Homeowners insurance with Special Guest Simon Sefton!

Should you increase your homeowner's insurance? When do you need flood insurance even if you're not in the 100 years flood zone, all this and more on Indys Real Estate Gurus.

Advisors Mortgage Group is proud to present indies real estate gurus hosted by Rick Ripma and Ian Arnold, the hard working mortgage guys, please contact Rick Annie and for all of your mortgage needs at hard working mortgage guys.com That's hard working mortgage guys.com Now here's the hard working mortgage guys, Rick Ripma and Ian Arnold.

I'm Rick Ripma, your hard working mortgage guy

and I'm Ian Arnold with Advisors Mortgage Group. And if you did miss our show last week, and reminder, you can catch us on our podcasts on Indy Real Estate Gurus,

right or you can go to our website, which is HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com That's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com. And you ask questions you can contact us from there. Our podcasts are all there as as well as on all the different podcasts. What do they call it a podcast

called podcast? Okay, I know it's over your head services, whatever they're called.

Yeah, thanks so much. Well, today we're going we're, we're gonna get into the numbers like I always do, but I do have Simon Sefton. On he's a he's a insurance guru. He runs the goose head agency here. And in Carmel, I was with a company myself for 20 something years, they did my insurance, I switched over to Simon he saved me a bundle of money. He's very knowledgeable. He's helped a ton of my customers. So he's very, very knowledgeable, he'll really be able to break it down and make it a lot easier to understand what homeowners insurance is how it affects you have flood insurance, which is kind of amazing, which we'll get into whether you whether you need flood insurance or not. Before we do that, though, I do want to talk about the the numbers. We the Feds met on Tuesday and Wednesday last week. And they meet on Tuesday they And then Wednesday at two o'clock they announced they meet Tuesday Wednesday announced what they're going to do everybody thought they would raise the federal funds rate by point seven, five or 75 basis points. They raise the federal funds rate by 75 basis points. That was kind of a foregone conclusion, although right at the end, people were saying well, maybe they'll go 100 basis points. But they didn't nobody really we I didn't expect them to. With that. It's really because it was expected. It's it's what did they say? What did they say about what's going to happen? And how does that affect the market. So what happened when the federal funds rate I happen to it was a little unique situation, I had a customer who was ready to lock. We didn't want to lock before they announced because it could have turned the market the other way and lowered interest rates. So I was on the computer waiting at two o'clock to see what what the announcement did to mortgage backed security bonds and whether it was going to do to to interest

rate, how many times you hit refresh,

I hit it a lot. And immediately, it turned back immediately. And that's a tough thing. Because it tends to bounce, it tends to, you know, it goes up the knee jerk reaction, then it comes back down. But it wasn't coming back down. So I had already talked to the customer. They said yes, if it's going the wrong way, just lock me. So I was able to lock it before before the interest rate went up. Even though the mortgage back securities were going up, I locked it right after I locked it, the rate was a quarter higher, so that the customer saved a quarter. Today, it's opened up even worse, don't have rates yet for today. But if the markets opened up or so it's one of those things, it really helps to have the ability to watch what's going on. So you can you can get somebody the best rate this customer believes, as I do that rates are coming down probably mid next year, maybe a little earlier than that I say mid if by early next year could be even late this year start to I think we're gonna see rates in the fours next year. And so their plan is just to refinance. So take the rate, and then refinance in that time. And the other the other thing that I think is extremely important for people to understand or to know is that every year we get a raise in our in our mill, the the maximum loan amount that we can loan, and they announced the that maximum for the conventional loans. And so in Indiana, and in most of the country, the maximum loan amount was 647 200. This this kind of gives you an idea of what happens what's happened to our values. If values they do it by the average sale price. There's a whole calculation. It went from 647 200 It's going to be 715. I don't know that's what $70,000 That's quite a bit. It's a lot of money to go up. That's almost 20 Well, no 10% 15%, something like that, that's a pretty big increase the two units, so it does go up that two units, it went to 916,000. So if you're in the market to buy a double, it went to 916,000. But a single, it's 715. What does that mean? Anything a loan amount over 715 needs a jumbo loan 715. And below, you can do a conventional loan. Of course, there's FHA, but FHA hasn't announced yet. It'll go up also, but it hasn't announced yet. So we'll see how that goes. But with that, I really want to get into talking with Simon again, Simon is a as an insurance guru, he, he is as good as they come, he's able to save money, he makes it very simple. He has a great website that I thought was very easy to even shop your insurance, you can just put the information in there. But Simon, could you kind of just give a little overview of yourself just tell people a little bit about you? Yep. So

