Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - Bryan Falchuk Explains the Move From Disruption to Evolution

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

Spartan philosophy, built in the black-ops lab of business: https://www.findingpeak.comFinding Peak podcast: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyBryan Falchuk, bestselling author, TEDx speaker, former insurtech executive and now managing partner of Insurance Evolution Partners joins the podcast to breakdown the future of insurance from disruption to evolution. Get more: https://ryanhanley.com--Recommended Tools for GrowthOpusClip: #1 AI video clipping and editing tool: https://link.ryanhanley.com/opusRiverside: HD Podcast & Video Software | Free Recording & Editing: https://link.ryanhanley.com/riversideWhisperFlow: Never waste time typing on your keyboard again: https://link.ryanhanley.com/whisperflowCaptionsApp: One app for all your social media video creation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/captionsappGoHighLevel: It's time to take your business workflow to the Next Level: https://link.ryanhanley.com/gohighlevelPerspective.co: The #1 funnel builder for lead generation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/perspective--Episodes You Might Enjoy:From $2 Million Loss to World-Class Entrepreneur: https://lnk.to/delkFrom One Man Shop to $200M in Revenue: https://lnk.to/tommymelloIs Psilocybin the Gateway to Self-Mastery? https://lnk.to/80upZ9This show is part of the Unplugged Studios Network — the infrastructure layer for serious creators. 👉 Learn more at https://unpluggedstudios.fm.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Happy holidays. Want to give your host a gift? Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season. It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Today we have a tremendous guest. His name is Brian Falchuk.

And, you know, these are some of my favorite episodes because Brian is a guy that I have followed on LinkedIn for a while. our paths digitally have crisscrossed many times, though we've never actually spoken. And then finally, I can't remember if I reached out to Brian or he reached out to me, but we had a phone call last week, just kind of like a get to know you. Hey, we're both in the space. What do we do? What kind of thing?

And within three minutes, I was like, dude, you got to come on in the podcast. And this is a great episode. Brian's got a tremendous book coming out. And we're going to tell you how to get that book. You definitely need to put this on your radar. Brian is also one of the partners and insurance evolution partners. He's a former insuretech executive. He has been in and outside and around the insurance world in many different capacities.

He brings a tremendous amount of experience, expertise. He's a TEDx speaker and just an all-around tremendous resource for our industry and someone who I am incredibly proud to share with you today. Before we get there, I just want to give a quick shout out to my people at Tarmica. If you don't know about Tarmica, go to T-A-R-M-I-K-A.com today. They are absolutely positively changing the game, specifically on commercial lines rating. A little birdie told me they might be adding purse lines down the road, but right now the things they're doing in commercial lines,

comparative rating, are absolutely game-changing. This isn't screen scraping. This isn't kind of, we have a couple carriers, that's cool. This is API integrations, pulling in real rates. This is how commercial lines rating for small business is going to be done moving forward. They have bops. They have comp. Commercial auto is very close to being launched.

Then you're going to get into specialty lines. This is going to be a one-stop shop for your small business rating needs, you know, re-rating books, moving books. This is going to be the tool. Go to T-R-M-I-K-A.com. get a demo. Even if you don't purchase Tarmica today for your agency, know what's going on. Go get a demo. Go get a demo and know what's going on with this tool. You will not be sorry that you did. All right. So with that, we're going to get on to Brian talking about just all things,

carrier, insure tech, not disruption, but like how carriers specifically are solving problems in our industry today. I love you for listening to this show. get on to Brian. So dude, it is, it's great having you on the show. We had an awesome talk. Yeah. Was it a week or two ago? And then, um, then I blew you off yesterday for our recording. And now, dude, that's totally fine. And that's like, that's, that's life right now, you know. It's like all of a sudden, you're like, oh, God, am I a father or am I a professional? Yeah. Yeah. No, totally fine. The, um, my, my, my, my, what happened was my, uh, my dad normally comes and picks the kids up on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

So whenever I need real quiet time, that's the time I schedule stuff. And then yesterday, he was like, oh, I can take them, but I need you to drive him out because something was going on in his life. And then you're, you're emailing me, and I'm like, oh, what a dick. No, it's okay.

I've done that twice. And I've, like, that's not me. I'm super punctual. So, like, I end up feeling it for weeks. I'm like, I can't believe it. Or I was 15 minutes late. Yeah. No, we all need to give ourselves,

a little bit of space on that right now. Yeah. So, so dude, so I don't know how we hadn't talked before when we did because what you're doing, I mean, I've obviously seen your work and heard your name a bunch of times and, you know, TEDx speaker. This is your third book, correct? Yeah. You know, you've been, you know, very well received self help author. You know, you're in the insurance space. You've worked in insure tech. Like, you have a really dynamic. story and it's always funny to me, I guess, when I find someone in the insurance industry who is as dynamic as you, I have had a chance to talk to yet. And I feel like we know each other just like, yeah, I mean, our world's kind of overlap a lot

and I've been following your stuff. And so like, yeah, I mean, when we, when we got on that first call, we just jumped in. Like, it was as if we were just continuing a conversation we were just having. So we're just, we're doing a lot of research for that first call. That's all we're prepping for it. But yeah, it's kind of funny that it took us this long. So we're here. Yeah, we're here. We're here. And I'm glad we are because I want people as many people as I can. And, you know, I've been introducing some of my podcast buddies too, because I think what you're talking about, the way you're highlighting companies and the way you're talking about technology in our industry is a very, is the healthiest way possible. And it's exactly the type of conversations that

we need to continue having. And also I loved, and we'll get into the very specifics and we'll, you know, talk about some of the case studies and stuff. But I think one of the reasons why I want people to start following you on LinkedIn and become part of your ecosystem is that, you know, you highlighted everything from Ohio Mutual to state workers comp fund to USAA. And I think you really brought that full, what I liked about the book. And I'm not done with it.

