From Tax to Protection: How Insurance Can Save You Thousands
Back to the Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise Podcast. I'm your host, Heidi Henderson. And today I'm joined by not one, but two awesome guests. We're diving into the launch of Engineered Insurance Services, a new arm of our business created to bring the same white glove consultative care we are known for at Engineered Tax Services to the world of property and casualty and business liability insurance. Joining me are Mick Hunt, the CEO of Premier Strategy Box.
Heidi:He is a leader in business strategy and modern leadership, and yes, someone with deep roots in the insurance industry. He's also the host of the top 50 podcast, Mick Unplugged, where he challenges outdated leadership models and he inspires entrepreneurs to lead with purpose and clarity. Also, our second guest is my business partner, Andrew Ryan, who's been instrumental in this new launch. Together, we're going to explore why we created Engineered Insurance Services, what problems we're solving for our clients, and how we're offering a more service based strategic insurance experience focused on reducing costs, mitigating risk, and ensuring smarter protection for our clients and their most valuable assets. And so if you're a business owner, a real estate investor, or a CPA looking to help your clients save thousands while improving coverage, you don't want to miss this conversation.
Heidi:So with that, Mick, Andrew, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Mick:Thanks for having us.
Andrew:Thanks for having us.
Heidi:Absolutely. So this is gonna be a fun conversation. This is a little bit different than what we do. I feel like I'm always changing things up as we're talking about business opportunities and how to look at business strategy, how to cut costs, how to really understand, again, just really being disruptors in any industry. And in this one particularly, I will explain the fact that Engineered Tax Services, who sponsors this podcast and who I am a partner of, has launched a company called Engineered Insurance Services.
Heidi:And it's always interesting. It's like, how did insurance come into the mix? How did we get from tax strategy incentives to insurance services? And so with that, Andrew Ryan is actually my partner in engineered insurance services. And so right off the bat, Andrew, how about you dive in and tell us a little bit, how does this tie in to this consultative approach and engineered tax services?
Mick:Yeah. So, I mean, from the day I met you and your other partners, one of the largest complaints that you guys always focus on solving pain. Right? And, you guys are excellent in solving like this, especially tax credits and all the other things. But, I think insurance was probably second to those, like, of your most common, needs that clients were having, you know, from not getting the serve the customer service that your clients deserve.
Mick:You have clients who, you know, maybe the big insurance shops weren't focusing on. Right? There wasn't quite enough revenue for them to spend the time on. So, and then at the same time, like, there needs to be a little bit of fresh blood and a fresh outlook in the industry, right, where, like, there's there's new ways to do things. There's a new technology that's rapidly changing the industry.
Mick:So I think, you know, once I met with you and your partners, we figured out there was definitely ways that we could assist your clients and, you know, not just from premium savings. Obviously, that's a goal, but focusing on really supporting their businesses, helping them with risk management, and, really trying to protect what they work so hard to build.
Heidi:Absolutely. Yep. It's so interesting. And we're always looking at, again, being disruptors about doing things differently. So with that, Nick, you've spent a lot of time in the insurance industry, and that's broken out in the traditional model.
Heidi:But now you're in a much more strategic service based planning and coaching type of environment. And your podcast, of course, is amazing. Will you share a little bit about your background and your story? You know, where did you start and and how did you arrive here?
Andrew:Yeah. So I have been in the industry for twenty five years now. You know? Every year, I feel like I'm getting old and anxious when I talk to that guy. Twenty five years, I started out as agent that was helping a a principal or the owner build his dream.
Andrew:And what I realized after five years was I had dreams as well. So I literally decided to start my own business and start my own agency. But from a consultative to help businesses understand the true cost of insurance and how insurance should be a strategy. And so for twenty five years, that's what I've been doing.
Heidi:That's amazing. So are you still in the insurance space, or are you mainly now more on the on the leadership and coaching or organizational purpose side?
