SL & Associates, Expectation Guide

for New Clients

We are honored that you are looking into having SL & Associates assist you with your insurance needs. For all of our agency & staff, your policies are vitally important to us. As such, we believe it is best to design policies around your needs and not just sell products. We thought it best to create a guide on what we do, and how we will be working on your policies. Before we get into the details, below is some information for you regarding our regulatory authority for our domicile state, Ohio. Each State has it's own unique regulatory agency that maintains licenses. If you need help identifying those locations, please contact us. As an agency we do business in more than Ohio. Visit our About The Firm Page for more information.

If you are interested in learning more on the laws and to verify licenses in Ohio, contact the Ohio Department of Insurance at (614) 644.2658, or visit insurance.ohio.gov.

Information Gathering

We have several phases that we go through in order to prepare a proper policy for you. The first phase is the information gathering where we will ask you a lot of questions. Some may seem odd, but others will make sense to you. You may be asking who do we represent? The short answer is we represent you, and the carriers. We need to know as much about you, as we know about the carriers. This way, we can provide you with coverage and carrier match that fits your needs.

By providing this information, you are authorizing us the ability to run reports. A few examples of the reports we may run are credit reports, MVR reports, insurance history reports, and many more. By providing as much information to us up front, will help us identify your needs and assisting us with locating a carrier match much more quickly. Please know that when we run these reports, as agents, we are not given access to your credit history. Most importantly, your information will be kept confidential.

Processing

In this phase we will begin matching carriers, followed by completing applications with multiple carriers to obtain quotes or indications from these carriers in an effort to find a competitive quote.

In the insurance world, there are two ways to process quotes. That is either “quick” or “accurately,” but never both. If you want a quick quote, please know that it may not be accurate. When you see the ads for a 10 minutes quote, those quotes are for a quick sell, typically providing limited coverage, and may not be accurate. If you want an accurate quote that will provide coverage and savings, that is where we come in. At SL & Associates, we are not going to portray ourselves as quick. Can we be quick, yes, but we don’t believe you should sacrifice accuracy for convenience. Especially when it comes to protecting your vehicle, your home, your business, your bike, or anything else you are asking us to insure. We believe that it would be irresponsible to act quickly in providing protection for you and your family. Especially with our goal to protect you in the event of a major catastrophe. When we are working on your policies, we are working towards providing protection for you and your family. So that at the time of a loss, you can keep moving forward with your life.

Presentation and Closing

At this phase we will contact you to schedule a conversation, going over the results of our coverage plan and carrier indications. Our goal in this meeting is to make sure you understand the coverages that are being presented, and how they work to help you. If the quote is acceptable, we can go over options on payment, selecting a method that is best for you. Once we set a closing date, we will prepare documents to issue the policy, provide notice to any lienholders if needed, and provide notice to your prior carrier.

Client Phase

Just because you now have policies issued with us, doesn’t mean you will stop hearing from our agency. Once you become a client, we will continue to work hard to make sure that your insurance is functioning as designed. Over the course of time with our agency, you will probably hear from us several times a year. Most importantly you should expect to hear from us prior to your renewals to conduct an annual review. At these annual reviews, we want to make sure that we know all the changes you have gone through over the past year, make changes on your policies as needed, and shop around your policies to make sure that you are with the right carrier. Our goal is to make sure that your carrier is competitive with the other carriers in our tool belt. The only thing we ask of you as a client is to contact us with any of the following changes: phone numbers, addresses, emails, etc. In order for us to be effective in providing protection for you, we have to be able to communicate with you.

We look forward to working with you to help you find the insurance coverage and policies you need. If there is anything you need, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Use us as a resource, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. We are here to answer any questions you ask without any judgement.