I'm from I'm from London, England, I've been here five years now been involved in insurance for about for about five years over here and I've been with goose head insurance as a broker for coming up for coming up to four years. So we offer all of the personal lines insurance as well as life you know, all the boats, the motorcycle, you know, all of the all of those extra bits and pieces, but really, my bread and butter is the home and the otter

So do you guys shop them compared to other places? Yeah, how do you guys so I'm

a broker so I'm working with over 50 companies for home and for auto. So what we're ideally trying to do is match up and find the best package for the customer for home and their auto.

Yeah, and you know, it's important because as a broker, one of the things sometimes we need is we need to get that debt to income ratio in line for a customer and sometimes that can come with the insurance and and you've always been able to do that give people very, very great insurance at a good price so they're saving money and that's really important. But if somebody wanted to get a hold of you what is the best way to get a hold so

email is Simon dot Sefton at Gu said.com and phone number is 317-522-6910

then they spell Sefton, S E. F for F t o n. Okay, so Simon dot Sefton at goose head goose.com.com. Alright, perfect. So one of the big things I wanted to talk about is an I spent a lot of years in New home sales. And one of the things that I learned, you know, in people as they are buying houses and they live in in this house, that even though you're not in a flood zone, what what we would consider a, you know, the different flood zones, 100 year flood rains, that type of thing. There are other reasons that you actually need flood insurance. Can you talk about that?

I can, I'd like to start actually, just by giving you an exact definition of what flood is, according to insurance, so hang on a moment. Okay, so I want to start with a quick definition of what flood actually is, according to insurance, flood is an act in an excess of water on land that is normally dry, affecting two or more acres of land or two or more properties. For example, damage caused by a sewer backup, if covered by the back, sorry, is covered if the backup is a direct result of flooding. If it's not, then it's not going to be covered. That's a common one. Flood insurance is definitely not included as part of the homeowners policy. It's a completely separate policy. Just a few facts and figures on flood 14% of US homes. By the way, every single home is in a flood zone. It's whether it's a high risk flood zone or not, which, you know, we're concerned about really, and we

actually see that quite a bit because one of the disclosures we we have to have people sign is a flood. And you got some people that are on that. I'm not in a flood zone. No, no, technically you are, but you're just not very high risk. Yeah. And people we have to explain it to him countless times.

Yeah. And those in those zones have moved as well. They're constantly remapping things so you could find yourself not in a flood zone one year and in a high risk flood flood zone. A couple of years down the road. Yeah,

yeah, that's one of the problems we have too with that is we'll have a person in a they're not in a flood zone, they have a mortgage, they go well, I don't have flood insurance. Now. Why do I have to have flood insurance? But they do because they changed the flood map? Yeah. Now you'd said on the on the sewer backup. So is that one of the reasons you would add flood insurance?

Flood insurance does not cover water backup, I would I would always recommend including water backup on the home on the homeowner policy. Okay, so that's a different different type. Okay, yeah. Flood is completely separate. There is water coverage on the home, but there's not flood.