Andrew:Yeah. So I'm still in the insurance space, but we do a lot of teaching and
Heidi:Okay. So so with that, you know, one of the things that I think I read in your bio and something that I've personally been diving into over the last year as well as with engineered tax services is very much of, like, the why. So why is it important that there's this particular company culture? What's the critical part of creating something that's sustainable, that's client centric, especially in industry? I mean, you know, again, engineered tax services, we're specialty tax, but we have certain aspects of that become commoditized.
Heidi:Certainly I think insurance is one of those. And so what are some of the ways or the important factors into understanding a person's why, a business owner's why, particularly with insurance? And why does it matter in this space? I mean, where are you seeing the impact?
Andrew:Yeah. You know, I call it your because. Thing that's deeper than your why. Right? Like, I could probably guess your why.
Andrew:I could probably go to your mission and vision statement and figure out what that is. But your be caught, your purpose is something that's singular and touches you. And so I talk to business leaders about that, about how to truly understand your be polished and articulate your B Pause because that's where everything should start for your For me personally, when I work with business owners, relates to insurance. We talk about insurance being a top expense line for you. You know, you've got your payroll, your rents, and then insurance is usually number three.
Andrew:And I look at it like this. If you look at, you know, payroll is your fuel, your rent is your shelter, insurance is like your seat belt. You're one accident away from losing it all losing it all. And to me, that shouldn't be that shouldn't be.
Heidi:That's a great analogy. I like that. Insurance is like your seat belt. Andrew, what about you? I mean, what what is your so I like that.
Heidi:What is your because? What is the thing that really ultimately is driving you towards your goals and has driven you into this particular industry?
Mick:Yeah. I I like solving problems. I've always kind of you know, you're from a kid. I've kind of always been the the one who's messing around and trying to to fix things. Right?
Mick:So I you know, this industry has, you know, very similar to the tax industry. Right? Like, has a rep for being super outdated and slow to evolve. You know, meeting people like Mick at the industry and bunch of others and kind of working with them together to try to build something new that meets clients' needs is really, really exciting to me. You know?
Mick:Every day, I get to come to work and try to, you know, build something that that improves our clients' lives and makes our employees' lives better. And that is definitely what drives me.
Heidi:I love that. So can you give me a couple of examples? How can we translate our engineered tax sort of culture of hands on client care into insurance? You know, what are you guys doing as it relates to that client care?
Mick:Yeah. So I think like the first is obviously the integration with you guys is huge, Right? So, like, you guys have the relationship with the client. You've built the trust with the client, and you've got a bunch of data on the client. And all of those things are important to us.
Mick:Right? So, like, obviously, being part of you guys, like, we're able to, you know, get the introduction, work with the clients. There's minimal data that we have to gather. Right? Because you have so much data on the buildings and all that.
Mick:So we're able to take all of that cost seg data especially and work with the underwriters to make sure these things are properly properly valued. And these underwriters really appreciate that because in general, like, the amount of insight that a insurance company has into a property is super high level. Like, they're using Google and some other data sources, but you guys have people on property, like, actually looking at these things in personal at times. Right? So the in-depth look really helps our relationship with the carriers, which we can then translate to both better pricing and better coverage for the clients.
Mick:On top of that, like, every single employee we hire, like, one of the number one things that we look for is exactly that. Like the ability to be client focused, you know, the clients, the client comes first, like what are their needs? Right. And, you know, we focus on educating. It's not sales, right?
Mick:We, we sell through education. Right? So we spend a lot of time diving into their current coverage and really trying to understand their business and see how that see if there's any holes in, like, what their operations are. And I think that's a big part that's missed in insurance today. Right?
Mick:Like, there's all these products, and it's really commoditized. But for us, you know, we kind of view insurance as or we try to make the clients under stand in charge as, a strategic asset, not just a commodity. Right? Like, it needs to be part of your business strategy to incorporate this to protect, once again, what they've worked so hard to build over time. Right?
Mick:So once we have all of that information kind of, then we go to market. So we're quoting last. Right? We do all this work ahead of time to then go to market and make sure that if there's any other products out there which are a better fit, then we come back and build an entire program, which includes, like, the proactive risk management, the actual insurance products. And once again, we're not pushing the client to buy every piece of insurance out there.
