NY Insurance Hub.
Protection for your assets and your budget.
Welcome to NY Insurance Hub - NY Insurance Quote Specialists - Expect More!
The James O’Brien Agency is now the NY Insurance Hub. We are excited to offer an expanded lineup of the best insurance companies in New York to find the best deal for you.
Our motto is “Expect More” as we strive to offer more services, options, and personal guidance throughout the entire process and act as a ‘hub’ for service, information, price and coverage.
To provide customers with the best coverage at competitive rates, as well as being a source of education for the community. We aim to be the best NY insurance agency for our community and State.. Read More
Unfortunately, our industry has become almost famous for being somewhat cold, non-personal, and distant with their customers. We feel this is still about the relationships built with our customers and view our clients as people that we care about.
Our goal is always to build trust that we are working in your best interest. You matter to us.
We are constantly amazed at the number of people we work with that say they have never had an agent take time with them, ask questions, listen, and explain coverages.
Yes, we do things a bit differently here and feel it a duty to understand the needs of those we work with. It is only when we have a clear understanding of your specific scenario that we can serve you properly.
There are some that just want a price, and that’s fine, but you’ll know we are here for guidance as well, should you need it. Of course, the goal is always to provide you with proper protection at the lowest price.
We are an Independent Agency, which means we have made available our best NY insurance companies for your online quick quotes.
We service clients in the Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Latham, Clifton Park, Saratoga Springs, Cohoes, Watervliet, surrounding Capital Region and all of New York from NYC to Buffalo.
Each one of our clients is given a dedicated expert to work together to proficiently address all your concerns. Whether you are simply looking for the best car insurance quote in New York or want a thorough consultation for your auto, home and/or commercial policy needs, we are here to help.
We utilize our years of experience combined with the top insurers in New York to find the protection you need with the most competitive premiums we can find, most times resulting in significant savings for our customers.
Why Use Our Independent NY Insurance Agency For Your Insurance In New York?
When people use the big national “captive” companies for their policies, most don’t realize these insurers have only one option to offer for any type of product such as auto, home, and business policies. So your auto proposal with them is the only option they have for you.
Say you take the policy without comparing with other companies and term after term the premium increases rather sharply even though you’ve had no tickets or accidents. Guess what? They can’t help you out.
It’s like shopping for a car at a dealer that has only one type of car. If it’s a good price and runs well for many years that’s great. But, if it’s an expensive car compared to other similar cars and tends to have mechanical failures, you are stuck.
Many people get stuck with these big national insurers and it’s understandable. They run constant TV commercials, internet ads, print ads, billboards, etc.
Folks, without any comparison, simply assume they must be the best and offer the best products at the best price with the best customer and claims service. They have built their brand and people trust them.
Yet, have you noticed their advertising has little or nothing to do about coverage, products, service, or what you can expect from them.
Many of the commercials are clever but won’t help you if you are paying too much, have bad service, or want a different option.Read More Our slogan is “Expect More” much for this reason. We are an independent NY insurance agency that offers options from highly targeted and A-Rated insurers. What’s more is that we care about educating our clients making sure they understand what their coverages are and if we feel they are adequate for their protection. We listen so we know what’s most important to you. Our experience helps guide us to the top product/products for you. You have options with us and will never have to feel “stuck” if a specific company begins to raise rates. Great customer service and building relationships is just as important to us as finding you options with big savings. We have modeled our process in to one that integrates the top insurers, experience, communication, education, service, and caring. That is what we’ve put together for you and hope that you give us an opportunity to show what we can do for you.
Our NY Insurance Companies Give You the Advantage
Our lineup of the top national and regional insurers gives you the advantage in two very important areas.
1) Better Pricing Options And Savings Opportunities
No one wants to pay too much for their policies, yet you’d be surprised at just how many people are paying 10% to 50% more than they should be for the same coverage they currently hold. This is particularly true for folks that have been with the same insurer for a number of years.
There are a number of reasons for this. Maybe they were initially placed with the wrong company that doesn’t rate competitively for their qualifying factors.
Or, it could be that their insurer offered a low rate to start and followed up with continuous and significant premium increases at renewal.
Maybe the insured added their teenager to the car policy and that particular company rates very high for young drivers. It could be that an auto and home bundle discount opportunity or other discounts were missed.
In fact, there are many more scenarios that could be causing someone to be paying much more than they need to for their coverage.