Okay. Actually, so why would somebody if they're not in a, like 100 year flood zone? I think that's what we require. Yeah, it's x or whatever. I can't remember. Why would somebody needed if they aren't in one of those zones that it's required by the mortgage insurance? Or mortgage company shouldn't

purely a mortgage requirement? Oh, yeah. So, if the mortgage company is okay, without a flood policy, that's fine. If you know if it's another case, then you know, you're gonna need one. Can you

even get flood insurance if you're aren't designated in an area that requires it? Yep, absolutely. Okay. So when you when, because in my mind, then I was thinking flood insurance was also the backups because I had people in that probably they communicated it incorrectly, but I had people who build a house, they'd have a finished basement, the sump pump would back up and cause all this damage. And they had to have some type of writer on their insurance to cover that. Is that that water backup,

that will be the water backup. Yeah. Okay. Definitely. Okay. So that's, that's, you know, the water backup is part of the big part of the h2o three, the homeowner policy. It's only on the homeowner policy, it's nothing to do with the flood. So if you have a, if you've got a flood, you know, it's deemed acceptable by their definition. You know, you're gonna be you're gonna find that, you know, it's not gonna happen. Okay,

so let me ask this question. So, I grew up in Florida, so trust me. A lot of people a lot of people have flood insurance. Different. Yeah. So do a lot of people have flood insurance here being in Indiana, I would say,

between between 10 and 20% or something like that. It should be higher. I mean, only 14% of Americans have it, whether they're in a high risk zone or not. And you know, it accounts for 33% of the of the claims for the year. Oh, really? Yeah, it's the most common claim type in the country. Yeah. Flood insurance

is I had no idea Yeah, yeah, it's interesting because you we don't see a ton of I mean, if you're on a river here you you need flood insurance but there's very other little there's not a ton here that I see coming up where somebody needs flood insurance on a house it just doesn't happen that often. But one of my curiosities is and I never thought about before what is it actually cover? What does flood insurance cover crime

primarily, it's going to cover the building itself and any other structures on the property. And if you want it can also cover what's in the house all of your contents. We can give you coverage for loss, you know, loss of loss of use as well. That can be quite handy, especially in flood.

What if they know it's coming? Does it cover like sandbags and things like that to prevent you

get $1,000 to make any sort of upcoming improvements or anything that you can do to keep the water away? If you know the storm is coming? Yes, insurance has amounts for that. So I would say

that save on money if you could sandbag it. Yeah. Yeah, I guess the handbag works? I don't know. Yeah, I would guess it works. After the break, we're going to talk more about homeowners insurance with Simon seven with goose head insurance. If you need to get a hold of me in an AI please go to hard working mortgage guys.com That's hardworking mortgage guys.com. And you from there you can you can call or send us an email or just fill out the information.

Advisors mortgage brokers licensed by Indiana Department of Financial Institution equal housing opportunity. NMLS 33041 Rick Ripma NMLS 664589

Hi, I'm Rick Ripma. With the hard work and mortgage guys and advisors Mortgage Group, where we believe delivering the best mortgage for you is why we exist and it's how we all succeed. We believe

honesty, kindness and hard work are how we honor each client

at hardworking mortgage guys, we believe in custom tailored loans, not the one size fits all approach.

We believe in always presenting you with all your options. So you get the loan you want the way you want it. We believe in continually monitoring the rules, rates and market trends. So you don't have to we believe in working hard to meet your closing date so that your entire plan isn't upended. We believe in offering the same quick online process that the bookstore mortgage companies brag about whether you're refinancing or buying your first home, we believe

there is the best mortgage for you and we believe we are the team to deliver it find us online at hardworking mortgage guys.com.

Brought to you by advisors Mortgage Group, where we believe the more you know about financing a home the less stressful buying and refinancing will be

welcome back and thank you for joining us. I'm Rick Ripma, your hard worker mortgage guy

and I mean Arnold advisors Mortgage Group, and if you miss our first 15 minutes with Simon you definitely need to go check out our podcast in Indys Real Estate Gurus.

