EVERYTHING WAS GOING FINE. AND THEN THE BOND GOT WEIRD.

Most bond requests are fairly well behaved. They come in, give us the information we need, go through underwriting and head on their merry way without causing much trouble.

And then there are the others.

The ones with a complication. An unusual circumstance. A piece of information that raises another question, which raises another question, which leads somebody in your office to stare at the screen and mutter something you probably wouldn’t want repeated in front of the client. Those are the bonds that remind you of something important.

Sometimes you need more than software. You need somebody who knows what they’re doing.

COMPUTERS LOVE NORMAL. LIFE ISN’T ALWAYS NORMAL.

Technology is wonderful when everything fits neatly into the process.

Give it the information it needs, and it can move remarkably fast. That’s one of the reasons we built DARREN™. There are parts of getting a probate or guardianship bond that simply shouldn’t require as much effort as they traditionally have.

But technology has limits, particularly when real life decides not to cooperate.

Maybe there’s something unusual about the fiduciary. Maybe underwriting needs additional information. Maybe something about the case doesn’t look like the last 50 cases your office handled. Or maybe you simply aren’t sure what you’re being asked for or why.

Whatever the issue is, this is usually the point when you stop wanting a faster button and start wanting a knowledgeable human being.

“PLEASE SELECT FROM THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS…”

We’ve all been there.

You have a question that should take approximately 45 seconds to ask another person, but first you have to defeat the machine.

Press one for this. Press two for that. Tell the automated system why you’re calling. Listen while it completely misunderstands you. Repeat yourself. Try “representative.” Try “AGENT.” Start wondering whether screaming “HUMAN BEING” into the phone will improve your odds.

That may be acceptable when you’re trying to find out why your cable bill went up $7.

It’s considerably less charming when you’re trying to get a bond handled for a client. I never wanted DARREN™ to become that kind of technology.

DARREN™ WAS BUILT TO GET OUT OF YOUR WAY.

The purpose of DARREN™ is to make the straightforward parts of getting a bond straightforward.

It can give you an instant premium quote. It can securely store and populate your firm information. It can allow you to submit a completed request in under two minutes. It’s available 24/7, and completed requests come with my two-business-hour underwriting decision guarantee.

Those are things technology can make easier, so we let technology make them easier.

But when something gets weird?

That’s when you want us.

There are experienced people behind DARREN™ who understand probate and guardianship bonds. If a request needs attention, if underwriting needs something additional or if you simply need help figuring out what comes next, you’re not stranded on the other side of a screen. That part was intentional from the beginning.

THE BEST TECHNOLOGY KNOWS WHEN IT ISN’T THE ANSWER.

I didn’t build DARREN™ because I wanted to remove people from the bond business. I built it because I wanted to remove unnecessary work from the bond business.

There’s a big difference. You don’t need a person manually doing something a computer can do instantly. That wastes our time and yours.

But you also don’t need a computer pretending it can solve a problem that requires experience, judgment or an actual conversation. That doesn’t save time. It creates a new problem.

The goal is to put each job where it belongs. Let technology handle the routine. Let experienced people handle everything that isn’t.

SO GO AHEAD. SEND US THE WEIRD ONE.

Hopefully, your next bond request is completely uneventful. Frankly, we’re perfectly happy with boring.

But sooner or later, you’re going to encounter one that doesn’t behave itself.

When that happens, you don’t need to battle a chatbot, shout “REPRESENTATIVE” into your telephone or wonder whether anyone with a pulse actually works at the company handling your bond.

You just need somebody who knows bonds.

Fortunately, we kept those people around.

CLICK HERE TO REQUEST YOUR BOND THROUGH DARREN™.

And if it gets weird, we’re here.

Darren Vermost
The Bond Guy®
Probate Bond Pros