Skip to content

Insurance with Tom Graceffa: Mike Agruss Law Video Podcast

Michael Agruss: Welcome to the Mike Agruss Law Video Podcast. We are a different kind of law firm and that’s on purpose at Mike Agruss Law. We see you as a person and not just a client and that makes us better at what we do. We’re not just lawyers and you’re not just a client or friends, neighbors and family. This show is about all things legal-ish that friends, neighbors and family want to know. This is season one, episode five and today we’re talking insurance with Tom Graceffa at CoyleKiley Insurance Agency.

Michael Agruss: CoyleKiley is an all encompassing independent agency recognized as an industry leader and trusted partner, in creating customized solutions to meet your longterm insurance and financial needs. Tom joined CoyleKiley Insurance Agency in 2015. Tom became licensed in all lines of insurance in 2013 and is designated Commercial Lines Coverage Specialist, focusing on commercial property and casualty insurance for a variety of businesses. Tom, how are you?

Tom Graceffa: Doing well, Mike. Thanks for having me on.

Michael Agruss: Yeah, thanks for joining me. This is my fifth video podcast, season one. The first three, I made it at my a firm and then we started the shutdown. So you are the second person now over Zoom.

Tom Graceffa: Great.

Michael Agruss: So I appreciate your flexibility.

Tom Graceffa: Live from the dining room.

Michael Agruss: Yeah, totally. I’m live from my home office. I’ve got two toddlers and my wife at home. So, I guess one of the downsides of that is you may hear some screaming in the background.

Tom Graceffa: All good. We have a nine month old and he’s out on a walk right now, so you might hear some barking, but-

Michael Agruss: Perfect.

Tom Graceffa: We’ll make it do.

Michael Agruss: Awesome. Well, let’s dive right in. Tell me a little bit more about CoyleKiley, what you do there, how you ended up there.

Tom Graceffa: Sure. So I started my career with COUNTRY Financial back in 2013, I became licensed as a producer in personal lines, commercial lines as well as financial advisement. Then I reconnected with some friends back in Rockford that were a part of CoyleKiley agency. There was an opportunity to join them and focus more on the commercial lines side of things, which I love. So that started in 2015. I’ve been there for five years now. I focus on the commercial line side of things. I have a wealth of knowledge about the personal insurance products as well. Our firm does have kind of four separate silos. So I represent the commercial division, commercial property and casualty. We have a wealth management division and employee division, and then a complete division dedicated to personal lines.

Michael Agruss: Got it. And one of the… Well, there’s a couple of reasons why I wanted to talk to you. One, I switched over my business insurance and started using you and CoyleKiley a couple of years ago and I’ve been thrilled with your services.

Tom Graceffa: I appreciate that.

Michael Agruss: Yeah. A much different experience than the previous agency that I was working with. So, I thought I had a great experience. Then my clients, my personal injury clients, are always dealing with insurance issues, whether it’s insurance to pay their medical bills, whether it’s auto insurance, whether it’s homeowners insurance, whether we’re suing a nursing home and dealing with commercial insurance. So I thought it’d be great to have you on, to sort of talk about an insurance… We’ll sort of just do a insurance one-on-one type podcast. We’ll go through personal insurance, business insurance, auto, home. We can talk about some of the stuff that you’ve done for me and then I’d like to pick your brain and ask you some questions about a lot of things that my clients run into as well.

Tom Graceffa: It sounds great.

Michael Agruss: Perfect. Why don’t we start with homeowners and renters insurance? I know my wife and I moved to Elmhurst in fall of 2016. It’s the first house we bought. We were living… And Elmhurst is a flood zone and we were living here, I don’t know, maybe six months. My brother-in-law’s basement flooded in Naperville and he said, “Do you have insurance?” I said, “Well, yeah.” He said, “Do you have flood insurance? I thought, “It’s a good question.” And I called my carrier and even something I feel like I should know and I didn’t know and had to get separate flood insurance. So let’s talk homeowners insurance. What should people do? What do you recommend? Stuff like that.

Tom Graceffa: Well, I’m glad he got the flood insurance before it flooded. So, that’s key.

Michael Agruss: Totally.

Tom Graceffa: Those are definitely some of the things that arise, the unknowns. Starting off, when you buy a house, you’re excited about that home. Especially if it’s your first home, you’ve probably never bought homeowner’s insurance before, then you might not know what it covers. Your mind jumps to, “Sure it covers my house. If a tree falls on it, they’ll pay to fix it.” But another key component to a homeowner’s policy is actually your personal liability. So similar to how a business insures themselves against third party claims for personal injury, property damage, et cetera, the same thing can happen to you as a person.

Tom Graceffa: So if somebody were to injure themselves on your property or you were too inadvertently caused some damage or injury to somebody, you could realistically be sued and you need to have a bucket of money there to pay for defense and pay for any restitution that’s deemed necessary. So that’s a huge component that’s almost always overlooked by new home buyers because they’re buying it because the bank wants them to have it. The bank technically owns the house and they want to protect the asset, et cetera. But really what you’re buying is protection for yourself for liability suits that may arise out of a variety of occurrences. So on that end, property is very important too. So a thing I see very commonly is under-insurance of people’s homes. So it’s popular now. People are buying insurance online and there’s some commercials out there that say, “You only buy what you need.” Et cetera. And they let you determine what you need.

Tom Graceffa: By lowering your property value, you’re going to get a lower premium and you might be happy. But then when a claim may happen, say you have partial damage to your home that is $100,000 worth of damage and you insured your house for say to make it easy, you have $100,000 of insurance on your house. But when they come to adjust the claim, they realize that your home would actually cost closer to $400,000 to rebuild. They’re going to penalize you on that claim payout. So you may only realistically get 25% of that damage that you need to rebuild or repair.

Tom Graceffa: That’s another often overlooked piece is the valuation of your home. Here in Illinois we have… Some areas are better than others obviously. But there’s a lot of instances where we’re insuring homes for more than what they paid for them. That’s a common question that we get is, “Why am I insuring this for $2,000,000 when I only paid 600,000 for it?”

Michael Agruss: Right.

Tom Graceffa: Well, the answer is it would cost $2,000,000 to rebuild that, just because it doesn’t sell for that on the market. Fair market value does not directly translate to insurance value. So the two main things are being aware of your liability and your risks there adequately protecting yourself with limits and making sure that you’re insuring your property to adequate limit.

Michael Agruss: Right. So I remember, and once again, when my wife and I moved to Elmhurst in 2016, it was the first place we ever bought. So I was going through everything for the first time and I was more so worried about the mortgage, the closing documents, making sure money was getting sent to the right place. Then obviously I knew I needed insurance, the bank required it, but I didn’t think about what you just brought up. So as far as what you buy your house for and how much you should insure it, how would someone know that? If someone lives like the example you gave of a $600,000 house, how would that person know, “Do I need 600,000 in insurance? Do I need 1,000,000?” Who helps in that situation?

