The Ryan Hanley Show - RHS 099 - Bob Frady on How to Use Hazard Risk Data to Win at Insurance

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comIn this episode of The Ryan Hanley Show, Bob Frady, CEO & Founder of HazardHub, joins the podcast to discuss the value of hazard risk data and why the secret to the future of insurance success is putting data to use for your business. This is an episode you don't want to miss…Episode Highlights: Bob mentions why January was an interesting month for them. (4:09) Bob shares why people think that they’re significantly larger. (7:50) Bob shares how HazardHub was created. (13:24) Bob mentions a couple of things they’ve figured out. (19:04) Bob mentions the focus of their business. (22:32) Bob shares why being an entrepreneur is not easy. (25:37) Bob explains why data is significant nowadays. (30:10) Bob Explains the risk of data being incorrect. (40:03) Bob shares the product they built called Agent Risk View. (50:21) Key Quotes: “Spending time on a spreadsheet, planning stuff out to me is not nearly as effective as going to some fundraiser that you think is a waste of time. Because you just never know what's going to happen. You know what's going to happen on your spreadsheet, but your spreadsheet doesn't run the world... Showing up, that's what runs the world.” - Bob Frady “Have an idea, draw it, put it down on paper, show it to people, and if people give you the thumbs up, ask them to pay for it. See what happens. It’s not particularly genius ethic, it's just pragmatic.” - Bob Frady “Human beings are social animals, and you have to understand that. Understand people first and then selling, rather than become a sales expert and not understand people.” - Bob Frady Resources Mentioned: Bob Frady LinkedIn HazardHub Agent Risk View Reach out to Ryan Hanley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. Today's episode we have a tremendous guest, Bob Frady, the CEO and founder of Hazard Hub. Hazard Hub is a national database of geographic risk hazards including earth, sinkhole, brownfield, wind, water-based risks, fire-based risks, man-made risks. If it can impact a piece of property, Hazard Hub has that data and both carriers, channel partners from across the board are using their information to better assess risk, better underwrite risk. And being the data is so important to the ecosystem today, the insurance ecosystem. And Bob just seems like a smart guy. I thought it would be tremendous to have him on the show, and it was. I very much enjoyed this

conversation. I think you will as well. On that note, big shout out to today's sponsor, the data sponsor of this show, Donna by Arius Analytics. Donna is helping me better understand our clients, our client interactions with Rogue, what we can be doing better, where there are opportunities, where certain clients may be interacting with us in a way that there needs some sort of intervention, and ultimately helping us provide a better customer experience through the use of data and the things that are happening in our agency right now in real time. Their centimeter score technology is revolutionary. It is basically the same concept as a net promoter score at a high level, but in real time. You don't have to send out a survey. It's based on the text messages, the emails,

the phone calls, the policy changes, the cancellations, the claims, the new policies, the velocity of new policies. All this is churned into their algorithm and out comes this center meter score, which helps you understand the sentiment of that particular client towards your agency at that particular moment. And it's impressive stuff. So if you want to learn more, just Google Donna for agents, go online, go to Donna for agents into your Google machine, Donna for agents, and you will see Donna by Aries analytics. And I just can't speak highly enough about them. The integrations that they're creating are going to change the game. All right, let's get on to Bob Frady. I keep saying I'm waiting for the days to not be so busy, but I don't know when that's actually going to happen. I think I have to stop

thinking that that's ever going to be a reality. Well, you know, the problem is when they stop getting busy, you think of more things and then the cycle continues. That's 100% true. I, you know, one of the things that I have like a couple people who I have regular calls with, you know, either mentors or peers, you know, and it, the conversations always cycle back to like, I am, I am so bad about, um, I'm so, I'm not, I don't, I just, I can't get below 10,000 feet on a project. It's like, once it gets to 10,000 feet, like, I just assumed someone else is going to take it. Like, I just, I'm like, someone else needs to take this. Like, I've gotten it here to 10,000 feet, like, I just assumed someone else is going to take it. Like, I just, I'm like, someone else needs to take this. Like I've gotten it here.

Like I took it from outer space to here. So someone else landed, I'm onto the next thing that needs to be brought down. And, um, you know, it's just always another thing. So that's the entrepreneur's dilemma. It's like, you, you want to do everything and you can't do everything. Yeah. And the same thing happens with us. It's January was a particularly interesting month because we just fired off nine new product ideas. And it was like, these are all year long projects, but it's like, well, it's a good idea.

So I'm really good at creating the chaos that my team solves. And thankfully I have them. Um, but it's like it's a good idea so i'm really good at creating the chaos that my team solves and thankfully i have them um but it's it's constant i'm constantly thinking of stupid stuff to aggravate my team with yeah so yeah i gotta tilt that up so yeah i get it i am um my team is is rapidly growing for the exact same reason. I'm a hype man. Like I basically, somebody asked me one time, like, what is it that you actually do? And I was like, if you really boil it down, I'm just good at hype.

