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16W Media Group Presents The Branding Highway Podcast
Bringing Together Local Businesses & Neighbors.
16W Media Group Presents The Branding Highway Podcast
Ken Merrill: Navigating Florida's Insurance Landscape - From Tech Industry to Allstate Success and Overcoming Personal Adversity for Community Impact
Unlock the secrets of navigating Florida's complex insurance landscape with insights from Ken Merrill, owner of Family First Insurance. In our latest Branding Highway episode, Ken shares his transformative journey from the tech industry to becoming a successful Allstate agent, highlighting the importance of prioritizing customer needs and ethical business practices. Through personal stories and professional experiences, Ken offers a rare glimpse into the trials and triumphs of establishing an insurance agency from the ground up in a fiercely competitive environment.
Ken's candid narrative takes us into the heart of running an Allstate agency, where the stakes are high, and the competition is fierce. Learn about the nuances of agency termination and acquisition, the challenges of starting anew, and the critical role of equity ownership. Ken's unique perspective sheds light on how proximity between agencies and ethical adherence can make or break an agent's career in Florida, offering invaluable lessons for anyone considering a similar path in the insurance world.
In a powerful personal segment, Ken delves into his past struggles with adversity and addiction, demonstrating how these challenges have shaped his drive for success and community impact. His heartfelt story of resilience offers inspiration, providing a testament to overcoming life's hardships and finding purpose. Finally, understand the crucial distinction between flood and general home insurance, a must-know for Florida homeowners navigating unpredictable natural disasters. Ken's real-life experiences underscore the necessity of proper coverage, making this episode essential for anyone seeking to safeguard their homes and future.
Welcome to the Branding Highway podcast, where local businesses meet the community and share their unique stories. Let's hit the road with your host and voice of the podcast, Mike Sedita.
Speaker 2:Hello out there and welcome to the Branding Highway podcast. I'm your host, Mike Sedita. If you are not following our channel, you can follow us on YouTube, on Instagram, Facebook I don't know, we got like Raven Pigeons you can follow us on if you're into Game of Thrones. There's all sorts of ways to follow our channel. You are now on the Branding Highway and what we do here on the Branding Highway is help brands accelerate their message to get out there and get to our community. Today we're excited to be joined by a friend of mine, Ken Merrill. He's the agency owner of Family First Insurance here in Wesley Chapel. Kenny, how are you doing today?
Speaker 3:I'm doing great, Mike. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I've been looking forward to this A little behind the breaking down the fourth wall. We have had this scheduled like kind of tentatively scheduled here for weeks, just with all the different stuff that's been going on in our area. We haven't been able to marry this conversation up here. So we're going to get rocking and rolling here with this first episode and learn a little bit more about you and your agency. So tell us a little bit about Family First and what you guys do.
Speaker 3:My name is Ken Merrill. As you stated, I own and created Family First Allstate Insurance and we started in the Pacific Northwest about 13 years ago. We did really, really well there. I've had a few different goes in the entrepreneur world. I used to own a dozen cell phone stores a long time ago. I've done a few different things. We created our agency Well, basically my career. We started our career but we wanted to do it a little bit different. You know, we have some mottos, some talk paths in our agency and I've been very, very fortunate. My agency has done really, really well and it's based on a couple of these things. You know, if we're in a sales meeting or a group environment there and I ask the group what's best for the customer is best for, and my team will say us we always look out for the customer's needs, for the customer's needs. I got to tell you, mike, florida is a jungle for insurance. It is a complicated, difficult path at times.
Speaker 3:I was recruited out here from the Pacific Northwest Inner Circle Elite, honoring several different awards. I was very fortunate there. We were the top producer in a five-state region. I met some Allstate folks from Florida. They made me an offer to come out here. I got kids, man, I'm a single father. I had two kids when I moved out here. I moved out here from Washington. It was an incredibly long journey but Allstate made me a pretty profound offer to come out and see if we could help the people here. And I have found Florida to be the weirdest, most different industry. I was licensed in Washington, I was licensed in Oregon, I was licensed in some different places. So there's some challenges in this state, especially for the consumer. I felt blessed. They asked me to come out. I came out. I've been here for seven years and our motto really is we're the agency model. Mike, if you have a question, you call me. You don't call 1-800-NOBODY.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So let me ask you this question. So, like I know some all-state guys, I know a little bit about how the structure is. When they come to you, you have this successful agency in the Pacific Northwest You've been doing it for years out there and they come to you and they say hey, kenny, listen, florida's the Wild West. We want you to take over this agency. Or do you start it from scratch here in Wesley Chapel?