Yep. And these real estate gurus or you can go to our website, which is HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com That's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com. And we're talking with Simon Stephen about homeowners insurance and all the nuances there. Before we do that, we're gonna get into the question of the week.

Now it's time for questions with the gurus.

The question of the week is brought to you by the reducer mortgage. It's our inflation fighter, with the price of everything going up. Call us today to see what we can do to help you reduce your payment to help out your bank account. And not only can you call us, you can call Simon on his inch for maybe a better quote on your insurance. Absolutely.

And how would they get ahold of you Simon so

Simon dots, Sefton, last name spelled s for Simon E. F for Frank tea for Tommy opha Oscar and for Norman Simon dot Sefton at goose head.com. Perfect.

So the question last week was, where would you take a sick boat? Exactly where you take all the boats to the dock?

Can you tell you as kids get your telly as kids?

The question for this week is what is orange and sounds like a parent? Tune in next week. So yes, Simon are here thinking oh, Cara.

All right, we're good. I'm Simon.

Alright, so we got Simon here to talk. And we're going to go through a little bit more on the flood and also get into a little bit more of insurance questions that we get quite a bit.

Right. And it's important insurance is such an important piece. If you're if you have a mortgage, you're going to be required to have homeowners insurance, just like car insurance. If you have if you have a car and you finance it, you got to have car insurance. Even if you don't finance it, you have to have insurance because state requires it. So this is you know, it's one of those things that none of us like to have until we need it. Yeah, we are talking about flood insurance. That was one thing I was gonna say. It's amazing how many people that when you tell them, they don't have flood insurance, and you maybe they're buying a home or they're refinancing that had been put in a flood zone, you say, well, you now have that flood insurance, and how upset they are. But there is a reason they're put in a flood zone. And if you you want flood insurance if you need it. I mean, if it's if you're in a if you're in a area that's high flood, you want flood, which Yeah, you gotta have it.

I mean, it's just like, what is it? I had a claim. Last summer I told you about this, we had hail damage replaced, replaced our roof and everything. Guess what I don't like paying for it. And I paid for? I've been in my house for seven years. I never had never had anything. But guess what? I got a new I had to get a new roof. Guess what? That definitely helped out?

Yeah. Yeah, it's insurance is vital. It's just one of those things we have to have. But you know, let's get into some of the basics of, of homeowners insurance. So somebody is let's say they're buying a house, we have a lot of people right now buying, and they're buying a house, they have to have insurance? How would they go about shopping for that insurance? Or? It's so difficult? Because you don't know what, you know, every insurance company tends to give you a difference.

Yeah. So that's where I come in, really. So I have a, you know, a large range of options and carriers. So I'm there to really to do the shopping for the customer. You know, I take that off their hands. And then

I'm sure you probably ask them questions. So you're making sure you're giving them the proper information?

Oh, yeah. I mean, I work, you know, I get the policy right first, and then we work on the price and make sure everything everything's, you know, signed and dotted is correct.

And if somebody's buying a house, we have to have the insurance ahead of time, how soon? Let's say they sign a purchase agreement, we kind of tell them, they should do it immediately. What do you think? How long does it take to get the insurance, get it in place and get it moving?

I mean, it can be I can sometimes get a binder over to you with you know, within a couple of hours, but it can often take longer. You know, if there's an underwriting issue, it's got to be approved. Sometimes that can take a couple of days to come back to me. But we would always say at least two or three weeks ahead of time, you'd need to have your home insurance in place, if possible.

Yeah, it just makes it safe. Yeah. But if you don't you need somebody like you also, who can do it quickly if it has to be done. Yes. And I know, it may not be every insurance company, but I've had people who've had to have the the house had to be inspected by the insurance company. Yeah, it didn't seem to happen on every single one. But it's

a random process. Generally. They pick somebody at random. Yeah. I think on average, only about 20% of homes get chosen for an inspection, but to my knowledge with nearly all the carriers. It's a random process.

