The shortest price list on any of these sites
What we charge
Almost nothing, and for a reason worth understanding: we are paid a commission out of a premium the carrier has already filed, and charging you a fee on top of it raises a problem under the Insurance Law rather than merely being unpopular.
The premiums quoted across this site are the carriers’, not ours. A property and casualty insurer files its rates with the New York Department of Financial Services and our commission is already inside the filed rate, so the same policy from the same carrier costs the same through any producer in the state. How premiums are actually set explains the mechanism.
The premium is the carrier’s, not ours. The premium is the carrier's, not ours. A property and casualty insurer files its rates with the New York Department of Financial Services, and the producer's commission is already inside the filed rate. A producer who gives up commission to bring your premium down is making a rebate, which New York Insurance Law 2324(a) prohibits. So the same policy, from the same carrier, on the same date, costs the same through this agency as through any other. Anybody telling you they will beat that number is describing a different policy, a different carrier, or nothing at all.
Why a broker fee is a problem rather than a preference
An insurer’s filed rate is built to carry the producer’s commission as one of its expense components. A fee charged to you on top of that premium is compensation beyond what the filed rate contemplates, and the Department has taken a consistently dim view of it. Where a broker fee is charged in New York it has to be separately disclosed and agreed in writing in advance — that is the standard any agency charging you one had to meet.
We charge none. Not for quoting, not for placing, not for endorsements, not for certificates and not for claims work. The last of those is not only generosity: taking a fee for claims advocacy would move us toward public adjuster territory, which is a separate licence issued by the Department that we do not hold and do not claim.
What we are actually paid
Broadly eight to fifteen per cent of premium on personal lines and ten to twenty on commercial, varying by carrier and by line. Some carriers also pay agencies a contingent commission at year end based on volume and profitability, which is legal, common, and the clearest structural conflict in this business — which is why it is described in full on how we are paid rather than left in a footnote.
Ask what we are being paid on your policy and you will get the percentage and the carrier in writing before you sign. New York Regulation 194 requires us to answer that question. It does not require us to volunteer it, which is exactly why so few producers do.
There is no gift for a quote here. There is no gift for a quote here. New York Insurance Law 2324 forbids a producer from offering a rebate, or any inducement not specified in the policy above a $25 value, to win your business. The gift card, the free tablet, the waived first payment and the referral fee paid to somebody who is not licensed are not generosity and not a bargain — they are the thing the statute is about, and they are paid for out of the same premium either way.
Bring the declarations page and we will read it with you
Ask us what it would cost
Send or bring the summary pages of what you already have — those two sheets are where most of the useful conversation is. We will tell you what we would place it with and what that would cost, what we are paid for doing it, and whether you should move at all. Quite often the answer is that your current policy is priced fairly and you should keep it, and that is an answer we give in writing like any other.