Tom Graceffa: So it should be your agent. So if you have a relationship with a current agent, I would… No matter how long you’ve been in your home, I’d call them and just say, “Hey, I want to take a look at my value. Can you complete a valuation?” And a common industry tool is called an MSB, a Marshall Swift Boeckh evaluation. That’s a industry-wide computer system that is used to calculate those costs. And every agent should have access to that. So I would start with your agent. Some people that are in the construction trades and things like that may have other avenues to go down. You can maybe ask an architect or an engineer, but really you should check with your agent and make sure that you’re insured to value.

Michael Agruss: Got it. So when you’re talking about, homeowners insurance, renters insurance, any type of insurance where you live, you want to make sure you’re covered for the property?

Tom Graceffa: Right. So your property and the property you live in. So if you own a home, you’re going to be insuring the walls, the four walls, the roof, et cetera. If you’re in an apartment, chances are you’re only going to want to protect your stuff if you don’t have a lot of stuff, maybe you don’t even want to protect it. But the important part is, even if you’re renting and say, “I only have $30,000 worth of stuff. If it burns, it burns, whatever.” If you’re out there without that policy, you don’t have that liability to protection. So if something were to be determined to be your liable for at your apartment and you get sued, without that policy, you’re on your own and you would have to use your own cash and assets to defend yourself.

Tom Graceffa: So, even though you may not think you have property to insure, you should still think about insuring your risk liability risk. And with a condo too, it can differ based on how you own the condo. You may have to ensure the walls in, so you may have to insure the four coverings, the paint, et cetera. That’s very common. Sometimes you may be responsible for the whole unit if it’s a standalone. So those are all questions that your agent or myself could help you with when you’re going through those.

Michael Agruss: Got it. So you want to be covered for a real property, the house, the property, personal property, what you’ve got inside?

Tom Graceffa: Right.

Michael Agruss: Then you also want to be covered, like I found out you also need additional coverage for flood insurance.

Tom Graceffa: Yeah. So if you’re in a flood plain, the good and bad thing about flood insurance is that it’s administered through FEMA. They set the rating tables each year. So The National Flood Insurance Program allows carriers to provide flood insurance to you. So no matter who you’re with, they’ll obtain a quote that’s inline with pricing. The thing that’s going to change is your flood zone. So those are also things that your agent can help you determine before you pull the trigger on buying that house to see what your costs are. Because, I’ve ran into more times than I can count people who have bought a property and then they realized they were going to be paying 10 grand a year for flood insurance, which may be more than their property taxes. So it gets ugly pretty quick. The person that’s sold it is happy it’s off their hands, but now the new guy’s got a problem.

Michael Agruss: Right. And I thought what was interesting when I was looking into flood insurance, trying to figure out how much coverage I need and I was thinking about my and what’s in there. I remember the insurance agent who I was speaking with kept telling me minus a couple examples of HVAC and very few exceptions. They were saying it’s not… Nothing on the basement floor is covered, minus a couple things. So, in other words, if you have a super nice TV, a super nice pool table, the whole entertainment, they were like, “Look, if your basement floods, excluding some major appliances, like HVAC and other things, we’re basically going to come in, fix the floors, fix the carpet, fix the dry wall, and you’re on your own for the rest.”

Tom Graceffa: Right. So that can be true if you purchased only the first product coverage of flood insurance, which was for your building. So those HVAC, appliances, things like that are permanently attached to your house in the eyes of insurance. So if something were to happen to them that’s treated like your structure that you’re insuring. You are able to buy contents coverage under the flood too. So if you do have that finished basement or you have a bunch of stuff that maybe you shouldn’t have that close to something that may flood, you can insure that. But it does come with a cost and there’s minimums set by the National Flood Insurance or maximum limits of coverage. So if you were to need coverage over that, we can obtain that too. So if you have some specialized collection of something that you definitely need to insure against flood, we can find a solution for you.

Michael Agruss: Got it. Then I think the last thing that would come along with having house is liability coverage, right?

Tom Graceffa: Right.

Michael Agruss: So, yeah. How does that work?

Tom Graceffa: A common example is all my kids’ friends came over, they’re jumping on the trampoline, one of them jumped up and broke their neck, right? Everybody’s heard that story. Whether it’s happened or not, everybody seems to know somebody that’s happened to. That kid’s parents, maybe they’re not the best of friends with you. Or even if they are, the kid has extensive medical bills, he’s permanently or partially disabled potentially for life. You’re going to get sued. So when that happens by having and underlying limited liability that is adequate to protect your assets as well as potentially an umbrella above that, you can help insure yourself against instances like that. So you can have a little more comfort when your kids invite all those people over and at least you have insurance should something happen. But things do happen. There’s a lot of exposure by owning a home, especially if you have some property along with it.

Michael Agruss: Right. Last fall we did just that, we got a trampoline and growing up, my best friend had a trampoline and I was forbidden from going on it.

Tom Graceffa: Yeah.

Michael Agruss: But that was back in the day when they were springs and no sides and you could really hurt yourself. We got one of those springless trampolines, that’s all netted in on the side and it’s as safe as it gets, but I’m fully aware that people could get injured. Right?

Tom Graceffa: Sure.

Michael Agruss: That would be an instance where I would want to make sure that I’ve got decent amount of liability coverage plus possibly an umbrella policy.

Tom Graceffa: Definitely. And those are also things that when you buy your trampoline or you put a pool in or something like that, call your insurance agent because the carrier that you’re with may have exclusions on those things that you’re going to want to be aware that you are protected. So, more commonly I see that people will tell you a year later, “Oh yeah, we got a trampoline.” It’s like, “Oh, your carrier doesn’t really like trampolines.” So, God forbid something happened on that and they wanted to deny your claim. That could be a big issue too.

Tom Graceffa: So being transparent with your agent is key in a lot of respects. We’re here to help you. We’re not here to gouge you or anything like that. We just want to make sure that you’re protected for your exposures. So those things are key to keep people in the loop, when you do add an exposure like that.

Michael Agruss: Got it. So let’s transition into, I believe it’s umbrella policies, right?

Tom Graceffa: Sure.

Michael Agruss: Is that simply where me for example, I’ve got a law firm, I’ve got a house with a trampoline, I’ve got two young kids. I’ve got a lot of exposure. Right?

Tom Graceffa: You got a lot to lose, which is good. That’s a good thing.

