In this episode of the ROCC Pod, we interview Jordan Burns, owner of Honest Insurance Brokers, who takes us through his journey in the insurance industry, starting with how he launched and sold his first business during the pandemic. Jordan shares how he moved from life insurance and financial advising into property and casualty insurance, eventually deciding to strike out on his own, driven by a desire to offer more personalized services to a wider range of clients.
Jordan explains the difference between insurance agents and brokers, emphasizing how brokers can work with multiple carriers, giving clients better options for home, auto, and other types of coverage. This flexibility sets him apart, allowing him to tailor policies based on individual needs and avoid the "auto-renewal trap" many consumers fall into. He describes his approach to educating clients by presenting them with a few different coverage options and walking them through each one. This transparency is a core part of his business philosophy, which is reflected in the company name, Honest Insurance Brokers.
We also dive into important topics like when to make a claim and the implications it can have on future premiums. Jordan emphasizes the importance of consulting with an agent before filing a claim, as many people regret filing small claims when the payout doesn’t justify the potential increase in premiums. He also talks about the CLUE report, a tool used in real estate to check prior insurance claims on a home—a crucial step for homebuyers to avoid surprises.
Toward the end of the episode, Jordan touches on Michigan's complicated car insurance laws and the significance of Qualified Healthcare Coverage (QHC), which can allow drivers to opt out of some auto insurance coverage and save money. He shares insights into how to navigate the crowded insurance market, pointing out that while big companies advertise to build brand awareness, lesser-known carriers might offer better rates because they don't spend as much on advertising.
In addition to his business insights, Jordan is deeply involved in his community. He’s been instrumental in the Young Professionals Group within the Royal Oak Chamber of Commerce, fostering networking opportunities for young professionals in the area.
Honest Insurance Brokers - honestinsurancebrokers.com
Honest Insurance Brokers
Speakers: Jon Gay, Lisa Bibbee, & Jordan Burns
Jon Gay:
Welcome into the ROCC Pod produced for the Royal Oak Michigan Chamber of Commerce. I'm Jon Gay from JAG in Detroit Podcasts.
Lisa Bibbee:
I'm Lisa Bibbee, your realtor with CENTURY 21 Northland.
Jon Gay:
Today, our guest is Jordan Burns from Honest Insurance Brokers. Welcome to the show Jordan.
Jordan Burns:
Hi guys. Thanks for having me.
Lisa Bibbee:
Jordan, you had mentioned that you love dating your wife. I am such a lover of love. So, I want to know, do you guys have like a regular date night? What does that look like?
Jordan Burns:
Lisa, I love that you asked this question. We don't have a regular date night. My favorite thing to do, I call it overnight dating. It's when you go to … like we just went to the Cambria Detroit. And you stay the night there, but then you go to the restaurant and then you go to the nightclub on the top, and you don't even have to leave. And the best part is not coming home to your house. When you come home to your house from your date night, that's when you see like, “Oh, my dishes need to be done,” and oh, it breaks the date up. It puts you back into being like Mom and Dad mode. So, I try to keep her out as long as I can.
Lisa Bibbee:
Oh, my gosh, I love it. Mini vacations.
Jon Gay:
And you were telling us offline before we hit record too, that she was sneaking some vegetables into your omelet this morning. So, it sounds like you guys do a good job taking care of each other.
Jordan Burns:
God bless her, she is an amazing cook and if she posts pictures, people get jealous, and they want to invite themselves over all the time for dinner. So, I have to make sure that I take her out to celebrate her and keep everything fresh. Keep dating, keep remembering what it was that ignited you.
Jon Gay:
I love it. Alright, let's get down to business here. So, you started your first business in 2020, and then you sold it. So, tell us about that and how you ended up where you are now.
Jordan Burns:
I started with insurance in kind of the life insurance realm and then went to financial advising. Then I started with PNC insurance, which is home and auto insurance and realized, “You know what, this is what people need help with, I need to talk about.” I worked for a couple agencies and met two brothers at church, and they owned a mortgage company and a real estate company and wanted to get new insurance. So, I joined in with them and built an entire insurance agency back in 2020 during COVID. No carriers, no prior book of business, everything was fresh scratch from the ground up, and we built it for four years. And I got it up and running and said, “Okay, you know what, you guys, this is a well-oiled built machine, I'm going to turn this over to you, let you keep it going and I'm going to go off and start my own …” Honest Insurance Brokers focused on a different clientele rather than just first-time home buyers or home buyers.
Jon Gay:
Follow up question. I know a lot of folks that we've had on the podcast are serial entrepreneurs. Is this a matter of you built it, it was good, you were onto the next, or you just really felt the passion in this space and wanted to pursue it?