Mick:We work with them to build something which works for their risk tolerance.
Heidi:Yeah. Well, I mean, that's a great point. And a lot of business owners, Nick, you mentioned that this can be one of the top three expenses for a business owner, in probably any industry. But many business owners and investors, they treat insurance like it's a formality, but it's one of the largest areas of waste, and of course, there's this massive risk exposure on their books. So what kinds of mistakes or oversights are common?
Heidi:And then how can a strategic review kind of save money to avoid catastrophe? Especially, it seems like there's more and more of it, both on the business litigation side, as well as on the property casualty side with all of the natural disasters and the increases in insurance rates these days. I feel like I hear more about it now than I ever have before. And it seems like there's a tremendous amount of risk. And it also seems like the consumer is the one sort of left holding the bag, but with the least amount of information as to what am I actually buying?
Heidi:What am I getting? What am I covered for? What am I not? Like, it's a, it's a confusing, convoluted process. And, and I think most people just are like, okay, fine.
Heidi:I'm just gonna, you know, get whatever, check the cost and, and be done with it. So that was a long winded question, but essentially, you know, kinds of mistakes or oversights and how can we help with that?
Andrew:Yeah. I would say the biggest oversight actually is a coverage line and that line of cyber liability. Your biggest threat isn't a fire. It's not a flood. It's not even theft.
Andrew:It's a click. Right? They don't have cyber, and you have a $200,000 plan. You're seeing them go out of business. In the last three years, I think the number from Ford was thirty two percent.
Andrew:Small businesses went out of business by not having proper insurance protection. Yes. Yes. It's not inflation. It's not loans.
Andrew:It's not the financial ability to run the business. It's claims. I think COVID exposed a lot, but I tell business owners this. You wouldn't leave your front door open at night, but without cyber insurance, that's exactly what you're doing. Wow.
Heidi:So how do you guys then, approach looking at coverage and truly understanding? Like, this is one of the things that I've appreciated in conversations that we've had with our clients. But talk a little bit about your relationship. Now this, this is where I struggle a little bit. You know, as a business owner, I feel the same way as our clients.
Heidi:It's one thing nobody wants to spend time on. I mean, not that you guys aren't fantastic and people love talking with you, but who wants to sit and spend hours and hours on the phone diving into understanding their business and really being able to underwrite every single potential risk? So how are you doing that while still managing time and the requirements that you're asking for from a business owner or property owner, but still being able to really strategically look at where their risk is? Because I think that's what we're finding in some of the cases we've looked at is that there are significant risks that are just completely missed, and people don't even understand they're not covered for pretty common things.
Mick:So on our end, there's a couple things. Like, so one is definitely has to do with education because there is time involvement. Right? Like, no matter how much we wanna remove time, like, there is it it does require the client to be involved because the only way we can truly help to cover them properly is to truly understand their business. Right?
Mick:You know, there's manufacturers who make specialty electronic equipment. There's gaps there. There's property owners who, you know, are experiencing so so one thing that I wanna bring up as well is, like, a lot of these policies, like, people see premiums rising year after year after year. What they don't also see in the background is coverage getting reduced year after year. Right?
Mick:Little new exclusions getting added. Like, I was just working on a a large shopping center account, and at Renault, the carrier threw on an exclusion for slip fall. Well, guess what? That's one of their biggest claims. Like, they're in a snowy area, and now guess what?
Mick:There's no coverage or some old lady slips and breaks her hip. Right? So there's all these gaps, which unless you spend the time to really understand a client's business, we can't help to cover. Right? And I I think that's a mistake that, you know, by by completely trying to make things overly efficient, then things get missed.
Mick:Right? And so there is definitely a time thing. I will say that we we do focus a lot on technology to help kind of ease the transfer of information with clients and also with the carriers to speed things up. But I don't wanna overplay that by saying that, oh, we can just streamline everything and not have the client's involvement. Because the way we best operate, like we're actually, we act as an extension of our clients.
