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Meet The Experts: Dan & Paul Rizzo of Rizzo Insurance
(upbeat music) - Welcome to another episode of Meet the Experts with Howie Car. Getting the right insurance takes a great deal of trust. You have to trust that your agent is assigning the right coverage to your policy at the best rates with your best interests at heart. Do you trust that you've gotten the best policy for your needs? This week, Howie speaks with brothers Dan and Paul Rizzo of Rizzo Insurance in Revere, Massachusetts. Trusted for nearly 40 years, Dan and Paul discussed with Howie the challenges facing the insurance business today, coverages that you may not even know are on your policy and could be paying too much for, and how their free insurance audit works to ensure you're not only properly covered, but properly budgeted as well. By the way, Howie and his staff has trusted Dan and Paul with their policies for a number of years now. Here's your host of Meet the Experts, Howie Car. (upbeat music) - Welcome to this week's episode of Meet the Experts. I'm Howie Car, and joining us today are Dan and Paul Rizzo. They run Rizzo Insurance in Revere, Massachusetts. They've been a sponsor for a long time, and they're here to talk about insurance, your insurance needs, and what is going on in the insurance industry. It's just out of control, the increases across the board. So first of all, welcome Paul Rizzo. Thanks for being here. - My pleasure, Howie. - And Dan, thanks for being here as well. - Happy to be here, Howie. - So first of all, what are the biggest challenges facing the insurance industry today? I mean, it's the increasing cost of premiums, I guess. Why are the premiums increasing so fast, Paul? - Well, due to a few things, all the current weather events we've had over the years, are really driving the property rates. Insurance companies buy insurance like we do. It's called reinsurance, which those rates are going through the roof, which they pass on to consumers. And the cost of building materials, the cost of labor, the cost of new technology that are in these homes, vehicles. - New zoning regulations, out of control. What about car insurance? That's what people see more immediately, or they react to. What's driving the increases in car insurance, Dan? - Well, you know, the auto insurance rates are going up, you know, in large part to inflation. We see what inflation has done to just about everything across the board. I've Paul just mentioned labor rates, the cost of parts, vehicles. And in particular, electric vehicles, it costs more. When they get involved in a car accident, the insurance companies are paying out more money, believe it or not, than just a traditional gasoline powered car for repairs. So it's funny because a lot of people have this misconception that because of their specific situation, their car, their driving record, what they think of fair price is. But the reality is insurance is the law of large numbers. It's spread out over the entire risk of what, you know, in the case of auto insurance, all Massachusetts operators and all Massachusetts vehicles. So all those costs are just going up and up and up. - I hate to raise everybody's blood pressure here so early in the broadcast, but are you guys telling me that even though I and the vast majority of people listening to this are avoiding electric vehicles like the plague, we are still having to pay more money for those nuts who are buying the cars and then burning them up on the side of the highway and they're unable to put out the fires? Is that what you're telling me? - That is the reality, they just cost much more to repair and much more to fix and a lot of these electric vehicles because of the price people are paying for them. If they total one of these vehicles, that's an awful lot of money. There's a lot of premiums that have to get drummed up to pay that one claim for that one electric vehicle. So unfortunately that is the reality, Howie. - Paul, is that fair? - I don't own an electric vehicle. Why do I have to pay for an electric vehicle's insurance? Shouldn't there be two separate piles of auto insurance? - That would be great, but unfortunately, like Danny said, it's large numbers, the rates are determined by everybody, but I'll give you one example. We had somebody that hit a pothole, had an electric vehicle. For some reason, his battery was destroyed. It cost $13,000 to replace that battery. That's ridiculous and way to the insurance companies really see these type of claims because there's more bumper to bumper accidents, but these vehicles are equipped with backup cameras, crash sensors, all kinds of technology, like in the windshield also. Those windshields are smart windshields. They used to cost $500 10 years ago. They're $3,000 today with all the technology. - Is that in all vehicles or just the electric vehicle? - Well, that would be in most vehicles for the windshields, the batteries or another story. - So there was a $13,000 insurance claim on a pothole. - Pothole. - Told 'em-- - Used to be a hundred bucks. - For a tire, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Now it's $13,000. What can people do to get their insurance premiums more into line with what their budgets can afford, Dan? - Well, that's a great question. There's nothing that an individual is going to do to lower rates across the board, but as far as their personal situations go, buy a car and maybe get a quote before buying the vehicle that they think they want to see what they're going to be paying in insurance. We recommend that to people all the time because vehicle to vehicle to vehicle is gonna change depending upon the vehicle you get. Is it gonna be a sports car that has a terrible track record with insurance claims? You might wanna reconsider that if you don't think that that