No, I think they said they were gonna do a drive by when I did mine. I was like, you don't even look in the house. They're like nah, with the and your house is somewhat new, we just want to do a drive by take pictures, and we're good. And I'm like, oh, okay, you know what you're doing? Not me.

They want to make sure your house was there. You weren't trying to ensure an empty lot. Yeah, well,

let's not. That's what I do on the side. Don't Don't worry about me.

I do a lot of bike riding. So, the, probably three months ago, two months ago, I'm riding near my house, in a neighborhood to houses side by side, basically, not really burnt to the ground, but almost completely destroyed. I was surprised because one of them already has sticks going up, they're actually building the house from what it burned down to. But that's the kind of thing that can happen that you got to make sure you're protected.

I mean, I completely understand why a lot of people that don't like it, don't look at insurance in a good in a good light. But you know, you're you're so right. When you when you need to, you'll be grateful.

And right now, a friend of a friend of mine, this is last year, maybe two years ago anyway, he has he had a house in Colorado, and service last summer. And a fire was not too far from his house, but it was brand new fire. And he called his insurance company, the fire hadn't been wasn't a risk yet. So they raised his insurance amount. And and then the fire did it totally destroyed his house in his whole neighborhood. And he was able to rebuild because he had done that. My question is with the inflation that we've had, especially in building materials, things like that to somebody if they have insurance, do they need to get with their insurance person and say, Listen, I need I need the replacement cost up? Yeah.

Yep. In these kinds of fairly special times, you know, it's worth checking on that. Some that sometimes the insurance companies will do that automatically and put it put it up at renewal. But, you know, ultimately, it's, it's on you. So I would recommend getting it checked every every year in terms of the coverage a Yeah, I mean, you don't want to be short in this kind of environment.

Yeah. And if if insurance with insurance, if it's in the middle of your policy. And you think oh, my house just went up my house has gone up 20% like they did last year, you should probably just call and say hey, raise my Can you do that?

Yeah, you can change anything? Pretty much any time. Yes, you can. You can pretty much make any changes at any time during the policy term. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Cuz it just seems like I mean, he was he was telling me since I'm telling everybody tell people on your radio show. So I did. I did that last year, too. It's it was such a big deal, because it made it made it where he could replace his house and not really have any money, not whatever, deductible and that kind of thing. Yeah. But otherwise, he'd have been way short. Yeah. Are there insurance companies that automatically do replacement costs are that you pay? Maybe you pay? I don't know, how

does it know, but there are a couple of companies that I use that have guaranteed replacement costs up to $5 million, and we write a lot of low value, low value homes using that as well. So Garin essentially 5 million, guaranteed up to up to 5 million. Yeah. Okay. If you know if the coverage is something that you're concerned about that, you know, talk to us, we can help. Sorry,

I thought you had a question. No, I just imagined in my house worth five over 5 million I was like that'd be kind of nice. And I just don't think appreciation is gonna go up that much here

recently. Oh, that's why they drove by your house Oh wait, here's our pictures. It was worth 5 million and it was worth 10 It's it's just one of those things that insurance is you know, there's so much to talk about. Again, what's the best way for somebody to contact you for any insurance needs?

So my email is Simon si m o n dot Sefton, S E F. Frank, T O, N? At Gu said.com? Phone number is 317-522-6910.

Now, I'm insurance How does like their credit score affect their insurance cost? Or does

it it does have an effect? We don't check credit. We do a soft check. So it doesn't appear on any of the reporting agencies. But yeah, it does. Yes, it does play a part for sure.

So you you do a soft poll doesn't show up. But you you know what it is? I think it's a it's not the same kind of poll that we do. Of course,

we don't touch the actual credit. I mean, you can't when they go to look at their account, they can't see that. We've checked it yet.

But you check that now what about other things? Is it is it? Like if I have a security system in my house, does that help on my insurance costs?