But I liked that you brought. in, that you brought in the full spectrum. It wasn't just like, let's laser in on these tech only, you know, startup and sure techs and say that they're the future. It was, look what Ohio Mutual is doing. Yeah. I mean, this is the kind of company that independent agents, like this is their bread and butter as a company like Ohio Mutual. Yeah. No, it's, and it's not, so yeah, there's some, some big names in there. I'm not going to lie, like getting some of those carriers to jump on board, like USAA is in there and that's the one that everyone's like, oh no, they'll never do it. So like don't even try.

And I kind of look at it as like, well, look, if I don't have them now, then what do I have to lose by asking other than like whatever I feel about it, like my dignity or so they say no. You know, like ask her to the dance and if she says no, well, you're not dancing with her right now, right? Yeah. So, you know, I've got the USAAs of the world and CNA and AXA. But then I've also got, yeah, Ohio Mutual, who I love. Like, they're incredible. And I'm lucky because on the insure tech side, that was one of my accounts. Like, I got to serve them. I got really close with their team. So I got to see them inside and out. They're awesome. You know, you got like employers in there who's a public company, but not so long ago, they were a state-owned or state-run monopolist, not just market a last resort. If you had employees in Nevada, you had to insure with them. And I hope this doesn't affect. anyone I think they would agree with this. They were a mess. Financially, technologically,

like their CEO says he started in 93. So he's been with a company 25 years and worked his way up. He's like, I had to bring my own computer because we only had these green screen terminals in the 90s. You know, and you got the state comp fund of California. Like again, yeah, it's a big carrier, but it's a state entity. So unlike employers, they are still part of the state of California. They were a market of last resort. They have been through serious ups and downs. And like, they have unionized employees. So the point is, like, it's all these different carriers in different functional spaces, different corporate structures, different ownership, different constraints. Like, we all face a lot of them, regulation and, you know, the jokes about

the industry being slow and all that. But at the same time, like, they're dealing with unions. They're dealing with, you know, ultimately reporting to the governor. You've got companies that have to deal with the stock market and answering to analysts and the ups and downs there. And there's companies that are mutual and there's companies that are private and reciprocal. Like the point is, every one of us in the insurance industry, agents, brokers, carriers, providers, you know, like partners, we all have different constraints that we face. And what I didn't want to do was write this book about these innovations or these companies

that have done stuff and have anyone be like, well, I can't do that because, oh, it's, you know, well, they're a startup. They don't have any of that. Or they're, you know, they've got $20 billion in the bank, so I can't do that. It's like, well, Ohio Mutual doesn't. They've got money for their size. They're in good shape. But that's because they got themselves there. You know, and so it's like anyone should be able to look at these cases and kind of drop the excuses of why it's okay for them to just sit back and struggle and not do anything. Because I'll tell you, every carrier I saw when I was on the insured tech side started with the same like, we're too far behind, we're stuck, we can't catch up.

These new guys are coming in here and making us look bad. Our customers want all these things and we can't do it for them. Yet they're doing stuff. So it's this kind of, it's a message of hope, really. I mean, as silly as that sounds, but that's what it is. See, that was my biggest takeaway from what I've read so far was the idea, you were breaking down the excuses that an organization, may have for not innovating in ways.

And look, like there are companies that even I work with who are incredibly innovative in certain sections of their business, and I still have to go log into Internet Explorer, not even Edge, like Internet Explorer to reach certain parts of their technology. And I think, you know, at first I was very frustrated with that. As, you know, I've been an agency owner for like four months now. But like I was very frustrated at first. because I was like how, like I have to go buy a new $700 computer as a Mac user

and then figure out how to get Internet Explorer onto this PC. Because Microsoft doesn't even support it. It doesn't is a non-supported browser. So I then had to, you know what I mean? And I'm like, but then there's other aspects of this same carrier that are so innovative and the way that they approach risk and the way that they're using data on the back end, even though you have to, you know, you have to use an Abacus to access. it the way that they're actually using that data is it's thoughtful and it's and it's creative.