Michael Agruss: Yeah. Yes and no. A lot to lose. What would you tell someone like me? What is umbrella coverage? How does it work? And I guess the biggest thing I’m curious about is, it seems to cover you… My understanding is it covers you if you have insurance but you don’t have enough and you can tap into it and how do the set offs work? Things like that. So what is it and how does it work?

Tom Graceffa: Sure. So commonly, if you own a vehicle and you own a home, you probably have an auto liability policy as well as a homeowner’s liability policy and you’d have some underlying limits on those. Let’s say each are 1,000,000 bucks. And if you were to say get in a bad car accident, you caused it, lots of personal injury, lots of property damage, it shoots up over that 1,000,000 pretty quick. So if you had an umbrella in place, what would happen is once that first million has exhausted the umbrella limit being one, two, three, 5,000,000 would be there as an additional bucket of money to make up that difference in the settlement amount. So the way umbrella is unique is it’s not attributed to just one policy. So if you had multiple underlying liability policies for this example, home and auto, the umbrella would cover over those lines. So it’s kind of a blanket above your underlying limits, providing an extra layer of protection.

Michael Agruss: Got it. I know it provides an extra layer of protection if someone’s coming after you. Can you also use it in a situation and I want to get into auto insurance too because this is something my personal injury practice, I’d say, well over half of our cases deal with auto insurance and to me it’s just wild how nuanced it is and how… I’ll tell you a story about yesterday about a potential client who came in. To me it’s just wild about how many people think that they’re covered, but they don’t have enough coverage or the person who hits them doesn’t have insurance and it’s always a mess. But anyway, we’ll get to that in a second.

Tom Graceffa: Sure.

Michael Agruss: My question is, with the umbrella policy, am I allowed to go after… I know I’m covered if I do something wrong and I don’t have enough coverage somewhere, it’s like an extra layer of protection. It’s an umbrella. Am I allowed to go after that myself, my own umbrella policy, let’s say for example. Let’s say I’m in a car accident and the other driver doesn’t have insurance and I’ve got $100,000 in uninsured motorist coverage. But let’s say my damages are $1,000,000 and I’ve got $1,000,000 umbrella. Am I allowed to claim the hundred on my auto and then go after my own umbrella carrier for the difference?

Tom Graceffa: Sure. So that happens a lot in Illinois and as you mentioned, there’s a lot of low limit drivers out there, et cetera. So if they were to hit you and you were to sustain some significant injuries and it turns out they don’t have the coverage needed to repay what’s due, your umbrella could potentially step in and pay over and above that under-insured and uninsured motorists. That’s something that you need to verify with each and every carrier because we work with a large variety of carriers and each have their own rules on if they will add under an uninsured motorist coverage under their umbrella or not. So, that’s definitely a great question to ask your agent. If it’s a concern, have them look at a different carrier if they’re an independent agent that would allow that.

Michael Agruss: Right. And I guess what I’m figuring, what I tell people who I write blogs about it, I tell potential clients, current clients, family, friends, everyone at my office, whoever asks me, I always tell people, especially with our auto insurance, max it out literally call your insurance carrier and say, “I want the maximum amount of coverage, both liability, uninsured and underinsured.”

Tom Graceffa: Yeah.

Michael Agruss: Not that you’re necessarily worried about someone that you’re going to get into an accident or you’re going to hit or you’re at fault. But I always say if you’re in a crosswalk and someone hits you and they don’t have insurance, they’re drunk, it’s hit and run, whatever it is, you always want to make sure that you’re covered. That was something I was interested in about umbrella policies is, does it work the same way? And even if you set aside an auto accident case, let’s say I have an umbrella policy that covers my whole family, my kid is at the neighbor’s house on a trampoline and hurts himself and they don’t have insurance. Once again, is that a situation where I can go after my own umbrella and say, “Hey, my son was injured, they don’t have insurance. Now I want you to cover it.”

Tom Graceffa: Again, that’ll be a carrier specific issue but it’s not unheard of. The term subrogation that you may be familiar with. So in some instances your carrier may pay your damages that are due to you with the hopes that they can in turn sue the party that was negligent and recoup those funds. So on a case-by-case basis and carrier specific basis, that could be a potential as well.

Michael Agruss: Got it. We were probably five minutes into this podcast and there were things that you were bringing up. I’m for sure setting up an appointment with you when we’re done because I can tell that there’s already things in my mind where I’m thinking, “Am I covered for that?”

Tom Graceffa: Happy to help.

Michael Agruss: Okay, cool. Because once-

Tom Graceffa: And any of the people out there that are listening, I very much respect relationships and if you have an agent, by all means work with them. And even if you want to ask me questions, I’m sure Mike can share my info, I’m happy to help. So just if things are going in your mind, just reach out and I’d rather help answer your question and have you keep wondering and maybe be in a predicament.

Michael Agruss: Right. No, totally. And so for me, I was fortunate enough where, um, my dad was a medic, right after law school, in the military for a little bit and so he has USA Insurance, which allows me to have USA Insurance and I think they’re awesome.

Tom Graceffa: They’re a great carrier.

Michael Agruss: They’re great and I thought, “They’re great. They do my valuable property. They do my homeowners, they do my auto and I certainly know I need umbrella and so on and so forth.” But what’s interesting is, and this will kind of segue into the auto insurance topic, which I’m very interested in getting your take on things. I remember when I called them, and this is before I had any assets or potential assets, and I remember calling them up. This was years ago and I’ve been with them forever and they’re awesome. I called up and I said, “Hey.” Because I had a friend of mine, who is a personal injury lawyer and while I was in law school, he was a year or two ahead of me and he was telling me the same thing. He said, “Call your auto carrier and max out your uninsured and underinsured policy. It’s a no brainer.” Because people all the time are in car accidents and the other person either doesn’t have insurance or has terrible insurance.

Tom Graceffa: Right.

Michael Agruss: Low coverage, all of that. And when I called USA, which I think is awesome, I said, “I want to max out my uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. What does it cost?” And her first question was, “What do you do for a living?” I’m like, “I’m in law school, I’m broke.” I’ve got tons of that. She said, “Oh, do you have any assets you were trying to protect?” It was real interesting, her line of questioning because she was curious as to why I was doing this. She was thinking I was in the situation now where I’ve got kids a house and some exposure and I’m trying to protect that. And I told her, I said, “No.” I said, “When I’m hit in a crosswalk by some idiot who’s drunk doesn’t have insurance or has terrible insurance, minimum policy, I want to make sure that I’m covered.”

Tom Graceffa: Yeah.