Speaker 3:So, in total transparency, mike, I'm going to give you the whole thing. I was a startup agent. Startup agents are kind of the lowest form of pond scum. I say that jokingly. The success rate of startup agents is anywhere from 30% to 35%. It's an exceptionally difficult way to go. You have no policies. You have no policies. You have no anything. You get started. You start making phone calls, you start talking to your friends, you start joining different groups, you get invited onto an incredible podcast. You just have to start getting your thing going. We sell a non-tangible product.
Speaker 2:You don't touch it.
Speaker 3:Until you it, until you need it. Yeah, you don't feel it, you don't, you don't touch it. So, in the car industry, if you're going to drive a ferrari and you get to that ferrari like new car smell.
Speaker 2:There's no new insurance.
Speaker 3:There's no new insurance smell bmw, this and that, different cars in the insurance world, though there's a couple different. There's only two ways to get going. Number one is a startup. Well, I guess three ways. Number one is a startup and that's where all state. Well, you go through your training, you get ready. They say, hey, here you go, good luck. Uh, we'll see you in a couple months and see if you're around. It wasn't really like that when I got started. I started in May 2013. I had Allstate was set up different. We had a lot of support, but I'd been in the sales game for a while, I'd been in the helping people game for a while, and what we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, mike, is this the customer is the most important. That's just the bottom line. I've just seen there's just been so many different times that I've seen people do certain things in the insurance arena that makes no sense. And then they would call me afterward and I was like, oh man, I wish you would have called me before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, trying to unravel it, but let me ask you this question so when you have this agency out, you know in Washington, when you decide to make the move here, do they like? Do you end up selling your agency there? Great question.
Speaker 3:Great question. So Allstate's different. One of the business models with Allstate is we own our equity position in the business. We own the business, so we're entitled to sell the business anytime that we decide that we're going to retire. We're going to move on careers. We're going to move on to this, we're going to move on to that.
Speaker 3:What happened in the Pacific Northwest is I had two locations, and both of them while I lived in Washington. They were both in Oregon, the Columbia River. There it was pretty easy to get back and forth and work. Then ultimately I moved to Oregon. But I mean, I started off in Washington, opened the stores in Oregon, moved to Oregon and then ultimately came out here.
Speaker 3:So one of the greatest things about being a startup agent, and especially a successful startup agent, is you're not. You don't have debt service. There's no money that you don't. You're not making payments. I think I kind of missed a step.
Speaker 3:But the first way is to create an agency by being a startup agent. The second way is somebody will assign you some policies. That really doesn't happen in all states. The third way is you buy a large existing book of business. Well, as a startup in the Pacific Northwest, I started one agency. It did really, really, really, really well. And then they allowed me to start up a second agency and that one did really well also. So those are the ways that you acquire it. Now, when I got approached and they made me an offer to go to Florida, I put my agency up for sale and sold one of them to my guy that worked for me Javier Right Sold that, and then another one to Sam and Emily. And there's always buying policies. For an agent like me makes a lot of sense. It's easier to add. It's just easier to add to the book the size of the book by buying. But you constantly have to fill that funnel. You constantly there's attrition, people leave.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course. And people are always shopping for rates and doing all that stuff and it's competitive. But when my understanding and you tell me if I'm incorrect here or misunderstanding this is you as the agency owner of your two agencies out there, you can negotiate independently. You know ken merrill and buyer x but they have to pass like due diligence with all.
Speaker 3:it's not. It's not quite a free and open market that says, oh, I'm just gonna go buy an agency, right. Number one you got to take a personality test on Allstate. If you don't pass the personality test, it's just a web link. Whatever you're done, you'll never own an Allstate agency. Right, you have to pass a personality test. Then whoever I negotiate with Allstate wants us to negotiate our own deals. However, it has to be with an approved buyer.
