Come To Find Out
Welcome to Come To Find Out- your resource for all things real estate. You can come here to find out about the current market, terms that you see and hear during a transaction, things to do and not to do when you're in contract. The show will also feature interviews with industry partners and leading experts to help you choose who you want on your home buying journey with you. The home buying, selling and investing process can be so overwhelming, so this guide is meant to make it just "whelming."
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Come To Find Out
Cutting Insurance Costs Dramatically: Ethan Hamby's Insider Tips to Save Big on Premiums
Ever wondered how to cut your insurance premiums by more than half without losing coverage? Join us as we sit down with Ethan Hamby from East Street Insurance, an expert who helped transform my family's insurance costs from a burdensome $1,000 a month to a manageable $465. Ethan, inspired by his father's career in insurance, brings a wealth of knowledge and shares how his agency's focus on personalized customer service and efficient claims handling sets them apart, especially for residents of Indiana and Ohio.
Discover how the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the insurance landscape, and learn how companies like East Street Insurance have navigated these changes to continue supporting high-risk vehicles and providing robust homeowner's insurance. Ethan provides invaluable tips on how to stabilize your premiums and underscores the importance of working with local insurers who understand regional challenges. Don't miss our discussion on the substantial savings and peace of mind that come from working with dedicated experts like Ethan. Stay tuned until the end for an invitation to share your feedback and follow us for more insightful episodes.
Contact Ethan Hamby:
email- Ethan.Hamby@eaststreetins.com
phone- (812) 267-7845 (Call Or Text)
Text hawkeye to 36260 to download his app
Sarah Thress
614-893-5885
First Time Home Buyer course: https://sarahthress.graphy.com/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sarah_thress_realtor/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SarahThressRealtor/
https://www.youtube.com/@LIFEINCOLUMBUS
Hi and welcome to this week's episode of Come to Find Out. This week we have Ethan Hamby with East Street Insurance, so not to be confused with Easy Street, although he does make it very, very easy. So I was recently introduced to him through a mutual contact of ours who knew that I was having difficulty with my insurance.
Speaker 1:Anyone that has been listening for a while knows that I have four teenagers and three of them are drivers and, as I've mentioned in previous podcasts, with the price of everything, with inflation and everything going up, our insurance was.
Speaker 1:It was literally $1,000 a month just for our car insurance, which is insane. So when we shopped around and tried to find something because my husband and I both have Kias, we were not able to get any other insurance until we were introduced to Ethan, who was able to really look at everything, get us the exact same coverages for everything that we needed for $465 a month, so clearly a massive savings also was able to save us money on our insurance, for our homeowner's insurance. So if anyone is like me, and they received their new amount that they're going to have to pay on their monthly mortgage and it went up ours had gone up significantly, so he again was able to save us money. So I wanted to make sure that everyone heard about Ethan and East Street Insurance, because his customer service was impeccable. I was even bothering him on the weekend and he got right back to me, did everything. So, ethan, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come and talk to us.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course. So I'd love to kind of hear a little bit about you and you know kind of how you got into insurance and then you know how you ended up at East Street Insurance, because it's my understanding that it's kind of new to the Ohio area, but not a new company. So we'd love for you to just kind of fill us all in.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, so my dad has worked in insurance for the last 12, 13 years, so that's what originally got me into it for the last 12, 13 years. So that's what originally got me into it. And once I was in my senior year of college, I decided to apply for an open position, got the job, and so that's what kind of started me with my interest in insurance, just being around it, growing up around it, and so I've been there for four years now, started on October 1st to be four years, and so we have Indiana and Ohio where we write insurance at. East Street is a subsidiary of Indiana Farm Bureau insurance, but we're all the same company, same writing. We just write through our own carrier. We've been doing insurance in Indiana for about a hundred years and Ohio, uh, three, four years now. So, yeah, we're new to Ohio, but not new to insurance. And, yeah, I've been four years looking forward to seeing how it goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that and, um, help us to kind of understand, cause obviously every insurance company is, you know, a little bit different. Um, you know, everyone kind of has their own thing. Like obviously you'll hear like progressive, like bundle, and all of that stuff. You know a little bit different. You know everyone kind of has their own thing. Like, obviously you'll hear like progressive, like bundle, and all of that stuff. You know. So what is it you know about East Street Insurance that is different than you know other carriers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it depends on which insurance types of companies you go to. Independent agencies are going to shop several different companies, which can be can be bad, depending on how that goes. We are a captive agency, so we are. We only write through our own carrier and we are Indiana, ohio, so we're local to the Midwest. So any other issues that happen in California, in New York, whatever it is, that's not going to be affecting us. We just help ensure the key is as well, because we have local problems, local company, local problems.