Michael Agruss: She’s like, “Oh, okay.” And it was just real interesting that my experience was trying to be almost talked out of it. What’s also fascinating about it is the difference in premiums over a year going from the bare minimum of 25,000 in Illinois, for coverage to a 100,000 to 250, 500,000. I mean, we’re talking it’s like five, 10 bucks a month.

Tom Graceffa: Yeah. More times than not, you won’t even notice it. So we get so many policies in house that they may have been with a younger agent or somebody that was just looking to put them… Get the business or something. We’ll see doctors or lawyers, professionals that have state minimum limits sometimes. And it’s like, when you ask them and it’s not their fault they don’t know what they have and until they learn and they’re like, “Oh, okay. Change that right now please and get me covered.” Because everybody’s very price focused, that’s natural for everybody.

Michael Agruss: Right.

Tom Graceffa: So if somebody says, “I got a great deal for you, it’s 500 bucks and you’re paying 1,000.” A lot of people would just say, “Okay, pull the trigger and they don’t even know what they’re buying. So education’s key and talking with a licensed, experienced agent to uncover some of those things like you mentioned that some younger agents may not think to… They’re thinking more of third party liability versus under or uninsured coverage.

Michael Agruss: Right. And when I’m always talking to my clients, I’m never, I’m rarely concerned about third party coverage. I’m telling them, “You do this to protect yourself.” And I think that, that’s what people… There’s a disconnect. People get auto insurance and they think, “Okay, I want to be covered if… I want to make sure if I hit someone else, I’ve got coverage.” And in reality, I think it’s the total opposite. You want to make sure you’ve got coverage and when you start talking about uninsured underinsured, people are looking at you like, “What are you talking about?” It doesn’t make sense and it’s just… Yeah, it’s something that… It drives me nuts. And once again, I didn’t find out till I was in law school about it and when I talk to people about it, people don’t know about it. I’ve got blogs on it, I’ve got videos on it and it’s so simple. Call your carrier and say, “I want to maximize my uninsured and underinsured coverage.” That’s it. End of story.

Tom Graceffa: Yeah. That’s it.

Michael Agruss: Right. And some carriers, like USA for example, their UM/UIM max is 1,000,000 bucks. That’s I think, unusual on a personal policy. I think a lot… State Farm, Allstate, Geico, some of the more common ones, even if it’s just… Even if it’s 250, it’s just you want to make sure you’ve got that coverage. So anyway, yesterday I got a call from a potential client. They were rear-ended. The other driver was drunk, had no insurance, and the potential client’s got a bare minimum policy through Lighthouse Insurance and it’s… Are you familiar with Lighthouse?

Tom Graceffa: I’m not, but I can guess that they’re… Are they headquartered in Chicago?

Michael Agruss: Do you ever see that a carrier? I think it’s called Oxford Insurance. They’re in strip malls.

Tom Graceffa: Okay.

Michael Agruss: With the dog or something. Anyway, it’s like Oxford through Lighthouse. And what’s so funny is I know when that potential client contacts me with Lighthouse Insurance, they’re awful to deal with. They always undervalue property damage claims. If you have any type of soft tissue injury, even if you get treatment right away, follow up. If you go to the emergency room, follow up with your primary care physician, go to an orthopod, get physical therapy. They’re like, “Well, you didn’t break anything.” And it’s literally like pulling teeth with them and from my perspective it’s like I will evaluate a case on that based on, do we want to get involved in two years of litigation with Lighthouse Insurance?”

Tom Graceffa: Right. That may be unproductive and a lot of times it is, and that’s… In my opinion, Illinois has got a big problem with admitting these carriers that are not financially stable and experienced and over leveraged to write minimum limit policies for quite a few people in Illinois. There’s a big problem and if you were to go back and look at your auto insurance premiums for the past five years, I guarantee you they’ve gone up. And that’s because Illinois allows these such low limits and doesn’t really enforce the insurance laws around here. So those carriers that you mentioned, they’re a dime a dozen and once they dissolve, they pop right back up under a new name and same leadership, et cetera.

Tom Graceffa: That’s a key when you’re shopping for your insurance to ask their financial rating, that’s a great place to start. So if they’re an A-rated carrier A.M. Best or Moody’s has determined that they’re solvent and they have good claims experience, paying claims and they have enough reserves to handle their book of business. These other carriers, they may be unrated or sometimes maybe an admitted as well, and you don’t know what you’re getting.

Michael Agruss: Right. My experience going back to Lighthouse again, what’s wild about them is I’ll get someone in, they retain my office. We send out a notice of representation and lien letter. We’re trying to quickly resolve their property damage claim. Lighthouse insurance won’t pick up the phone, they don’t email and everything is done over snail mail.

Tom Graceffa: Yeah.

Michael Agruss: And it’s like, I’ve got a client who’s got a property damage claim, they can’t drive their car. It’s sitting in storage, they’re being charged a storage fee, they need their car to get to work. They also need their car to be fixed and then they also want it to get fixed so they can get it out of storage. So the storage fee stops and it’s just like it’s wild how archaic they are and I’m sure they do it on purpose.

Tom Graceffa: I would imagine so. That’s probably the base law that… Insurance is very mail heavy. So, if you’ve ever made a change to your policy or anything like that, you’ve gotten something in the mail, I could almost guarantee you that’s the base minimum level of service required by the State of Illinois. So that’s what they do, to slow down their eventual demise. But it seems to be these companies start up, write a ton of policies, grab a bunch of cash, try to pay little amount of claims as possible, and then they’re gone, within a couple of years or operating under a new name or alias.

Michael Agruss: Right.

Tom Graceffa: So it’s a big problem. So that’s what… Even if you work with your state firearms or country financials, those people, they’re more trusted than going to the guy in the strip mall and getting your insurance coverage there, because it only costs $10 a month. It’s to good to be true, you know?

Michael Agruss: Yeah. And I’m also… Speaking of low coverage, I don’t know if you’re familiar with California. I’m State-licensed in California and there… So in Illinois you’ve got the 25/50 minimum coverage that you need. In California it’s actually 15/30 which is-

Tom Graceffa: In California where the cost of living is through the roof.

Michael Agruss: Yeah. So anyway, I agree with you, there’s a problem. But anyway, I’m sure do you tell clients the same thing, max out your uninsured and underinsured coverage always?

Tom Graceffa: Yeah. What I usually recommend is bringing that limit. We always recommend an umbrella and I’d say 99% of our personalized clients carry an umbrella. What we’ll usually do is get them to the required limit underneath, whether that’s half a million or a million. Then we’ll use the umbrella to inflate that liability pool, especially if it covers over that underinsured and uninsured. If it isn’t able to or doesn’t allow that, of course we’ll max out those limits on the underlying policy. And again, it’s insignificant on the cost difference for most people. If you have decent credit and you’re lower risk, you’re not even going to notice it.

