Good Neighbor Podcast: Union
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Residents of Northern Kentucky! Based in Union, KY....The Good Neighbor Podcast helps the residents of Northern Kentucky get to know local business owners as people. We allow the business owners and influencers in NKY to tell the stories of how they started their business and why. We hear about their families, their personal interests and why they love living in and serving resident of Northern Kentucky!
Good Neighbor Podcast: Union
Navigating Economic Shifts in Insurance with Steve Appenfelder: From Claims to Coverage Solutions
Curious about the shifting landscape of insurance and how it might impact you? Sit down with us as we chat with Steve Appenfelder, owner of Atkinson Insurance in Florence, who unpacks the dramatic changes from commercial to personal insurance prompted by economic upheavals and the exit of key players from the Kentucky market. With a rich background as an underwriter for various sectors, Steve brings a wealth of experience to the table, stressing the utmost importance of personalized service. Whether you're a contractor, manufacturer, or professional service provider, Steve's insights will guide you through finding the best solutions tailored to your unique needs.
What happens when a simple inquiry becomes a recorded claim? Learn the critical aspects of risk management and the repercussions of insurance claims through Steve's cautionary tales and success stories, including how a restaurant owner slashed costs while securing essential coverage. We'll also get a glimpse into Steve's life beyond the office as he introduces his family and shares his personal interests. This episode promises to be both informative and engaging, offering valuable advice for anyone looking to navigate the complexities of insurance with confidence. Don't miss out on these expert tips and heartfelt stories!
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Mike Murphy.
Speaker 2:Thank you, charlie. Yes, we are here with one more episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast and we talk to local business owners so that you can get to know them as people and not just logos on the side of a building or logo on a business card. Today we are talking with Steve Appenfelder and he's the owner of Atkinson Insurance in Florence and I've asked him to sit with us and just kind of explore, you know, what's happening in the world of insurance good, bad and the ugly, good news, what's up and coming and just kind of give you a little bit of a peek into his life and what he's all about and how he can help you. So, without further ado, here is Steve Eppenfelder. Steve, welcome to the show. Thank you, it's nice to be here.
Speaker 2:So you and I were doing a little bit of a pre-show interview and I was just kind of asking you to give a download of you know, do you work with personal lines, do you work commercial? And you do both. So kind of tell me, what does your business look like as we sit here today?
Speaker 3:You know it kind of shifts from day to day. But, as I mentioned, kind of when you and I first met, I was definitely spending a lot of my time just on commercial insurance. But with changes in the economy, the marketplace, we've had a huge increase in personal insurance. You know, people seeing really significant rate increases, non-renewals companies going out of business We've had quite a few here in Kentucky that have stopped offering insurance. So we've really seen a big shift to personal insurance but still doing a ton of commercial work with our local businesses.
Speaker 2:Do you have a specialty per se? You said there's more of a shift towards personal. You said there's more of a shift towards personal Just within the underwriting rules today and just where we are economically, et cetera, et cetera. Is there one category that you think people should keep you top of mind?
Speaker 3:Well, I get asked that a lot and I know for a lot of agents it's it's probably wise to to really be more niche focus. I think one of the advantages that that our office has is myself and my business partner, eric. He and I were both underwriters. We were that was kind of how we were trained in the insurance world. That was kind of how we were trained in the insurance world, actually never really wanted to be an agent, but spent a lot of time working for a large commercial insurance company and so you know, I mean we underwrote all over the US, had all different kinds of businesses contractors, manufacturing, your Main Street America stuff, florists, dentists, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:So you know, I really hate to kind of pigeonhole myself because I do feel like we have a unique skill set that allows us to ask questions and learn about what people do and be able to take that and translate it into insurance. I think that's I mean I genuinely think that that is kind of our uniqueness. So I mean I do spend a lot of my time with professionals. So think like architects, engineers, attorneys, dentists dentists are a big part of our agency. We have quite a few med spas, so medical. I've been working with quite a few doctors lately, so that is kind of something I do a lot of. But again, you know, we might work with a pest control company today, uh, and a restaurant tomorrow, and and we can certainly um help out. You know all of those businesses.
