Suze Orman Makes Me Ill

Suze makes me want to retch.  She is overbearing, condescending and her voice...well, just listen sometime.  She also beats things into the ground.  But she does cover, in excruciating detail, things I don't want to talk about like credit ratings, minimum payments, and house insurance.  So if you have questions about house insurance go to http://finance.yahoo.com/columnist/article/moneymatters/11166

It's actually not a bad article it's just that I don't care about insurance.  Maybe I should but I've got other things to do.  Here's how I handle insurance.  Thirty or so years ago I had a neighbor who was a VP with an insurance broker.  I was usually able to avoid discussions about insurance since Hank could care less.  It was a job where he made a lot of money and let him do other things like shoot raccoons.  Hank was obsessed with raccoons that got into his garbage and bought a high power pellet gun imported from Germany.  Every once in a while you would hear the ping of a pellet hitting the garbage can and then a loud yelp from the raccoon.  Chalk up another one to Hank.  As long as he didn't use the gun on my kids I was okay with it as raccoons are pretty nasty especially the overfed lazy ones that live on the north shore of Chicago.

But one day I did have an insurance question.  What was the best company for insurance?  Asked Hank.  Amica.  House insurance?  Amica.  Car insurance?  Amica.  Called an 800 number, set it up and never changed.  I have never met anyone from Amica, I have only talked to them over the phone.  May be some guy in a closet running a scam for all I know. 

But Hank's word was good enough for me because he was a smart guy and always on the look out for getting screwed. Figured he had done his homework so hey, why reinvent the wheel?

So if you're interested, read the Suze Orman article or look at the category on insurance on the blog.  Or find somebody like Hank.

The one thing you can do, assuming you can afford it, is reduce your insurance cost by going for high deductibles.  I have high deductible health care insurance, high deductible car insurance, and high deductible house insurance. 

Insure yourself against the catastrophic loss, not the broken window.  Plus I'm just cynical enough to think the insurance company will somehow get out of paying so I keep my contacts with the industry as minimal as possible.

Check out Suze and then call Amica.  Not an endorsement just hey, why reinvent the wheel?

Comments

[lamoneyguy]

Does anyone like this woman? I think Trent may be right. I occasionally read her columns on Yahoo Finance and come away thinking, "well that's not bad." But my expectations are rock bottom.

But I'm with you, her personality, her voice, it's just unbearable. How would you like to be on a conference call with Suze Orman and Jim Cramer together?

[Jane Dough]

I had to laugh at your Amica recommendation. A family member of mine worked in the insurance business for over 40 years. He did not work for Amica - yet always told everyone in the family to use them. Amica is my insurance company based on his recommendation and most of the folks in my family also use Amica.

Over the years I have second-guessed the recommendation purely based on price (sometimes an employeer would offer a discount, so it would be cheaper to switch). However, I have always stuck with Amica and having gone through a couple of car insurance claims with them I can say they are very, very good and always quick with a payout check.

If something ever happened to my house I feel better knowing Amica will handle the claim. I guess my slightly higher bill is paying for good customer service - but believe me when you have to deal with an insurance problem you really need that good customer service.

[Trent]

I think that Suze Orman's personality sometimes gets in the way of her advice, which is often quite good. She markets herself a little bit too much, I think. It's similar to how I feel about Jim Cramer - good advice buried under overbearing personality.