Michael Agruss: Got it. So let’s talk a little bit about just in general, auto coverage. What’s the difference in full coverage and liability coverage?

Tom Graceffa: So full coverage includes liability coverage, but it also provides a limit for your own property. So if you get in an accident and your vehicle is damaged… Sorry, my doorbell was rung. I’ll be right back.

Michael Agruss: No, that’s totally fine.

Tom Graceffa: [inaudible 00:33:14].

Tom Graceffa: Good. Thank you. That’s the lady coming to trim the dog’s nails.

Michael Agruss: Nice. So we were talking liability and or I’m sorry, full coverage and liability coverage.

Tom Graceffa: Sure.

Michael Agruss: What’s the difference?

Tom Graceffa: So full coverage includes your liability coverage, which would be that underinsured uninsured part as well as your third party potential claims. But full coverage also picks up coverage for your own vehicle. So if somebody else hits you or you back into a pole or a tree falls on your car, it’s subject to a deductible, usually they would pay to have that car repaired. Or if it is a total loss pay to provide you with a vehicle of similar kind of quality.

Michael Agruss: Got it. And then auto policies also have medical payment coverage. Right?

Tom Graceffa: Right. So medical payments are for you and your passengers. So let’s say that your medical payment limit is $5,000 per person and you get in an accident and you and your friend and your friend’s kids in the backseat, all sustained some minor medical injuries. They would have up to that $5,000 per person to pay for those medical bills. What that also does sometimes insulate against to the policy. So if somebody were to have damages over that 5,000, likely it would go against your liability limit because that’s the larger pool of money that would pay for that restitution.

Michael Agruss: Got it. Do you recommend people max out their medical payment coverage too?

Tom Graceffa: I do, but it’s kind of an odd limit. It’s really kind of a smaller limit to prevent suits against that liability claim. If you do have medical insurance and things like that, it may not be that important to max those out. But again, it’s a small cost increase and it doesn’t provide any detriment to you except for in the case of multiple injuries, they may have a larger payout to them and that’d be more on the legal side of things, how that’s attributed, but it doesn’t hurt and it’s a good thing to have.

Michael Agruss: Got it. Did your light go out in your room by chance? It looks a little bit-

Tom Graceffa: Oh, you know it.

Michael Agruss: There you go. Perfect. What I like about medical payment coverage is it’s from a personal injury auto accident standpoint when my client… Well, med pay coverage is required in Illinois, right?

Tom Graceffa: I believe so.

Michael Agruss: Yeah. So oftentimes I think the minimum is five grand. Most of my clients have five grand of med pay coverage. What I love about med pay coverage, it’s the easiest thing in the world to deal with and they literally just pay everything. Whereas when you’re dealing with a third party insurance company, even if it’s Blue Cross Blue Shield which I have, I think it’s great. You’re dealing with negotiated rates, you’re dealing with, “Well, we don’t want to pay it. We want it to go through med pay first. Oh, someone else is at fault for the accident, we’re going to lean the file, we’re going to do this.” Or someone goes to the emergency room and they have a hospital bill, an ER doctor bill. They have an X-Ray bill. They have a radiologist bill and there’s like five plus different bills from one ER visit and Blue Cross Blue Shield pays the negotiated rates and then there’s outstanding copays and clients are getting… And it’s such a cluster. Whereas med pay, you simply just send them whatever you want-

Tom Graceffa: And it’s a cash payment.

Michael Agruss: Yeah. They pay it. I’ve even had med pay carriers where they see it’s going to be an issue and they’ll just cut my firm a check and they’re like, “Here’s five grand, go pay all your client’s bills.” What’s also awesome about med pay coverage is it will pay deductibles, copays. If you have an 80/20 policy with Blue Cross Blue Shield and you’ve got a $10,000 bill and Blue Cross Blue Shield pays eight and you’re stuck with two, that two over to med pay and they pay it. So I love med pay. It makes it super easy and I always tell people, although it’s not as important, I don’t think, as long as you have health insurance, I always tell people to max it out. And even something like… We’re working on the auto accident case and my client had a 10,000 in med pay as opposed to 5,000, which most people will have in Illinois. Even just having that extra five grand to get her bills quickly paid in the beginning, because that’s when it’s always chaotic, it’s such a breath of fresh air to have that coverage. I love it-

Tom Graceffa: Exactly. That’s a thing to look at. It’s often overlooked by people that buy the policy because it’s a low limit and people don’t know what it is. So take a look at that too, just go online, get your dec pages or call your agent and look it over and that’s definitely something that can come into play if people just sustained medical costs from an accident.

Michael Agruss: Right. And one other thing I’ve noticed too that I really like about med pay coverage is, you’re in an auto accident case, third party liability, everyone from the doctors, the hospitals, health insurance, everyone sends out lien letters. They all want to be reimbursed, they all want to be paid. And I get it. That’s fine. But what’s nice, I have found, and it’s not necessarily set in stone, but I have found that if my client has $10,000 in medical bills that were paid by Blue Cross Blue Shield, they will typically… Let’s say blue cross has paid 10 grand.

Michael Agruss: I’m not saying that’s what the bills are because everything’s negotiated, but you’re in an accident, my client’s got Blue Cross Blue Shield and they have paid out, Blue Cross has paid out 10 grand, they’ll reduce their lien generally by a third and they’ll say, “Pay us back 6,600, whatever.” Generally speaking. I oftentimes find… So let’s change the equation and go from blue cross to a med pay coverage. This client who I just represented and we’re settling her case right now, she had 10,000 in med pay coverage. It was exhausted immediately. They waived their subrogation claim. So she doesn’t have to pay back, if she had Blue Cross Blue Shield that paid out 10 grand, they’d be like, “Pay us back two thirds of that.” The subrogation carrier was like, “That’s fine, we’ll waive it.” Because they’re dealing with their own insured who’s paid in years of premiums and policy.

Tom Graceffa: Exactly.

Michael Agruss: So, I love it. Med pay coverage.

Tom Graceffa: Yeah. And it comes into play more often than not and it’s kind of funny, going into commercial insurance a little bit is that med pay on a general liability policy for your business is for other people. So the auto insurance actually includes you as the driver. So if you were to slip and fall on your own building, you don’t have any med pay generally. But if I were to, sure. But in the auto realm it is a first party payment, potential first party payment as well as your passengers.

Michael Agruss: Right. So we talked about liability, full coverage med pay, in the beginning we talked about uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. So I believe the last time I looked it up in Illinois, uninsured motorist is required, but under insured is not. Is that your understanding too on the new model?

