Author: Team Member

Hi, this is Heidi Kussurelis with the Heidi Kussurelis Insurance Agency, and I’ve been hearing the same question over and over. What is driving up my insurance rates? Well, marketplace conditions are affecting all auto insurance carriers with increased cost across the nation. The main thing is the rising claim costs. We are still having a lot of distracted driving, especially since the pandemic is “kind of over.” People are back driving a lot and they are texting, fixing their music and working on their GPS which is just causing claims. But we also have inflation as a factor. It’s costing more for products and services and there is supply chain constraints. I know that many of you have heard on the news about microchips not being available. The auto manufacturing industry continues to have supply shortages and also labor shortages and that’s impacting our local businesses as well.
And without enough workers it’s just taking longer to get cars fixed. I’m even having issues with customers being able to get into body shops to get their cars seen, which means that they’re in their rental cars a lot longer and contributing to the rising cost of claims. There’s an increase in new and used cars. New cars are up over 10%. Used cars are almost 8% increase in costs and we’ve had 15 major weather disasters with losses exceeding a billion dollars each in the U.S. this year. So all of those things are contributing to the claims and the rising costs.
So let’s control what we can. Let’s not get in an accident. Try to put down that phone. Get yourself all set up before you move into drive. Also know that the Heidi Kussurelis Agency has a team of people here waiting to help you. If you have questions about your insurance, you have questions about your rates, call us. We are a great service to you. We can take a look at your policies. We’ll make sure you’re taking advantage of all eligible discounts. We might be able to make some suggestions to help reduce costs and we also have the ability to look at other carriers for you. We are independent and have many different options available. So, safe driving and have a happy holiday. See you later.

Call Heidi KussurelisInsurance in Ann Arbor MI at (734) 213-6736​

Hi, this is Jake Schroeder from the Heidi Kussurelis Insurance Agency. I’m a personal lines account manager. And one of the most frequently asked questions that we receive at our agency is, “Will my friend be covered if they were to drive my vehicle?” And the answer is, in most cases, yes. If they have insurance and if they drive your vehicle and you give them permission to do so, they will be covered. However, in the event of a claim or an accident, if you have to get your car fixed, you would have to make your own separate claim on your insurance to get the car fixed, pay your deductible, where any type of liability or lawsuit would go onto their insurance if they were the ones driving the vehicle. However, I must warn that if they do not have insurance, they will not be covered in the event of an auto accident or lawsuit. This is Jake Schroeder, again, from the Heidi Kussurelis Insurance Agency personal lines account manager.

Call Heidi KussurelisInsurance in Ann Arbor MI at (734) 213-6736​

Good afternoon. My name’s Ray Jahn, I’m with the Heidi Kussurelis Agency. Today I wanted to talk to you about life insurance. That’s the reason I’m here today, to give you some idea of why you should think about life insurance, the way that I think you ought to think about it, and that’s because everybody has a need for it, no matter where you’re at in the spectrum of your life. If you’re young, you say I have no expenses, or I have no big debts, I don’t own a house yet, but you still have cost associated with your lifestyle. That could be a car, could be burial costs, could be a number of other things that I’m not aware of. School bills, things like that. So, life insurance can address those issues for you and for your family that you leave behind.
Other people talk about life insurance from the standpoint that my employer’s taking care of that for me, I don’t need it. Well, there’s some truth to that, but also there’s some gaps in that. And the gap is, if you were to leave your work, you’re going to need to pick up a policy for yourself somewhere. You don’t want to be caught in the gap of buying a policy when you’re older or you’re in ill health, and you want to compliment what you’re doing at work with another policy that you can have a portability with and take that wherever you go. So if your employer lays you off, you’ve still got life insurance. Whereas with the company, it’s gone the minute you walk out the door, or they push you out the door. So that’s an important aspect as well.
The other thing is taking care of the spousal needs in terms of the family. People that have families, you have kids to raise. One of the players in the household is a key player for raising those kids, they’re probably not able to work as much as they would in their career. So that income may not be apparent to you, but it’s real because you have to replace that person in the household and raise those kids, and put them in school. So there are some costs there that you need to really bring to the forefront in terms of what life insurance can solve for that part of the equation, because we don’t know how long we’re on this planet. Any one of us could be gone in a car accident, walking out the door today.
And the other aspect I brought up is your health. It’s better to buy this insurance when you’re in good health than it would be to delay that purchase when your health might be compromised. How many people in this country have diabetes? Do you know what the effect of diabetes is on the cost of insurance? It’s four times. So don’t wait till you’re having ill health issues, buy it now when it’s reasonable and you’re taking care of your family at the same time, so you’re crossing off two things.
So, I just wanted to bring to the forefront some ideas about insurance, life insurance specifically, because it’s different than the home insurance and your auto insurance, and it brings to home the idea of how you take care of business within your own household and not rely on the employer, and not rely on somebody else after you’re gone to take care of business. Thank you.

Call Heidi KussurelisInsurance in Ann Arbor MI at (734) 213-6736​

That’s it.

