Featuring Marsha Painter | Personal Lines, Bates Insurance Group & Advisors | Greenville, South Carolina
Serving Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson, Pickens, Oconee, Laurens, Greenwood, Cherokee, Union and Abbeville counties.
Personal lines insurance is the coverage that protects what you own personally — your home, your vehicles, your lake house, your boat, your ATV — along with the liability that comes with owning them. It is the everyday side of property and casualty insurance, as opposed to the commercial policies that protect a business. And in Upstate South Carolina, the single most important thing a homeowner can do right now is actually read the renewal packet when it arrives in the mail, because since Hurricane Helene many carriers have quietly moved from flat-dollar deductibles to percentage-based deductibles for wind and hail damage.
That one change can turn a $1,000 out-of-pocket cost into an $8,000 one on the same house, with the same policy number, in the same year.
Marsha Painter has been in the insurance business for thirty-nine years, and she leads personal lines at Bates Insurance Group & Advisors in Greenville. What follows is a plain-English guide to how personal lines coverage actually works in the Upstate — what it covers, what has changed, what the carriers are asking for now, and what to look at before you renew. It is built almost entirely from her own words.
What does “personal lines” insurance actually cover?
Insurance people use the term constantly and rarely stop to define it. Marsha does:
“Personal lines is your home, your auto insurance, your lake house, your boat, your ATV, and that’s what property and casualty is. It’s covering your property, and then any type of liability.”
— Marsha Painter, Bates Insurance Group & Advisors
Those two halves — property and liability — are the whole architecture of it, and they answer two different questions.
Property coverage: what happens if your things are damaged?
This is the part most people picture. If a tree comes down on your roof, if a kitchen fire spreads, if your car is hit in a parking lot, property coverage pays to repair or replace what was damaged. In the Upstate, where a mature hardwood canopy sits directly over a great deal of the housing stock, falling-tree and wind claims are not a theoretical risk. They are the routine one.
Liability coverage: what happens if you are responsible for someone else’s loss?
Liability is the quieter half, and usually the more financially dangerous one. Marsha explains it with the most ordinary example there is:
“You may have an automobile and you are involved in an accident and it’s your fault — you’re liable to pay damages to whatever you damaged.”
— Marsha Painter
The same logic applies at home. If someone is injured on your property, or your dog bites a neighbor, or your teenager backs into a mailbox, liability coverage is what stands between your household and the bill.
Which personal lines policies do Upstate families actually need?
The list is longer than most people expect, and it grows with the life you build. Marsha runs through it quickly:
- Homeowners — the core policy on your primary residence.
- Auto — required by South Carolina law, and the policy most likely to be bundled with your home.
- Renters — for tenants; covers your belongings and your liability, not the building.
- Secondary and lake homes — a real category in the Upstate, with Lake Keowee, Lake Hartwell, Lake Jocassee and Lake Greenwood all within an easy drive.
- Boats, personal watercraft and ATVs — recreational property that a homeowners policy covers only in limited ways, if at all.
- Rental and landlord property — as Marsha puts it, “if you own rental property, you need a policy for that.” A homeowners policy is not written for a house you rent out.
- Personal umbrella — additional liability that sits on top of everything else.
That last one is the least understood and, dollar for dollar, often the most valuable. In Marsha’s words, an umbrella policy is one that “covers you over and above your existing limits on your current policies.” If a serious auto claim exceeds the liability limit on your auto policy, the umbrella picks up from there.
She is candid that the complexity is real, and that she did not arrive knowing it either:
“There’s a lot there that a lot of people don’t quite understand, and I didn’t understand it until I got in the business. So I’m here to help and explain each and every one of these policies.”
— Marsha Painter
How has homeowners insurance in the Upstate changed since Hurricane Helene?
On the morning of September 27, 2024, Helene moved through Upstate South Carolina as a tropical storm with hurricane-force gusts. The National Weather Service recorded a 73 mph gust at Sassafras Mountain in Pickens County and a 72 mph gust at Anderson Regional Airport, with many Upstate stations reporting gusts above 60 mph. The damage across Abbeville, Anderson, Greenville, Spartanburg and neighboring counties was overwhelmingly wind damage — uprooted and snapped trees, blocked roads, homes struck by falling timber, and power infrastructure down across large portions of several counties.
For homeowners, the lasting consequence has less to do with that week than with what carriers did to deductible structures around it. Marsha saw the shift firsthand:
“A lot of the insurance companies prior to Helene started going to percentages. So like a one percent deductible, a two percent deductible off the value of your home. So that put more out of pocket expense on the customer’s side. Mainly that was for roofs, for wind and hail damage.”