So I think I thought two things. I said one in general, I think we need to stop giving carriers such a hard time as long as they're pushing forward. And two, there's no excuses. You can be any size. You can be a small little super regional or domestic mutual. You could be all the way up to a publicly traded company and there are possibilities here. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I think, I think that's spot on. And it's like we use the word excuses. And I don't want anyone to take offense to that because they're real things. You know, we're not dismissing any of it. It's not like, oh, you know, we're regulated. Oh, we'll get over it. You know, like you can do this anyway. It's like, okay, you're regulated. That doesn't mean no. That means you need to find something you can do

that meets regulations. So like the Ohio Mutual example, One of the, this is the same for me because I was, so it's about their use of texting in claims. And I joined this insurer tech because I was one of their first customers. So I kind of fell in love with it just from using it. One of the things Ohio Mutual learned from several failed attempts, and they're really honest and shared all of that with me. And it's all in the case. Like, look, we didn't get it right the first time.

We screwed up a lot. And we learned from that. Like, it's okay. This was like a 10 year journey for them to get to be able to text with customers. But they had some of the same concerns I had is, well, if you're texting, like, some carriers will just give their people a phone. And I know, like, agents, IAs, it's really common. Like, you, you got to talk to them, and it's the way people do it now, and they can't take your phone call. So you shoot them a text from your cell phone. But guess what? Now that insured or that prospect,

but that claimant has your phone number. And so, like, they're going to bother you in the weekend. They're going to call you at weird hours. And they're going to expect a response. And none of that is going in the file. And, like, we can't do it. that in insurance. If you're negotiating a new policy, like, so the underwriter promises or makes some indication of coverage in the claim discussion, but it doesn't make into the underwriting, sorry, claim discussion, the underwriting discussion with the broker or the agent doesn't make it into the file. What happens when there's a claim that hits on that discussion? You know, it's like, well, we don't have record of it, so we're not going to cover it. And

the broker's like, I have all the texts. You know, so now you're getting into an argument about it. Well, you have to have all the conversations in the underwriting file, the claim file, whatever. So you can't just start texting off someone's cell phone. If you do that, some carriers are like, oh, we'll take screenshots and we'll upload them into the files. Like, do you know how painful that is? And you know, how quickly people won't be doing that. I know carriers who gave a series of adjusters phones and they blocked out Friday afternoon each week to upload the screenshots. And it's like one of two things happen. The adjusters either just didn't upload the screenshots because it's miserable or they stop texting because they're like, I'm not doing the screenshots. So little things

like that, like you're regulated, there's coverage litigation, there's discoverability, there's DOI audits, like you need to have those conversations. So you need a texting solution that flows into the claim file or the underwriting record. It's simple, but it doesn't mean you don't text. It means you just need to be mindful of that. So all these things like, they're excuses, but they're considerations. They're not hard constraints. It's like walking up to a wall and being like, okay, I can't go forward. Well, did you look to your left because there's a door? You just need to look around a little bit and see how you can get through that barrier.

And that's really what the message is about. Yeah, I think when I think excuses, I think the same thing can be an obstacle or an excuse. An obstacle is something that we understand as an issue like this texting problem that you're describing because that's 100% real. Yep. or an excuse is that same issue, except you're not trying to solve it. You're just staying put because you're using it as a reason not to move forward. And the texting thing is so real. Like I have a cell phone and then I have two-way text.

So I have two-way text in my agency through my main number that automatically delivers that text message as a file record into my into my account. So as long as I have the cell phone that I'm texting attached to a client file in my agency management system, every text that goes to that system. Now, the problem is sometimes I pick up the cell phone because it's easier and I'm just like texting through here instead of texting through my computer, which I don't have the, whatever, that, but see, it's an excuse. When I pick this up, this is an excuse.

Figuring a way to two-way text is just overcoming an obstacle. And I think these stories, and you use the word hope, are of companies of different sizes and different makes and different, different stakeholders that are overcoming obstacles in their business and showing that it's possible. If you can systematically work towards a solution, you can get there regardless of size or constituency. Yeah, absolutely. And what it isn't is a blueprint for exactly how to solve the seven. in specific things that these carriers talked about. So, like, you know, just to keep on Ohio Mutual, like, this isn't, as much as I love High Marley having worked there and I believe in it, it's not to say if you want to text with your customer or let's get more broad, like you're having communication problems,

whether it's in claims or anywhere else. Like the answer is not necessarily do exactly what Ohio Mutual did and just go sign up with Hi Marley and you're done. It's like, well, there's reasons why they were successful. look into that journey they went on taught them a lot about how to be successful with it. So it's not about the technology. It's not even about the specific problem, like CNA and Shift technology working together on fraud.

Like it's not to say, okay, if you need to solve for fraud, you have to work with Shift. Like I advocate for Shift. I think they're awesome. What I learned through the case taught me that. But there's lots of ways to solve for fraud. And maybe it's not really about fraud. It's about something else you're facing. but the way that CNA's story played out gives you some insight into how you're going to solve

this problem you face over here. So none of the cases are about that exact issue and that exact solution. They're about a story in our context with constraints and excuses or obstacles or whatever we want to call them that someone had to navigate through to get to a solution. And that might resonate with you. What do you think it is about the leadership of the companies that you highlighted and their ability to overcome obstacles? that's different maybe from companies that have not yet taken those steps.

