It’s important to remember that insurance agents do not work for you. Their bosses are the insurance companies that pay them. This means you may need to explore different types of coverage and policies on your own first and compare premiums before going to any insurance agent.

By doing so, you’ll be able to compare what your agent proposes with what you’ve discovered and ask why policies you’ve identified aren’t ideal. In some cases your agent may point out that the insurer you found isn’t as financially strong as the one recommended. Or the one you found may have escaped the agent’s screening process.

Ultimately, an insurance agent should be someone who presents you with policies from the strongest insurers at the best possible price and completes all paperwork properly and efficiently without error.

How to find a good insurance agent:

• Ask friends and colleagues for agent recommendations. If they are happy with how their agent evaluated their needs, identified a low-premium policy, followed up on paperwork, responds to calls or emails, and helped get claims paid, you’ll have a good pool of agents to choose from.

• Narrow your choices by asking an agent for three client references.

• Ask references about the agent’s response time to phone calls and e-mails. Also ask how the agent performed when a claim was filed or a resolution from the insurer was needed.

• Consider sending the agent an email or leaving a voicemail message to see how quickly you receive a response.

• Make sure the agent you’re considering knows your insurance needs and how best to protect them. Talk about your risks and ask how to reduce them. For example, an agent selling homeowner’s insurance should tell you about crucial flood insurance and whether you need to buy it.

• See if the agent will review your other policies to minimize overlap. For example, you may not need certain types of auto coverage if your homeowner’s policy already covers lost or stolen property. Or your disability insurance at work may not be sufficient to cover your monthly bills.

• Insist on an annual written review of coverage to ensure that annual policy changes haven’t undermined your coverage. Waiting until there is a serious claim to find out that your agent has been continuing your old coverage to collect a better commission can be a costly lesson.

• Verify that the agent hasn’t been the subject of complaints. You can do this online at your state’s insurance department. If you live in California, for example, you’d type the following into Google: “California + state insurance department.”

• See if clients have filed complaints against an insurance company an agent recommends at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. You also can check reports on insurance companies, agents and agencies and other types of businesses at the Better Business Bureau in your state.

• Check the parent company’s financial stability before you buy a policy. There’s no guarantee that the rating sites like A.M. Best, Fitch Ratings, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s won’t miss something important, but it’s better than accidentally ending up with an insurance company that has a bad rep. (There are a bunch of safeguards in place that will protect you even if your company does go belly up. Brett Arends wrote a helpful article about all of these protections during the recent AIG debacle.)