Yeah. I'm just really like a hype guy. This is what I do. I hype stuff up, come up with marketing and sales ideas. The problem with that is there's always another thing to sell. There's always another way to sell it, right? So it's just, my team is rapidly growing because, you know, things are working. But at the same time, I am not in any way interested in like, like to me, when I wake

up, like I know people, there's a lot of insurance people, right? They wake up and like, they're going to close a deal today. I'm not going to eat today until I close a deal. Yeah. I'm like, I don't know. know it just does that doesn't mean anything to me i know you have to do that i know that's like the game but like there's so many other pieces that are more interesting to me like i'm just like i'm gonna let someone else close the deal that's fine if that gets someone jacked up let them go do that so you know it's so funny that um you know we're a privately held company and bootstrapped and all that stuff and yet we still use those same constructs that public companies use like

how much have you sold this month how much have you sold this quarter and what's your quarter over quarter growth yeah it doesn't even matter you know if it if something comes in today or if something comes in next month it doesn't matter as long as it comes in and and to sort of unwind all that stress and it just causes a bunch of stress yeah um to unwind that has been a fun part of the business it's like you want you want me to project my revenues i'm'm like, okay, I'll project it. I know the horses are coming back into the barn, but they're not quite ready to leave the field just yet. It's okay.

Yeah, it is funny. I'm the same way with projections, and I get why public companies have to do it, and it's why most public companies end up being unexciting and uninspired because they live on a quarterly basis. But I just, I've, every time I talk to a new carrier or something, they're always like, well, how much revenue, what do you think you're going to do this year? As much as I can, what, I don't know, you know, I have no idea. I think these people are like, we're going to do 1.2 million. And look, if you

know, God bless you. But I also think that you're probably losing some because you spend so much time planning what you're going to write. When are you actually writing it? When are you marketing it? When are you, you know, I find that these really well-oiled, meticulously outlined companies are also the ones who like can't find time to do a YouTube video or, you know, go to a charity fundraiser event or something. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. I think you, you either embrace the chaos and, and just ride it or you don't. And, uh, you know, you put up up maybe you put a ceiling on how big a wave you can ride i don't know it it's a it's funny people think that we are significantly larger than we are and it's because we show up every day you know we do social media every day

not as excited as you are in your videos video Video still confuses me, but we have some video. But every day we publish something. Every weekday, we take the weekends off now. And so that constancy of touch points, it wins. That's how insurance companies build their brand, is they just keep repeating messages over and over. You know, the products are largely undifferentiated in the personal lines market you know car insurance car insurance homeowners insurance homework it's not that much different so how do they win with this terrible

process a painful process of acquisition is they just keep repeating the name and and you learn from that and you just keep repeating your name. You keep showing up. Be that guy in the background who's like, I know that guy from somewhere. He's at like every game. You know, that just keeps showing up is our number one method of selling. Yeah. Show up and stuff will happen. Which is not really the most diligent way to do things, but it's worked for us. But it just show up.

And so spending time on a spreadsheet, planning stuff out to me is not nearly as effective as going to some fundraiser that you think is a waste of time because you just never know what's going to happen. Yeah. You know, what's going to happen on your spreadsheet, but your spreadsheet doesn't run the world showing up. That's what runs the world. And, don't show up. And it kills me that people don't show up. And you don't have to do it face to face. You can do it digitally. You can do it on a phone call, but you got to show up. And I think that not to be critical of the agent community, but sometimes agents just don't show up.

Yeah. Most of them don't. And you can be critical. People are used to that. I'm critical of them all the time on this show. I love them. That's why I, that's why I give them so much flack. I completely agree with you that the magic of serendipity lies in consistency. And, and that's the part that I think so many people miss is the number of false start content projects in the insurance industry is you know it's uncountable right i'm gonna do this and then it never happens and i they i do content but i do one a month should i be doing more than one a

month you know i said to them on the other day, I said, if you know, they asked me how often should they be posting? And I said, every day. And they said, wow, that seems like a lot. And I said, well, okay, I'm posting every day. So if you want to be better than me, you gotta, you gotta post at least that much. And all our direct and captive competition are posting every single day. And every, almost every one of our carriers are posting every day. And these are just the other, the other insurance noise, not to mention Johnny's birthday party and Tammy's new haircut. And, uh, Sally's got doing pull-ups and in a video that she's doing and people are looking at that. And if we can't cut through that noise, uh, the only way to cut through that noise is like you said, is to show up, be consistent and let serendipity run its course. And I, you know, there's there is literally no other way to explain my career in this industry other than showing up and the serendipity that's a result of it, because I don't I never had a plan. There was no plan. I mean, I'd like to believe I have

somewhat of a plan today, but let's say the first 16 years or so, there's no plan. There was no like, oh, I want to be the CEO of this or that. No plan. It was just forward. And it's funny how far you can get just by leaning forward and going so oh yeah it's people love these plans like the plans are going to magically magically make things happen and for certain people though they're great and and for others of us i've written plans before then i've gone back and read them. I'm like, who wrote this plan? This is stupid. It's like the moment I've just always found I've done corporate planning at different times with different companies. And I just find the moment you walk out of the room, you're like, well, now we just need to go do the next thing that we need to do. Like,

who cares that the plan says we need to do this five times or whatever. This is what needs to get done over here. So I don't give a shit what the plan says. need to do this five times or whatever. This is what needs to get done over here. So I don't give a shit what the plan says. Whatever, you know, this is not why I wanted to have you on. I am. So I, you know, obviously I've seen you and I've seen hazard hub and I've seen what you've been doing. And, um, you know, and then I think I get, people always ask me like, how do you pick