If it's monitored? Yes. If it's monitored, it's got to be a monitored system. You You can probably get, you might you might get sort of six to 8% discount on the year for that. Oh, really?

So that's really helpful. Yep. And the, I'm assuming in your area matters, like, where that fire hydrant makes a difference I've heard

fire hydrant does make a difference to the fire protection class. They look at how far away the nearest station is, you know how it's manned, you know, whether it's volunteer or full time, where the hydrants are, how much water the trucks can carry, you know, all of that stuff. Plays plays a part in determining the fire protection class. Okay, so I've insurance likes a low number.

Yeah, my brother in law and sister in law have a house and Kentucky on the lake. And there's no fire hydrants. They have to truck it in. I didn't know they even looked at the trucks. But that makes sense.

Oh, yeah, they do. Look at that stuff. Yeah. So I

know of cars, you get in a multi car discount and stuff with a lot of the companies. Now do you get that? Like I say, if somebody has a lot of rental homes, not so

much on rentals? No, the biggest discount on insurance really is for the home and auto package. Okay. You might get a small discount if you write 20 You know, rental properties, but it will be insurmountable. Yeah. I mean, some of the companies are doing 20 30% on home auto packages now, which is a lot. Yeah.

Now what we have a little well, we really don't have too much time. But what about renter's insurance? Does that make sense for somebody's renting a house and it's pretty expensive, correct?

It's usually talking about 10 to $20 a month you know if you want the peace of mind, I'd recommend it. It goes fits nicely with the auto insurance so you've got some history behind you when it come to you know, maybe getting a homeowner policy and a few years time. Okay, perfect.

Again, we're out of time but how would somebody get a hold of you sign

up my email is Simon si mo n dot Sefton Ste. F Frank T. O n@gusa.com.

Thank you very much for joining us. We appreciate it. I'm recruitment, your hard work and mortgage guy.

And I'm Ian Arnold Advisors Mortgage Group and tune in to us next week, where we will go over preparing your home for winter. What should you do? The next week on Indy's real estate.

Thanks for joining us have a great weekend.

Brunch NMLS number 33041 Recruitment NMLS number 664589. Ian Arnold's NMLS number is 1995469 equal housing opportunity? Some restrictions apply?

Well, first off, thank you for joining us, Daniel. I appreciate it. And I just was curious, how did you come to find out about Rick Ripma and advisors mortgage, oh, I was looking for a mortgage for myself for a brand new home that I was building. And I wasn't sure the direction to go, I didn't have anybody in mind. So I kind of just spoke to whoever I could speak to, I got their number. And everything seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. So I went with them. The thing I liked the most about Rick and his advisors mortgage is that I could go and upload things online. And I didn't have to always be on the phone with them or sending them documents or trying to look for certain things that I needed to get the process going. Which is really great for me, I had a processor named Mark Coleman, who really helped me out in making sure I had everything I needed because I didn't know the first thing about having a mortgage. So it was awesome to have so much help. I think probably what I've benefited from the most is really just the understanding that sometimes I would get busy. And maybe I forgot to upload a document or I forgot to do a certain part of the process in a timely manner. And they would get right back with me and it wasn't like a hey, we really need this right now. It was always Hey, just wanted to make sure you still remember that we need this. Well, you don't get that too much. In this day and age. It seems like most people are either, you know, very demanding of something they need from you and they need it right now. And, and I agree I've seen that in Rick's attitude with us over over the last 10 years that he's very patient but also helpful to get the right things he needs. So exactly. In conclusion is Rick Ripma and advisors mortgage somebody that you would use in the future and or tell your friends and family about. Absolutely. And I just want to thank them for all the effort they put in to help me find my dream home.

Ranch NMLS number 33041 Witness NMLS number 664589 equal housing opportunity some restrictions apply.

I'm Rick Ripma You can go to hard working mortgage guys.com