So I think this is really critical. There are a few things. So like there's three overarching themes that came out of the book. And one of the key pieces in that I think comes straight from leadership. But it can't be leadership alone. Like it has to go in both directions. You need the people and you need the leaders, but you can't have one or the other. You might have some success, but you're kind of getting lucky.

it'll be a limitation to it. So what you see consistently is like, Verne Steiner at Skiff, the state comp fund of California, you know, like old state entity, like lots of complications, all that kind of stuff.

He's one of the most dynamic people I've ever met. And I've gotten to interact with him on two different things, the book and another startup a few years ago. Really cool guy. And he just like, he's excited and he cares so deeply about his people. So like a leader who, could look at the fact that they have civil servants and union employees and be like,

it's us against them, you know, management versus the union. And so they're considerations. There are things that they can and can't do because of the fact that they're unionized or because they, I mean, even like they're adjusters, their attorneys are in unions. Like I don't think anyone really ever thinks of those kind of roles being unionized. California. Yeah. And they're state employees.

So, you know, you've got that. And he's like, yeah, you know, there were things that we had to be considerate of. But, and he said this in the, in the quote I have in the book from him. And he's like, we would have done these things anyway. So, like, they're super inclusive. So they did a design, build, workshop training program for the entire company. When I say the entire company, I don't just mean like it's for the underwriters and the claims adjusters. Or it's for the people in innovation because they have an innovation team now.

Or it's for IT. Like, I mean, everything. everybody, like the administrative assistance, the first notice of loss people, the claims process, everybody did it. Because if he realized, like, if you don't have the entire organization on board and excited and contributing, it's going to fall flat somewhere or it's going to feel like they're making us do this. It's not about leadership. Like, yeah, leadership proposes some of the things that they've done, but they have these workshops. They came up with 30-something ideas. 18 of them are either in development or being deployed right now. So over half of the stuff that the

employees came up with are all going live. But that doesn't happen if you don't involve your people. Doug Dirk's at employers, like not to stay on like workers comp, state fund kind of backings, but same kind of thing is it's all about the people. So he's very focused on like you have to tell the people where you're going. You have to listen to their reaction to it and you have to take that in. I worked at another carrier where the CEO had these all hands meetings around our new core system. And he's like, he's a fairly good leader. He could set the tone and the vision and people took to that. And I think he was a good step up from the past.

But you know how we started the meeting? So he opens the phone call. We did it, you know, by like a group dial in. He goes, I'm going to tell you about an update on the new core system. It's being delayed. I've muted every participant. I don't want to hear a single thing from anyone about this problem. That's like, okay, that's how you're opening the discussion.

Instead of like, listen, I know everyone was excited for this. We're still excited for it. We're still super aggressive on the timeline. We're still going to deliver it way earlier than anyone ever said. But we've made a decision to push back three months for these reasons that we think are really critical because you guys told us it wasn't ready. You told us you needed this feature. You know, it could have, it was an opportunity.

to have the people bought in instead of being like, oh, great. Now we're stuck. Yeah. And we're not allowed to speak because how dare we? You know, and same thing, like all hands meetings. They got the whole company together for an annual kickoff meeting. And he said the same thing. He's like, we're going to go over the system, which was being delayed again.

Go figure. And he's like, and he said, we're going to have Q&A. And I'm going to tell you right now. I don't want a single question about the system. It's like, dude, that's the first thing you tell your entire company to start. off this discussion. Do you think people are going to feel open? Do you think they're going to feel safe sharing the ideas they have? Absolutely not. So you can't have it both ways. Yeah. And that was universal and that goes across every single case in the book. Yeah, I think, you know,

I'm not going to use it. I'm going to try not to use any of the cliches, but as we're recording this, we have both Corona and, you know, protesting. and we have another layer, the rioting going on, and then all the undercurrent culturally, not to mention businesses trying to reopen, you know, people from basically the entire spectrum trying to restart or recalibrate their life to whatever it's going to look like.

And I had someone email me the other day and they just said, you know, I shouldn't even say email. It was like a DM, you know, some message, Some platform in some capacity. I can't remember who's LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever. They just were like, you know, everything has changed.

And it all starts with leadership. Like everything has changed and it all starts with leadership. Leadership can never be the way it was in the 50, 60, 70s, 80s, 90s. Like it can't be that version, that draconian version of leadership anymore that just will not work. It won't be tolerated, let alone you're not going to be able to keep the people. and, you know, that's a really interesting problem. And the companies that, you know, some of the things that just in there and employers in particular just watching some of the things they do and, and Ohio Mutual, I know,

I know a lot of people in Ohio Mutual from my old life, man, you can see the difference. And particularly, I find don't watch the actual leader. Watch the way the people underneath him or her operate and you will know what kind of leader that person is. Yeah. And that, that to me is the biggest game today. Yeah.

That is, that is the most important thing is, how do we get our companies back to business in a way that makes everyone feel safe and heard and pointing the safe in a same direction, unlike it's ever been done before? Yeah. I completely agree. And,

you know, as you're talking about that, there's a trait in leadership that I think, and we talked about this when we're catching up like last week or whatever it was. that I think people like Mark Russell is the CEO at Ohio Mutual, Bernstein or Doug Dirk's like it's humility versus hubris. There's so much unknown right now. So for you to stand up there and dictate what it is and that everything's fine or like

coronavirus every week there's a different answer as to how it works or what the issues are. And like I don't want to spark a debate with anybody publicly about this. but like, that's just true. Like there's a lot we still don't know. And it's not to put down any of what we do know or progress or whatever. So to stand there and say definitively, it's this or it's that, like, who are you serving? Well, the same goes for your leadership, you know, to tell your company like, you know, let's say you had a spike in claims. Like you're on a liability line.