your guests? And it's often not as sophisticated a reason as one would think. You liked one of Jennifer Linton's posts or announcements or something about Fenris Digital. And I was like, oh shit, I got to have Bob on. I've been wanting to learn about Hazard Hub and what you do and talk to you because you put so much content out and stuff. So that was it, man. I just wanted to connect with you and learn more about, you know, so maybe for my own edifice. I mean, I've read I've gone to the website and I've read

the material, but I just love to know, like, one, where did it come from? And two, what problem are you solving for people? Well, it's been an interesting genesis. My co-founder and I, we're a little bit older than most entrepreneurs. And my co-founder and I met 30 years ago at a company called National Decision Systems. And we did geospatial modeling. So what's at this point, what's's around it and how much traffic can you generate to that point so it's not anything that's new to us understanding what's around a property at and around a property and then fast forward about 15 years ago I guess it was now we were working

together at CoreLogic he was running sales he asked me to come in and and run a couple of things and my former mother-in-law's house flooded and so i dug up all the data and i saw that she wasn't in a flood zone but she was right next to one and so i asked her like did anyone ever tell you that you were right next to a flood zone and she said no you know the insurance agent didn't tell her because they don't cover flood and personal lines. And the bank didn't tell her because she wasn't in the flood zone. And I thought, well, that sucks. Why don't people know this stuff? And so we went to the folks at CoreLogic and said we should build a consumer product. And they said they didn't want to.

So we left and saw that there was a ton of, and then I went over into the MarTech world. So I built LiveNation's email infrastructure. I was the global director of communications for, outbound communications for Expedia. I worked for a lead gen company in San Diego building technology and technology systems. And noticed this all market, MarTech is great at moving around large quantities of data. Nobody was using it in insurance.

And then all this new data was coming down the pipe and nobody could absorb it. So we, John and I, and our third co-founder, Brady, who's our science genius, all sat down and said, well, why don't we just build something and see what happens? So I have a theory that you can change your life for $1,000. And it's true. Because we invested $1,000 in some drawings. I sketched them out. I hired a designer.

I said, turn this into something that's visually appealing. And she was great. she did a great job and so we took those plans they weren't they didn't even work took the plans and we showed it to some people and said what do you think and they said that's pretty cool we'd buy that I'm like well how about a down payment so they paid us and that was our first check in 2017 for our first year revenue was 35 000 and it was a prepayment for from one of our customers and we've used that to fund the growth of the business so people are like how do i get started how do i do this it's like have an idea draw it put it down on paper show it to people and if people give you the thumbs up ask them to pay for

it see what happens it's not it's not particularly genius ethic it's just just pragmatic and so we uh that's how we started it's just we want to tell you all the bad stuff that can happen to a property so wind hail tornado lightning wildfire whatever it happens to be and then through that we tell you a whole lot more like where's the fire station where's the fire hydrant what are the characteristics of the property um what are the building permits that have been pulled for this property which is a new um a new ball of wax I built for the team to, to, to blots through. So it's, did that, did that explain it? Yeah, no, I love that dude. So I want to talk a little bit about the, about the startup story part. I, I think

it's funny. So, so I'm in my, this is my first startup. That's mine. I've worked for other startups, but other people had founded them. And what's interesting to me is, I think, and I was reluctant at this as well, and made some of these mistakes super early, is there's this idea that you are expected to be a certain level of sophistication as a startup, you know, in order to be taken seriously. And it's almost like the farther I've gotten into this, the more like when I first founded it, I first founded Rogue, I thought I had to be like super legit, you know, everything. And as I, what I realized is that over time, like over time, I realized people just, they just want what you do to work. And those in the, and especially in the, in the early days, they, they, they're so willing to buy

into, um, your, what you're trying to do that it's, it's almost worse if you're overly sophisticated, because that just locks you into things. Like there's tools that I bought that I'm paying for today that if I could get rid of tomorrow, I would, because they don't necessarily fit what I'm trying to do. But at the time I was like, oh, this will help me get there. And if I don't have this, then I can't, you know, who am, and it's just not that way. I just, everything starts with a sale. And, and if you, if you have an idea that you can sell to somebody, you have a business and it doesn't even matter. It doesn't matter if you have a computer or it doesn't matter what tools you have. If you can sell an idea to

somebody, you have a business. And I love that. I, what a, you know, a couple of things we'd figured out. People love to buy stuff. They love to buy stuff, but sometimes they just hate to be, to feel like they're being sold. You know, listen, a great salesperson will encourage the buyer's enthusiasm about buying without making it seem like they're being sold. Because when you sell somebody something, it creates retention problems with that customer. But if you let them buy it and let them be enthusiastic about it, then your retention problems go way, way down. And so when you have that kind of a philosophy, it takes the pressure off a little bit. You know, your, your goal isn't to sell something. Your goal is to ignite your, your,

your buyer's desire to buy things. And, and that's, it's a different philosophy for us. So, and then the other part of it is we knew that we weren't for everybody so you have to spend time finding people who see things your way and just ignore everybody else yeah you can you can you can cuss at them under your breath if you want to but it's like you just don't get it and if you don't get it that's okay we're not expecting you to get it because there's enough people over here who get it that i don't need to worry about you for a couple of years and hopefully in a couple of years you'll get it yeah and and like we see this boomeranging happen now we're starting to see it now where people who initially approached us in 2018 you know are now