Tom Graceffa: It’s a required coverage in Illinois because of all the under insured and uninsured drivers. I’m not completely clear on that law, but I know that at our firm we include it on every policy because of the importance. So it leads me to believe that there might be an option to not include one of those lines, but it’s definitely highly recommended if not a lot to carry.

Michael Agruss: Right. So I think you’ve got to have uninsured motorist coverage, so if someone else hits you, you’ve got to have that bare minimum 25 at least if someone else doesn’t have insurance. But as far as underinsured, I don’t think it’s required. But once again, let’s talk about those scenarios. Do you feel the same way as well that you’re carrying it to protect yourself. Right?

Tom Graceffa: Exactly. You’re only carrying it to protect yourself because if something happens as the event of an underinsured driver, say they only have that $25,000 coverage and they cost $100,000 to you or your vehicle or a combination of the both the 25 will get paid to you, hopefully, depending on their carrier and then the rest will come from your carriers under or uninsured motorist limit.

Michael Agruss: Right. My personal injury buddy, I grew up with him. He stood up in my wedding. We’ve been friends forever and he does personal injury work too. And you’ve got to joke in this area of law. I mean, it’s just you’re dealing with just awful injuries and people’s problems and all that. But anyway, when I tell people uninsured, underinsured motorist, I joke and I say, “Look, if I’m out running, it’ll never be FedEx that’s going to hit me in the crosswalk. It’ll be some drunk dude who either leaves the scene or doesn’t have insurance.”

Tom Graceffa: Exactly.

Michael Agruss: And that way I can then turn to USA and be like, “Okay, cut me that check for $1,000,000 bucks.”

Tom Graceffa: It’s true though. The likelihood of a well-managed company or a safe driver, et cetera hitting you is a lot lower than somebody that doesn’t know what they’re doing and carries low or no limits hitting.

Michael Agruss: Right.

Tom Graceffa: So, the risk is there and that’s a great story to that point.

Michael Agruss: Right, right. One other thing I want to talk about auto insurance, tell me what you know about and what your thoughts are about gap coverage.

Tom Graceffa: Sure.

Michael Agruss: I believe it’s in the property damage arena, right?

Tom Graceffa: Yeah. So say you just bought a new car and you paid 50 grand for it, you drive it off the lot and now it’s worth 30 and you get hit. So you owe 50 grand on that car but the insurance company naturally only wants to pay you the actual cash value. So loan or lease gap coverage is available by endorsement from most carriers. What that would do is make up the difference. Yeah. Sorry, the dog is running away from his nail trim.

Michael Agruss: Yeah, totally. You know what, I mean, If you can get a dog get their manicure pedicure during the lockdown, I mean, that’s impressive. [inaudible 00:43:52].

Tom Graceffa: Thank you. He said it’s impressive if you can get the dog’s nails done during the lockdown. [inaudible 00:43:57].

Speaker 3: Come here.

Tom Graceffa: Yeah, buddy.

Speaker 3: The only one [inaudible 00:44:04].

Tom Graceffa: Thank you.

Speaker 3: Come here. [inaudible 00:44:12].

Tom Graceffa: Perfect. Sorry.

Michael Agruss: No, that’s okay.

Tom Graceffa: Always something going on around here.

Michael Agruss: Yeah. Totally. I’ve had luck here with… My two kids have so far been quiet and I’ve got my 11 year old dog curled up on his bed in my office here. So far so far so good on my end. Gap insurance, though. So basically, like you were saying, you’re in a car accident and you owe more on the car than your insurance company wants to pay.

Tom Graceffa: Right. So naturally they’re going to want to pay you actual cash value because that’s what your asset’s insured for, what the loan or lease gap coverage if added to your policy, usually by endorsement would provide for that difference. So say you owe the bank 50 grand, total damage is 30 there, that loan or lease gap will respond for the extra 20 and allow you to make payment in full back to your lender.

Michael Agruss: Perfect. And is that something you also recommend to people?

Tom Graceffa: Yeah, I do. If it’s available. Not every carrier does it and the ones that do usually include it in some sort of enhancement package that you can add to the policy, but that’s… If you know that you’re in that situation, definitely ask your agent about it. Some carriers also do like a three year period, like if you were to buy a 2020 vehicle, if you were to total it between now and 2023, they would pay that difference, but then after the third year they would pay you actual cash value.

Michael Agruss: Got that.

Tom Graceffa: There’s a lot of different ways to kind of slice it up, but that’s definitely a concern if you know you’re leveraged in that way.

Michael Agruss: Okay, that makes sense. Let’s switch gears. This is something you helped me out with. I believe a couple of months ago, this is dealing in the business aspect of… And I don’t know, maybe you do it for individuals too, but cyber security coverage. And I think I just pulled the trigger with you guys a couple of months ago. So tell me what it is, what it covers and why people should have it.

Tom Graceffa: Sure. So as everybody has seen on the news through the media, the risk of a cyber attack is really not if it’s going to happen, but when it’s going to happen to you or your business and events like that are typically excluded from your traditional general liability package of insurance. So although it’s not a new risk, it’s a newer insurance products developed over the past decade, but really the past five years that would provide some buckets of money to respond, should there be a data breach, a ransomware attack, a wire transfer fraud, social engineering, a crypto jacking, the list goes on and on. And the forums keep becoming more robust to ensure against those risks. So essentially it’s like purchasing a general liability policy to defend against your potential of a data breach or losing assets, meaning hardware or a variety of other things that can occur to lock you down like ransomware. It would actually respond to get a team out there to deal with whatever the situation is as effectively as possible.

Michael Agruss: Right. I think what’s interesting with ransomware, you brought that up, my IT guy is real big into security. So we try to be as safe as possible with things. And a couple of years ago he brought up ransomware and we’ve got things in place to protect that. But I think what’s interesting about it is, it can strike anyone. I mean, we’re talking… You could be a small law firm, you could be a big law firm. I’ve heard of hospitals getting hit, universities, police departments. I mean, no one is safe from it. And what’s crazy is, the moment you click on something that you shouldn’t, your whole system is locked down and then someone demands ransom to unlock the system.

Tom Graceffa: Right.

Michael Agruss: And if you’re not protected, either IT-wise or insurance coverage-wise, I mean, if someone locked, well, I don’t even want to give an example of my firm, but you can imagine though, I mean, if you’re a hospital and someone takes over your system and locks it down and says, “Send us $100,000 in Bitcoin, otherwise you’re SOL.”

Tom Graceffa: Right.

Michael Agruss: If you’re not protected both IT-wise and insurance-wise, what are your options?