Speaker 3:And that's where the rub comes in. It's not like I could post this in the classifieds or I could send it on to a Twitter or Facebook agency for sale. There are specialty shops out there that do sell for brokers yeah, the brokers and so they sell these agencies. But where Allstate has the complete and total upper hand on that is they have to approve the buyer.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And there's a series of things that goes into that. Some are on paper and very validated. You've got to show $100,000 with liquid capital. You got to pass the personality test. You have to pass the 240, 220. When I got started you had to get a 6 and 63 security license to become an agent. So I have some anonymity. However, anonymity makes no difference unless Allstate approves the person that wants to buy my books, Right?
Speaker 2:So now, when you come here, the location and your office is beautiful. I've been there. You have a great shop. You have a great team there, very, very friendly group of people that you have in your office here right off 54. When you come here in this conversation with Allstate and you get approached, is that book already existing and you're buying that book, or they're saying, hey look, you did so well as a startup in Washington and Oregon. We want you to now start up this agency from scratch in Wesley Chapel seven years ago, when Wesley Chapel was much different than it is today.
Speaker 3:Mike, let me be clear Very, very clear to the viewers and to yourself. Anybody that started off as a scratch agent will never do it again.
Speaker 2:That's a one and done. That's a one and done if you're out.
Speaker 3:It's a one and done deal. You can replicate that, but it takes a tremendous amount of energy, a tremendous amount of effort. So what happened in the transition team was very simple. I was offered a job here, they cleared me as I'm now an accrued buyer, and then they would find me an agency to purchase. Not only that, but they had a couple agents that were no longer agents due to they broke the contract or something, and they said well, if you come out here hypothetically, we're going to get you, you can buy an agency here. We might throw you some of this or throw you some of that or throw you some of the other stuff. It was a little temperamental coming out because the agency I was supposed to buy was, uh, terminated for cause, and so so what do they do in that case?
Speaker 2:so that agency's terminated for cause and so? So what do they do in that case? So that agency is terminated, does Allstate then say to the surrounding agents here's a book of business. Let's like throw like piranha, like throwing meat in the water and just throwing that book of business out for whoever can, kind of pull it in and maintain it? Or do they kind of say, hey look, some of it goes here some of it goes there, some of it goes there and it's managed.
Speaker 3:Allstate has a commitment to the agents, so we have a guaranteed payment, TPP termination payout if you get terminated, and basically what that is is very simply, this is very simply this If, for any reason, you're in violation of the ethics code or the R3001 agreement, which is our binding contract with Allstate, they have the right if they can determine that you're no longer going to be with Allstate.
Speaker 3:If that happens, they're guaranteed to pay. You just think of 15% of your book. So if you have a million dollar book and everything is qualified for termination payout, they have to pay you $150,000. That's 15% of a million dollars. On the other hand, they also give you 90 days. So if I got terminated today which will never happen because I do everything, dot the I's, cross the T's If you got terminated today, you would have 90 days to find an approved buyer, get them with Allstate to get them approved. So first of all not the cart before the horse, so to speak Then you have to get the financing set up, Then you have to get this set up and then you have to get that set up.
Speaker 2:That's a pretty tight window.
Speaker 3:Pardon me, that's a pretty tight window. 90 days, super tight window. Yeah, let's let me recommend anything to any insurance agent, just don't get terminated right it's impossible to get terminated unless you break the rules right so don't break the rules, you won't get terminated. But we we've had deaths, cancer agents pass away suddenly that book would then in the will go to a daughter or son who's not qualified to be an agent because they don't have. They haven't had the training, and so then that goes to sale. You know they're going to sell it.
Speaker 3:And all state has a little bit of leeway depending on the leadership and what in the situation they want you to get paid. You know that's their promise. You know you don't own anything in state farm. You know state farm is great, largest company in the world. I'm not talking any, I'm just saying different business model.