This is where we come into the picture to shop for you.Read More Think of us as your personal shoppers. We know the companies and which ones will price the best for you based on your specific qualifying factors. We also dig deep to apply any and all applicable discounts. We offer this advantage at no additional cost to you, in fact, you’ll most likely receive a significant reduction in your premium, often at up to 50 percent. 2) Better Options For Critical Coverage Needs Whether it be personal or business insurance, critical protection needs should not be passed up just because an insurer that prices competitively does not offer a particular coverage that you require. Options such as: We help here as well by isolating our companies that offer the specific and vital protections you need while also pricing at the most competitive of levels.
Insurance in New York is not a Commodity
The purchase of a brand new expensive watch can bring joy and excitement to it’s owner. It has physical beauty, moving parts, and reminds of its significance every time the owner glances for the time.
An insurance policy is quite different, it is not tangible nor physically beautiful, and usually does not bring joy and excitement to its owner.
For this reason, it’s no surprise that many people view insurance as a commodity, the same thing at any agency. Where a NY auto, home, or business policy is the same identical product at Agency A, Agency B, and Agency C.
The fact is, there are often large differences between insurers and agencies regarding pricing, coverages, time spent with prospects and clients, education, agent experience and customer service for auto, home and business insurance.Read More Policy Pricing As we have mentioned, independent agencies with access to multiple carriers will normally be able to provide the best pricing options as opposed to captive agencies. That being said, not all independent agencies are created equal either. Some have a better lineup of companies with direct appointments. Some have excellent direct insurer appointments but do not always place a client with the best option for them. Our focus is always to place our clients in the best deal for them, regardless of the fact that we could make higher commissions or bonuses writing with a company that isn’t offering the best price. Our customer’s best interest always comes first. Proper Coverage The price you pay for your premiums will not mean much if you incur a significant loss of property or face a huge liability lawsuit only to find out that you’re either not covered, or inadequately protected. You deserve to work with an agency that knows the high dollar risks that can and do happen, providing you with the option or options to properly protect yourself. That is what we do and feel it’s our responsibility. Unfortunately, not all agencies conduct business in this manner. Time Spent with Clients and Prospective New Customers All too often we hear that agents don’t spend a lot of time with current clients or prospective new customers. For a new quote, they’ll spend a couple minutes on the phone gathering current policy details and respond back with a quote mirroring their current coverage and go for the sale. In our office, we call these type of agents “Order Takers” and feel it’s a complete disservice to the person requesting a quote. Without spending more time with someone asking for pertinent information relating to risk exposure and tolerance, underwriting guidelines, and discount opportunities there’s a good chance that person can end up with a new policy being inadequately protected and/or paying too much for the privilege. We also receive many calls from clients of other agencies requesting quotes with us because their agent doesn’t return phone calls or emails and when they finally do get in touch, receive a curt or hurried response to their questions. How this happens, we don’t know, because we feel that it’s not only a good business practice but our responsibility as an agency and agents to spend the time necessary to provide the best quote that we can or to work with our existing customers to resolve any questions or issues they may have. Education It’s amazing to us how almost every new customer that joins our agency tells us that their previous agencies have never offered to explain their coverages and for the most part, they don’t know what their protections truly are. Many people assume, because they have gotten their policy with an agency that they are fully and properly protected. Unfortunately, in too many cases, this is not true and the insured has gaps in coverage exposing them to potential crippling financial loss. In our agency, a focus is placed on educating our clients from their initial quote and onward about their coverage and explain what their protections mean and why they are important with real world examples. We love how people are appreciative of the time we spend with them, helping them to understand their coverage. You are worth it and deserve nothing less! Agent Experience Your experience working with our agency is very important to us. There’s nothing worse than working with an agent that is non responsive after a sale, doesn’t take the time to truly understand your needs, is monotone or unfriendly, or worse yet, appears not to care about you. You will not experience that here. We love building relationships with our clients and truly care about them and their protection. Whether it be a policy review, new quote, or question, our agents will always take the time for our customers. Customer Service If you’ve ever had a bad insurance agency customer service experience with a claim, bill, quote, policy change, question or concern, you know how frustrating that can be. We work hard to alleviate any customer service related frustration for our customers by concentrating on 3 major areas. 1) Attention to Detail: Listening and gathering all of the facts and pertinent details to complete the transaction or resolve the issue the first time instead of going back and forth causing delays and taking more of our customer’s time. 2) Timeliness: Handle requests quickly with urgent needs taken care of as top priority. 3) Communication: Follow-up on task and communicating with customers for tasks requiring a multi-day course to completion. 4) Offer Solutions, Not Excuses: No one wants to hear why something isn’t being done, we want you to know how we’re going to get it done and how long it’s going to take. 5) Friendly and Respectful: As a customer, especially one with an issue, the last thing you want to experience is a customer service representative that acts like you are bothering them or that they are doing you a favor by helping them. A customer will always be treated in a friendly and respectful manner at our agency. Of course, we know that insurance is not a commodity and that a well-run experienced agency with top companies who put the customer first can make all the difference in the world to its clients. We hope that you give us the opportunity to show you the benefit of working with our agency.