So it's not, you know, it's not a short tail kind of thing. And just to say like, it was this and we're over it. Well, what happens next quarter when the next slew of lawsuits comes through or those judgments didn't go the way you thought they would? Or, you know, you've got a class action. I had this happen when I was running claims is we had a class action suit. The floor had been set on those suits by the prior case. There was another one going on concurrently. We didn't think it would settle before ours did.

It did. And basically like each of these in class action, each suit in the same space kind of sets the floor for the next settlement. So it just keeps going up. And they settled for 10 times what the last one did. So all of our reserving was shot. And it was big dollars, like really, really multi-million dollar change in reserves. So that was a huge shock. So I thought back to the last quarterly reserving meeting where I presented that claim.

And I remember like the CFO nodding as, as, you know, he's hearing me give a view on it. We're holding this for it right now. Here's our reasoning for it. Yes, there's uncertainty. but we feel pretty good about that. And six weeks later, I come back about 10 times as high, nine times higher, actually. And it's like how certain was I when I made that statement?

How much was I trying to tell him like, there's no issue here, you know, move along versus just being like, look, this is what we think it is. The reality is there's risk. And I don't know. I think this is what it is. We're making our best efforts. Here's all the data behind that.

But anything can still happen because it's, it's a heated situation. I think that's really critical. I think the people who are willing to admit that and take the feedback and take the guidance and listen to your people. Like that's the first two of the three pieces of advice. One is your employees have the answers

and the others, your customers have the answers. Like you have to listen to your customers and you have to listen to your people. And if you tune them out or you tell them what they think or you tell them what the final answer is when it's still really early on and there's room for things

to move around, you're going to fail. And that's, I think that's a universal truth in leadership. Yeah, I, we need problem solvers, not people with the answers, because the answers aren't the same anymore. It's a new test. It's a whole new test. This isn't, this isn't, you know, in the, you even look 10 years ago, right? Look, five years ago.

The answers, the test was the same test. Maybe a couple of the questions changed, but the same test, it's a completely different test today. We're not taking the same. The Scantron looks different. You know, there's no one use Scantron. They're not even using number two pencils anymore, right? Like this is a completely different thing.

And, you know, I think, I think it is at all times eyes wide open, ears open, listening, learning, reacting. And really what leadership is is less about having the answers and more about willing to take responsibility. And that's what it is, I think. Yeah. And I'm hoping that our agency owners who are listening to this, you know, our producers who are writing accounts and on the front lines talking to businesses and leaders of businesses who are addressing these exact concerns. Carriers working with agents, understanding, trying to develop.

I just, you know, I look at the role insurance is going to play in the next five to 10 years in our society, I don't know that there are very many industries as important to our future as insurance. And I think both our carrier professionals, our vendors and our in our agency force needs to take that responsibility seriously because this is this is our time. Comp is going to be a disaster, a disaster. B.I. What happens when when the riots are over and they finally have a chance to come back to the B.I. Discussions and they start trying to help these companies with their B.I. It could change everything, right?

Well, and like, B.I may not have been triggered by coronavirus, and I have a view on that, but it would be by rioting. 100% or would be by looting. 100%. Yeah. 100%.

So that's a no-brainer. But what I'm talking about is they're going to come back to these discussions they were having pre-riding about whether or not B.I. is covered in COVID and whether or not carriers will just be a mechanism for distributing these dollars and all these different discussions they've had. And, you know, I don't, you know, I'm very interested in your opinion on that because I have my own as well. But like, there are, there are going to be crazy decisions made that are passed down to insurance organizations of all sizes, agents, carriers, and their vendors. And we have to be flexible.

And we need to step up because, you know, people's lives will be changed by the work that we do over the next five to 10 years. Yeah, I think that is absolutely right. There's no question about that and this is a major shift point for us and like you know a book goes into a lot of like technology and CX kind of stuff a customer experience stuff and and that's no question like that's been pressured to change we're talking about some more fundamental kind of economic demand side paradigm shifting type stuff to use lots of cliches but that's the reality um I can't remember if we had talked about this offline but like one of the other big things I've been talking about with people is, you know, there's been lots of talk about AVs, autonomous vehicles. So, you know,

the move to autonomous vehicles, shared vehicles, is personal car ownership going to go away? Or if you still have a car, but it's autonomous, it shifts from personal auto to product liability, you know, kind of coverage. So for the personal auto insurers, that's a big question mark. And a lot of them have been playing around and thinking about, you know, what do they do long term? Like CSAA, the AAA carrier out in California, you know, they're, you know, they're They're in the book and they talk about that as one of the things that they think about. Well, I don't care what any predictions are that they're like, oh, in two years, every car's going to be autonomous. The reality is that's still a ways off.