Speaker 3:The all state agency model, which may or may not be better than anything. I prefer owning the equity in the company that I built. So we built it from the ground up. I was the number one writer of business in a five-state region for years Me, you know. I mean, we did a lot of that kind of stuff. There's just a lot of. So there's a little bit of nuances, but you do get to sell your agency and at the minimum, at the very minimum, you'll get 15%.
Speaker 2:So let me ask you this question because it seems like, especially here in Florida, which you kind of touched on, there seems like there's an insurance agency on every third corner that you drive on, whether it's Geico, state Farm, allstate, liberty Mutual, whoever. It is right From an Allstate standpoint. Is there a radius that they say, like you are located right here in Wesley Chapel, right off 54, right by the Walmart, by the Nissan dealer, right by Saddlebrook, one of our communities you're there. Is there a radius where Allstate will then say, hey, look, we're not going to put anybody in a 5, 10, 15, I mean it seems like that's a lot of miles 15. How about this?
Speaker 3:One, one mile.
Speaker 2:Come on.
Speaker 3:It's just the way it is. So it depends on what mode the agencies are in. And Allstate, you know they're a Fortune 100 company. They're one of the largest organizations. You know you look up at Chevron, apple, amazon, all states in the top 100 companies in the world. Their rules, written in their bylaws, written in anything is the minimum distance from one agency to another is one month. That's what it is. Now we only have a couple in Wesley Chapel. It gets a little complicated but it always comes back to the end of the day. Mike, when we look at things like effort marketing. I can't control what they do, I can't control where they're at. But same thing with State Farm, one mile. But you'll see, in a community usually you see 20, 25 State Farm agencies. You're going to see one, two, three, four all-state agencies, but it's a mile.
Speaker 2:Well, I will tell you that the reason I ask that question, I mean obviously it's a competitive thing. It's already a competitive market with your competitors, but then your competitors within your same organization. And I kind of relate it to what I do with my publications. Now, in the whole city of Tampa, across the board, we have 18 different publications that we put out. There's two literally in Tampa, in like Tampa Tampa, and we have three in Wesley Chapel alone. I don't even care about that competition, but what I, the reason I ask you, is your reputation, which our reputation as entrepreneurs and business owners is the one thing you know, we're able to pretty much control, as long as we treat people with respect and courtesy and all that stuff. Do you ever run into an instance? Instance, because I run into this instance where there's people that do the same thing that I do and maybe don't do it as good as I do it, because I'm kind of like you, I know.
Speaker 2:you know you're the best at what you do I'm the one the best at what I do, does it ever negatively affect you, where you're kind of digging out of a hole because another all-state agent has left a bad taste in somebody's mouth that you have to kind of dig out and show them Like family first. We're not the same as XYZ agency that you dealt with previously.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely. You have to overcome a lot of different things. Our primary goal, mike, is very simple we just want to educate the clients. We want to educate the everyday people on what good limits are, what good limits aren't. There's a couple of national brands out there, for example, and they've made a lot of money if they have a lizard or a chameleon or whatever. And they've made a lot of money if they have a lizard or a chameleon or whatever. Yeah, but when you get a quote from them online, they just automatically give you the lowest coverages. So you pay this much for this kind of coverage, right? And the reason that they do that is if you're in an accident, they just pay the cheapo $10,000 to get out of it, which means that you get sued afterwards because you didn't have the proper insurance.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And you're absolutely right. The reason you're on your podcast, the reason you're selling stuff, is you were maybe a little smarter, work harder, understand the clients. That's the point tried to do in any of my businesses was listen to the client, find out their needs, give them education, give them information and let them make a decision.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I want to talk about that in a second, but before we get into that, the one thing I really want to get into for a few minutes here and I'm going to reel you in because I know you okay, you have a very unique story.
Speaker 2:I know some of your story I don't know how much of it your personal story that you would like to get into. And just so we're clear here you know, behind the fourth wall again is we're going to do a series with you guys over the next six months talking about the things that are going on, because insurance in the state of Florida is crazy, like there's so many different things that are constantly changing. So we want to make sure we're bringing the latest and greatest information straight from the horse's mouth to our listeners in our community through you. But before we get into some of the educational stuff, how much of your personal story do you want to get into? Because I know you have had hardships and trials and tribulations to become the successful business owner and entrepreneur that's sitting here. Tell us a little bit about your story and you could get into as much or as little as you prefer.
