State National Helps Gate City Bank Substantially Reduce False Forced Placements

Since 1923, Gate City Bank has been a hometown bank offering excellent service that is convenient, friendly, and personalized. With 43 locations in 22 communities across North Dakota and west central Minnesota, Gate City Bank has a mission to provide a welcoming atmosphere and a commitment to making the lives of their customers and team members better by investing in them and their communities for a Better Way of Life.®

State National Companies, Inc. is a leading specialty provider of property and casualty insurance services operating in two niche markets across the United States. In its Lender Services segment, the Company specializes in providing portfolio protection solutions that insure autos, mortgages, and other collateral for loans made by credit unions, banks, and specialty finance companies. In its Program Services segment, the Company leverages its “A” (Excellent) A.M. Best rating, expansive licenses, and trusted reputation to provide access to the U.S. property and casualty insurance market in exchange for ceding fees. State National Companies is a division of Markel, a Fortune 500 holding company for insurance, reinsurance, and investment operations. To learn more, please visit statenational.com and connect on LinkedIn.

When it comes to collateral protection, what everyone — borrower, lender, and CPI partner — wants to avoid are false forced placements.

The main source of borrower noise and complaints comes when a lender-placed insurance policy is added to the loan of a borrower who actually did have insurance.

Gate City Bank in Fargo, North Dakota, found that in their first two years since switching to State National, their false force-placement rate has fallen dramatically — by about 67%.

“One of our pillars at Gate City is what we call customer obsession,” said Lora Stebleton, Vice President of Payments & Customer Service.

We always start with the perspective of, ‘How do we make this the best experience for the customer?’

“Since we began our partnership with State National, we’ve been able to reduce false forced placements by almost two-thirds, which definitely elevates the customer experience, not having to spend their time or get frustrated trying to get a policy reversed.”