coming back and saying well tell me about that problem you're solving before and and it's just it's not gonna have the book up on my shelf but um oh son of a gun um the chat the the chasm the chasm oh the chasm yeah crossing the chasm by by uh now i'm gonna forget the name but i've read the book like three times and now i can't remember what oh here it is right here by uh by jeff yeah um that idea that you just said is it's like if you were to take I mean there's a lot of awesome no one's gonna see this I'm holding the book up like anyone's gonna like I produce the video I don't produce the video but um you know that that's like the core idea right and I think that is a mistake that I certainly made early on that it was like I just I just need to write business I just need to get people on the books if If they think it fog a mirror, I'm going to go spend three

hours trying to figure out how to write a, you know, a dynamite mine in, you know, Southern, uh, Nevada, even though I'm not licensed there, you know what I mean? It's like all these crazy things. And, um, you waste so much time on that stuff versus, you know, hey, not a good fit. You know, do another Google search. You'll find someone else. Here's who we help, how we help them and what we do. And, you know, that is a very tough lesson. Some people kind of get it immediately.

Other people, it feels like they've learned it. But I feel like far too often, especially early, that is not something the importance of that is not pressed upon people, especially new producers, new agency owners, new business owners, new startup owners, that that concept is not pressed upon them hard enough. I wish that I had someone like, with their thumb on me just saying, do not sell to anyone who doesn't fit this box, you know, and just move on because then you can move faster and be better for people. It's, it's a question of focus. You know, a lot, we get a lot of people telling us a lot of different things about a lot of different spaces

where our data could fit. And I tell them all the time, I'm like, you know, we're small and we're focused. And this is all we focus on. We only focus on property and cash day insurance. Now we have a real estate customer. We have some inspection customers, but they come to us. We don't go to them. And now we're going to introduce this sea level rise data set in a couple of months and the banking industry will open up because now statutorily they have to account for climate change and this is probably the biggest manifestation of climate change as the sea's rising and i don't have the bandwidth to go after it and that's okay you know it's okay uh i'll get it at some point but focus focus focus focus focus it's mr miyagi focus power you know it's like i hate to use the karate kid as motivation but you know it's like

walk down left side okay walk down right side okay walk down the middle squish like a grape you know it's and too many people are trying to walk on all sides of the road at the same time yeah instead of picking their lane staying in your lane but but but you have to know what your lane is and sometimes it takes a while to figure out exactly what your lane is i think that's fair i i think that's i think that's i think that is an important caveat to to the statement that I made in that I think it's okay early on to flail a little bit and be comfortable with it because, you know, I started this agency. I'm going to be middle market commercial guy, right? I'm interested in it. I do have kind of a nerdy love for property casualty. And I found that I just don't love prospecting it. I don't love, I don't love the, I just don't love it.

And plus there's other people that are better at it. And there's other people who love it more than I do. Right. Right. I think that's part of it. I don't love marketing to it. It's just not as interesting to me. But there's a segment of the population on the commercial line side that I really like. I don't

particularly care for personal lines. I kind of am interested in home and property insurance, but auto, I have zero interest in auto, you know? So it's like funny how none of this is particularly important other than early on. I don't know that I could have defined all these things in a year, even just a year later. And i'm sure a year from now and a year from now it'll become more refined how a willingness to flail and make some mistakes and whatever or chase some rabbits and and pull back um you do start to narrow in on where you're going to be but if you don't allow yourself that uh it kind of goes back to what we were initially talking about you know kind of uh embracing the chaos uh if you don't if you don't allow yourself that, uh, it kind of goes back to what we were initially talking about, you know, kind of, uh, embracing the chaos. Uh, if you don't, if you don't allow yourself a little bit of chaos, then how the heck are you going to figure out what you like, you know? Yep. Yep.

Exactly. It's a tough, listen, being an entrepreneur isn't easy. Um, sometimes you come in with a complete focus. Okay. I've worked for an agency. I know everything that happens inside of an agency. Now I'm going to start my own agency and this is the map I'm going to use. And I'm going to take some customers with me. That's, that's one way to do it. Or I'm going to take over somebody else's book of business, which is really, it's a form of entrepreneurship, but it's, you're taking over something that already existed. When you go ground up with something, you know, you, you got to figure out what's your sweet spot and you got to talk to a lot of people. And, you know, I've, I've sat through a bunch of insure tech pitches and after some of them,

I'm like, I just watched you for five minutes and I still have no idea what you do. And those are the kind of companies where if the technology is great, then there's an opportunity to go in with a good management team and really grow them because they get it technologically, but they don't get it from a showing up standpoint. Yeah. But it makes me feel bad. These people are brilliant. people way smarter than me and you can't get it off the ground because they don't communicate yeah and and that is you get more out of just jibber-jabbering with somebody than you do from a focused presentation yeah presentation is one way set of communications too many times just talk to people

ask them what bugs them see if you can help them out because people like to help each other out it's it's it's human beings are social animals and you have to understand that understand people first and then selling rather than become a sales expert and not understand people first and then selling rather than become a sales expert and not understand people which is why i think everybody should go to school and study anything except business i don't think people should listen i was an economics major so what am i talking about but people should learn how to think learn how to understand people learn how to communicate that's the key for success all All this stuff about, you know, business training when you're 18 or 19 years old, like, come on.