Speaker 3:Thanks for that, you know. Thank you November 10th. A few days ago, a week ago, two weeks ago, I celebrated 31 years of sobriety ago. A week ago, two weeks ago, I celebrated 31 years of sobriety. So if I was to give you a quick autobiography and we'll do this because I like to talk we could be here all afternoon.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that's why I said I'm going to reel you in because we want to get into a little bit of stuff and we're going to do this over a series, so don't give it all away. Can let's let's lead a little bit into some next.
Speaker 3:Let's just say I was born to a highly dysfunctional family in Northern California. It's not my fault. I was born in California. I love Florida, I love what it stands for. There are a few good people. But let's just say that my mom did the very best she could.
Speaker 3:I was raised by a single mom. We were raised in Northern California. We were the poor kids. Everybody else was the rich kids. We, we didn't have this and that. My mom worked a lot. She worked nights. We, we had very little, and when I say very little guidance, you know she wanted us out of the house so she could sleep. You know we, back in our day, it was the street lights come on, you come home. At any rate.
Speaker 3:Long story short, she started me in school a year early because I passed all the aptitude tests. I was the smallest kid in school, a month premature. Uh, a twin. My twin brother died the first day. Uh, and the only thing I just I still kind of had a big mouth, but back in those days you would get beat up going to school, right, you could get. People would wait for you and beat you up. It wasn't like today. They beat you up online back then, you know. So it was a little dysfunctional.
Speaker 3:I barely graduated high school and then I took the wrong path. My, my map quest broke, or something like that. I I found drugs and alcohol that consumed my life for about a decade. I'm just going to tell you this, mike. I consider myself very, very, very fortunate. I'm one of the very few people that got to the end of the rope.
Speaker 3:November 10th 1993, I made a decision. I left California. I went to go see my brother in Oregon. He says listen, you're not allowed to sleep here. He wouldn't let me sleep in his house. He says we don't allow drug addicts or alcoholics in here. Come see me in the morning. I walked in his house in the morning. He says if you want to stay here for a little while to get yourself squared away, I want you to call the number in the book that I circled. So I went out there and I saw an anonymous. He says if you want to stay here, you got to go to meetings. You need to follow directions and we don't allow drugs or illegal behavior in the house. I went to the meeting. I thought my brother had set it up, kind of, but he doesn't really like or know anybody. I know that sounds kind of weird, but the guys tried to hug me. I was like I was okay with girls hugging me. Guys are hugging me. It was a little different for me. It's a little cult-ish. You're like maybe.
Speaker 2:So I'm a hugger now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I went to the meeting on that first night, on November 10th 1993, and something just happened to me and I wasn't smart enough to argue with what my sponsor told me to do yeah, just following the direction.
Speaker 3:Yeah at this point I had failed. The only thing I was lucky about was I had not received any significant. I never had a felony, I never had this, I never had that. So I was able to go to meetings, went to 90 meetings, 90 days, one day at a time. Sponsored people worked, the steps, did a whole bunch of different things and all of a sudden found recovery.
Speaker 2:Life started to get better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, now that I had this energy, this drive, and maybe a lot of it was, I suffered very. There wasn't a whole lot of privilege coming out of my house.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what I was going to ask you and I want to kind of button it up here with this last question and get into some current stuff because I want to save some of that conversation as we go through this.
Speaker 2:You didn't realize this was going to be part podcast, part therapy, but does some of that? Does some of that not growing up privileged and being around a bunch of guys who probably threw it in your face a little bit you were the guy who didn't have the money Does that underlying fire drive you? I mean, when you're using and you're in the grips of alcohol and drugs, nothing really affects you because you're kind of locked into that. I get that whole part of it. But when you start to come out of it and the upbringing that you had, where you had to struggle to get where you needed to be, that part of what drives you because now your energy is no longer focused on drugs and alcohol, you're clean, you're sober and you have this almost like this drive in this passion that was never there before. Right, like, is that what fuels you in the beginning?
