Many people love a good sale, as is evidenced by the popularity of Black Friday, Prime Day, and other big sales retail stores hold throughout the year. White sales, Fourth of July sales, Labor day and Memorial Day sales are just some of the routine sales one can expect to find throughout the year. People like to believe they are getting a deal, and getting something of value for a lesser cost than what it is worth.

Insurance is not that type of product, and that is where a lot of insureds run into trouble. Many perceive that insurance companies are full of money. Part of this perception is due to large jury verdicts where a carrier will be told to pay millions of dollars for a loss, or attorney ads promising large payouts for auto accidents. Insureds look at this and think carriers are loaded with money and that their premiums should be less expensive; carriers have all this money after all, they don't need to be charging what the public perceives as an exorbitant amount of money for coverage.

This fundamental misunderstanding may lead many insureds to try to obtain coverage at lower costs, without realizing that they are shorting themselves for coverages that they need. They fail to realize that by looking for insurance that costs less, they may be getting limits lower than what they actually need, may be setting themselves up for a situation where they are underinsured for their homes and may have to pay a coinsurance penalty if they have a total loss, and may be putting their individual assets at risk if their liability coverage isn't sufficient to cover any injuries or damages to property of another party.