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listening as much as I do, creating the show for you. All right, I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode. I feel like college should be, should, should start at like age 25. Like it should be at like 25. You should go to college because going to college at 18 is ridiculous. I, I would love college today. I would love it. Not, not for the partying for like, I would love to go sit in a room and have someone who's way smarter than me on a particular topic, explain everything they know about that topic that I get to choose because I'm just super

interested in it. And they tell me the right books to read. And then, you know know that would be amazing um today but at 18 all i want i it was the exact opposite you know i mean i took nothing away from my college experience other other than how to handle you know 30 beers in an eight hour period and still be functional so you know i mean there wasn't a whole lot of a lot i mean although that does play a functional role in your life there's a margin understanding when to say when yes that's pretty much I got all gone out of college so let's so so uh so okay so I want to get back to data in general sure and we've you know it this has been one of the hot button you know if you were to hashtag data and like google trends in the insurance industry I feel like you can't post on LinkedIn without hashtagging data somewhere in it.

Everyone's trying to use data. You have really interesting data projects happening. I think a lot of agents hear this term, they feel almost, it's almost, they're a little burnt out on it, right? They're not, I think a lot of people aren't really sure what it means, how to use it. So I'd love to kind of start at the baseline. You know, we have these projects like Neon and then you have other tools like Donna in the retail space that are trying to take data, make it a little more functional, a little more usable.

What, why today? What is it about right now that data has become such a hot topic? I don't believe that most people know how to use it yet, but it is certainly a term and a concept that is starting to hit people's consciousness. Why do you think it is? Like what's happening right now that's making it that? I think that there's a few things that are coming together. The first is that actuarial models have a glaring weakness. They have an Achilles heel. And the Achilles heel to any actuarial model is that you have to populate it with information or with data. So what happens is the agent spends a lot of time just gathering that data.

It's inefficient. It's hard to do in scale. It's a pain in the neck. And so data is really meant to reduce that level of friction. For example, you could have somebody walk in the door and we'll use a small commercial example. And you can ask them 50 questions if they want to answer them. Or you can say, here's what we see about your business. We've got this, we've got this, we've got this. Oh, by the way, you've got some flood risks, so let's make sure that you're covered. You've got these perils that attack your property. And this is a package that helps to address those needs and to help them sell faster and better

by getting rid of all the stupid stuff. Like every moment that an agent spends on Google searching for data is a wasted moment that you could be, that you could be selling something or talking to not even selling. You can be talking to people, you know? And, and so when I see an agent searching for the nearest fire station on Google maps, I'm like, Hey, it's not the most accurate source in the world. B, it's a waste of time. And so what we're trying to do from our standpoint is to provide a lot of

those elements that you would maybe dig up on your own, but just provide it instantaneously or near instantaneously. And so you don't have to mess with that. We've got carrier partners now who are down to three or four questions because all the data is pre-filled on the back. We're right at the top of the funnel. As soon as the lead comes in, they know whether they want to talk to that person and how much they want to talk to them. But then they'll focus on questions like, do you have a dog? You know, does he bite? He's not my dog, you know, sorry, Pink Panther reference, and shows my age. Do you have, you know, what's the build

quality inside of your house? Is it really high level? Is it low level? You know, the things that really can make a difference in the pricing, they focus on those because they don't have to focus on all the other stuff. You can see a picture and tell whether somebody has a pool or not, or you can look at the permits and you can see whether they have solar. You can tell a lot. So reducing friction, because here's the other thing that I see happening from the insurtech side is on the personal line side, HIPPO and KIN especially have broken the code. And the code is that if you intelligently use data and you intelligently design a UI, you can rapidly reduce the friction in getting a homeowner's policy. And that makes insurance convert from being sold to being bought.

And that's a sea change that people may or may not be aware of. Now in commercial, it gets, it gets trickier. Like I've got a statement of value with 30 locations on it. How do I handle it? And right now it's a manual process. We're working with some technology so that you can send it to us and we'll shoot it back to you within five minutes with all of the data on it that helps you understand that portfolio. And I think what insure techs are trying to do is convert the process from this is a product that's sold to this is a product that's bought. And just like we saw with Amazon, it completely changes the industry. Now, a lot of people will say, yeah, yeah, yeah. Heard this before, blah, blah, blah. And to a certain extent, they're right.

But there's lots of false starts that come before the eventual success you know other people were working on the light bulb before thomas edison got it straightened out you know or his team you know it's it takes time but it's coming and so the agent has to figure out what's my spot in this you know if this easy stuff is, is automated, what's my role? You know, and it's a, it's a tricky question for a lot of agents to answer because they're not active enough with their customers. Yeah, I, uh, it's man, it's a lot of what you just said is part of why I started this agency. I don't know how familiar are you with, with why I started rogue agency. I don't know how familiar are you with why I started Rogue, but I started Rogue because having been both a boots on the ground producer for a very traditional agency, incredibly well run, but traditional, having been at Trust of Choice

and Agency Nation and then Bold Penguin and then so on and having met all these different people from all these different spaces, everywhere from brand new producers at local agencies to CEOs of some of the biggest companies in our space and everyone in between, I realized right away that the value proposition of local, which most agents have misconstrued with relationship, is not the future of our industry. And I think it's very important to make that distinction. Yes, relationships are important, right? I see this and I still today see this in all these different forums. This is a relationship business. We're never going to be disintermediated. And I'm not saying they will be disintermediated or disrupted.

