“I believe that insurance provides protection for those assets that are most important to you,” Oliver says. “It provides protection for your family — it protects your bank account [and] it’s going to protect your home. It is all encompassing.”
“ Oliver offers several recommendations for African American policyholders when thinking about buying, upgrading or downgrading insurance coverage:
“Life insurance: “Let’s take the husband and wife scenario. If that husband passes away, that income leaves the household. That’s a huge impact on that family. If he dies and doesn’t have life insurance, I think that he’s doing a disservice to the family. Same thing for the wife.”
“Adequate home protection: “If you haven’t protected your home and it’s destroyed or damaged, where are you going to live? How are you going to take care of your family and maintain some normalcy?”
“Cheaper is not better: “One of the myths … is that cheaper is better. ‘I’m just going to get in and get the very basic, the very minimum as required by law …’ But you’re not protecting your family adequately.”
“Find a company that cares: “You really want to look for a company that’s most concerned about what’s important to you [and] what you’re trying to protect. Not whether … they are going to feed their pockets [or if] they are just going to treat you like a number. But whether they are going to really sit down and try to understand what goes on in your life [on] a day-to-day basis … and then recommend products and services.”
“Face-to-face interaction: “[The Internet is] not going to be able to provide you the information and the advice to make an informed decision about what you need to protect your assets.”
“ Oliver implores prospective policyholders to walk into agencies and observe agent-customer interaction. It’ll clue you in to how they may treat you when you need them. –terry shropshire