Save On Your Insurance In New York Along With The Protection You Need
We are often asked if the extra time and work that we put in for quotes on our end is going to increase the cost?
Absolutely not. It is just how we do business and there is never any additional fee or obligation to use our services.
Also, some might think, because we are so focused on your protection, often suggesting higher coverage limits and additional policy endorsements that your premiums will be higher than what you currently have.
You’d be surprised at the number of personal lines and business customers that we are able to increase coverage for while saving them a significant sum of money, up to 50 percent of what they were paying for their policy or policies.
Our goal is always twofold. Provide proper protection along with the most savings we can find.
Manual Quoting With Our NY Insurance Companies Gives You An Advantage
Because we are an independent agency, it gives us the capability of offering you the greatest options from our hand-picked and highly targeted A-Rated insurers, giving you a distinct advantage regarding price and protection.
Our pre-quote process, and advanced quoting systems allow us to “Manually Quote” the top carriers for your specific qualifying factors which ensures all discounts are applied and all required endorsements are added, something that is often missed with the use of automated multi-company rating tools used by many NY insurance companies.
These automated rating tools are used by agents as a time saving measure but are not perfect and can cause a necessary coverage to be missed or a higher premium than should be paid. We have chosen to avoid rating systems for these reasons.
Yes, it takes longer to do things manually but gives greater assurance to our customers.
You are worth it!
We Want To Be The Trusted Source For Your NY Insurance Quotes
Whether you need a quote for personal or business insurance, we promise to do our best to find you the best options available.
We will also do our best to make sure your experience with us is a positive one!
We service clients for Retail Store Policies in the Albany, Schenectady, Troy, Latham, Cohoes, Watervliet, Clifton Park, Saratoga Springs, surrounding Capital Region areas and all of New York State from NYC to Buffalo.
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Frequently Asked Questions Of Our NY Insurance Agency (FAQ) :
The monthly automatic option is an electronic transfer of your payment directly from your checking account and eliminates any monthly bill installments fees which adds up to a good savings amount over the term of the policy.
Unfortunately, these costs are spread among all policyholders, even the ones that don’t put in claims or get tickets and dutifully pay their premiums every time and on time. It doesn’t seem fair and we agree with our claim-free customers who voice their displeasure, sometimes loudly!
Yes, prices of everything seems to increase and as the cost of living goes up, one would expect a small increase in renewal premiums due to inflation, but not big price swings.
Being an independent agency with access to multiple carriers, this is an area where we can help. In the event one of our insurers begins to raise premiums on a scale that’s above the norm from others in the market, we can re-shop for our clients to affirm whether or not they still have the best overall deal for them.
If we find a better option with another company, we can simply switch you to that company.
We have hand-picked our A-Rated companies and are directly appointed to the ones we feel are the best for the people of New York for both price and coverage options. We do not use automated rating tools that sometimes result in a higher premium or miss important endorsements, instead we manually quote for your best option. It takes a bit longer, but won’t cost you more, in fact, we feel it gives you an additional benefit.
Our experience is also a benefit to our clients and those seeking a NY insurance quote. With the multitude of major rating factors combined with discount eligibility, our experience has taught us how to compare and contrast these elements from amongst our targeted companies to give you the absolute best deal we can find.
Last but not least, we’re an agency that cares, cares about you as a person, cares that you are properly protected, and cares that your experience with us is a good one.
We offer all types of Personal Insurance coverages to our clients in New York including Auto, Homeowners, Renters, Manufactured / Mobile Home, and Motorcycle.
Give our agency a call to save money on your Business Policies. Some of our Commercial offerings include Business Owners Policy (BOP), Commercial Auto, Commercial Property, Apartment Building Owners, Contractors, and much more.