Here's what I know for fact, the agency that your dad built, you cannot build today. You cannot build that agency today. That my value proposition is I'm within 20 miles of you. That is not a value proposition today. It's lingering to the agencies who were built in that manner, but it's diminishing because right now I can pop into the neighborhood of an agency in Arkansas and market as if I was their next door neighbor. And that person doesn't know the difference. And if they get on the phone with me, other than the fact that my accent might be a little different, they don't know the difference between whether I'm a down the street from them or sitting in New York. And that to me says the future may be relationship, but it's not, you know, palm to palm, you sitting in my office, us having a cup of coffee for an hour.

Okay. So, so that all being said, I, my whole philosophy was in creating Rogue was what I call a human optimized agency. Take the best aspects of digital and the best aspects of what makes a human part of the transaction and marry them together. And I say to every one of my carrier partners, why do you ask, why in the world do you ask me when the plumbing was updated in the building? Yeah. That's the stupidest question I've ever heard. And here's why.

It's not stupid because I get why they ask. They want to make sure it's not galvanized. No agent in the world, none. I don't care. Every single one of them listening, if you're a carrier person, every one of your appointed agents, none of them is going, yeah, this plumbing hasn't been updated in 40 years because you know what you're going to do you're going to decline the account you know what they need to do sell the accounts you know what they're going to put somewhere within 10 years whether it's accurate or not so the other thing

too is in america there's no there's no places where you can have 40 year old plumbing anymore you have to update it if you're going to change a window. So it's like, I just, I listen to you and I'm like, why hasn't, and this is an honest question. Why haven't every carrier, why hasn't, why aren't you the standard? Why isn't this, why are we still asking all these ridiculous questions? Yeah. Why is it happening? I mean, it's, to to me this is such a no-brainer yep why is it why isn't it just why haven't we gotten past this yet well to be fair the data is not all together in one place just yet um with the advent of of inclusion of um

permit data we hope to get closer to, but it's not all quite there yet. But you've exposed the Achilles heel of actuarial models. It's dependent upon human input. So if the human inputs the wrong data, you get a certain answer. And someone saying, I need to sell this policy. I need to close deal today. So I'm going to say it's less than 10 years. That's the inherent weakness. So I think that, but the other understanding is that insurance has worked for a long time, just doing things the same old way. So the business model largely hasn't changed in 300 years.

And it's worked very well. You know, carriers are big and they have a lot of money to spend on things like advertising. But it works. And so people, you know, people in the insurance industry, at carriers especially, they don't get rewarded for being right. They get rewarded for not being wrong. And so that mentality inhibits doing things differently. Because listen, I don't want to be the one who stuck their neck out to pre-pop all this data and then have the building have a plumbing meltdown because the data was incorrect. It's like the data is going to be incorrect no matter

what happens. Whether somebody's reporting it wrong or whether the data source doesn't have it, you still run that same risk. So it's a question that I think the insure techs are answering more rapidly than the traditionals and listen you can only advertise so much and the traditionals are going to get their ass handed to them over the next 10 years by these people who are like we're data nerds we're just going to let the data tell the story and then we'll we'll give you a price and it'll happen eventually but these guys you know a lot of times they can't even take an api inside their internal systems because they're just they're just designed you know so poorly well they're not designed so poorly they've come to the end of their shelf life and and you know to replace it is an enormous cost. So we hope that that's the case.

It should be the case. We're the fun and friendly guys of hazard data. But it's just, and the other thing is, to knock on our brethren in this space, the data is ridiculously expensive and it shouldn't be. We call ourselves the new television set of data because we're lighter faster cheaper better and have a brighter resolution than the traditional suppliers it's like you know you go into costco and you see a giant tv that costs

a third of what you paid for your last tv you know that's what's happening with data yet the cost structures of the traditional providers don't allow that to happen and it's what's happening with data yet the cost structures of the traditional providers don't allow that to happen and it's it's way too expensive and you in what people will say is well we'll just wait until it gets down to the bottom of the funnel and then we'll put the data on it which is the dumbest thing of all because if you have the data at the top of the funnel you can make better decisions about what you do at different steps in the funnel. Yeah, I completely agree. And I'm like, this is very logical thinking, not necessarily logical thinking to the insurance industry.

That's okay. We're playing the long game. We're trying to change things. But yeah, there's a lot of silliness that goes on. So, you know, what's been interesting to me is, you know, we're, we're, I guess we're, we're a digital agency, to be honest with you. I don't even really think of myself every day. I probably think of myself less as an agency and more just as an insurance business, which probably is leaning more on technology backed by humans than it is a traditional agency in any sort so when i look

at that and i start to look at the players in the market and who can help us and you know i still have carriers that in order to transact business with them i have to go to internet explorer and use internet explorer you know and they're going to talk about data security and i'm like you guys are using the least secure it they don't even make updates for it anymore. Browser to, you know, how, what are we doing? Like, I don't understand. You know what I mean? It just, that stuff's difficult, but there are, I got a data security audit from a carrier who shall remain nameless. And I found the creation date and it was 2006.