insurance premium is gonna fit into your budget. Along those same lines, you just have to drive safe. The safer driver that you are, the more credits that you're gonna get. If you think you're gonna go out and get three or four speeding tickets and that's not gonna impact your insurance rate, you're sorely mistaken because insurance companies are a for-profit business and they're gonna take risks that they think that will be profitable for them. That's just how it all works. - Well, you need to make sure that you pay your insurance on time because they've actually looked at payment history to calculate your renewal. And people will ask, "Why did my rate go up?" Well, you had two cancellation notices. You can also bundle your insurance. You have Flow saying to bundle, which has been great for us because that makes people look to keep their homeowners with their auto. - Along those same lines that Paul was just talking about, bundling makes sense for the individual too. When you're talking about a personal lines client, somebody that has a home, an automobile, maybe has a flood policy, a seasonal home somewhere, bundling just makes sense. I mean, why would you want to call three or four different agents when you have a problem? You're better off just to call one for everything. You don't have to think about it. - All right, so if people want to go to Rizzo Insurance, we're gonna talk about the audits that you do for people's insurance policies, tell them how to save money. How do they go about getting an insurance audit from Rizzo Insurance, Paul? - That's very simple. Just contact us. We'll do all the work from there. You can get us at rizzoinsurance.com, or call us, 781-289-7445. And one of our personnel will be happy to make it very easy to quote your insurance. - No obligations, it doesn't cost you anything. How does it work? - I just spoke, this is a little off the beaten path alley, but I just spoke to this group of realtors that asked me to talk to them about some of the challenges that they face when they deal with a client that's buying a new home, and, gee, they don't know who to turn to, or who to call for homeowners insurance, and how that whole process works. So periodically, I'll talk to a group of realtors, or mortgage brokers, or whatever, to just tell them that we're there and use this as a resource. And that's what we tell you all, listen as howie, is that we are a resource. There's no obligation, as you always say, to call us and just say, look, we want a second opinion. I don't know, should I be paying $3,000, $4,000 for my homeowners. People just have to send us a picture of their policy, whether they scan their policy, or take a picture of it and text it to us. We can just take it from there, from that policy and review. So when we talk about the audit, we're basically just looking at your whole entire picture. And oftentimes, in addition to just talking about price, we find situations where people are either grossly underinsured, and in some cases, overinsured. So it just makes sense to have a second set of eyes on it. And it's amazing how many. In fact, we just had one of your listeners do a testimonial for us. We were able to save him a significant amount of money in his landscaping company. And he had never really looked at it before. So because he called and wanted the audit, we wound up performing the audit and found out he had insurance he didn't need. We found gaps in his coverage. And after all of those were filled, we got rid of some of the things he didn't need. We added some things he needed. We wound up saving his company $28,000. - Paul, give us another example of someone who you save money for with the audit. - Well, our audit is a real comprehensive review of your present coverages in pricing. And we'll get calls from your viewers. They've been calling us all the time now that an average we could save someone $2,000 just on their auto and home insurance. I mean, just time after time. It's just hard to almost keep up. - And this is just very simple stuff. It doesn't take the call or much time and it doesn't take you much time. And again, there is no obligation to anybody. It's just an easy way to save a lot of money. And in a time when people are really strapped, fewer people going to McDonald's these days. That's how much money they're short. - Bobby, we'll get calls and I'll ask them, when's the last time somebody has looked at your insurance? They'll say 20 years. What we find is incredible. The coverages they have, the coverages they don't have. And that's what we like to do is really helping someone, giving them the coverage that they need. Not something that they don't need or they have and they need to increase it. That's a lot. The audit is helping people that haven't had it looked at in years. - Just to follow up on that, we've been in business for 38 years. So, and we learned early on that there's certain things that we have to do if we're gonna survive. And, you know, one of those things is always doing the right thing by the client. Like there's a lot of people out there that go to direct writers. You know, the big insurance companies that you see advertising on television all the time. - With lizards. - With lizards, yes, yes. We're an independent agent. We represent multiple companies. And by definition, we represent the client, not the insurance company. When you go to the company with the lizard and some of those other companies, they represent the company. So they're gonna give you one quote, it's gonna be from their company. And that's it. We have the ability to go through all the major carriers that write business here in Massachusetts. And whatever the best rate is, that is what we're gonna give you if it, in fact, meets your particular situation. So, and the other thing that I always like to say is we've always, again, going