And until, like, there are enough cars off the road that are personally owned or that are autonomous. And so it's like E&O instead of personal auto, that's a ways off. Like, decade plus easily. I would say decades, but who knows. But it's a while. The average car on the road is 12 years old. So you at least need to turn over the fleet once to have a meaningful change here. But now you have something that suddenly is threatening personal car ownership for a different reason in the here and now that's not dependent on tech.

And that's everyone suddenly is at home. Like tons of coverage of that, you know, like miles driven down, frequencies down, all that. There's lots of givebacks. Like that's pretty widely known. Well, the question is what happens as people start to go back to work. simultaneously you have companies that were never for remote work that had to be okay with it, had to put all the tools in place and saw what happened as a result. And you do have a lot of companies that are like, actually, we are going to be flexible on where people work. Oh, we can

give up all these leases like nationwide. They're keeping four campuses. They're walking out of all their other leases. State Auto has two campuses in Columbus alone. Like they've got their main building and then they had additional space. They're already out of the additional space. They're redoing parts of their headquarters and consolidating in. Like a lot of carriers are looking at giving up their leases. And then, you know, that stretches to other industries like Twitter and Facebook have already said that. I know people in the creative world.

So a really interesting interview with, I think it was one with Ralph Giles, who's the head of design for Fiat Chrysler globally. And he's like, we started to see designs coming out of our designers. Like we've never, like everyone has a style. So you kind of expect when they're on this project, like their sketch is going to look like X. He's like they're coming up with totally new design languages for their style because they're working from home. So a lot of companies are thinking about that. Now, what happens if you were, you know, two income or one income earning family with two cars

because those cars were going in different directions at the same time? You had to have two cars. What if you're working from home now? So the average number of cars per person in the U.S. is 0.83. What if that drops to 0.8? So like not a big shift or 0.75. Again, like numerically, that doesn't sound like a lot. That's billions of dollars at personal auto premium.

So you start to think about that. Like, it's not AVs. It's not 20, 30 years out. That's right now. It's, you know, the average lease is three years. So how many of those cars are like, we're thinking about it. My wife and I are both working from home. My son goes to school in town.

So it's like, do we need to have two cars? So like mine's paid off. So when her lease is up, I don't know. You know, maybe maybe we downs. to one car. I ride my bike or run a lot of places too. So like, do we need cars? So there are interesting new discussion points that are going to come up that I think the industry's in for some interesting shifts. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, and then and the other interesting part is as cars go, you know, there's so many things here. Like, just think about as cars go electric, I've insured two

Teslas in the last two weeks. And right now, the way Tesla's get rated are as this highly expensive. And yeah, they're expensive to fix. And they're being, I think, I think they're being overrated personally. But as rating history starts to extend and we start to see what the crash history is on these things. And more, more auto mechanics are able to repair Teslas for less. I mean, today they get, what, one in every thousand cars that comes in, 10,000 cars that comes into an auto shop is a Tesla. So they don't know what they're dealing with. But as these cars become more frequent, the parts are on hand, the technicians understand what they're dealing with more. The cost of repair will go down.

And I think what we're going to see is dramatic, you know, I think driven cars will see, will also see a dramatic decrease in the amount of claims that we have. because anyone who's ever driven or sat in a Tesla, it's almost hard to crash. Like, it's hard. I mean, I just look at the technology and my wife's Ford Explorer. If I get too close to the car in front of me, it literally breaks for me. And I'm like, what the heck is going on? So, you know, this kind of stuff is going to be bringing, is changing the dynamic of these companies and how we serve, you know, how we serve our clients. Where do agents, you know, since agents are probably the primary listeners to this show, where do they spend their time?

If you're hawking home and autos right now, you need to have a real value proposition besides price because that market, you know, it's just think of what you're able to pull from Lexis Nexus these days. Just if the carrier has a Lexis Nexus, not if they have all the other databases built in. I mean, it's going to be pretty soon. If you have the VIN, you need nothing else. Yeah. You need nothing else. That's it. That's all you need.

Why do you even need the driver? If the car drives itself, it's a Tesla, why do you need to know who the driver is? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, I just got a competitive quote. I didn't provide them any information. I used to be insured by that carrier like a decade ago. And they even knew what my coverages were.

Now, for people in the industry, maybe we're like, dude, that's like, that's old hat. But I was blown. I was like, okay, I downloaded my deck page because I'm like, I got to make sure. And it's like, oh, how do they know what my coverage? coverage is. Well, because it's all out there. Yeah. It's all through the DMV and like that's registered information. Like it, it's available. So how are you how are you going to continue to access the information that's there, but also thinking about how the exposures change? What we were just talking about is a

frequency versus severity question. And it becomes more of a med pay issue. But yeah, the cost of repairing any car with advanced technology, like advanced safety equipment is expensive. But the real issue is going to be on the med pay side. And whether, you know, your, like, medical bills are expensive. There's no question about that. And even more complicated today. So what's your, what's your understanding of bodily injury? What if people stop getting hurt in car accidents?