— Marsha Painter
What is the difference between a flat deductible and a percentage deductible?
A flat deductible is a fixed dollar amount — $1,000, or $2,500, per occurrence. You know the number before anything happens. A percentage deductible is calculated as a percentage of your dwelling coverage limit, so the number moves with the insured value of your home. As replacement costs have climbed across the Upstate, so has the real cost of that percentage.
Here is the arithmetic, using round numbers for illustration only:
| If your home is insured for | A flat $1,000 deductible means you pay | A 2% deductible means you pay |
|---|---|---|
| $250,000 | $1,000 | $5,000 |
| $400,000 | $1,000 | $8,000 |
| $650,000 | $1,000 | $13,000 |
Illustrative example only. Your actual deductible depends on your policy’s dwelling limit and the terms your carrier applies.
The policy can look identical on the declarations page in every respect that a homeowner tends to check. The premium may even be lower. The exposure is entirely different.
Can my deductible change without me doing anything?
This is the question most worth asking, and Marsha’s answer is careful and honest. If you keep the same policy and make no changes, you are generally locked in — in her words, “it should stay the same unless you ask your agent to rewrite it.” But she does not overstate it:
“I can’t speak for every company, because some of them have changed the policies to a percentage, and they’re supposed to notify you, and they slip a little piece of paper in with your policy document. And if you don’t read your policy, which like probably nine out of ten people don’t, they just look at the bottom line.”
— Marsha Painter
She has also seen carriers split the difference in a way that is easy to miss entirely:
“I have seen some of the companies switch from a flat deductible to a percentage just for wind and hail, but they leave the fire at the flat deductible. So you really need to look at your policies when they renew, when they come in, to see what that particular company has done.”
— Marsha Painter
In other words: your fire deductible may still read $1,000 while your wind and hail deductible has become 2% of your dwelling limit — and in a region where wind is the dominant claim driver, that is the deductible that matters most.
Who is watching your renewal?
This is where an agency relationship earns its keep. Renewal review is a standing part of the workflow at Bates, not something that happens on request:
“We try to review the incoming renewals thirty to forty-five days, depending on the carrier, and be sure that it’s in line — there’s they didn’t add or take away something. A lot of times they’ll have guideline changes during the year, and so we always review your renewal. And if there is something that you need to be alerted about, we’ll reach out — phone call, email, snail mail.”
— Marsha Painter
What is actually included in a homeowners policy today — and what has become optional?
The second structural change Marsha has watched unfold is quieter than the deductible shift, and arguably affects more households. Coverages that used to arrive bundled inside a standard homeowners policy have been unbundled.
“The companies have taken coverages that used to be included in your basic homeowners policy and made them a la carte, meaning that you have to buy back that particular coverage.”
— Marsha Painter
The practical effect is that two policies can both be called “homeowners insurance,” can both satisfy your mortgage company, and can protect you very differently. Marsha is direct about what a stripped-down policy leaves you with:
“If you wanted to get just a basic homeowners policy with no bells and whistles, yeah, you can save some money, but basically the only coverage you’re going to have is fire. So you really want to have a comprehensive policy and have all other perils covered as well. We don’t really sell a basic policy, because you need all these extra coverages.”
— Marsha Painter
What should you be reading on your own declarations page?
Availability and naming vary by carrier, but these are the line items worth locating on your policy and asking about if you cannot find them:
- Dwelling (Coverage A) — and whether it is written on a replacement cost basis rather than actual cash value. Marsha notes that Bates writes replacement-type policies as a matter of practice.
- Roof settlement terms — whether a roof loss is paid at replacement cost or depreciated by age. On an older Upstate roof, this is a significant difference.
- Wind and hail deductible — flat or percentage, and stated separately from the all-other-perils deductible.
- Other structures — detached garages, workshops, fences, docks.
- Personal property — including any sub-limits on jewelry, firearms, tools or collectibles, which are frequently capped well below their value.
- Loss of use — what the policy pays for housing while your home is uninhabitable.
- Water backup and service line coverage — common buy-backs, and relevant in older Greenville and Spartanburg neighborhoods with aging municipal connections.
- Personal liability and medical payments limits — and whether an umbrella sits above them.
If you cannot tell from reading it, that is not a personal failing. That is the point of having someone whose job is to read it for you.
Why are insurers asking about roof age and plumbing now?