back to the 38 years that we've been in business, we subscribe to the Golden Rule. Treat people the way you wanna be treated. And we preach that to our staff all the time. And I tell people, I bump into people every day out in the street. If you ever feel as though that you're not being treated well, feel free to reach out to me. And thankfully, knock on wood, not too many people have ever had that type of a problem because it's the culture that we try to create there. - You know, I know a lot of people just speaking for personal experience. You know, you get to adulthood and you buy the car, you buy the house, you go to your parents and you say, who do I go to for the insurance agents? And you get your parents or your friends. And then that insurance agent dies or he retires and turns it over to his kids. It's just a steady income stream and nobody's ever checking for you 'cause it's like an annuity for the insurance companies. And sometimes, even if you're not gonna change the insurance company, you need a different set of eyes on those policies, am I right, Paul? - Absolutely. And we ask if they understand what they even have and we educate them, we tell them to read their policy because there's wind deductibles out there they wouldn't know about. Really, that's-- - Winded deductibles? - Wind, if you're near the coast, just check your policy. Anybody near the coast or down the cape, look at your wind deductible. We've seen during the tornado that we had way back when 2015, we had customers that came in and they said their friend had a 2% wind deductible and they were thanking us because they only had a $1,000 deductible but they had a 2% wind deductible. And most of your claims are wind. I mean, a tornado certainly is wind and they had a $16,000 wind deductible when they thought they were gonna get a new roof, they got nothing. So just read your policy. Have your agent explain it while we will. - Is there a wind turbine deductible down on the Cape? - Down on the Cape. - Down on the Cape, that's the way. - Yeah, I don't know. - The islands. - That broke. - Yeah. - That's another thing though, right? I mean, there's all sorts of new things and you gotta know how much you're covered for and is that an act of God? What is an act of God? I assume different insurance companies have different definitions of an act of God. - Absolutely how, just read the exclusions. That's all, if it's not excluded, it's included. - And so what you guys do with the insurance audit is you read the exclusions. So you can tell people whether they're under-covered or over-covered. - Especially when we're talking about personal lines, we're not talking about business insurance, commercial lines policies. When you're talking about personal lines, most of those policies are standardized. Now, some companies like Paul just said, they'll have a specific wind deductible on there. Some companies will include some pump and overflow coverage as part of their policy. Other ones have to have it by endorsement. So, but a lot of these things we can tell by looking at the first few pages of the policy. The exclusions are gonna be typical on all of those standardized policies. A Massachusetts auto policy or a homeowners insurance policy, a condo insurance policy, renters. Most of those are gonna be standard, but there are some exceptions like Paul alluded to. And one of the big ones that people overlook is that wind deductible. Unfortunately, a lot of agents, they'll write a policy with a company and they won't explain, oh, by the way, you've got a 2% wind deductible. And fortunately, it's the client that has to find out when they have to file a claim. The insurance audit, again, they unexplained the people how they can call Rizzo Insurance and get an insurance audit. Yeah, I mean, they could certainly contact us to our website, rizzoinsurance.com or calling us at 781-289-7445. Anybody there in the office is qualified to, you know, answer questions and then, of course, get the details on our specific situation. In fact, our intern Hannah that you just met recently, she's only here for the summer, but she's even learned enough of what has to take place in an audit in terms of just taking down the required information. It's not a lot, it's five minutes on the phone and we can take it from there. And how long does it take to get the audit back to somebody? Well, we try to do it the same day if we can, you know, but I mean, it's no more than 24 hours. One of your listeners actually called us up and he had nine vehicles, so that could take just a little bit longer because we'd want to make sure that we separate the policy out that's most advantageous for them. Some of it requires a little bit more, but if someone's got two cars and a home or something like that, we can turn that around within an hour in many cases. There's many times people will call us from a closing, believe it or not, and say we need an insurance binder, you know, that somehow fell through the cracks and we're able to provide that. - Paul, what is the biggest mistake that clients make with their insurance, either car or a home or anything else? - Like I said before, is reading your policy, really. Understand what you have and know what you're getting. When we do our audits, we find incredible injustices where there's, it's a cheap price, but no coverage. I'd rather give a low price with great coverage than a low price with no coverage. - You guys run into problems with deductibles? - Yes, we try to see how much the client can bear as far as the deductible to save some money. They say on a homeowner's side of the house, you'll have one claim every 10 years. So it might make sense to raise that deductible, up to 1,000, 2,500. And the same with the auto insurance. When I first started, it was $100 deductible. Now the standard is 1,000. Like things are