Well, so there's that question too. So then like, there's, there's no question. There's a huge shift potentially coming in what auto accidents end up looking like in the actuarial experience for them. And I agree with you on Tesla. Like, plus like the sensors come down and they're highly aluminum. intensive and that's very expensive to repair. But Ford did that with the F-150 and they're going through process with that and other car companies will continue to do that. Same thing with carbon

fiber. So like, yeah, maybe five or ten years out, but the general body shop space can't deal with those cars yet, but they will be able to. Like, so, you know, as a technology and the ability to work with it comes out, it's like a Kia Stinger. I saw a repair on a front end collision with, you know, the five mile per hour bumpers activated. So not like not a major accident is like $39,000. Yeah. Which is like, that car barely costs more than that. So it's not just Teslas.

I think there's... Oh, I 100% agree with that. I like to use Tesla because everyone gets fired up. But it's perfect. But like the Stinger's not getting rated like a Tesla. No. And that's what I understand is, you know, and then you look at, you know, at some point, you look at like state minimums.

I mean, some states still have like $15,000 to $15,000 state minimums. New York is 25,000 state minimum. You can't repair a fender bender on 20. $25,000. Like you said, you bump into a Kia, a Kia, and you, now your at fault liability is maxed out. Yeah. And, you know, I, this guy I insured the other day, he had, he had a rear end accident. He rear ended, um, a Mercedes. $27,000. It was a 20 mile per hour. Like, he was going 20 miles an hour, slammed on his brakes. It was in a city environment, $27,000 because of all the sensors and get the bumper back on. And if he had state men's, he's coming out of pocket for that.

Yeah. And that's just the Mercedes. That's not even his car, right? Yeah, that's not the damage to his car. That's just the damage to the car that he hit. So it's like you think about that, you're like, if frequency goes way down, but severity is way up, how does that impact things? I mean, I'm not an actuary.

So I don't understand all the dynamics of it. but I do know that things are a change in. And I think to bring this back to your book, I think what you're talking about in here is that all these obstacles are solvable. Yes. And that mindset that you outline, I think is important because too often, I think when someone like you would come on a show like this, what people are really dialed in for is give me the three-step process.

What's the three-step process that gets me to that solution? It's like, no. Like, let's talk about the mindset. Let's talk about how they're doing it. And then you can apply those learnings and methodologies to your own business. But you're not getting a checklist to the answer. Yeah. And so this is when I get into the discussion about like, wait, your first two books are self-help

and then this one's business. It's like, okay, well, I've been in insurance for 20 years. So like this is more in my home space and the self-help stuff. There's a reason why I wrote those. But I kind of see them as the same. It's like the first two books self-help for an individual. This is self-help, but the individual is an insurer or an industry, if you will. But they approach to me is the same.

Like, there are self-help books that are out there that are like workbooks, you know, answer these three questions and add the sentences together and then you have your life mission statement or whatever. My note work that way. They're introspective. I think this is the same story. And that's why I'm not like question is fraud, answer is shift done exactly like CNA did. It's like, no, you're not CNA.

So it can't be exactly the way CNA did it. even just the people are different. So it is like, well, what are you facing? Okay, here are some things you need to think about to guide you. Like, how do you engage with your customers to learn more instead of presuming what they want? Sheffey from Coverger said in the weekly roundup the other day, she's like, this is an industry within different customers. If you're working on things that customers don't care about, stop it.

And obviously, there's some things you have to work on that customers don't care about. like so it's it's not as black and white in that but if it's a CX thing if it's a customer facing thing stop it because they don't care yeah so why are you because you said they care well did they say that and we've all been guilty of that you know I worked on something with uh like the fourth thing customers wanted was what we were working on and of course it got spun in the presentation's like one of the top five things is like no it's like 20 percent wanted that 80 percent wanted the first thing and you're not even paying attention to that because that felt too hard. You know, it's, so one, I have to give a shout out to Sheffi. I adore her work. I also disagree

with her a lot of times, but she is the one of the best provocateurs in our entire industry. And it was, and I know it was a provocative statement. Yeah. She's the best at those. Yeah. Her, her and her wrong. Two of her. And I, I, I really like, I, I once had, Avi and Avi called me, one time and we were just, you know, not out of the blue, but we were just talking. And we probably talked for like two and a half hours just wrapping. I never talked to him before. He's another one of those guys and Jeffie's the same way. But to her point, you know, that's been one of the biggest lessons that I've learned owning my own agency. Yeah. Because when I started building this thing, I was like, this is what customers want and this and at the end of the day, you know what customers

want to not have to think about this. That's it. They don't care if you do it in paper. They don't care about e-sign. They don't care about any of that crap. Anyone who, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, they use it, but they use whatever you tell them to use. If I sent them an application in the mail and said, hey, sign it and stick it in the mail and send it back, they'd be like, okay, no problem. I'm good. Okay, no problem.

Like they want, you know, phone, all this stuff. Like, it's, yes, there is a shift in what in some of the things, but what they really want is to not have to worry about this. They want to know that it's taken care of. And that to me has been this mind shift where I was working on all this stuff and this funnels and this automation. And I'm looking at the analytics and I'm going, no one gives a shit. Yeah. They're not even looking at the freaking video proposal things that I'm doing.