Mick:Like we help them, and not, we don't tell them what to do, but we help act as a sounding board as they're making their business decisions, you know, like a new acquisition of a separate manufacturing arm, or opening up a transportation division. All these have massive risk impacts, and we want to be able to explain to them, hey, here's how this could potentially impact your business. Here's how we push that risk off of it on an insurance carrier. What do you wanna do? Right?
Mick:So we do try to spend a lot of time with clients to make sure that we understand everything they're doing. And likewise, we build that trust to act as, you know, part of their boardroom, if that's what you wanna call
Heidi:Yeah. That makes sense. So how is that different than a typical broker or some online coding engine? I mean, there's a lot of those, but honestly, it sounds expensive. So Yeah.
Heidi:So am I paying more because now I've got consulting aside from just going and filling out some online form?
Mick:Yeah. So you're actually not paying more. These carriers, like insurance is a very heavily governed industry. Right? Like, is pricing, and there's really not that much you can do to affect it.
Mick:It's very like, the rates are controlled by the states. So once again, I think it's just in our fiduciary duty to our clients to do this. We can definitely streamline things. We could we could have a portal on ETS' website where, you know, you you plug in all the information that kicks out a call on the end. But once again, we don't feel like we're doing the best service to the client.
Mick:Right? Like, selling insurance is a byproduct of our overall risk management suite that we like to provide. Right? So we wanna make sure that we're truly protecting the client. And insurance is secondary to a client understanding their risk and knowing what they have covered, you know, and knowing what they don't have covered and choosing to purchase coverage or choosing not to purchase coverage.
Mick:Like, it's up to the client to make that decision. We just need to be able to educate them. So once again, it doesn't affect pricing. Once again, we show options and we let the client pick what they want to roll with.
Heidi:Yeah. And when you are pricing a policy out, so when you're looking at something, how do you do that? Do you have different carriers you can price that out with? Are you able to look for the best options for clients? I was relatively new to insurance, so for me, I'm kind of like, hey.
Heidi:You know? How does this work versus, you know, the the the Allstate rep that I've used for ages?
Mick:Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question. There's insurance is definitely you know? You've got the captive agents who only offer State Farm, for example.
Mick:And then you you have people like us who have access. We have access to, I would say, the majority of the top nationwide carriers across The US, everything from the Warmory Mutuals, the Chubbs, the CNAs. And then we have relationships with a lot of the top, like, cyber underwriters in The US or professional liability underwriters. Lean on them really heavily. Mick mentioned cyber earlier as kind of being one of the top risks.
Mick:Like, that industry evolves so quickly. Right? Technology just advancing so quickly that, you know, we need someone who's in the in that space twenty four seven educating us so that we can better serve our clients. So we really lean on them really heavily to help support that. Right?
Mick:Like, we just had a conversation today with, like, this new AI coverage that's coming out because it used to be that you had to voice verify all these transactions. Well, guess what? Now AI can copy your voice within, a thirty second phone call. So that's no longer a thing. So there's all these new evolutions.
Mick:Like the bad guys are always one step ahead and then we figure out how to protect on the back end. So it's really fun to kind of work with the top experts in their fields to better serve our clients.
Heidi:Yeah. That's awesome. So Mick, how does your background in insurance, and then combined with strategic leadership, how does that influence the kind of service and structure that we're building?
Andrew:We're always customizing everything we do. So we're gonna take our time tonight, each individual business. And to what Andrew was saying earlier, you know, sometimes because of the number of carriers we have, we might build a package for you that has three or four different carriers or companies that are good at certain things. And so, you know, I try to bring that to the table of everything isn't gonna be a one stop well, it will be a one stop shop, but it won't be one size fits. Right?
Andrew:So we're not gonna put everything with Travelers, and Travelers isn't a desk for your workers' top on their side or so. We really wanna make sure they're doing that. But then my goal is really helping educate our clients' team. It's one thing when Heidi knows insurance, but what about Heidi's two hundred other employees? Right?
Andrew:How can we help them and the benefits of safety and risk management and how the decisions that they made put in part into the pricing or the credits that Andrew and his team were able to obtain from a follow-up.