Tom Graceffa: So if you’re not protected, first you got to know what the hell Bitcoin is and how to get it to the people. That’s step one because they always do requested in some form of cryptocurrency. Basically your chances are you’re SOL because those hackers, generally, they’re not in it to destroy your data or you know, do things that are malicious outside of the ransom. When they get paid, they typically give your stuff back. But if they don’t get paid, then your stuff goes away, like they said it would. So without… If a ransomware attack happened that was widespread and took your system down without cyber coverage, you’d be left to your own devices to negotiate with that person and attempt to make rent payment to them.

Tom Graceffa: If you did have a cyber liability policy, there would actually be a white hat hacker deployed to talk to the bad hacker and come to your negotiation agreements to create a hash key, to actually prove that when that crypto comes over, you get your stuff back. So you’re dealing with a professional that’s working for you, that talks this guy’s language to get your stuff back as quickly as possible and to prevent it from happening again.

Michael Agruss: Yeah, and that’s awesome. I know the policy you did for me was not… Compared to all the other insurance premiums I pay, I thought it was pretty reasonable. Once again I can have all of the IT preventative measures, security measures set up and it just takes one person making a mistake and the amount of spam and weird emails and stuff that I get or submissions on my website, at least once a week, someone at my office is getting some random email that appears to be from me that says, “Hey, are you free right now? I need a favor. Can you do something?” But it’s written in such a way where everyone now knows at my office, if you don’t know who it’s coming from forward it to the IT guy and the IT guy will let you know if it’s safe or not.

Tom Graceffa: Yeah.

Michael Agruss: But you can do everything in the world to protect yourself, but someone can still figure out a way to get in and get you to click on something. I even get… This is wild. I’ve gotten bogus PDF bills from vendors that I use at my office where I get a bill from an email above… A vendor, a website vendor or email vendor saying, “Hey, we ran your credit card and it was denied. Please update your billing. Click here.”

Tom Graceffa: Yeah.

Michael Agruss: And it’s actually one of my vendors.

Tom Graceffa: That’s how crafty they are. That’s where that wire fraud comes into play. Some may say, “Hey, we changed bank accounts.” And they’ll actually study these emails depending on how involved the attack is, four months and they learn how you and the vendor speak. So when they do write that email, it sounds like the vendor. Then they use the same vernacular and it looks like an email from them. And if you don’t make that phone call to verify, “Hey, did you really switch bank accounts?” And you wire them a quarter million dollars, it’s likely gone.

Tom Graceffa: If you have that insurance to protect you, of course it will be paid back too. But the first line of defense is that IT strength and firewalls, network protocols, et cetera. But the unfortunate part is the criminals are always one step ahead of the good guys. That’s where a lot of the good guy technology actually comes from, is the bad guys. So it’s just kind of a vicious cycle. The FBI is in charge of cyber crime and they just quite frankly don’t have the manpower to follow up on every single incident. So it’s allowed to kind of run rampant due to that.

Michael Agruss: Right. What I find interesting about the phishing emails that I get from vendors that I use is it seems totally legit and the money that they’re asking for is within lines of what the vendor would charge. So they’ll send me an email, of a monthly subscription for something and it’s like 1495 a month, I have this service for this vendor and whatever. They’ll say, “Hey, the credit card we have on file was denied. Please update your file so, we can run your bill through. Click here.”

Tom Graceffa: Yeah.

Michael Agruss: They’re not saying, “Hey, wire me $250,000 to this random accounts across the world?” It’s a legit bill that looks like, “Oh, credit card, whatever expired, let’s update it.”

Tom Graceffa: Yeah. Then they have your credit card info and then they’re buying stuff all over the place-

Michael Agruss: Or you’re clicking on a link that’s like a phishing link that then all of a sudden they obviously don’t care about the credit card or the money. You’re clicking on a link and now all of a sudden they’ve access to your whole system, which is what they want.

Tom Graceffa: Right.

Michael Agruss: So anyway, I try to be… My IT guy is cutting edge and progressive and I warn people at my office all the time, “If you don’t know where it’s coming from, forward it to the IT guy. He’ll check it out.” And no matter what, the cyber stuff just gets more and more creative. Even bizarre emails. We pay a lot of vendors on PayPal, bizarre emails from PayPal about someone randomly sends you an invoice that looks legit and they just want you to click on something and then you’re screwed.

Michael Agruss: Right.

Tom Graceffa: And it happens all the time. I tell every business owner, if you own a business and you use a computer, even if you don’t, if you have any data that you store 100% of business centers do, just buy a cyber policy. If you’re a small business, it’s low premium. Even if you’re a big business, it’s worth it.

Michael Agruss: Totally.

Tom Graceffa: Just to have that peace of mind.

Michael Agruss: Right. And I also think and I follow this with law firms in particular, I think what’s interesting about it is I would imagine that it’s massively under-reported because people are super embarrassed and if you’ve got a massive law firm with 1,000 lawyers and offices all over the world and you’re dealing with international clients and all of a sudden you’ve got ransomware and they’re like, “Pay us half a million bucks on Bitcoin.” Just the embarrassment and the fallout, they may pay that ransom just to get this under the rug and move on, so no one knows. So I’d imagine tons of businesses don’t report it, pay the ransom because they don’t want their clients to think that they’re not secure enough to date with technology.

Tom Graceffa: Yeah. That’s 100% the case. It’s similar case with employee theft. A lot of times it goes unreported due to that reason. The good thing to know is that most robust cyber policies carry PR limits in them. So if you do experience some reputational harm or something like that, essentially they’d hire a PR firm to help bring you back up to good faith for your customers. We’ve all experienced a breach, right? Whether it’s Target or PlayStation or whatever scenario, you get those emails that basically say, “Hey, we screwed up, but this is what we did to fix it. This is what we’re doing moving forward.” And they retain the majority of their client base. So that adds to that comfort of, if this happens, we don’t have to worry about that either because they’ll try their best to get us back in a good image.

Michael Agruss: Got it. I’m going to… I find all this stuff super interesting and I could sit on this podcast for you, for longer than an hour. Since the lockdown, every day at 11 o’clock we go on an hour long family walk to get out-

Tom Graceffa: Oh nice.

Michael Agruss: And get some fresh air. So, my office, my home office, I can hear my kids and my wife outside, they’re all ready to go-

Tom Graceffa: They’re ready to go, they’re loaded up.

Michael Agruss: Oh, totally. So I’m going to end this here in a minute. I’ve got one quick question that I’m going to ask you a couple of other quicker questions and then I’ll have you give me your contact info. We’ll put it on the video right down here, so people can get in touch with you if they have any other questions and I’m going to email you to set up a time to make sure of it. I think I need your help too.

Tom Graceffa: Sounds good. Happy to help.