changing. We run into those low deductibles. They wonder why their insurance is so high, but they're paying to have a $300 deductible. - I read the police reports all the time from places I can get 'em. And more and more people, not just the illegal aliens, but Americans are driving without insurance. That's what I see in New Hampshire. And I'm sure it's the same down here. Probably even worse down here. Tell people why they should not decide to just drive without insurance like they're illegal aliens. - First of all, the fine. - Yeah, we certainly, there's fines. There's repercussions down the road. Like, you know, we do, Paul mentioned earlier about cancellations, how some people just are not good. And I'll be honest with you, I'm one of them. Like I have everything set up on auto pay because otherwise that bill might sit on my desk for who knows how long. So we encourage people all the time to get themselves set up on auto pay. So that way there, they don't miss a payment. In addition to paying late fees, it works against you on your renewal. So, and it's the same way. If you get a fine or you get pulled over for being unregistered, uninsured, there's major implications there. A lot of companies will say, rather than give you a payment plan, you were canceled, you were driving unregistered, we'll insure you, but we want 100% down payment. Well, a lot of people can't come up with whatever that premium might be, 1,500, 2,000, 2,500. It's important, nobody, I say this all the time, nobody likes to pay insurance. It's one of people's least favorite bills. But number one, it's required here in Massachusetts. With pertaining to auto insurance. And number two, the possibilities of what can happen without auto insurance are dire. I mean, if you hit a pedestrian and a crosswalk and you don't have insurance, you're in a real mess. You're in a real bind. I mean, you know, it's not beyond courts and juries to attach your salary going forward for years. So, people are strapped. But what you're saying is it's penny wise, pound foolish. - Yeah. - To avoid paying insurance. Same thing with houses like in Florida, you've got to, now it's required with all the hurricanes that you have to have a certain amount of insurance. Is there a law in Massachusetts requiring home insurance? - The only requirement is from the mortgage company. It's not, you can go uninsured if you want. - If you own the house outright. - Right, if you own it outright, there's no, not that I know of any-- - Yeah, the only real, but the only real, yeah, again, it's not a Massachusetts regulation, but you know, it's the one regulation that comes up with us a lot, it'd be in an agency on the coast, that if you buy a home in a certain flood zone, you're required to buy flood insurance. And flood insurance has changed over the years. It has gotten much more expensive. And unless you really know what you're doing with respect to flood insurance, some people don't know how to rate it up. And we've seen people that are paying way more in flood insurance than what they are required to or have to. - I thought the feds can handle flood insurance, Paul. - They do, but now there is a private market for flood insurance. So you can, we have multiple carriers that we write private flood insurance for. - So it's like you can get a social security pension, but if you don't think you can live on the social security, you better get some other money in your retirement. It's the same thing with flood insurance. They're not gonna provide you with enough to replace a loss of the entire residents. - No, they're not gonna pay to replace the entire residents, but it's a requirement. Now, like you can't close on a loan if you're in a certain flood zone, a high-risk flood area, you can't close on your loan without showing proof of flood insurance. So, and again, because we're a coastal agency, we've been doing it for so long that it's easy for us to do. - Can you change as a policyholder, carriers at any time, or do you need to wait for the term to end, Paul? - Well, on the auto insurance side of the house, you can cancel within the first 30 days without being penalized, short-rated. - Right. - Yes, so people don't jump around from one to another and be very disruptive with the auto insurance market. But the best time with the auto is on renewal. The homeowners, you can change at any time without being short-rated, you'd be pro-rated, but most of the time it makes sense on renewal. It's just cleaner. If they're on some sort of electronic payment plan, it's just easier on renewal. - Now, what are the categories of insurance that the Rizzo specializes in, Dan? - Well, we've been talking an awful lot about automobile homeowners, flood insurance, umbrella policies, things like that. But another big part of our agency is our commercial lines. We do an awful lot of commercial lines, whether it's condo associations. We'll do Main Street businesses like the pizza powers, the variety stores, the liquor stores, things like that. We do restaurants that obviously have special considerations and special risks that need to be looked at. So we do a wide variety of commercial lines policies. Again, it's something that Paul and I have been doing now for so long that we're familiar with so many of the risks that are out there. We've come across just about everything we possibly can in 38 years. So we do specialty insurance. They have golf tournaments where they'll drop the golf balls out of the helicopter onto the green and they'll need coverage for that. And so we're able to provide coverage for that. We do a lot of specialty lines insurance. - So whatever your insurance needs are and whatever policies you have, you can do an audit on those. - For sure. - Correct. Okay, what's the number again? Paul and the web address. - It's 781-289-7445 or visit our website at