Speaker 2:But the biggest thing that I would say sets us apart is our customer service ability to contact an agent. So seven days a week you can contact me call or text and most hours of the day I'll be able to get back to you. So that's one of the biggest biggest parts. But an even bigger part is paying claims, which you know. What's good is insurance when it comes to claim time and your company doesn't want to pay. So we try to pride ourselves on our ability to pay claims, how fast we can pay claims and how painless we can make that process.
Speaker 2:And many companies we work with body, body shops, restoration companies, whatnot call us the gold standard when it comes to claims because, for example, tornadoes happened a year or two ago. Greenwood, indiana, knocked down a bunch of houses, knocked it out completely, tore them down. We had everybody already paid out. Construction started before any other company even arrived on the scene. So it's things like that that really set us apart. So you have the low price, which most people want to go for, just the low price only, which is great. We have those, but also on top of that, you're going to get great customer service and you're going to have the comfort knowing that your client will be taken care of when it comes time for that to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing. So, like with us, you know we were referred to you, we called you and, um, you know, we sent you all the information. Is that kind of how it typically works with you. You know, I can imagine that everyone that is working with you is so excited to refer everyone they know to you. Um, so kind of walk me through the process, like if someone calls you and they're like hey, I'm, I'm trying to save money on insurance, like what, what you know? Just what is your process? Like, what do you do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So, um, you give me a call. I do get a lot of calls, so if I don't answer, just leave a voicemail or text message. I'll get right back to you. But basic process is just get your basic information name, address, date of birth, vin numbers on the cars and then I'll be able to get a quote with that info and at least take a look and see. Take a look and see. It doesn't cost anything to run a quote, so it's free to just take a peek if you want to, just to see if we'd be able to save you money and most of the time we were able to do that and we'll get you in the door, get you taken care of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Now, if you pull that information and you're like kind of shopping, I know you know some people are afraid that, like if they start shopping around, you're going to like let their other company know that they're shopping around or whatever. So is that like, whenever you enter in that information, does that flag anything? Or flag the insurance company? Or like whenever someone is applying for a loan, sometimes that will, it triggers all these other lenders to start reaching out to you and like trying to get your business. So is it kind of the same thing with you guys, or?
Speaker 2:No, insurance is a little different, so we're not going to notify your company or anything like that. You can shop with as many companies as you want and your current company may never know unless you tell them. And then the worst thing I'd say you have to worry about is there's a soft pull on credit, but it's not like a hard pull or anything like that, so it's not going to affect your credit. But they do take a look at that to determine rates sometimes, but it's like similar to how Credit Karma does it, where it's like not going to affect your credit or anything. So, but beyond that, no, it's a pretty, pretty simple, pretty painless to get a quote.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Now, obviously, car and home insurance are things that you cover. Is there anything else that you guys do, or is it just car and home?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we've got car home renters, life and we have some business insurance. Right now we're working on expanding that in Ohio. We're pretty well established with that in Indiana, but the Ohio one. It just depends on what kind of business you have. But we are able to do some business and coming soon we'll be able to do most businesses. But, yeah, car home renters, life are the main things we do right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great and I feel like that's something that everyone that is purchasing a home should be thinking about is, you know, life insurance, you know making sure that you're protecting that asset that you just bought, also making sure that you're, you know, protecting your family if something happened, and things like that. So I love that you guys kind of have that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. It's definitely the most important product, especially because it's pretty cheap. Most people don't realize how cheap it is until they actually get a quote on it and, um, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars pay off your mortgage, pay off all your debt. Go to your family if you die, for the cost of a pizza a month. So it's, it's pretty pretty, uh pretty important product.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Now do you have different companies that you work with with the life insurance part of it, or is it all still with the Indiana?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have two carriers, One's called United Home Life, one's the other United Farm Family Life, under the same umbrella with Farm Bureau. So it's pretty, pretty similar situation where we just we keep it all in-house.