The Walters Agency Podcast

Insurance Clickbait Is Costing You More Than You Think

• Timothy Walters • Episode 15

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What Should We Know About Misleading Insurance Advertising On Social Media?

Ever wondered why those $35/month insurance ads seem too good to be true? Spoiler alert: they absolutely are. In this eye-opening discussion, Timothy Walters tackles the growing problem of deceptive insurance marketing on social media platforms and reveals what's really happening behind those clickbait offers.

The conversation centers on one particularly outrageous claim circulating online: that insurance agents pocket a whopping 80% of your premium payments. Walters pulls back the curtain on this blatant falsehood, explaining that property and casualty commissions typically range between 10-15% - a far cry from the greedy scheme portrayed in these ads. This modest percentage must cover all agency expenses including staff salaries, office costs, and business operations. "I would be fishing on my island if that was true," Walters jokes, highlighting the absurdity of these claims.

What's most concerning is how these tactics specifically target financially vulnerable consumers. With rising costs affecting everything from groceries to utilities, many people view insurance as just another expense to minimize. Clickbait ads exploit this stress by promising unrealistically low rates, only to collect and sell personal information to multiple agencies. The result? A barrage of unwanted calls and quotes that inevitably exceed the advertised rates. Walters offers practical advice for avoiding these traps: skip the flashy online offers and instead research legitimate local agencies where you can build relationships with real professionals who understand your specific needs. Your financial security deserves more than a misleading algorithm-driven promise.

Tired of insurance misinformation and want straight talk from experienced professionals? Subscribe to The Walters Agency Podcast for regular insights that cut through the noise and help you make informed decisions about protecting what matters most.

To learn more about The Walters Agency visit:
https://www.brightway.com/agencies/tn/knoxville/0237/team
The Walters Agency
7009 Asheville Hwy
Knoxville, TN 37924
423-417-2070

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Walters Agency podcast, where insurance meets peace of mind. Hosted by licensed insurance agent and owner, timothy Walters, we're here to help families, homeowners and small business owners throughout East Tennessee protect what matters most Our mission creating win-win-win solutions for insurance. Let's dive in.

Speaker 2:

From viral posts to too-good-to-be-true promises, insurance ads on social media can be more smoke than substance. Timothy Walters breaks down how to spot misleading claims and make sure your coverage is built on facts, not flashy gimmicks. Welcome back everyone. Skip Monaco host slash producer, back in the studio with Tim Walters, licensed insurance agent and owner of the Walters Agency. Tim, how's it going?

Speaker 3:

All right, Skip. How are you doing?

Speaker 2:

Doing just fine. Doing just fine. And you know, as I just said in the teaser, you know I just recently got back on social media from a business standpoint. But I see a lot of stuff that you know is that really true or not? And I think a lot of folks buy into whatever they see on social media. So I thought it'd be great if we could talk about. You know, let's move fact from fiction here. What about that? What do you think about that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no, you know, you know. You know everything on the internet's true, skip, kind of like everything on TV is real, you know, you know, like I said, we've talked about this a little bit before the show and I see it a lot. I think, maybe because the algorithm I'm always doing insurance stuff right because it's part of I think, maybe because the algorithm I'm always doing insurance stuff right Because it's part of my job, so the algorithm picks up on that, and that's like. I get constantly hit with a barrage of these social media and web advertisements Basically saying hey, you're paying too much for your insurance, which I mean okay, everybody does that when they're trying to sell a product, you can get a better price with our people, right? Or our product, okay, advertising.

Speaker 3:

What really gets me, though, is and I've noticed this more and more just in the last, probably year, really in the last six months is these I don't know if they're ai generated or or what, but they're basically saying the advertisements are saying hey, you're paying too much for your insurance because your agent is getting paid too much, okay, and, specifically, I hate the ones that say did you know that the reason you're you're paying so much for insurance is, your agent is getting paid 80% of your premium, which is a flat out lie. I'm just going to say, for what it is, that is 100% false. I wish that was true. I would be fishing on my island if that was true. Especially for property and casualty home and auto the commissions are much, much lower than that Life insurance, I think. Generally speaking it pays a little bit more commission, but still usually not 80%. I mean that's crazy. That doesn't make any kind of sense economically if you look at what insurance is. So it aggravates me. I get a little excited about it and I'll just be honest with you.

