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Sultan Sultan, owner and licensed insurance producer at ShopSmartRate Insurance Agency
Owner · Licensed Insurance Producer

Sultan Sultan

ShopSmartRate Insurance Agency · Lacon, Illinois

I've managed hotels, sold real estate, run operations across ten states, and built a career in commercial finance. Every one of those taught the same lesson: you find out what your coverage is worth on the worst day, not the day you bought it.

Why I opened this agency

As a hotel general manager, I handled the claims. Someone slips in the lobby. A pipe lets go on the third floor at two in the morning. Each one became a claim number and an education. The policy was rarely the problem — the limits were. Coverage that looked complete on paper turned out to carry a sublimit on the one thing that actually happened.

Nobody had ever walked the property with us and asked what could go wrong. They quoted the renewal, we paid it, and we found out what we'd bought during a claim.

I saw the same gap in real estate, watching people make the largest purchase of their lives and insure it with whatever came bundled fastest at closing. In operations I was deployed across ten states to keep things running and to help after disasters — work that is entirely about what happens when things break, and who was ready for it. And in commercial finance I read balance sheets for a living, which is just another way of asking what a business could survive.

Nobody gets to know when the bad day comes. What you do get to decide is whether the right limits are in place when it does — and that is the difference between a hard season and a ruinous one. So we're independent: no parent carrier, no quota to push one company's product. We put your coverage in front of the market, let carriers compete for it, and then do the part almost nobody does — tell you plainly what it covers before you need it to.

What that background is worth to you

Anybody can pull a quote. The difference shows up in what gets asked before the quote, and in what happens after a claim.

Hotels, restaurants and contractors

We've run a property with a payroll, a liquor licence and a franchisor's insurance requirements to satisfy. We know what innkeeper's liability is for, why assault-and-battery coverage gets carved back to a sublimit, and what your franchise agreement will actually demand. That conversation goes faster with us.

Families and homeowners

Most people carry the limits they were sold on day one and have never revisited them. We look at what you own, what you'd have to replace, and what you could be sued for — then recommend limits that match. If you're already in good shape, we say so.

Anyone who's been with the same carrier a while

Rates move for reasons that have nothing to do with you — carriers refile, storm losses reprice a whole state, your own life changes. The best deal three years ago may not be the best deal today, and no one is going to call and tell you. Checking is maintenance, not disloyalty. If you're already in the right place, we'll say so.

Licences and credentials

All of this is publicly verifiable. It should be.

Producer licences
Illinois #22321839 · Maryland #3004391826 · Virginia #1608753 — Property & Casualty
Agency
SmartRate LLC · Illinois business entity producer #3004380681 · National Producer Number 22326133
Trading as
ShopSmartRate Insurance Agency — assumed name registered with the Illinois Secretary of State
Errors & omissions
Professional liability coverage carried at $1,000,000. Most agencies don't mention this. It's the coverage that protects you if we get something wrong.
Finance
Certified in Commercial Banking & Credit Analysis (CBCA), Corporate Finance Institute
Memberships
Independent Insurance Agents of Illinois (Big “I”)
Background
Hotel general management · Licensed real estate · Multi-state operations and disaster response · Commercial finance

Verify any producer licence directly with the state — you don't have to take our word for it. Illinois: insurance.illinois.gov. Nationally, look up any agent by name or number at nipr.com.

All we need to get started

Your current declarations page, if you have one. Not your insurance card — the card proves you have insurance, the declarations page says what kind. That single document is what lets us compare like for like instead of guessing, and it's the difference between a real number and a teaser.

Let's see what you're actually paying for

Tell us what you're insuring. We put 40+ top-rated carriers against each other and bring back your best rate — same day, no obligation.