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I like that you brought up renter's insurance too, because anyone that's listening to this if you are renting at the moment, hopefully you have renter's insurance. If you don't, I highly recommend it because if anything happens or someone was to break in, steal all your stuff, or maybe there's some sort of damage that happens you know, a fire or whatever Hopefully your apartment complex is going to help with some of that, but you definitely want to have your renter's insurance to be able to cover all of your items that were inside the home. So do you? Do you get a lot of people that call you about renter's insurance? Like, how do you kind of explain that? Yeah, yeah, I get a you about renter's insurance. How do you kind of explain that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get a ton of renter's insurance. Most people do bundling with the auto because it gives you the same bundling discount as having a home with your auto, so that's a benefit of it, and most of the time it's only $10 to $15 a month, so it's pretty cheap, and there have already been a handful of instances in the last month or so of people needing to use the renter's insurance that maybe otherwise wouldn't have got it. So it's also important. But you know, I work in the insurance industry so I think most all insurance is important too. But yeah, it's a great product. It bundles with your auto, so you save a lot of money on your auto too if you bundle both together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Now, do you guys have? So you know, obviously in the news you know we've heard a lot about, like, insurance companies having to raise their rates or having to drop. You know, certain people Like, especially you know I think we hear it more in like just because of like all of the like hurricanes and all of that stuff. Have you guys ever had an instance like that where, like, maybe there were so many tornadoes or so much stuff that you guys had to just drop clients or like?
Speaker 1:I guess I would just love your take on the insurance industry right now, since all we're hearing is like oh my gosh like people can't get insured and insurance companies are going under because of all of the you know catastrophes around the world. So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Insurance is a very reactionary type business and most companies weren't doing increases over COVID. The first couple of years of COVID they weren't doing any increases, and most of the major companies that you know of and you see commercials I've lost billions of dollars, so they had to unload a lot of clients because of that. We took gradual increases with COVID and it was able to help us stay sustainable, and now a lot of those companies are having to take larger increases than they otherwise would have if they just had done smaller increases at a time. But as for us, we haven't had to unload any clients like that since the 1980s and so, as far as I've been told, they don't plan on ever doing that again. They're staying ahead of the game on it. So our financial rating was A, a plus, I think I forget it was.
Speaker 1:It was the top tier, whatever the top tier rating was listed by Forbes.
Speaker 2:Our financial rating was yeah, we're in pretty good standing as far as that goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love hearing that because you know, like I said, everybody in the you know everybody listening to the news media is thinking. You know, like I said, everybody in the you know everybody listening to the news media is thinking you know the sky is falling with basically everything. But you know, and I love that, you guys kind of took that approach where it's like, hey, we're just going to gradually increase so that we continue to stay ahead of the curve. It reminds me of kind of like the Southwest model where you know, when they first started, they, like, you know, their first year, they, you know, like, didn't want to lay anybody off, so they, you know, sold a plane to make payroll instead of laying people off. So it kind of reminds me of something very similar to that that you guys are forward thinking and making sure that, like, you're not dropping clients, dropping employees, just to, you know, make things right with financials.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, we. We reacted, I would say, on time, whereas most companies figured the COVID inflation and all the inflation over the last few years was just going to be a temporary blip and then it ended up sticking around for a couple of years. So I think that's what hurt them is they were betting on that to not be a long-term thing instead of going ahead and taking care of it then and there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I just love that you guys are forward thinking and, like I said, I love that you guys are so easy to work with, especially if anyone listening has a Kia and if it is, what? Is it 2022 or older? It is very difficult to get insured anywhere else except East street insurance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have no, no restrictions on any Kias. So, yeah, any Kia that you have we'll be able to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which it's my understanding that that's just because they've been on the hit list for people that are carjacking and things like that.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, a lot of companies decided to drop it, but most of the companies that are dropping it because of the carjackings and the people stealing them are covering places like San Francisco, new York City, dallas, you know. They got a whole range of big cities around the entire country, whereas we're just Indiana and Ohio. So we're not really having those same problems that the national companies are having, because we're a local company.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that. I wondered how you guys were able to do that. Yeah, that absolutely makes sense For sure. Kind of the law of averages? Yeah, I love that. So, in terms of homeowners insurance, when someone calls you and they say, hey, like I'm in the process of buying, a lot of people that are listening to this are first time home buyers. So how would you kind of explain to them why they need homeowner's insurance? Obviously, if they're getting a home loan, they're going to have to have homeowner's insurance. But let's just say, for whatever reason, they were buying it with cash. And you know, like what would you explain to people? Telling them, hey, this is why you need homeowner's insurance. This is what we do, this is how we're able to help, you know. And then the customer service that you guys provide when they do need to file a claim.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, so the biggest thing is mitigation of risk. So even if you have the cash to pay pay off your house, pay a house in cash you still want to mitigate that risk and put it on somebody else. Basically. So you put $400,000 onto a house, buy it in cash and it burns down. A week later you don't have insurance. You just lost $400,000.