Speaker 3:

I've been doing this for a long time now and I'll just say, like the average speaking of averages here, the average commission for property and casualty product that's, home and auto is probably going to fall somewhere between 10 and 15% to the agency. And when you talk about the agency you got to keep in mind, like you know, that's that's for the whole operation. So that's what we have, that's what I get, and from that I have to pay all of my expenses. I have to pay my employees, I have to pay my own insurance, I have to do everything. I have to pay everything you have to pay to keep a business going, okay.

Speaker 3:

So it's not like we're scrooging the duck over here, you know, jumping into our money bin, uh, off of one policy, or I wish again, I wish that was true. That would be fantastic. Everybody would do this if that was true. The fact of the matter is, you know, we don't make much per policy. It's just, that's just the way it is. And so these advertisers coming out there and making these, these statements, again, it's patently false. It's 100 false. And, uh, if it's not false, if somebody has a company that's paying, that let me know. I will try to get an appointment with them.

Speaker 3:

But if I, if I know that I'm gonna get the appointment before you yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll help you get your license, man, we'll go into business together. But uh, yeah, I mean again, that's just them trying to get you to click on their little box there and that's going to take you somewhere. And, skip, I've done, actually out of curiosity, I've clicked on a couple of these and all the times I've done it it's been exactly what I expected. It takes you to a place where you fill out your information. They, whatever companies run in those advertisements they take that information and they sell it to insurance agents so they can run quotes for you. And the quotes that the insurance agents run for you, after they've done everything they have to do as far as getting the information, running all the reports, getting your loss history, your accidents and tickets, all that kind of thing, that kind of thing, almost 100% of the time, the quote that you get, the finalized quote you're going to get, is going to be much higher than whatever number they put up on their advertisement trying to get you to click on it Now, every now and again.

Speaker 3:

Maybe it'll be close, right, you know? Oh, you can get your insurance for $5 a month or whatever. I don't even know what they're saying these days. I think the last one I saw was like 35 bucks a month and I'm like, okay, well, what's the coverage? What's the accident history? How many drivers are there? How many cars are there? Where do you live? All these things factor in. You know, when you get that final last quote, it's probably going to be more than $35 a month.

Speaker 3:

I'm saying it can't get close because then there's that big one person on the internet that's like, well, this guy said it wasn't and I got it, but most of the time it's going to be probably higher because your circumstances, everybody's circumstances, are different. So it aggravates me. It really does, because then what it does is it makes me oh well, this guy, this insurance agent, he's just going to make a bunch of money off my one policy because he's getting 80% of what I pay. Well, that's not true. Most of the premium goes to the insurance companies, which they use again to pay their staffs, pay their expenses, have money put into their loss pool, so hopefully they'll have enough money to cover their losses for the year and maybe have a little bit of profit left over, because this is a business.

Speaker 3:

So, again, like the narrative you hear online is oh well, insurance is a scam. Insurance agents are greedy. Insurance companies are greedy by and large. It's not true. It's just it's a business and we're trying to make it. We're trying to provide a service and a product to people that either have to have by law, for whatever reason, or to protect themselves and their neighbors. And most agents I know take it very seriously. They want to help people and, yeah, make a living, but we don't make our living getting 80% of the commissions or of the premiums. Again, I wish that was true. Yeah, fantastic, I will retire tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

There you go, there you go. Well, are there specific types of insurance, like life or auto, that are more prone to deceptive advertising than others?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, honestly, I just feel like the deceptive advertisement on the internet is getting to be par for the course. It really does, especially for things like insurance. Because I understand why everybody well, everybody, most people, probably 80% of the people are financially stressed. This is true For a thousand reasons and we don't have to get into all the different reasons that everybody's financially stressed. But a lot of people are financially stressed and so people in those situations are much more likely to hook in, hook into something like an advertisement oh, you can get your auto insurance for this much, $35. And because we're going to cut out the agent who's taking 80% of what you're paying currently. So it's a double hook.

Speaker 3:

And people who are stressed like if they're looking at hey, my phone bill went up, my electrical bill went up, my food bill has gone up, all my bills are going up.

Speaker 3:

And I don't even like paying insurance because I don't get anything immediately from it.

