Their Understanding Is Not In The Top One Per Cent

(A customer calls to inquire about changing his deductible to a percentage deductible.)

Customer: “I heard a thing on a commercial about getting a deductible that’s just 1%. I want that. It’s less than I have now.”  

Me: “It looks like right now you’ve got a $500 deductible. Changing to a 1% deductible would actually increase the deductible quite a bit.”

Customer: “You don’t seem to understand; 1% sounds like less than $500.”

Me: “A 1% deductible is 1% of your entire dwelling coverage. So, in your case, your dwelling coverage is $350,000. A 1% deducible on that would be $3500. It’s only $500 right now.”  

Customer: “No, but see, it sounds like less.”

Me: “But it’s not less.”

Customer: “But it sounds like it is.”

Me: “The only way it would be less than $500 is if your house was insured for less than $50,000.”

Customer: “But it really sounds like it’s a lot less.”

(This went on for about ten minutes. I even walked him through using a calculator to figure 1% of 350,000. I finally told the customer I would be happy to change him to a 1% deductible as long as he was willing to come into the office and sign a letter I typed out stating that he understood that just because 1% SOUNDS like less than $500, it was not, in fact, less. It was quite a bit more.  He ended up coming in and signing it, all the while looking like he just pulled one over on us. He saved less than $20 per year changing his deductible to be 1%.)