Speaker 2:So that's a big reason of why insurance is so important is because if you lose everything, we'll pay to replace your house as good or better than it was when it was standing and, as far as the claims process goes, you'll be able to reach out to me directly. If you don't want to reach out to me, there's always the 1-800 number, and the biggest thing about our customer service is you have options with our company. So most other companies are going to just send you the 1-800 number. You're going to get a different representative every single time they come on the line, whereas with E Street Insurance, you're going to have me every single time, if you choose.
Speaker 2:If you don't like what I say, you can call customer service. If you don't like what they say, you have an adjuster assigned to you. If you don't like what the adjuster says you can go to the adjuster's manager. If you don't like what they say, you can go to my manager.
Speaker 2:So it's just like a whole village, a whole team of people around you to walk you through your claim and to try to find a satisfactory way to appease both parties. So of course we don't want to upset anybody but if it comes to that, like I said, you have the entire village there, lots of people to talk to, the whole chain of command around you. Everybody's located in either Indiana or Ohio, so they're either locally or mildly locally. That'll really set our customer service apart when it comes to having a claim, because when you call you're not going to get a person in New York and then you're going to get a person in LA York and then you're going to get a person in LA and then you're going to get a person in um, you know wherever it is and you're not going to have that issue with us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that Cause I feel like now, uh, a lot of times I mean, anyone that listens to this show knows that I am so passionate about five-star customer service and I only recommend people that are going to give, you know, that five-star customer service and I only recommend people that are going to give that five-star customer service. And so I love that you all are local and you're able to do that, because a lot of times now, I feel like whenever you call to complain about something or you call a customer service number or whatever, you're getting someone in another country that barely speaks English, and there's nothing wrong with that other than you know you're not getting that five-star customer service. Sometimes there's some you know translation issues and you know it. Just, it becomes quite a hassle. So I love that you guys have that all figured out.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, and sometimes you don't want to do everything over the phone. If you file a claim and you're not satisfied with how things are going, or you feel like maybe you're not getting an understanding of not just a claim but anything with insurance related and you want to meet me in person, just let me know. We'll find a time that works and we'll set that up and I'll be able to do a review with you in person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. So you guys are only Indiana and Ohio right now. Do you guys have any plans of expanding into other states?
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm not 100% sure which ones we're going to be adding next, but I know the talk to expand has been on the table, so stay tuned for what we add next.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I love that. Well, I'm going to make sure that I have all of your information in the show notes, that way, if someone wants to reach out to you, you know. Are you okay if we put your cell phone and your email?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Do you have socials that you'd like people to follow?
Speaker 2:I do have a Facebook page Ethan Hamby, E Street Insurance. So if you want to go give that a like, give it a follow, That'll be my. That's the only social media page that I have for business right now.
Speaker 1:Okay, perfect, I'll put all those links in the show notes then.
Speaker 2:Sounds good.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, thank you so much. Like I said, whenever you know, we were connected to you and you were able to save us so much money and you made everything so easy. I mean I literally like, texted you pictures of the cars, texted you event numbers, gave you all the information that you needed, texted you pictures of the cars, texted you event numbers, gave you all the information that you needed and within hours, you were like hey, look, I'm saving you so much money. So, um, thank you for that, and that's why I was like I have to have you on here so you can spread the word, uh, to more people about how amazing you are, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that. I'll help everybody as much as I can, yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that. Well, thank you so much for tuning in. Please make sure that you leave a review, because feedback is the greatest gift that you can give. Please make sure you're also sharing this with anyone, because that is the greatest compliment that you can give Ethan and I and also follow the show so you never miss another episode. Thanks so much and we'll see you next time on Come to Find Out.