Jordan Burns:
I felt that I could do it without having partners. I could really do it on my own and do it in a sense of instead of being partnered with one mortgage company, I can really go and create that relationship with several different mortgage and real estate companies and help more people.
Lisa Bibbee:
So, Jordan, that actually kind of brings us to our next topic, our buzzwords (agent and broker). And I know in the real estate world, they have very different meanings when you're using these terms for insurance. So, can you explain to our listeners a little bit about the difference between an insurance agent and an insurance broker?
Jordan Burns:
So, an agent is someone that represents one carrier. You've heard of your State Farm agent, call your local State Farm agent. Whereas a broker means an agent who represents several different carriers. A broker's able to check your rates with a bunch of different carriers every renewal to make sure that you're in the best spot with the best coverage. Kind of like an independent insurance broker, meaning they have several different, like Progressive, Geico, Liberty Mutual, State Auto – those are more of your independent agent broker lines.
Jon Gay:
That makes a lot of sense. Staying with some terms here, talk about the difference between renewal and re-shopping.
Jordan Burns:
Your policy, your homeowners or your auto policy comes up on renewal and a lot of times what your agent does is they just auto renew it for you. It's said, “Hey, you're coming up on renewal, make sure to sign your documents, make sure that you're all set.” Whereas a broker will take you at that renewal and say, “Okay, you're coming up on renewal, what is it that's changed over the year? What is it that we want to make changes to regarding your policy, for instance, like your homeowners? Did you redo the basement? Did you add a bathroom, did you get married? Did you have kids? Did you put up a swing set in the backyard? And then let's check all of our carriers to make sure that you're still in the best spot with the best coverage versus just automatically renewing it.”
Lisa Bibbee:
And I love that honesty coming from you to really share and let them know – oh yeah, no pun intended there, your company name. And it might be a little bit obvious by that name, but what sets you apart?
Jordan Burns:
I like to really go through a policy with someone and send them maybe three different quotes, kind of, here's your basic, you're recommended, and your best. Now, let's spend the phone call together and kind of go through each one and look at the difference in coverages, and here's why this coverage is recommended versus here's why this coverage is the best. And then together, you and I can go through and choose what do you really want? Now that you know the coverages and the price, what do you really want and what will make you sleep better at night knowing that you have, versus be worried that you don't have. So, really, it's kind of that behind-the-scenes explanation of each coverage, each cost, and making sure that the client knows what it is that they really have so they can feel better about it, and really knowing what they have. I don't like to say handholding, I don't like the term handholding, but I like really kind of explaining it and divulging the information that not everybody knows.
Lisa Bibbee:
So, I love that because with different clients, everybody needs a little bit more explanation. Some people have a lot more questions than others. So, for you to just take that time, I mean like for me in my business, sometimes you're sitting down on a listing appointment and you're in and out in 30 minutes, other times it could be three or four hours. So, to really sit down and divulge what kind of insurance needs people have and to answer their questions, I love and that would definitely set you apart in my mind.
Jordan Burns:
Thank you.
Jon Gay:
Follow up question. What types of insurance do you offer?
Jordan Burns:
I like to say I offer everything but health insurance.
Jon Gay:
Which is a whole another labyrinth of stuff.
Jordan Burns:
Which is a whole another game. Auto, home, recreational like boat, RV, motorcycle, I do commercial and business insurance as well as life insurance, jewelry insurance. A lot of people either throw a ring on their homeowner's policy or don't even think to insure it until they're on their honeymoon and the ring is in the ocean. Or they put it on their homeowners and they got to make a claim because the stone pops out. But that's a claim on your homeowner's policy that now your homeowners is going up, your rates are going up for.
Jon Gay:
You're leading me into my next question, which is when do you call your agent to make a claim? When do you decide to do that?
Jordan Burns:
Jon, I love this one because so many times people will automatically go and make a claim: “I got in a bumper, bumper accident, I called and started a claim. The damage is only $1,500, my deductible is a thousand dollars. I would've never made the claim if I only knew I was going to get $500 back, what can we do?” And that claim stays on your record for three to five years, depending. So, I always recommend call your agent. Call your agent, go through what's going on in your home or the vehicle, what happened, and get the damage assessed. Get it assessed to where you know how much it's going to cost to repair to then see with your agent, “Okay, is this worth making a claim for? I have to pay my deductible in order for me to make the claim, and how much are my rates going to be affected for the next five years by making this claim?” Because so many times I've seen claim regret. So, I always tell my clients, “Call me before you make the claim.”