You know, things have changed a bit since 2006 yeah yeah and i'm like like and we're an api driven company and one of the first questions is you know where your data center is located i'm like i don't know they're in amma they're in aws i think they're somewhere in ohio i don't know exactly where they're located because amazon doesn't tell me exactly where they're located and i'm like i'm fine with that i trust aws and so these basic questions about security and audits and cloud infrastructure the the internal purchasing systems haven't caught up with the innovation yeah and it and it's like it just slows everything down but these these are colossal businesses that have been successful for a time. And they're not going to change until they're forced to change. But the insured techs

will not eat the margins. They'll eat the big middle where the profits are. That's where they're going to focus. And then the traditionals will be left with the margins. I completely agree. And what's interesting to me is there is already a very wide separation in the traditionals who have embraced this and those who have not. Like in New York State, I don't know if you're familiar with Plymouth Rock. Oh, yeah, sure. So I interviewed Bill Martin from Plymouth Rock a few years ago, and he said something to me that I thought was amazing. We were talking about the human enter versus data because at the time what plymouth rock was doing was you know hippo and all these

they weren't even they weren't they were just coming onto the scene and now here's a a traditional carrier pushing out a model where they've pre-underwritten every home in the entire state already and all this and he said to me me, flat out, he said, he goes, there's going to be errors whether we use human inputted data or we use data that we pull from a, from a pool or, you know, kind of corrugate or correlated data that we, you know, that we get from a couple of pools. He goes, I'll take the pool data for app from an accuracy standpoint, pound for

pound. He goes, there's going to be errors in both, but I would bet I'm betting what we're betting on is that the data we get from these, these taking it from two or three sources, matching it up and then applying our, our underwriting standards against it. He's like, that to me is going to be more accurate. So I look at that and I say, okay, who else is working that way? And again, I work in small commercial. So I look at some of the things that like Hartford is doing and, and, you know, there's, there's just not that many. I mean, nationwide is, is, is working their way up. Travelers is in there.

Mostly just because they have an API. I don't know that their, their products have really caught up as much, but they're certainly have, have opened their API quite a bit. You know, there's, there's some others. And I'm like these guys, you know, and they get a bad rap because they're the big nationals or whatever, but they are separating themselves from the rest of the field. And I see carriers in the, in the, that are in the, in the, in the super regionals going almost going the other way they want they want to be slower

and they want full written out scripted stories about every account that comes in and i'm like guys that is not the future the days of us writing 300 word cover letters about a risk to send into an underwriter like that is not the future We might be able to hold on for that for a while. And there might be a certain size account where that makes sense. But you know, that those, those days are not the future of what we're doing. We, we need this. Like, it's, it's like, it's like how much do age, how much do we have to beg to get them to start to look into these models? I just don't get it.

The interesting thing about Plymouth Rock, a Hatterhook customer, is I was amazed when they told me what they did. I'm like, that's expensive. They're like, yeah, it was worth it. And because now they can almost instantaneously quote and speed to quote is one of the big factors in success. Yeah.

And they grew 30%, I i think in the last it's silly they've they've taken over new york i mean they're not from a pure volume standpoint but like in terms of like the last two years the impact that they've made in the market is crazy oh yeah and the thing is is they know exactly what they want to write before they write it yeah and they've already pre-underwritten the whole the whole show they know where to is they know exactly what they want to write before they write it. And they've already pre-underwritten the whole show. They know where to recruit. They know where to focus. They know all this stuff because the data told them the story.

But it's an interesting point of development because as more and more carriers get to that data-centric model, then we'll see the emergence of what I'll call the Expedia of insurance, where you'll have portals that have these data friendly companies that have enough carriers on it to say, okay, user, here's what we know about your property. Tell us a couple of questions. And then here's four or five competitive bids and then push it into underlying systems. Same thing we saw with mortgage, with lending tree, you know, several years ago. And, and that is another danger point, especially in the personal line space, because it's relatively,

I don't want to call it vanilla, but it's, it's relatively straightforward. Now commercial can be much more complex and that's where the agent, I think can make a tremendous difference in helping the insured to protect their business. So it'll be interesting to see what happens. I'm a huge, maybe I just have a biased opinion, and I keep repeating it to amuse myself. But I cannot you and in the like the uk as a consolidators market you know it's coming yeah it's coming what are you gonna do you're gonna sit there and just hope it won't and hope that 50 state regulators get in the way enough so that it slows things down it's coming no it's definitely coming and i i uh and I love independent agents. It's been my entire career. I,

and I think there's a place for independent agents, but if I just, if you're not making moves in my opinion, if you're not making moves today to embrace data sets, to understand at least you don't even have to be using them yet. Just, just have it in your brain space. If you haven't spent some time cycling through what this information can mean and should mean and how, you know, and should mean and how you look at your book of business and you can cross-reference that against these different data pools like you have in other companies and start to get a better feel for what don't I have

from these guys? Hey, have I offered flood to everyone who is within 10 miles of a flood zone or whatever, whatever the recommended distance is? 10 miles of a flood zone or whatever, whatever the recommended distance is? Are we getting them flood quotes? Are we, I mean, this is how you can really move forward and grow your business. And the truth is most, the vast majority will not do this. They'll continue to operate until they can't anymore and complain all the way through. But we built a product called Agent Risk View, which is basically a nice report of our data because our

