depends on fault and claim type. Comprehensive claims such as hail and theft are usually weighted more gently than at-fault collisions. If your renewal does rise, that is the moment we reshop your policy across our other carriers.
Billing and service
5 questions in this section.
Payments go directly to your carrier. Our service center links every carrier payment portal in one place, along with their direct phone numbers, so you do not have to hunt for the right login.
Most carriers issue them instantly in their mobile app. If you cannot get in, request one through our service center and we will email a PDF during office hours, usually within the hour.
Send us the VIN, the lienholder information if you financed, and the date you took delivery. Most policies extend automatic coverage for a short window, but that window is shorter than people assume, so tell us the same day when you can.
Send it to us. We reshop across our carriers before the renewal date and tell you plainly whether staying or moving is the better answer. Sometimes the increase is market-wide and staying put is right.
Yes. Every Clearpath household gets an annual coverage checkup: limits, discounts, life changes and a reshop if your rate moved. It takes about twenty minutes and it is included.
Still have a question?
Call the office and ask. We would rather answer it now than have you find out the answer during a claim.
No fee for our work. No obligation to switch. Usually a same-day written comparison.