I'm serious. I'm not even watching them. And I just think it's crazy because I know people and I'm sure they're not lying. This is just a one case study to your point. was, or one thing, video proposals are the future of personal lines insurance. I had someone say that. And I know that that person believes it. And I love that person to death.

And I do not doubt that their experience has been that. Yeah. My experience thus far could not be farther from the truth. Yeah. You know, I've sold every personal lines policy I've sold so far has been emailing a PDF and jumping on the phone with them. Not Zoom, not video proposals. I even sold one belly to belly across the kitchen table.

Like I guess, you know, so from my perspective, I completely agree with you like and Chefy for that matter. Like we need to stop working on the shit that we're being told we should work on and work on the stuff that our clients actually want us to work on. Right. Right. And I think they want choice in that. And that came out in the USAA case is like if someone wants to talk to us,

we need to do that. And if they don't, we need to do that too. And if they want one and switch to the other or CSAA, like the case there is about offering lift vouchers instead of a rental car because not everyone wants. Like I lived in the city in Boston. I couldn't get a rental car because I couldn't park it anywhere. Yeah. And the insurer probably wouldn't have paid for me to put it in a lot for like 40 bucks at night. Yep.

So I don't want a rental car. But Lyft didn't exist back then, but I would have loved to get Lyft credits. I love that. But you know what? Sometimes you need both. And they initially were like, it's one or the other. and they're like, oh, the body shop called them last minute after they returned the rental car to be like, oh, you know what? We just found a problem with the pain. It needs, you know, we need to touch it up and let a cure for another day.

They're like, well, now I don't have a rental car and the place just closed. I need a ride. Well, how about we get flexible because they chose one path. We're not going to lock them into that because our intention is to get them from point A to point B in their life because that's what the coverage should be about. So having that flexibility. And on the video stuff, man, I hope it doesn't go that way. My bank just said, me an escrow analysis as a video. I'm like, I don't have 12 minutes. I just need to know what the number is. Like, do your video, but can you just send me the information? I don't want to sit through this. And it's like flowers and the sun is shining. I'm like, you're taking more money from me. I don't need the little animation. Can you just tell me what it costs? Yeah. Yeah, I get, I, and there are people who want that, right? And there are people who want that. And I think,

you know, just to kind of wrap this conversation up, which is Benjamin, we could talk for another hour. but like, I think that you said it. This is not a time for humor, hubris. It's a time for humility. And I think a willingness to be flexible to what your customers want, knowing that if you have 10 customers, that could be 10 different customer experiences, 10 different paths.

Yeah. You go 10 for 10, all different. And being able to receive all of them, that takes humility. because oftentimes we want to shove them down a path because our hubris tells us that's the way it should be. And I think that's the failing because I say all this. Yet the most recent proposal, which I'm hoping the guy signs today or tomorrow, was a video proposal. That's what he wanted. He said, I don't want to get on the phone.

I'd rather do email or text. So I did a video proposal for him. But the first 20 that I signed, they not, not a single one of them wanted it, nor did they care. And, you know, so it's like it is about, I. I think having the humility to be flexible, I think you're completely right on that. And I just couldn't agree with that point more. Yeah.

No, that's awesome. Yeah, we could totally talk for hours. And then we can bring Avi in and go for like six hours. That'd be fun. So all right. So people have listened to the show. They're obviously bought into what you're doing. They want to get the book.

They want to learn more about you. Where do they do that? So the book's available everywhere. Pre-order right now coming out June 24th. And you can, you know, Kindle, Audible, like all that. The Audible's coming. Or you just go to future dash of dash insurance.com. You got to use the dashes.

And you learn more about the book. You can see the carriers that are in it. You can get a link to the pre-orders. And I'm adding them as each one of those channels comes online. So it's feature dash of dash insurance.com. Sweet. So we'll have the links up in the show notes. If that doesn't, you can't remember that, although you should be able to remember that.

Or just go to Amazon and pre-order the. book and push push the rankings up you want to have a best seller here on the show we always like to yeah everyone a bestseller and i don't think you can go wrong guys i mean i'm telling you like even if you're an agent and you don't nerd out on the carrier stuff you're going to learn how to solve problems i've already you know or i shouldn't say learn how to solve problems but you're going to learn how these companies are solving problems i'm telling you it's going to open your eyes to to what i think is and and obviously what brian does as well is the is how we're going to to get past these obstacles moving forward. Yeah. And maybe, you know, some of those listeners will be

in round two of the book because I do believe we as an industry have the capacity and the intelligence to keep moving this forward. And there's cool insights going on every day. And I want to keep hearing them. So yeah, like I want people to get the book, but I want them to do something with it. And then I want to hear from them. I want to know how you're, how you're innovating, how you're evolving and changing despite all that we face. Yeah. So guys, great follow on LinkedIn. Follow on LinkedIn. get on the newsletter, go check everything out. I'll have all the links up in the show notes, but absolutely grab this book.

You're not going to be disappointed and connect with Brian on LinkedIn because always sharing good stuff. And that's, I think, where I originally just came across your work and been a fan ever since, man. So thanks for spending some time with us. Yeah, thanks a lot, Ryan. And ditto, man.

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