GLIGA Blog: June 2010

General practice professionals are necessary in life. They are usually the least expensive person for what you need. They have a general understanding and can handle simple transactions. A specialist is usually more expensive but has the expertise and product to possibly save you money. A specialist can find circumstances that will either reduce your costs upfront or save you money on the back end. Specialists usually charge more for their service but save you money in the product you are buying.

We specialize in invstment properties. We write vacant homes, homes while being rehabbed, rental homes, apartment buildings and strip malls. We love to insure ugly homes and pretty ones. If its a investment property specialist you need, go to our blog and see what we have to say. Our blog is at http://blog.mylandlordinsurance.com.

If you are looking for a landlord insurance policy or are thinking about trying another agent to insure your investment home, here is a list of possible discounts you may want to make sure you are getting.

Claims Free Discount

Multi Policy Discount

Good Credit or Financial Responsibility Score

Year of Home

Safety Devices and Equipment

Tenant Screening Discount

Association Membership and Property Management Discount

For a detailed explanation of these discounts or other information that is useful to landlords please go to our blog  http://blog.mylandlordinsurance.com

For the third time this year, Congress failed to fund the Flood Insurance and COBRA subsidies programs beyond their last temporary extension, and both programs have expired as of 12:01 am, June 1st. Congress is scheduled to return from its Memorial Day recess on June 7, and hopefully will work on a retroactive extension at that time.
 
In the case of flood insurance, the expiration means that there can be no new policies or renewals until an extension is passed. However, companies have been directed to pay all claims for policies in force. For a more detailed explanation of how flood funding works and what the insurance companies responsibilities are when it comes to writing flood insurance, visit our blog at http://blog.mylandlordinsurance.com

Many tenants and landlords may be confused as to who covers what or how and what they can collect if either party suffers a loss. Right now you are probably saying, "What the heck are you talking about?!?" Insurance like real estate is a very complex and misunderstood industry.  Most people who are renting their home from someone else my have little or no experience with insurance or may have never needed to make a claim so they are unaware as to what is covered by a  landlords insurance policy or a renters insurance policy.
 
Both parties should have their own insurance policy to protect their own interests. Having an insurance policy is like having an attorney on retainer and someone to pay for the damages if you are found to be at fault. The insurance policy will defend your rights, and pay to repair what you lost. Hopefully we can put together some information that can be helpful to the tenant and the landlord when thinking about what insurance to buy. For more detailed information on coverages like loss of use or loss of rents, please visit our blog at http://blog.mylandlordinsurance.com to read our complete post.

Our agency is pretty active on the Internet. We post on blogs and sites like this one to hopefully contribute to the website or blog while also building our brand.  The problem started when we got the big idea to automate our social marketing with Facebook and Twitter. My biggest concern was being active enough to increase the amount of followers or fans so we could spread our message and make people aware of our products and services. We know landlords and investors struggle with finding an agent to insure them and we want them to know we are here.

We started by hiring an ex insurance agent who told us he was the insurance specialist of social marketing. He realized that many agents either did not want or didn'thave the time to build a successful social marketing campaign. And he also realized if someone was going to do it for them, they would have to have a basic understanding of insurance concepts and be able to access various resources.  Lets face it, its called Social Marketing for a reason, and the technicality of insurance doesn't make it any more social. And if you are not on there on the website all the time interacting with people the results will be poor at best.

So we signed up with the social marketing guru and watched as my followers list was blowing up my email. 10-20 a day. We felt pretty good until we went to our twitter page. When we looked at the people we were now following, these people were fowl. It appeared to us that he was following anyone in the Detroit area so they would follow us. Sort of a quid pro quo I guess. A short time later we get an email from Twitter saying our account was shut down due to aggressive following behavior. I'm thinking, "Maybe they are confusing us with the people we are following?" But no, they are still active! We are the aggressive ones because it is considered spamming to follow too many people too quickly. I thought it was strange that was even a rule, but they make the rules, I just have to follow them. No pun intended, OK, it was intended. Haha.

So we went back and looked at our activity and noticed not only was he aggressively increasing the amount of people we were following, he was posting links to websites and articles to other website and blogs. We don't mind being a directory or insurance resource, but we want to focus on educating people about our agency and the products and services we can offer. Not what the rest of the Internet is doing.

Needless to say, if you hire a social marketer, be careful. Social marketing is probably best left to you or someone in your organization who cares about you and your company. Our new plan of attack is to give twitter and facebook access to all company members so everyone can post and create activity and interact with the community we build through social marketing. That's our story and we're sticking to it.

The Home  Insurance Specialists

www.mylandlordinsurance.com