Choosing and purchasing the right type and appropriate amount of insurance to cover your precious valuables and investments can be overwhelming. Living on the coast adds a new level of challenge, especially when considering the limitless combinations of insurance products and carriers. Do you need flood or earthquake insurance in addition to homeowners insurance? Should you buy a policy to cover your boat? Which combination of insurance policies is right for your family?
Gina Schirmer, CEO of Schirmer Insurance Group in Mount Pleasant, wants to help homeowners stop scrolling through endless options. “One of the foundations of our agency is education,” she says. “We educate homeowners on what policies they need when living and working on the coast versus living inland. We review and fully evaluate all of a client’s individual and business exposure to customize a policy that meets specific needs. It doesn’t matter if our client has purchased an insurance policy from another agency; we create a full picture of their insurance portfolio and make recommendations based on the carriers out there and the current market situation, even packaging everything into one policy for seamless insurance management. We help them understand if they are well covered or not.”
As coastal insurance specialists, Schirmer Insurance Group’s team members are experienced in the Lowcountry and intimately understand insurance needs in this part of the country. The company also serves North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, Massachusetts, Alabama and Ohio. Many of the agency’s clients have high net worth investments—multimillion dollar homes, boats, jewelry, artwork, cars and businesses—and need specialized policies that meet them where they are. Clients often need and receive advice to help them make policy decisions such as choosing the right deductible amount and determining when to file a claim.
A large percentage of the agency’s business is providing personal lines of insurance such as home, auto, flood, wind and hail, boat, and renters policies for individuals, but it also handles commercial insurance, such as business property, general liability, errors and omissions, and umbrella coverage for businesses throughout the Southeast. As an independent insurance agency, team members have the power to pull from a wide network of potential insurance solutions, which is key to customization for each client.
Schirmer Insurance Group is a full-service agency, so its agents are committed to helping customers find the best possible insurance coverage at the best price, no matter which carrier provides it. Few people want to spend time poring over every detail of insurance policies, and the agency wants to take the pain out of the process. “We’ll get to know you and your family’s needs and recommend a coverage strategy to fit your lifestyle. Because we have relationships with a variety of insurance carriers, we can find policies that best fit your unique situation,” Schirmer says.
Along with the tenets of education, evaluation, consultation and advisement, Schirmer says relationship-building is of utmost importance to her. “We nurture relationships with about 150 different insurance carriers on a routine basis. This is how we smooth the pathway for our clients; whenever they need to purchase a new policy or file a claim on an existing policy, we already have an established relationship with their carrier before something happens.
“As a service-focused business, we have to be on our A-game all the time and contribute far beyond anyone else in the market. It tends to be a DIY world now, with everyone setting up their own accounts and paying for policies online. We are hands on; if a client chooses to go this route, we will always be there to walk them through the setup process and monitor their account to ensure everything processes smoothly. Ultimately, we want to make it easy on our clients. We want to personally know their names when they call our office or stop by for advice; we don’t want to just be the place where they mail a check,” she says.
Schirmer is just as interested in building relationships with her neighbors. “Because the tri-county community has given so much to us in the last 40 years, we give back at least quarterly, sometimes monthly, by hosting or participating in charitable events,” she says. In honor of its 40th anniversary in 2023, the company challenged its team to 40 Acts of Charity Involvement. The company hosted six office drives and worked with 43 nonprofit organizations to give back to the tri-county community.
“We’re overjoyed to be celebrating 40 years in business,” says Schirmer. “We’ve been educating, and people have been receptive. The tri-county area has been good to us and for that we are most thankful for such an amazing opportunity to serve.” *
Dana W. Todd is a professional writer specializing in interior design, real estate, luxury homebuilding, landscape design, architecture and art.