Speaker 2:Okay, so if I'm just, you know um, a local resident driving up and down 42 and I passed your building and I see your logo and I know I've passed by three or four times and my rates are getting a little high and I just kind of want to see if you can help me. Can I walk into your office or do I need to call you? What's that look like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I am. I am here Monday through Friday till about 430. So, absolutely, we, we moved here to Florence and and particularly this office, to make that more accessible. You know I probably should have chosen a little different area, since there's about 45 different insurance options right outside my door. But yeah, I mean we. You know we love for people to stop in um and and chit chat. I think you know, for for that kind of person, I think one of the things that you'll find um again, that maybe sets us apart.
Speaker 3:We're not going to be a fit for everybody, um, but, but what we can do is we can exhaust all the options that we have available Um, and and we can give you some helpful information Um, if, if we're not a fit for you, that will help you find the right fit. Um, you know we, we pride ourselves on understanding the market. What other carriers are doing? What other agencies are doing? Um, we have partnerships with other agencies.
Speaker 3:Um, I have a have an agency, a state farm office, that we work with quite a bit that you know if they have, say, a client that maybe decided to start a business and it's not something state farms able to do, you know they want to maintain that personal relationship and they don't want to risk losing it by having that client go to another agent, and so that's kind of what we offer. We generally are here to help, and so for that person that's looking, I think it's always worth stopping by letting us at least look things over and again. If we're not a fit, we'll help you find a place to go that will be a fit.
Speaker 2:Okay, I know there are people out there that maybe think that they're uninsurable or they just don't think they can afford to insure their vehicle, their home, whatever. So they just sort of let policies lapse and then they just don't pay, whatever. So they just sort of let policies lapse and then they just don't pay.
Speaker 3:And that's a bad place to be. So to those people, what would you say to them? Well, you know, I think a lot of people gain perceptions of cost and insurance and those kinds of things based on maybe some not so great situations. So maybe you're not at the right agency, maybe you're not working with the right people. That's probably if I was going to tell folks there's one thing that you should focus on when it comes to insurance. It's find the right person. Find somebody that's going to be honest and not just sell you a policy but actually advise you on how to make that policy work for you right now.
Speaker 3:Sometimes that might be advising you not to file a claim. You know, insurance companies are really, really cracking down on that. Even, you know, in cases where in the past, yeah, no problem, uh, a towing claim, for example, a little little tidbit for people to use I we are strongly recommending that people stop using the insurance for roadside assistance stuff. Go out and find triple a, um, auto club, something like that. Use those programs for things like roadside assistance, because those are still claims and you know.
Speaker 3:But knowing those kinds of things and how to position yourself, yeah it could be a little painful today but with the right advice and taking the right steps we can help guide you to where those costs are more favorable. We can help find ways and give you recommendations to maybe fit that within your budget so that you're not going without but maybe you're carrying a little bit more of that burden until the costs come down.
Speaker 2:Okay. So as you were explaining that, I realized in terms of what's considered a claim or not. It was probably nine, 10 years ago. I had called my carrier when I noticed there was kind of like some water coming through a bathroom ceiling, yeah, and as I investigated, it wasn't anything big and there was nothing widespread. There was nothing widespread but just because I called the carrier to ask a question about it, I had no idea in that moment. But years later, maybe three or four years later, when I sold the house and I was setting up coverage with another carrier, they said whoa, whoa, whoa, you've got this claim that you made back here. And I said I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:It was that phone call that I made, just asking a simple question. So one of the things I was going to ask you about is cautionary tales in your business, and I think that's my cautionary tale. I don't know if you have any more, but if you have a cautionary tale or if you have a great story, something that you're, you know, that's kind of top of mind for you when you really save somebody because they were insured and insured properly and if they had not been, it would have been devastating for them. Do you have any stories like that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean I have a slew of both of those stories, I think. Just real quick to your comment. I think that's probably, again, one of the things that we really advocate our clients when we work with them, especially when they first come in, is, before you call the insurance company, call us, let's talk through the situation right, so that we can set up a plan on how we need to address that. Because you're right, if you call the insurance company, they're going to open a claim and even if it gets, you know, we were talking before the show about my client that sold their home in Wisconsin and we're building a brand new home here, and when we went out to you know, try and find them insurance for that new property, we had carriers that declined to write the brand new home that they just took possession of today because of a claim that was filed during the process of selling their home.