Heidi:Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's it's so interesting because I think it's with all things, you know, you can find service providers that have a very different approach and a lot more of that customer centric outlook. And it doesn't always cost more, but certainly what you get is so much more valuable. Talking a little bit about, let's talk about two different sectors.
Heidi:First off for CPAs, because we have a lot of CPA clients and listeners. If we have a CPA who's listening, how could they work with your team to bring more value to their clients and then kind of protect their financial position, but also work with their clients to make sure their clients are adequately covered?
Mick:Yeah. So with CPAs, as Mick mentioned, actually, so the the two main risks for CPAs are their E and O, which, you know, is like malpractice insurance basically for an account. Then secondarily is the cyber insurance because they have a lot of critical financial data, obviously. So making sure that especially in that cyber piece that they have something that, you know, suits their needs. And that's something that we have multiple products which are specialized especially for the financial industry.
Mick:So we can definitely we have a gentleman on the team, Matt, who runs point on all of those. So he's really adept at trying to make sure that they have the right coverage. And then as far as working with our clients, that's something that you and I especially have been really focused on is making those introductions and really trying to drive an additional service line. Like, you know, there's a lot of the CPAs are at the point where, and you know this better than I do, but they need to provide additional services to differentiate themselves. Between the roll ups in the industry and all the other pressure that they're facing, being able to differentiate themselves by providing an actual value add to their clients at no additional cost to them is huge.
Mick:Right? And a lot of these CPAs, you know, they get hit up by insurance agencies all the time, but teaming up with us who can actually provide value, you know, and and echoes what I'm sure is their same relationship, their client centric attitude there with their clients. And very similar to what ETS has. Right? Like, they've ETS has partnered with these CPAs for years in many circumstances, worked with a lot of their clients, making the edge hurt to us than, you know, working with the CPAs.
Mick:Once again, that's one more avenue of additional information, which we can get information from the CPA with the client's permission, obviously. And that's additional information, which a lot of times insurance carriers don't see. So our job a big part of our job is working with carriers and paying the client in the best light, which means providing the most information that we can. Right? Like, if we send a submission in for a manufacturer and we kind of have the bare minimum to check just to check boxes, they're not gonna get the best rate.
Mick:They're not gonna get the best coverage offering. So working with someone like a CPA in addition to someone like ETS with the cost side data, we can really provide the most amount of information to a client, improve the speed and efficiency, which we provide a quote back to the client. And then also once it's proposed, work with the client and make sure that there's there's no gaps. Like, it's way less likely to have gaps if we have more information as well.
Heidi:Yeah. Absolutely. I mean oh, go ahead, Mick.
Andrew:I was just gonna add another thing with CPAs and working with their clients. CPAs that have a certain niche, and we have a lot of those on our books, we have the ability to potentially build program. Right? So I'm gonna make this up. If you're a CPA and you have a lot of restaurants as clients, there's a potential for us to build a restaurant program with your client data that's gonna give cost savings and and provide a lot of visibility for you as a CPA into their insurance agency.
Heidi:Yeah. That's a great point. I mean, we have so many. Like, I mean, we specialize, and then we have so many of our clients that are very, very niche driven in whether it's real estate or whether it's dentists or veterinarians. I have some very specific ones, it's interesting that you guys have a lot of that very detailed knowledge in those areas.
Heidi:To that point, when we look at business owners or property investors, what should they be asking their current insurance provider? I mean, we'd love to quote on those. We'd love to look at those, but when they have a provider, what should they be asking that they don't even think about, that they're not aware of when they're renewing their policies or when they're getting a notice that, their premiums are increasing, which we're seeing dramatically across the board. So talk a little bit about what those things are that maybe they're missing.
Mick:I think the key is to start the process early, right? Like a lot of times, especially because you mentioned no one wants to spend time talking about insurance, like it just kind of slips people's mind. And then all of a sudden their agent sends them an email five days before they're supposed to renew with oh, your return is going up 30%. Here's the bill. You know?