Speaker 3:not only did that feel that was very introspective, mike, mike, that was great, because not only does that fuel me in the beginning, it fuels me now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:In the book. If you're to talk about that, there's a paragraph in the book that says we could be described as egomaniacs with insecurity complexes and once what I realized was very simply this I've done really well in sales, I've done really well in some other things In the recovery world and then in the business world. Mike, I'm just going to kind of quote what you just said. What drives me has always been insecurity. These guys will never think I make up to anything. These guys will never think that I amount to anything. They laughed or they shunned or I didn't get to go to these parties and I didn't have these clothes and I didn't have that stuff. So, along with some of the turmoil I've had, we'll get to another thing. I was married, I got divorced and then I got full custody of my children at four and six. So I've been a sole custodial guardian for my children, coaching football, soccer, wrestling, helping with volleyball and starting a new business.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And starting a new career and going to BNI, and I'm a proud Rotarian. We've just done a bunch of as I.
Speaker 2:Yes you are, he is. I got this pin on right here today.
Speaker 3:Mike is the epitome of a bad-to-the-bone Rotarian. He does a great job.
Speaker 2:So I do want to dive into a lot of that stuff and listen. As a former fat guy I understand that's insecure, you know. So like there is a whole bunch that we and we're going to get into a lot of that stuff, but in the last, you know, last five minutes we have here the first episode that we're doing here. I want to talk specifically about what's been going on here in Florida. We have two hurricanes that hit this area in a six week window. Things are devastated. Helene and Milton come through as an insurance agent and where we are in Wesley Chapel, maybe you don't have as many of the people on the coast, maybe you do have some straggling people over there. But tell us a little bit about understanding the way flood insurance is affected in your policy, like the zone you're in, what's required, what's not required Can you add it? Can you not add it? Give us a little bit of insight of what people really need to know about flood insurance in light of the events that just happened here.
Speaker 3:Mike, that's a fantastic question, considering what just happened, and what we like to do is share stories. So I'll just share a little bit about my story. Right, I have a. I have a beach house, I have a little canal house, built 1961. And it was three and a half feet underwater. I did every bit of research. The no name storm didn't get it. That Andrew didn't get it, nothing got it. I thought it was ungettable and it got got. So you know, here's the deal ungetable and it got gone. So you know, here's the deal. I had flood insurance on it. They're going to send me forty to sixty thousand dollars to replace this stuff, or you cannot have flood insurance on it and get nothing. So some funny facts about florida the highest elevation point in the entire state is 320 feet above sea level and I believe that's a little hill in Tallahassee.
Speaker 2:Oh, really Not Dade City. I always thought it was Dade City it might be Dade City.
Speaker 3:My geography is a little off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's not high 300 feet is not Mile High Stadium in Denver, that's for sure.
Speaker 3:Absolutely right. So the Pacific Northwest and Washington Oregon whenever you're talking to anybody at sea level, they automatically get flood insurance.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Let me tell you real quick I know we only got a few minutes left but there's two different insurances on every house. That's available in every country, in every state in the United States, and you have to understand this. Flood insurance is completely separate than general lines home insurance Two completely different things, and here's the easiest way to recognize the difference. Flood is described as water coming up. So here's an example. Mike, let's say that you have a septic tank. You're one of the people who think I'm never going to get flooded. Nothing's ever going to happen. Blah, blah, blah. But let's say you have a septic tank or a sewer system or something like that. I'm going to ask you a question. Your septic tank backs up, comes up through the toilets and the shower. You get stuff all over the house. Is that considered flooding or is that considered general lines?
Speaker 2:I would think that's general lines. I wouldn't think it's flooding, but it's flooding.
Speaker 3:That's right, because it's water coming from the ground up. There is no, there's no separation between septic water, salt water, radio water and the Gulf of Mexico, they're the same thing.
Speaker 2:Gulf of Mexico flooding your house or your toilet flooding your house, it's coming up.