Speaker 3:Now, had the agent been involved and I don't know if they were or not, so I'm not going to speculate on that but had that client called their agent first and said here's the situation that's going on, the agent could have said well, let's see how this plays out, right, maybe let's get a second opinion, have a contractor come out, find out what needs to happen and then, if it gets to a situation where it's like, yeah, this is really going to have to be a claim, that's fine, move forward with that. But then you also can understand here's what the ramifications of that look like and you can make an informed decision. As far as you know, I don't, I mean, we admittedly we've been really lucky not to have a ton of of terrible claims Um, uh, but uh, a client that I'll I'll kind of mention, um, recently uh, was a referral from, uh, david Clegg. You know, david Clegg, um shout out to David Clegg.
Speaker 3:Yeah, david Um.
Speaker 3:So a cousin of his uh had this restaurant and he had it insured with a company that if you go to their website you would think this company like they, specialize in restaurants, this is what they do was paying a ridiculous amount of money but was going without property coverage.
Speaker 3:Now he had a million dollars worth of property investment in his building, but because of the cost of just his general liability and liquor liability, the cost to include the other stuff was was not in question. Well, you know, we, we talked with our carriers, we, we learned about the business, we learned about characteristics and ended up saving them almost 70, 80 thousand dollars a year on their costs. And that was with adding that property coverage back into. So now if there's a fire, their property isn't a total loss. So, you know, I think that, for me, is what we really pride ourselves on is we want to make sure especially if you're a business owner, homeowner, it doesn't matter we want to make sure that your investments and the things that you've worked hard to build are being covered, and being covered correctly.
Speaker 3:We don't want you overburdened. I like to tell people that you have a bucket of money and my job is to make sure that we use that bucket of money as effectively as we can, to make sure that we're covering. You. Could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and cover every possible thing, but what we want to make sure is that you're covering the most important things but also being cognizant of the cost that that's placing on you the cost that that's placing on you.
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, you know you're covering not just home auto businesses, you're covering families. So, speaking of families, you have a family, correct? I do? Yeah, so what's? What's your family look like? Who? Who do you call family?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my, my beautiful wife Margie, she is a therapist, so she three days a week she, she has her own practice. And then we've got three lovely young ladies. We've got Evelyn, who is in seventh grade now, and then our, our middle child, elena, just started kindergarten. And then Emmy's the youngest, and she's in preschool.
Speaker 2:Okay, Just wait till they're at that bubble of junior high and high school. Man oh man, that's going to be some fun days in your house, you know some fun days in your house.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, well, we're close already.
Speaker 2:Seventh grader is rapidly approaching that. Yeah, so when you're not thinking of insurance and you're, you know, getting away from the office, yeah, what's fun to you? Do you go on vacations? How do you spend your time away from the office having?
Speaker 3:fun. Well, I'm not sure what a vacation is as a, as an insurance business owner, I don't do much of that. But you know we we do try, and you know, find time. I've got family in Ohio and so you know we try and break free and do that. Um, a lot of my wife's family is all here in Northern Kentucky, so we're we're lucky that, um, you know, we get to spend a lot of time with them. We've got a great, um, you know, group uh, we call them our church family, our our group that we meet with and so try and try and spend a lot of time with them and, and you know, working with our, our church family.
Speaker 2:So what church?
Speaker 3:do you attend? We go to the vineyard over in Camp Ernst.