Samantha Hey, this is Samantha. I’m a commercial account manager with the Heidi Kussurelis Agency. And one of the questions we get often is why do I need cyber coverage if I’m a small business? And one of the things we’ve been seeing over the last few years is a growing number of cyber claims and cyber threats in any business that uses email or has a computer or phone system that’s connected to the internet, you do have that exposure and they aren’t going to discriminate, regardless of the size. And with the growing use of technology in the business, it’s not really a matter of if you’ll be a victim of a cyber threat, it’s when.
And having this cyber coverage in place can really mean the difference between having the safety net you need to keep your business in place or going bankrupt. So again, this is Samantha with the Heidi Kussurelis Agency.

Call Heidi Kussurelis Insurance in Ann Arbor MI at (734) 213-6736

Hey, my name is Keith Hester. I’m an independent insurance agent with the Heidi Kussurelis Agency based out of Ann Arbor, Michigan. And today I wanted to talk to you about building code, also known as ordinance and law coverage on your homeowner’s insurance policy. So what this coverage is, you’ll typically find it bundled in with all of your coverages on your homeowner’s policy towards the bottom. And it will come in like 10%, 15%, 20% increments. Usually that is not enough coverage. Basically what this does is that it provides updates to the building code to your house. So think of like your drywall. If you have a tornado destroy your house or damage your house significantly, not only does your insurable limit on your house replace your home, but it only replaces it to what it was previously. If you need to update those codes due to what’s going on with the city ordinances or the laws, who’s going to pay for that out of pocket?
If your limit’s only 10% of your dwelling A coverage, that might not be enough when you have to rebuild your house in totality. So what you want to do is make sure those limits are high enough. That way they can take care of any type of potential pitfalls that may happen. And usually the older the home, the higher you want your building home coverage to be. Obviously it’s not always the case, but it is something you want to make sure you go over with your agent to make sure your limits are high enough. Once again, it’s Keith Hester with the Heidi Kussurelis Insurance Agency.

Call Heidi KussurelisInsurance in Ann Arbor MI at (734) 213-6736​

Hi, this is Jennifer with the Heidi Kussurelis Agency, and we’re here today to talk about homeowners and renters insurance. If you have belongings that are in a storage unit, we do offer coverage for that on your homeowner’s insurance. It’s automatically covered and it’s 10% of your personal property coverage is away from your home. So if you have belongings in a rental unit, there will be coverage for that. I’m Jennifer with the Heidi Kussurelis Agency.

Call Heidi Kussurelis Insurance in Ann Arbor MI at (734) 213-6736

Hi, my name’s Landon Duke, and I’m a personalized agent for the Heidi Kussurelis Agency. One of the questions that we get asked sometimes is what’s the difference between following form policy, or an excess liability policy, and a true umbrella policy. So to explain what a true umbrella policy is, is its liability coverage that sits over your home and auto. And on the true umbrella, there’s actually some additional coverage that’s not included on the underlying home and auto policy. And so if you’re sued for something like liable, slander, malicious prosecution, that type of thing, a true umbrella will drop down and cover those types of things. Whereas a following form or an excess liability policy has the same exclusions as the underlying policy. So if you’re sued for one of those types of things, you won’t have any coverage. So that’s why we generally recommend having a true umbrella policy, so you have that additional coverage on there. Landon Duke, Heidi Kussurelis Agency.

Call Heidi KussurelisInsurance in Ann Arbor MI at (734) 213-6736​

As we continue our series of business insurance examples…

See how Bad Luck Case #3 might have been improved with a Property Insurance Policy that included Debris Removal Coverage, along with Business Income Insurance.

Bad Luck Case #4 reveals a very real need for Cyber Liability Insurance with Data Ransom Coverage

Call Heidi Kussurelis Insurance in Ann Arbor MI at (734) 213-6736

Hi, I’m Jennifer with the Heidi Kussurellis Agency and I’m here to answer a most commonly asked question; what is the difference between water backup coverage and flood insurance? Water backup coverage is if your sewer, septic, or sump pump were to backup and flood and flood insurance is outside water coming into your home. I’m Jennifer with the Heidi Kussurellis Agency.

Call Heidi Kussurelis Insurance in Ann Arbor MI at (734) 213-6736

Hello. My name is Rusty Korhonen, and I’m with Heidi Kussurelis Insurance, and I’m a producer for commercial lines.
One of the questions we get asked occasionally is, “Why do I need to provide loss runs? I have no losses.” Well, in the commercial side, carriers want to know what losses you had, and they’re comfortable with getting a loss run specifically from your previous carrier. If you’ve had three different carriers, you need to get three different loss runs.
Sometimes carriers will actually accept a letter of no losses, which is a letter that you write and sign. It’s like an affidavit that’s holding you to that, but most carriers want to see the loss runs from the previous carriers that you had.
Again, my name is Rusty Korhonen with Heidi Kussurelis Insurance. Say that three times fast.

Call Heidi KussurelisInsurance in Ann Arbor MI at (734) 213-6736​