Anyone who has requested a quote in the last few years has run into a longer list of questions than they remember from a decade ago. There is a reason, and it is partly demographic: much of the Upstate’s housing stock is now well into middle age. The established neighborhoods around Augusta Road and North Main in Greenville, the mill village housing in Spartanburg and Union, the older residential grids in Anderson and Easley — these are homes built across the 1950s through the 1980s, many now on their second or third roof.
“Sometimes the system will flag for certain things that we didn’t have to look for before, like age of roof, plumbing. Now that homes are older — the homes are built in the sixties, seventies, eighties, in the fifties — we need update information. So that makes the input process a little bit longer, and we need additional information from the customer in order to get a precise quote.”
— Marsha Painter
The upside is that accurate information usually works in your favor. A 2019 roof, a repiped supply line or an updated electrical panel are underwriting positives, and a carrier that knows about them can often price the risk better. The delay in most quotes is not the carrier being difficult — it is waiting on the homeowner to find the receipt.
What to have ready before you request a quote
- Year the roof was last fully replaced, and the material.
- Year of the last plumbing update, and whether the supply lines are copper, PEX or polybutylene.
- Electrical panel age and amperage, and whether any knob-and-tube or aluminum branch wiring remains.
- HVAC and water heater ages.
- Square footage, year built, construction type and foundation.
- Any pool, trampoline, wood stove or detached structure.
- Your current declarations page — the single most useful document you can send.
What actually happens when you call an independent agency for a quote?
Bates works a four-step process — assess, analyze, advise, advocate — and Marsha’s description of a typical new-homeowner call maps onto it almost exactly.
- Assess. “I gather information from you — name, address, date of birth, talk about the house. I look that up on the internet. I get a picture of it.” Marsha builds the profile of the risk before touching a rating system.
- Analyze. “And then I work on several carriers, quoting, and arrive at the best price for you.” Because Bates is independent, this is one conversation with you and many conversations with carriers — rather than the reverse.
- Advise. Rate timing matters, and she says so plainly: “You want to go ahead and lock in that rate as soon as you can, because sometimes the companies do put in for rate increases, and then when you go back to re-rate it, it may change.”
- Advocate. A few months in, she circles back: “I will approach you a couple months later and see if we can quote your auto insurance to give you the auto-home discount price, and usually that works out to the client’s advantage.”
The word Marsha returns to most often is the last one.
“I’d be your advocate between you and the insurance company, and it also comes into play for claims, whether it’s a homeowner’s claim or a vehicle claim. If you need any help in getting things situated through the claim process, we’re here to help you every step of the way.”
— Marsha Painter
That is the part that is hard to evaluate at purchase and obvious at claim time. You buy an insurance policy once. You use an insurance relationship on the worst day of your year.
What does it mean that Bates Insurance Group is an independent agency?
An independent agency is appointed by many carriers rather than one. Practically, that means the agency can place your business wherever the coverage and pricing fit best — and can move it later, without you starting over with a new agent.
Marsha spent almost her entire career on the independent side, and the one period she spent elsewhere clarified why:
“I came back to the independent agent side because of the availability of other carriers.”
— Marsha Painter
That access is what allows the agency to keep working on a policy after the sale rather than simply renewing it:
“We always check your policies, and if we think that one company has increased their rates too much, we’ll search for another company that we have and try to keep your pricing down.”
— Marsha Painter
Bates Insurance Group & Advisors is a member of Trusted Choice®, the national network of independent insurance agents, and the agency’s leadership has long been active in the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of South Carolina (IIABSC) — the statewide association of property and casualty independent agencies. Agency president Tom Bates has spent more than four decades in the industry, and the Bates team carries over 100 years of combined insurance experience.
How often should you actually shop your coverage?
Marsha’s answer is measured, and notably not “constantly”:
“It’s good to shop every couple years, because one company might be low right now, but in three years they’re going to be a little bit high on their rates, and someone else is going to come in with a better rate.”
— Marsha Painter
And when the review says stay put, she says stay put:
“If we can’t find you a better price, then I recommend you just stay where you are, because you’ve got a great policy — and don’t move it. We’re not gonna just write the policy just to gain the business. We want to do what’s best for you.”
— Marsha Painter
What has thirty-nine years in the business taught Marsha Painter?
Marsha started in life and health insurance in 1987, then moved to Greenville from Columbia and found her way into property and casualty. August 2026 marks thirty-nine years in the industry.
“I actually started off in life and health, and then when I moved to Greenville from Columbia, South Carolina, I fell into property and casualty. And really enjoyed it. It’s a need that everyone has, whether you own a home and drive a vehicle.”
— Marsha Painter
She has watched the mechanics of the job change completely.