rizzoinsurance.com. - Just for my own personal edification dogs in houses. Are they increasing the number of breeds that they won't write insurance for if they live in the house or is anything changing there? - Roscoe is fine, Roscoe is fine. But if you have, you know, dogs with three inch teeth are longer than, you know, some insurance companies are getting a little, a little wiggy on those. There are certain dogs where companies will, I believe still, it's still in play that they will frown upon. - And being an animal lover, if someone does have a dog in the list, we can't tell a story. If they've been spayed or neutered, is the odd fenced in. I always try to accommodate the dog. But if it's a dog that I just can't, they have a biting history, we just can't do it. But we're dog lovers and we can't do it, nobody can. - As they say in court, mitigating circumstances or extenuating circumstances. - Commander might not be, might not, might not be a risk. - Or Chloe. - Yeah, can't. (laughing) - But they've both been re-homed after all. Okay, so tell us a little bit about the history of Rizzo insurance. - Well, Danny and I, we started this back in 1986 and our father, who passed away two years ago, Dan Rizzo Sr., he was on the life insurance side of the house. So we decided to go into the property and casualty side and I can't believe it's been 38 years, but we've done a great job. We've had very large success and we love to help people. - Yeah, and one of the things I think that has been helpful and it's just organic is that we've always had a deep sense of community and a deep sense of wanting to help people. My father was like that, not just in business, but on a personal level. He was always willing to help people and that's one of the things that we always try to do. If we can help somebody, there's no better feeling we get than having somebody cause and say, I can't believe you, you know, you did this for me or you, we've delivered plates to people's houses even recently, you know, and help put their plates on. If somebody, maybe they have extenuating circumstances, they can't get to us or we have no problem going to them if they need some special assistance. And again, it's just the culture that we've tried to create and, you know, we're proud of our 38 years. - Dan gave us one story about how much you'd save for a listener with the insurance audit. Paul, give us another story we can put in there about saving money for one of the listeners with an insurance audit from Rizzo Insurance. - There's so many howie, really. I've had many come in with paying four or $5,000 for their auto and home insurance and leaving the app happy as anything, paying $3,000. Just time and time again. It's constant where people are really, they're really looking at their insurance now and we do such a good job. We get a lot of referrals. Naturally, we advertise on your show. You have great listeners, really. We get really great customers from your listeners. - Chances are you can save money for somebody. Not guaranteed, but chances are you can. - Absolutely. I give us the best chance out there to save your money. - Yeah, absolutely. I, you know, just to cite another example, we just had a, one of your listeners, longstanding business in East Boston called us up and they had this mentality of the set it and forget it. You know, they just kept renewing and renewing. Well, we put one of our commercial lines, representatives on it, looked at the policy and they were able to save over $10,000 with all their insurance is combined. Their work is comp and their property insurance, their liability. $10,000 is real money. I don't care what kind of business you have. I don't care how much money you make. You know, why would you give that money to the insurance company? And that's what we do. I said earlier that we represent the client, not the insurance company. It reflects well on us. If we can do a good job for your listener and we can do a good job for our clients, that word travels. It also travels if you don't do a good job, right? And in some cases, bad news travels faster, but we like to think that we've been able to sustain ourselves over 38 years because we've always treated people right and always tried to get the best deal. Sometimes we can't. And I always say to people, there'd only be one insurance agency if we had the best deal all the time on everything. But the one thing you can be sure of, if you come to us, we're going to give you our best deal and we're going to make sure that you're well protected and that we're going to treat you fairly in the way we'd want to be treated. So those are just some of the things that have sustained us over these years. One last time, give us the web address and the phone number. If people want to get an audit from Rizzo Insurance or any other insurance needs that they have, Paul. You can reach us 24 hours a day at rizzoinsurance.com or you can call us at 781-289-7445 and please check out our website and our testimonials. - You guys have done a great job for us and for our staff as well here at the Highway Car Radio Network and we really appreciate it. You guys are doing a fantastic job and I recommend Rizzo Insurance highly. It's a tough time to be making ends meet and any chance you get to save a few boxes. It's the way to go, rizzoinsurance.com. - Thank you, Dan and Paul Rizzo for being with us here on Meet the Experts. - Thank you, Howie, for having us. (upbeat music) - Thanks for joining us on Meet the Experts with Howie Car. We'll be back soon with more interesting guests. You're sure to learn a great deal from. 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In this week's episode, Howie speaks with brothers Dan and Paul Rizzo about the challenges facing the insurance industry and how they help determine the right amount of coverage for their clients.