Lisa Bibbee:
Well, I think that's very important because for me, I'm always scared to even call my agent and let them know. But if there's a differential between knowing that you can call your
agent and have that conversation with them and ask them, “Should I make a claim?” That conversation is not going to put red flags or make your insurance go up, but it would be a worthwhile conversation to have, is it valuable or not?
Jordan Burns:
100%. Let's talk, let me kind of give you a behind the scenes guide you through, hey, you've got something happening that may be an out-of-pocket expense of only $2,000 versus paying your $1,000 premium and then only being covered for the thousand dollars additional. And then having it be on your record for five years and your rates, whenever an insurance carrier pays out, your rates will go up, it doesn't matter from a hundred bucks to a hundred thousand dollars. So, I never want that to happen to clients, I want them to be aware of what it costs to what it's going to pay out over the time.
Jon Gay:
Then this leads to the prior claims report. What exactly is that?
Jordan Burns:
When you go to buy a house (this is great to know Lisa for the real estate team and for buying houses), the home you're purchasing, the prior homeowner could have made a claim; there could have been a water claim, the dishwasher leaked, ran down to the basement, the house could have caught on fire. So, when I run an insurance quote, we run what's called the CLUE report and you see the prior insurance claims for that home. You also see the prior insurance claims from that home buyer. So, what I like to tell people is “three strikes, you're out.” If the house has two prior claims on it and you may have made a claim on your homeowner's insurance for something, they're going to look at you as more of a high risk. So, it's depending on how many claims were made and who's made them. But if it's more than three – if you've got a home buyer who's already got two claims that they made; a water claim and a lightning struck my old house claim, we got to find them a house that has no claims on it because we got to make sure that they can get in and make that purchase. And several times, the claim will really increase someone's insurance rates. If there was a big water damage claim on the house – back in 2014, there were so many flooded basements in our area; that can really affect their insurance rates because they want to know was that really taken care of and dried out and cleaned up and put back how it should, and is it done so in the way that it's going to prevent future claims.
Lisa Bibbee:
And that's a really important factor, especially for home buyers looking to buy a home, is you can run this CLUE report because there is the opportunity for a seller to put seller's disclosures and disclose these things, but sometimes they don't, or they don't fully disclose. So, running that CLUE report, you can actually double check and find out are they hiding something. Are they not disclosing something? So, it's a great way for buyers to protect themselves on a home.
Jordan Burns:
Are they playing it off as something smaller?
Lisa Bibbee:
Yeah. So, Jordan, I know with Michigan's car insurance, it’s so complicated, oftentimes like who's paying for what healthcare when an accident does happen and the rules just changed. Can you help clarify a little bit about what QHC is and clarify who's paying for that medical insurance?
Jordan Burns:
Yeah, absolutely. So, with the law change, what they've done is they said, hey, to explain it in the simplest way, the auto insurance covers you in the event of an accident for rehabilitation. It's called your personal injury protection (PIP). It used to be unlimited, but now depending on what your health insurance will cover in the event of an accident, you can reduce it from unlimited to 500,000 to 250,000, or with Medicare or some qualified health plans even opt out. Many people though don't realize that you can opt out if you have qualified healthcare being offered by your job for your health insurance. So, I always ask at renewal, “Hey, did you get a new job? Are you now on a different healthcare plan? Do you have qualified healthcare?” Because you can opt out of your PIP coverage, and by doing that you can save a ton on your auto insurance. It's been covered by your health insurance already and you don't have to be double insured.
Jon Gay:
QHC, qualified healthcare coverage, good to know on that acronym. I remember being in a car accident and my health insurance and my car insurance, it was like that Spider-Man meme where they're pointing at each other. It's like, “You cover him. No, you cover him,” and I remember what a nightmare that was to deal with. So, that clarification is really helpful.
Jordan Burns:
Everybody's rates are going up. They're taking a 30% increase on home and auto insurance. And if you can keep your rate the same by submitting that QHC letter to remove your personal injury protection coverage, let's do it.
Jon Gay:
How do you navigate, as a consumer, the insane amount of insurance commercials? Now, we're recording this on October 22nd, so right now it's mostly political commercials. But in between those political commercials, there's all these commercials, Geico, State Farm, Liberty Mutual, on and on and on, the jingles are playing in my head as I'm saying this. How do you make sense of all this noise?
Jordan Burns:
Here's my quick answer for it, which is wild because my kids run around the house singing, “Liberty, liberty, liberty.” And so, they're getting these kids right from the beginning and I have some clients that are like, “Jordan, I don't want to be with a carrier that advertises.” And I'm like, “Okay, well, let me put you with State Auto.” And they go, “Well, who the heck is State Auto?” I go, “Well, that's why they advertise.” They advertise so you at least are aware of the brand. So, you know that that's a legitimate company that you can be confident that you're backed by in the event that you do have to make a claim. Some of them are catchy, it all can be like my favorite right now is the don't be your parents.