“Back in the day, back in the eighties, it used to be a lot simpler. Believe it or not, we would actually rate your home or auto policies from an actual paper book, and we would actually type out the policies and combine all the endorsements, and we could get it done in a matter of a few minutes.”
— Marsha Painter
Her assessment of the change is more generous than you might expect. Rating is slower and more data-hungry than it was, but the client experience is better:
“Electronically, we can get documents signed. We don’t have to have the client come into the office anymore. It can all be done over the phone and by email, which has been great, because a lot of people can’t take time off of work or take the time to come in and sit down with their agent.”
— Marsha Painter
What has not changed is the reason she is still doing it:
“I like helping people and trying to save them money and helping them with claims — whatever they need.”
— Marsha Painter
And for clients who would still rather sit at their own kitchen table with the paperwork spread out, that option never went away:
“We even make house calls. We will come to your home, in the comfort of your home, and review your policies, and try to save you money and give you the best coverage that we can provide.”
— Marsha Painter
What should you do before your next renewal?
A short, practical checklist drawn from everything above:
- Open the renewal packet. Not the bill — the packet. The changes live in the endorsement pages.
- Find your wind and hail deductible specifically, and confirm whether it is a flat dollar amount or a percentage of your dwelling limit.
- Multiply it out. If it is a percentage, calculate the actual dollar figure against your current Coverage A limit so the number is not a surprise later.
- Check your dwelling limit against current rebuild costs, not against what you paid for the house or what Zillow says it is worth.
- Confirm your roof settlement basis — replacement cost or depreciated.
- Look for the coverages that are now a la carte, and price the buy-backs before you decide you do not need them.
- Review your liability limits, and ask whether an umbrella makes sense for your household.
- Schedule a review every two years — or ask your agent to run one for you.
Frequently asked questions about personal lines insurance in Upstate South Carolina
What is the difference between personal lines and commercial insurance?
Personal lines covers property and liability you own as an individual or household — home, auto, lake house, boat, ATV, rental property you own personally, and personal umbrella coverage. Commercial insurance covers a business: its property, its liability, its vehicles and its employees. Bates writes both, but they are underwritten and priced very differently.
Did Hurricane Helene change homeowners insurance in the Upstate?
The clearest change Marsha Painter has observed is in deductible structure. Carriers had already begun moving from flat-dollar deductibles toward percentage-based deductibles before Helene, and that shift has continued since — applied mainly to wind and hail damage, which is the dominant claim type in the Upstate. In her words: “that’s about the only change I could really see — the change in the percentage of the deductibles.”
Can my insurance company change my deductible at renewal?
Generally your terms stay the same unless the policy is rewritten. But carriers do make guideline changes, and when they do, notice typically arrives as a page inside the renewal packet rather than a phone call. This is exactly what an agency renewal review is designed to catch. Bates reviews incoming renewals thirty to forty-five days ahead, depending on the carrier.
Is the cheapest homeowners policy a bad idea?
Not automatically — but price alone is an incomplete picture. Many coverages that were once standard are now optional buy-backs, so a lower premium often reflects narrower coverage rather than a better deal. Compare deductibles, roof settlement terms, and which perils are actually covered before comparing premiums.
What is a personal umbrella policy, and do I need one?
An umbrella provides liability coverage above the limits on your existing home and auto policies. It is typically inexpensive relative to the protection it provides, and it becomes more important as your assets, your household drivers, and your exposure grow. It is worth pricing during any policy review.
Do I have to move all of my policies at once to work with Bates?
No. Many clients begin with one policy — often homeowners, at the point of a home purchase — and add auto or other coverage later. Marsha commonly follows up a few months after a new home policy to quote auto and capture the multi-policy discount.
What areas does Bates Insurance Group serve?
Bates Insurance Group & Advisors is based in Greenville and serves the Upstate region, including Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson, Pickens, Oconee, Laurens, Greenwood, Cherokee, Union and Abbeville counties, and communities such as Greer, Taylors, Simpsonville, Mauldin, Easley, Travelers Rest, Fountain Inn, Clemson and Seneca.
Can someone come to my house to review my policies?
Yes. As Marsha puts it: “We even make house calls.” An in-home policy review is available for clients who would rather sit down with their documents in person.
Ready for a second set of eyes on your policy?
If it has been more than two years since anyone reviewed your homeowners or auto coverage — or if you have not looked closely at your wind and hail deductible since Helene — a review costs nothing and takes very little of your time. Send us your current declarations page and we will tell you honestly whether you should move or stay put.
[Request your personalized quote](https://bates.agency/quotes/) | Call 864.867.0564 | Email [info@bates.agency](mailto:info@bates.agency)
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