Speaker 3:

It's not a delicious sandwich, it's not a brand-new car that I can brag about. People look at it as just an expense they get nothing out of and I pray to God nobody has to use their insurance. But when you do need to use it, you better pray that you have enough to take care of whatever's going on. But again, people don't look at it that way. They just look at it as an outgoing expense. So if somebody's making that advertisement, that statement, that says, well, you're paying too much because the agent's greedy, the insurance companies are greedy and we're going to help you with that, and here's how much you can pay if you just click on this link, a lot of people are going to click on that link and that company is probably not even an insurance company, it's probably not even an individual insurance agency. It's probably a data collection service that collects that information and sells it to agents who are trying to run insurance quotes and get people taken care of and get that business.

Speaker 2:

Leads.

Speaker 3:

I don't buy leads anymore.

Speaker 3:

I did when I first started my business and it was a waste of money because one a lot of people had no idea why I was trying to contact them, because they clicked on this thing and all of a sudden all these people are calling them and they thought they were just going to get an insurance quote by clicking on the link right. So now they're aggravated because all these agents are calling them, because they don't just sell it to one agent, usually they sell it to a lot of agents. And then they're like well, I don't want to give out my money, I don't know you, they don't know me from Adam's house cat, and so they're understandably suspicious. And then you know the occasions that I was able to run quotes usually was higher than what they had been led to expect by the advertisement. And this is almost 10 years ago and the advertisements now have gotten more sophisticated. And again they're making false representations now about what agents make, which again is what really aggravates me, because it's a flat-out lie and I don't like that.

Speaker 2:

Speaking of clickbait, you mentioned clickbait. How can consumers like me and I've been a victim of this, by the way, I was looking for health insurance when I started my business and, good Lord, my phone blew up, but from doing searches, I guess. But how, what? How can we verify whether an offer is legitimate or not from clickbait or just clickbait?

Speaker 3:

I mean honestly, skip. You know my, my honest advice anybody who's watching this is if you see an advertisement like that on the Internet, don't click on it. Just don't click on it If it's not like an agency that you can actually look up or a company that you can look up and say, okay, well, this is a legit company, they're running this ad, they're running this offer. Don't click on it because most likely it's going to be an information collection service that is going to take your information. You're going to click something that gives them permission. I promise you you're going to click something that gives them permission. Nobody reads what they got on the internet, right? So they just click through and then they're going to take your information, they're going to sell it and you're going to get a lot of calls that you didn't think you were going to get. You're going to be aggravated and then, even if you get a quote, it's probably going to be more expensive than whatever was put up in front of you to get you to click on that link.

Speaker 3:

So I would say, if you are looking for insurance be that home, auto, life insurance, health insurance Just do a little basic research. See if you can find a local agency you know in your area that you can look up, that you can call, you can walk in, verify that they're legit, hopefully kind of form a little bit of relationship with and find out if they're the kind of people you want to do business with and then let them work for you. You know they're going to need your information, but you'll know, like you've actually had a conversation with these people you know, you've actually verified that they're, you know, a live person. They're in your community and there's I promise y'all, there's insurance agencies for all insurance products in every community in this country. Pretty much.

Speaker 3:

Unless you know, you're just out in the middle of the desert and there's only 16 people around you and probably one of them is an insurance agent. We're thick on the ground. There's a a lot. But yeah, I mean, just do a little bit of basic research and try to find you a local agent who can help you out, because then you know, then you're not just throwing your information out there to the wolves on the internet. So my recommendation is not to click on those things.

Speaker 2:

Just don't, just don't do it.

Speaker 3:

Now watch me. Watch me run like try to run a little internet advertising. Nobody clicks on it.

Speaker 2:

Nah, so, if I'm hearing this right, do your research, do your homework, go with somebody you know, timothy Walters of the Walters agency, and don't click or a reasonable, flat, facsimile of me it's fine, maybe a clean shaven. You look smarter this way. So well, tim. Thanks for helping us separate fact from fiction. A lot of good information in this episode and, uh, your clarity on these issues is always appreciated, so we'll see uh next time on the Walters agency podcast.

Speaker 3:

All right, thanks, skip.

Speaker 2:

I time on the Walters Agency podcast. All right, thanks, skip, I appreciate it. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1:

And we'll see you then. See you then. That's a wrap on this episode of the Walters Agency podcast. Ready to find the right coverage for your home, business or family? Call or text 423-417-2070 for a free 20 minute consultation. Until next time, stay covered, stay protected and keep winning with the Walters agency.