Mick:So starting the process early, especially being proactive and making sure that they're providing information to their agent about changes that have occurred since the last time the policy was reviewed, which most likely wasn't even last year. Right? It was probably one positive for it in the first time if they're lucky. So definitely trying to get ahead of ahead of that. And then talking to the client is there's a lots of, you know, a big part of what we do from a risk management perspective is working with the insureds to make sure that they're taking advantage of anything they can do to reduce their total cost of risk.
Mick:So that's like training programs and things like that. So working with an agent to make sure that maybe the insurance company provides some of this stuff, or maybe the insurance agent can recommend services which could reduce, like, improved drive driver training, or Mick can talk a lot about workers' comp. Like, there's lots of workers' comp programs that can help improve loss ratio. So, you know, focusing on things that can improve and then same with property, it's the same thing. Right?
Mick:Like, there's obviously some inherent property risks, are weather related and things like that, which no one can do anything about. But still, it's like insurance companies wanna know that there's proactive management. Right? So is there is there a roof inspection process? Is there do you have investments planned over the next year?
Mick:Like, that's the stuff that really will help generate a better renewal from both not just a premium standpoint, once again, but maybe as a coverage standpoint. Like, we had a situation where it's a hotel, and the roof didn't look good. But we worked with we found out from the client that, hey, they have a budgeted to do this summer. Three so three months from now, there's gonna be a brand new roof. The policy had what's called an ACV endorsement on the roof, which means that if something happened, they would almost get no money to protect the roof.
Mick:Well, because the underwriter understood that this new roof is coming, and we provided proof that they already kind of had bids out and all that kind of stuff, they have still a replacement cost. They they removed that endorsement. They still have replacement cost on the roof. So if something happens for the next three months before the roof is done, they're actually gonna get a branded roof with no issue. So little things like that can only be done with information.
Mick:Right? So, like, having that communication, having a relationship with your agent where you can you can text your agent and say, hey. Here's what's going on. Or, hey. Let's sit down and review our entire operation just to make sure there's no gaps.
Mick:I think that's paramount to make sure that, you know, they're served best by their current agent or if they want to switch best, us.
Heidi:Yeah, absolutely. So is the only time to be able to look at a policy is the only option when it comes up for renewal? Like, if they're if for a business policy or for property?
Mick:I would say it depends. Some sometimes there are certain policies which are really hard to move midterm. And a lots of times, there's situations where we recommend waiting to renewal for one reason or other. But that's because we understand the market, understand relationships with the underwriter. So we have no problem reviewing something midterm, right, to to give input.
Mick:But I don't wanna say a blanket statement either way because it really depends on the situation, who the current carrier is. And our goal is to drum up as much interest from insurance carriers to get the most competitive more competition just means better outcome for the insured.
Heidi:Yeah, absolutely. Well, what is happening in the industry? Like, Let's dive a little bit about what's happening in the insurance space. I have like 10 questions as it relates to the industry as a whole, because we get all of these questions and comments from our property owners, particularly on the real estate side. Clearly, we do a tremendous amount on the real estate side because of the cost seg.
Heidi:I want to circle back and give an overview again. The reason that this correlates directly with the engineered services business line and what we do on the specialty tax side is we're currently doing five or 600 site visits a month. And our approach from an engineering standpoint is we're creating a replacement cost appraisal of every single item at that property. I mean, the detail of our reports is, is, is, is almost ridiculous. You know, it's switch plate covers and doorknobs and light fixtures and sheetrock, all of those things.
Heidi:So inherently we have more data to actually underwrite a property that is more accurate. Now that may save you money. It may actually cost a little bit more money if you're under insured. Actually see most of the time we see it actually saves money because the replacement cost value is more reasonable. Either way, we see a lot of benefit.
Heidi:However, given the current state of what's happening again with natural disasters, I think the news talks a lot about what's happening with the fires in California and the floods in Texas or Florida. I've seen that insurance rates have increased upwards of 300% in certain areas, California and some of those. What is happening in the insurance industry? And is there any hope in terms of it getting better?