Michael Agruss: Let me ask you COVID-19 business interruption insurance. It’s a total cluster. I find it, I’ve asked you about it. I’ve asked you some questions I think, society insurance right now with their all risk coverage, I think they’ve… And what’s crazy is I actually just settled a personal injury case with a society the other day and I didn’t recognize the name. I mean, I knew the name but didn’t recognize, but they’re at the center of all these restaurants, class actions, business interruption, civil authority shutdown. I looked at my policy and stuff. What’s interesting is, these insurance companies have what? 800 billion in reserves. If they paid everything out, their reserves would be gone in two weeks. So I look at it like this where they’re either going to have to pay everything out and the government will bail them out or they’re not and the government’s going to have to bail out the business. What do you think is going to happen with all of this? And I’m just talking specifically yeah, shutdowns, business interruption insurance, civil authority, what’s going to happen?

Tom Graceffa: So the way I interpret most forms that I have, everyone that I’ve reviewed, in fact from each carrier, there isn’t coverage as it’s written currently. I’m not an attorney so I can’t read into in between the lines as much, but the lack of a direct physical damage to your property or an adjacent property that may lead to a civil shutdown or may lead to prevention of you doing business at your normal place of business hasn’t occurred by definition of most of these policies. So we’ve had a variety of claims denied, which is the common theme here. As far as talk of restitution, I’ve read quite a few articles about the government getting involved, but it seems to be on the back burner. It hasn’t been talked about in many of these press conferences. Trump’s mentioned it once or twice, but it doesn’t seem to have a lot of momentum.

Tom Graceffa: What we’re seeing now is the class action lawsuits begin to start. So that’s going to put a new angle to this as to how the first carrier to respond to one does. So if there’s an agreement to settle, that’s going to start a trend, right? But as far as predicting how that’s going to go, it’s kind of up in the air and I would lean towards the side of the federal government stepping in to maybe invoke the carriers to pay damages with some support from monies from the government. Because the real issue, as you mentioned, is if they were to pay out these supposed losses, there would be no more cash reserves. They’d be insolvent and it would create large problems across the world.

Michael Agruss: Right. And it would be… For example, my dad lives in Florida. He is on the golf side and I’m always asking him questions about his hurricane policy and hurricane insurance.

Tom Graceffa: Sure.

Michael Agruss: You see it down there in Florida where you had a bunch of private insurance companies, there’s some hurricanes. They all have to pay out a bazillion dollars and then they all stop insuring people in Florida and then it’s a state-run insurance. So I just… Legal. From all aspects of it, I see both sides and I think it’s just going to be interesting. When I was in high school I worked at a restaurant, I was a stock boy, I was a prep cook, I did their catering, I love restaurants. I feel terrible for them and what’s going on. And it’s society insurance in particular with that all risk coverage and what are these restaurants supposed to do? On the other hand, if all the claims are paid out, the insurance will be broke and then the… It’s just it’s an interesting issue. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

Tom Graceffa: It’s very interesting and it’s a complete unknown. I’m sure each and every carrier has a dedicated team working on this now-

Michael Agruss: Totally.

Tom Graceffa: But it’s yet to be seen. The hopes would be… The other issue with it is they weren’t necessarily closed down. If they choose to, they can still continue to offer carry out at a obviously a reduced sales intake, but by definition business income or business interruption responds when you can’t work from your location. It’s a very interesting dynamic. I guess my hopes are that with these loans and things that are going on with the government, that somehow they can find some relief until we can get back to some kind of normal.

Michael Agruss: Totally.

Tom Graceffa: But even when that happens, there’s going to be a lot of odd rules when you go out to eat, you’re going to have to sit far away and it’s going to be a very different experience for a while.

Michael Agruss: Right. No. I talk to my wife, friends about that all the time. Let’s say everything opened up tomorrow, right? Are you going to want to go to a nice restaurant and drop a lot of money if your server comes up with a mask on and is wearing gloves and the whole place smells like bleach?

Tom Graceffa: Right. And the whole time you’re sitting there like, “Am I getting the disease or what?” You’re a little nervous, right? So, it’s going to be different and-

Michael Agruss: Yeah. No, it is. All right, cool. I’m going to end with some rapid fire questions here. What’s your favorite animal?

Tom Graceffa: My favorite animal, dog.

Michael Agruss: Got it. And what kind of dog do you have? The one that’s getting the manicure, pedicure?

Tom Graceffa: I have two. They’re littermates. They’re Doberman Vizsla mixes, so they look like Coonhounds.

Michael Agruss: Oh, awesome. Cool. I’m a dog lover too.

Tom Graceffa: Nice.

Michael Agruss: What’s that?

Tom Graceffa: I said nice.

Michael Agruss: Yeah. What app do you use most?

Tom Graceffa: Probably my mail app, unfortunately. Productivity-wise, I think probably my CRM HubSpot.

Michael Agruss: Got it. What’s your favorite food?

Tom Graceffa: Favorite food. Pizza.

Michael Agruss: What’s your perfect vacation?

Tom Graceffa: Perfect vacation would be somewhere all inclusive, probably Mexico. I liked the Riviera Maya area.

Michael Agruss: Got it. And finish the sentence. Weekends are for.

Tom Graceffa: Weekends are for hanging out with my son, now. I would have said something different a couple months ago, nine months ago, but now it’s family time. Weekends for family time.

Michael Agruss: Got it. If you weren’t in the insurance world, what would you be doing?

Tom Graceffa: I always wanted to be a veterinarian actually. So I’d probably be in the medical field, either on the human side, being maybe a specialist nurse or EMT or something like that, or a veterinarian.

Michael Agruss: Cool. That’s all I’ve got. This was awesome. I want you to… Before we end the podcast here, if you can tell me, what’s the… And we’ll put this up, like I said in the bottom of the video here, what’s the best way for people to get in touch with you? Your phone number, email. Let me know your contact information.

Tom Graceffa: Sure. So best number is (815) 987-2170 and my email is first initial, last name [email protected].

Michael Agruss: Got it. Lastly you do, or your office, I know you specialize more so on the commercial side of things, but if anyone has any insurance questions, whether it’s homeowners, renters, flood, liability, umbrella, auto, cyber, whatever it is, they can come to you and your office. Right?

Tom Graceffa: Certainly. Just give me a call and we’ll get you in touch with the right person if it doesn’t have to be me.

Michael Agruss: Okay. Awesome. Well, once again, thanks for doing this. I appreciate it. Like I said, once we stop recording here, I’m going to shoot you an email so we can set up a time to talk.

Tom Graceffa: Sounds great, Mike. Thank you very much.

Michael Agruss: Awesome. Thank you. Stay well.

Submitted Comments

No Comments submitted yet. Sharing your story will help others!