Speaker 2:All right, I have a lot of friends that attend that church. Yeah, so you mentioned earlier in passing a partner who's your partner in the business.
Speaker 3:So his name's Eric Beckman. He actually lives over in Ross Actually, was just nominated to the school board over there. But he and I had a very similar journey. We and I both started at Cincinnati Insurance as underwriters. We both spent the same amount of time there and we actually never even knew each other while we were there Ended up meeting.
Speaker 3:We both took a remote underwriter job with a small mutual company called Guide One, and it was kind of funny because I thought he was my competition, you know, for the job. I was like how is it possible that I recognize somebody in, uh, des Moines, iowa? And then I was like I bet he's applying for the same job. So it turned out we ended up both getting um, uh positions there and became good friends. And, uh, you know, right, right, when the pandemic hit, uh, I, I being called to start an agency and work with the actual consumers, and shortly after that I enticed him to join me on the agency side. So he kind of helps run the Ohio side of things and he does come up once a week, run the Ohio side of things and and I, he does come up once a week and but yeah, he's, he's been. We've been friends for since 2018.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, if somebody wants to know more about you, they have questions, they think that maybe you can help them. Yeah, what's the best way for them to reach you?
Speaker 3:You know, all my contact information is on our website, it's just adkissoninsurancecom. You can certainly call us here at the office or, like you mentioned earlier, I'm typically here throughout the week, so certainly always welcome to stop by and say hello, bring your paperwork and I'll take a look at what you have.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, very good, you know I'm meeting with a lot of business owners and we're doing these podcasts and I help local businesses in many other ways and I know that many of us are friends with you, know others in business here. We know each other through B&I groups and just through doing business together. Just for curiosity's sake, do you have a best friend in business? You know who's your best business buddy here in town, because I know you're a friendly guy. I know you have friends, I know.
Speaker 3:I do, I, I mean, you know, I, I, you're right, I have been very lucky to develop a really strong core of local business contacts through our BNI group. You know I, I, a lot of them are like Kelly works for Drees she's, she's been a great resource for me. Jewel Buckley with Euler Hines, you know, anytime I have clients looking for a home, I always refer them to her, obviously. David Clay I mentioned him earlier at at Allie's walkabout Um, I, you know, I mean, I could, I could really name a bunch.
Speaker 3:Uh, quentin, with um, lifetime, yeah, he uh, yeah, he's a great resource when I, you know, obviously, being an insurance agent, I, I, I can sell life insurance. Um, you know, I, I can certainly help people with basic life insurance needs, but when it gets to more complex things, he's somebody that I refer to quite a bit because that's his area of specialty. So, you know, I could, I could really list Jenny Trosper she's, she's a great friend of mine, health coach, you know, just just a really awesome friend. So I have a lot of people from that that group that I love to connect people with because, um, cause, I, I do know them personally, not not just as business people, but, um, I know them personally and and I know that uh you know anybody I connect with them, uh is gonna uh appreciate the value that they bring.
Speaker 2:Everybody that you just mentioned I know as well. I know them personally and I think very highly of them all, in particular Jewel. Her name is Jewel for a reason.
Speaker 3:Yes, she's an awesome lady, she is.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, on that happy note, our time together has come to an end. This is a quick 20 minutes, Actually almost 20 minutes. Yeah, it does go by fast. So thanks for sitting down and spending time with us and explaining a little bit about your business and letting people get to know you a little bit better. One more time, if somebody wants to reach out to you.
Speaker 3:What's your phone number? Phone number here is 859-341-2663.
Speaker 2:Okay, very good. So I'll see you at some point, maybe at a BNI group. I'll see you around town, but I'll certainly see you online. We're both very active on the social media, so thanks for spending time with us and, and all of you out there listening, I'll just say we'll see you next time, but until then, everybody out there, be good to your neighbor. Bye, everybody.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast Union. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPUnioncom. That's's gnpunioncom, or call us at 859-651-8330.