Speaker 3:It's exactly right Ground up, ground up, anything from the ground up, whether it was a hurricane, whether it wasn't a hurricane, whether it died, broke, whether whatever. So if you have regular homeowners insurance through all state, through state farm, through your guy, whoever it is that you have, and your house gets flooded and you call your regular insurance company and say, listen here, uh, triple a or usaa, I have a claim, water came up, they're just going to say we're not contractually obligated to take you for any of that. Thanks for calling. Call fema if you get lucky enough and fema comes out, whether they knock on your door or not, depending on your signage, and that's kind of a joke oh, I know the joke we.
Speaker 3:that's a whole other podcast, that's the political podcast yeah, I would argue that FEMA may give you $750. Have you ever tried to replace a house for $750?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't go very far.
Speaker 3:Right. So I like to use stories. I'm going to use one scary story here. Real quick Flood insurance. In my opinion, every house in the entire state of Florida should have flood insurance, considering that you're 5 or 10 feet above sea level. If you're 5 or 10 feet above sea level, everybody should have insurance. I have insurance on everything. I have flood insurance. I have three or four properties. I have flood insurance on all of them.
Speaker 2:Now is it a rider? Does flood insurance end up being a completely separate?
Speaker 3:policy. There are some insurance companies that will offer a rider, which is fine. You just have to talk to your agent, get it Agent Something close. What's the difference between this rider or your own FEMA? And you actually get flood insurance through FEMA 90%, 95% of the time. So the flood insurance is different. Here's like if the rain comes down and the wind blows your roof off and all the rain goes in your house and you file a claim for damages, that's going to be covered because it was from the sky down. If a meteor flies through your roof, we're going to cover that on general lines. If your septic backs up or anything else backs up, that's a flood insurance policy. I just think it's important for everybody listening to the podcast to understand that those are two completely separate policies and all the flood, flood zoning et cetera is handled through the government. They're the ones that make those calls. If you're in an A code, b code, where do you need flood insurance? What are the mortgage companies saying?
Speaker 2:Okay. So two quick questions because I want to button this up here. Number one if I say I live in Apollo Beach and I just had my house and I got my sheetrock cut three feet across the board and my house was flooded and I had flood insurance etc. How, like, is there some sort of protection? Like am I still able to get flood insurance again? I mean because we're talking about once in a lifetime story.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Flood insurance is not cancelable Since it's run by the government, they understand.
Speaker 3:And a lot of these things, mike. Mike, you have to look at what they categorize it. So this is a catastrophe. We call it a cat loss. That that's the acronym cat and loss. So when, any time that you're looking at somebody's insurance record and that's something we'll get into someplace else because people have no idea what happens when they call in and just ask a question. However, back to this thing, the flood insurance and the regular insurance. They're just different policies and they have to be paid to attention a little bit differently.
Speaker 2:The big question or answer here with all of this is, if you're listening to this in light of what's just gone on here and you're thinking, hey, maybe I need insurance, maybe I don't, a couple things you need to understand. Number one water that comes from the ground, regardless of where it comes from, would be considered flood insurance. Would be under your flood insurance. Number two go to your agent and have that conversation. However you do that, whether it's annually, semi-annually or you're changing policies Make sure you're going to an experienced agent like, say, family First Insurance in Wesley Chapel.
Speaker 2:That would be a good place to start, and have that conversation and say to them listen, this is what I'm thinking and get that professional guidance. So that would be the other big thing. Professional guidance, so that would be the other big thing. And the thing that I got out of what you said here, as we start to wrap this up, is that understanding by dealing with a professional agent, understanding what limits you need, what you might need you don't want to be overinsured and you certainly don't want to be underinsured. You want to find that sweet spot and the only way to do that is through talking to a professional agency like Family First Insurance in Wesley Chapel. All accurate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you ever get done doing this, you can come on over. Mike, I got a job for you. That was well stated. It was well stated.
Speaker 2:If you're listening to this, this is our first episode in a series that we're going to do with Kenny and talk about some of the things that are going on in the ever-changing insurance world here in Florida. So come back for our next episode. Kenny, thank you for being on. We enjoyed having you. We will get into some deeper stuff on your psychology, on your story, on your facts for insurance that's going on here. We appreciate you having me on, man. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:It's been great. Have a great day, buddy. I'll see you soon.
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