data can be there's a lot of it and so what we've done is simplified it and made it nice you can put your brand on there you can put your picture on there and when we show it to people they fall into one of two camps they're like i don't want to spend any money i'm like it's 75 cents a report it's ridiculous how inexpensive it is and the is like, this will help me to make a difference in the eyes of my client. That's the kind of agent that we want to talk to because they're looking for some level of information that they can pass to their customer and say, here's what at risk for your property. Like lightning, you know, lightning is a billion dollar a year risk in this country. And there are certain areas of the country that have massive lightning risk, yet people aren't protected for lightning. And then, you know,

how do you protect the business against a lightning strike? You know, do you have a surge suppressor on your main electrical outlet to help, you know, to help prevent that risk. These are the little things that you can see using data that can help you to be much more effective in talking to your customer. What was that? Tell me that product again, called agent risk view, agent risk view, where do they where do where do the everyone listening? Where do they go to, to learn more about that? You can go to agent risk view.com.

You can sign up for free. You get five for free yet, you know, as, as, as the, uh, as our sales processes, the first bump is free. Uh, you get five reports, you can see what it looks like. And then if you want to buy it, you buy a minimum of 10, you have a year to use them and you don't have to buy any more than that. And then if you like it, you buy more. And you can also go to the Hazard Hub site. There's a link to it. But it's a great tool to show to people to say, and we, especially in California, we

have a number of people who are concerned about wildfire exposure and our wildfire models in there. We grade everything A to F and show you what the primary risks are because in commercial lines, especially the things that are going to kill you are things like flood and how prepared are you for the flood? And that's the kind of stuff we try to point out. We try to simplify it a bit, but still give you a lot of data to hand over to your customer with your name and phone number on it. So, you know, it's a brand impression.

Yeah, I know. I, man. So I love that. Agent Risk View, everyone. Go to agentriskview.com. That sounds like a great tool. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that, so I'm always, you know, I'm always looking and we got a couple more minutes here, but one of the things in the sales process that I think is important is ways that you can make

insurance tangible. And it's these type, you know, I like video proposals. You know, if you, if you use this as part of your video proposal to a new client where you're, before you even show them the recommendations of coverages, you're walking them just a minute, you know, here's your thing. Boom. Lightning, you're good on lightning, but geez, you know, you're a little close, you know, where you are has a high wind damage or whatever, you know, you're close enough to a flood zone that we should at least run a quote. We did. It's at the bottom here. I mean, those kinds of things, even if they say no, you you have you've permanently branded in their mind that this person thinks deeper about my business than most likely who i'm doing business with today does and i had a question yesterday because we break out wind zones as special wind zones if it's a

named wind zone it gets an f on our on our thing which is which is not necessarily reflective of the wind potential loss. And for Southern California, this agent came to me and said, why is this an F, but the wind score is actually an A? Because wind damage is very rare in Southern California. But if it does happen, it happens when the Santa Anas are blown, which are katabatic winds that come out of the mountains. And so what you should do is underwrite on the wind risk,

but use this as an explanation for your customer that, A, you understand that they're in a wind zone and tell them, say, just make sure that if the Santa Ana's are blowing, nothing that's hanging around is, you know, take your umbrellas down, your patio umbrellas down kind of a thing. And they'll be, yeah, that's right. I'm aware of that and it just it helps to build a hub yes people like people like to buy if you understand their philosophy if you understand what's going to happen then they're like oh this guy knows a little bit more or this

gal knows a little bit more about what's going to happen than most people who are just pumping me for premium and this is how we use data to sell in a digital world is we, these little, these, just these little touch points where you can add a little bit of value or connection or thought so that either they operate safer or they buy a coverage that they, that they didn't know they needed, or at least you've exposed them to it. Most people just walk around with no understanding of the exposures that they have. And that's on us as agents. You know what I mean?

I mean, I do not believe that it is wholly on the insurance consumer to understand everything that's going on, right? So- No, that's why we're here, to help. Yeah. To help. And it goes all the way back to why we got started, which is people should be aware of the risks of their property. My,

my former mother-in-law had a $30,000 loss and it was because there's some pump batteries failed. If you're aware of the risk, it's like, Hey, make sure you change your sump pump batteries every six months. That's a, that's a tip that's free from me to you that can save you a lot of pain down the road because it's an uncovered peril. And I don't want you to lose your stuff. I want to protect your place as much as you do. So it's funny how it does run full circle. Yeah. Well, hey, Bob, I appreciate you coming on, man. We went a lot of places, but I think we gave everyone a good look into Hazard Hub. And I love this coming on, man. We went a lot of places, but I think we gave everyone a good

look into hazard hub. And I love this agent risk view tool. I encourage everyone listening to go check it out. I mean, it is exactly the kind of thing that we talk about here on the show all the time. Just these little touch points, little ways to make insurance tangible and real so that our clients have a better understanding. And I appreciate the work you do, man. I mean, what you're doing, the data you're providing, this is a big part of how we get to the next iteration of our industry. And I'm just glad we had a chance to meet and talk. Always a pleasure to see you, my friend. Yeah. Hey, be good.

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