Who We Represent
We believe a consultant can not serve two masters. We work for our clients.
LeMay+Lang, LLC, offers professional services on a fee basis only. Our services are performed for the sole benefit of our clients. We do not represent any insurance company, agency, or brokerage. We avoid any actual conflict of interest, and, to the greatest extent possible, any appearance of conflict of interest. Our only allegiance is to our client.
Why is “No Conflict of Interest” important to our clients?
When we say “Our only allegiance is to our client,” our client knows that we are working 100% for their best interest, and that there are no hidden strings that influence our professional recommendations.
Prior to working with us, many of our clients have had to rely upon the counsel and advice of insurance agencies, insurance brokerages, or (in the case of direct writers) insurance companies. Typically, much of that counsel and advice will be valuable and appropriate.
Even so, there are inherent conflicts of interest between insurance buyers (you) and the insurance sellers (agents, brokers, and companies). The insurance sellers are paid to sell insurance. The more they sell, the more they are paid. There is an economic incentive, sometimes, to sell more insurance than is needed, and to use insurance as the primary risk management tool when other methods may be more appropriate. The economic goals of the insurance sellers are in direct conflict with the economic goals of the insurance buyer.
What are some other conflicts of interest between insurance buyers and sellers?
Insurance sellers are often rewarded on a “contingency” basis for producing profitable business and for increasing premium levels. Insurance sellers can earn more money when the insurance buyers have low “loss ratios.” A “loss ratio” is the relationship between losses paid and premiums collected. When loss ratios are low, the insurance company makes more profits, and then rewards the insurance seller for producing those profits. The larger the profits, the more the insurance seller earns. This incentive is a double-edged sword: the seller of insurance can be motivated both to increase the premiums that the buyer pays, and to minimize the payments that the buyer receives in settlement of claims.
Insurance buyers are “Customers” of agents, but not “Clients”
In most cases the insurance sellers are not compensated by the insurance buyer; rather, they are compensated through commissions or salary directly by the insurance company that writes the policies. That makes the insurance buyer a customer of the agent, but not a client. Even in cases where a broker (for example) may work on a fee basis for the insurance buyer, there will sometimes be other arrangements where the broker will be compensated by the insurance companies for such things as profitability or size of the book of business the broker maintains. There are very often conflicts of interest between sellers and buyers of insurance. Almost all U.S. jurisdictions recognize that insurance agents have no fiduciary responsibility to their customers, except under very specific and limited conditions.