Jon Gay:
Oh, those are great.
Jordan Burns:
The Progressive “Don't be your parents.” And that the guy cuts the grass, and he goes, “Ah, I got to cut the grass. Look at my grass, how good I did. Everybody, look at these lines.” My wife says that to me, but that's the whole point of it. The whole point is just so you're aware of who they are as far as the company goes because when your agent puts you with someone that you've never heard of, you automatically lose trust that you don't know who this name is. But a lot of times, those carriers will offer you a bigger discount because they're not spending that advertisement money, so it may be helpful.
Lisa Bibbee:
Yeah, we love that you are sharing information about insurance, but we also love the fact that you're a Royal Oak Chamber member and you are instrumental in setting up the Young Professionals Group. Can you talk to us a little bit more about that?
Jordan Burns:
When I joined the Chamber back in 2016, originally, there wasn't a young professional group. And there was a lot of young networkers who lived in Royal Oak, who worked in Royal Oak, who played in Royal Oak, that really wanted to be a part of community. And I felt like the Chamber was the exact answer for that. And so, what I wanted to do was kind of grab some of those members of the Royal Chamber or who are members, but maybe have a younger millennial employee that could benefit from using the chamber to get in there and really be able to network and pass business together, and we took off, we took off. I mean, in the first year, we had passed $250,000 in business and just made an awareness of the chamber and started kind of a small tornado of networking with inside. And then as would grow, we would kind of bring in others and recruit others into the Chamber, and then we would recruit others from different businesses within. Well, that group has been rejuvenated and we're kind of getting back in the motion of meeting consistently on the first Tuesday of every month. So, we're meeting on the first Tuesday of every month from 8 to 9am at the chamber office with kind of a coffee networking. Share your ask. Learn a little bit about each person's profession. And then from there we're going to do some after-hours things, some volunteer work, some kind of community give back, and really kind of get that tornado started again within the chamber and wall up business and networking.
Lisa Bibbee:
Awesome. Well, I love seeing all the young professionals getting engaged and having successful careers. Thanks for playing a part in that. Now, we’re going to switch this up and we are going to be asking you the fishbowl question of the day where we pull a totally random question. Jon, can you pull the question?
Jon Gay:
Sure. I think I have a guess on how you're going to answer this, Jordan, but let's see. Would you rather play the villain or the hero in a movie?
Jordan Burns:
This is a question I've never been asked, and I love this question. Okay, this tears into me but I would say that I would rather be the superhero to come in and save the day and help the community because I already feel that, I despise the villain. They have catchy phrases, and you love to hate them, but I would definitely be a superhero.
Lisa Bibbee:
There is no superhero without a villain, though.
Jordan Burns:
That is true. That's
why I'm saying you love to hate them. Because I immediately went to my childhood of Batman and Joker. There was no Batman without Joker, but I could never do the destruction, the hurt, the pain.
Jon Gay:
Here's what I'm picking up, Lisa. I'm picking up a really high EQ from Jordan and that he's an empath. And I think that's why I guessed correctly when I guessed he would've said hero.
Lisa Bibbee:
Yes, we love it. Love to see the good heart and the good soul in you.
Jordan Burns:
Thanks, team.
Lisa Bibbee:
So, Jordan, it was great to have you on and explaining a little bit more about insurance. Can you let our audience know how they can reach you?
Jordan Burns:
I'm at honestinsurancebrokers.com. The number to our office is (248) 438-8008. You can text that number, you can call, you can find us on LinkedIn and Facebook. We're constantly posting out there in the community to try to update everybody on just different tips and tricks on what they should know about their insurance and savings, or you can find me at the Royal Oak Chamber. I'm always there networking.
Lisa Bibbee:
Nice. Well, we love having you as a superhero in our world. And my name is Lisa Bibbee. I'm a realtor with Century 21 Northland I put the real back in realtor. We want you to love where you live. Questions about buying or selling your home, call my cell at (248) 981-3610. My website is sold-by-lisab.com and you can find me on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram @sold-by-lisab, let's connect.
Jon Gay:
And I am Jon Gay from JAG in Detroit Podcasts, I take the pain out of podcasting. If you need help starting a podcast (the hardest part is starting, I'll get you going), or if you need help improving your existing podcast, you can always find me on my website, jagindetroit.com or on social media at JAG in Detroit. I want to thank you for checking out this episode of the ROCC Pod produced for the Royal Oak Michigan Chamber of Commerce. If you have any questions about the chamber or chamber events, you can always go to royaloakchamber.com. Thanks everyone.