Mick:That's a really interesting question because, you know, there's one thing will get better, then something else gets worse. Right? Like it's a like any other industry, everything happens in cycles. I will tell you, for the first time in a long time, places like Florida are were actually delivering rate decreases. Right?
Mick:So some of our large real estate clients in Florida have actually, like they're used to getting smacked with 30 to 50% increases every single year for the last five years. And this is the first year where, I won't quite say across the board, but especially for newer, better constructed assets, we're definitely seeing, you know, substantial 30% decreases, which is pretty insane. On the flip side of that, you have California, which you mentioned. And California, due to not to get into politics, but due to the legal climate that's going on out there and a lot of the issues with carriers just straight up withdrawing. Right?
Mick:Like, less competition definitely is not
Andrew:good
Mick:for any client out there. So we're seeing a lot of stuff in California where, frankly, like, if you're getting a renewal, you should be happy. And even if it's the ugly renewal because there's no other option out there. Right? So that's something that, you know, we're constantly staying up to date on because, you know, as we look at our clients and at their renewals, there's very depending what industry you're in, depending what geography you're in, there's very different outcomes that that we look at.
Mick:Because when we compare, we benchmark everything. Right? So we know a benchmark of like, hey. An apartment owner in Illinois, we expect to go up or down x amount. This building in, Florida, hotel in Florida, we expect this.
Mick:Right? So because we benchmark, it takes a lot of data, a lot of participation with our carriers and underwriters to make sure they're sharing that data back with us to keep these all these things in line. But to your point, it's a huge spread of, you know, some places of the country due to whatever. Right? Like, Texas, the flooding.
Mick:Like, that's all these things that have not typically happened in certain areas that are super hard to underwrite for all of a sudden, you know, are driving rates through the roof. So we try to stay on top of all of this and then educate clients and prospects, because we have no problem telling somebody, Hey, where you're at is the best place. You need to stay there and ride that thing as long as you can. We've told multiple clients that because we want the best outcome for them, the best outcome is staying where they're at, we'll let them know as soon as possible without wasting too much of their time.
Heidi:Well, and is that a thing to be grandfathered in on a policy? So if you have a policy that you've had for a number of years with a carrier you've been using, Are you grandfathered into a better rate that has not increased because of the standing policy?
Mick:Yeah. And I would Not necessarily the same rate, right? They're still going see rate increases, but lots of times there's programs that these people get into, or just appetite where we saw a lot of shift in the hospitality space going back to hotels since we do a lot of that stuff with you guys. So the hospitality space, there used to be 25 carriers who loved hotels and were super aggressive. After COVID and the hard market and all that other stuff, that number dropped substantially.
Mick:I would say 70% of the market withdrew. So all of a sudden, you have a constrained amount of carriers who are interested, which drives prices up, reduces coverage, all of those things. Now you have that expanding again, but in the meantime, there's still some of those carriers withdrew withdrew for new business. So they still had clients in this space in which they didn't get off of. And sometimes those are you know, in programs which probably are more difficult to compete with.
Mick:But having a second set of eyes on something that can quickly let them know, Hey, that rate looks once again, we only get to that point by specializing, right? Like we have people on the back end who focus on just hospitality or just developers or just, you know, and the only way that we can stay up to date and provide clients with that kind of information is by specializing.
Heidi:Yeah, that makes sense. So another thing that we're seeing though, is then we have a number of property owners who their policies just get canceled. They just get an email or a mail piece of mail, it says, we're canceling your policy. We're not going to renew. So what does a property owner do in that situation?
Mick:Yeah. I mean, hopefully their agent does a slightly better job of communicating than just waiting for the carrier email, but that definitely, like when you see these massive shifts, like especially during the hard market, we saw a lot of shifts, especially I would say multifamily was probably impacted probably the hardest by that. Right? So, you know, we saw that with a lot of carriers once again, either complete withdrawing from a class or some of these carriers, especially in Florida, would have went bankrupt. Right?
Mick:Like, they they just closed their doors. So when that happens, I mean, it's not just them that got that email. So the market gets flooded with all of these people who no longer have coverage. Handling that as soon as possible, finding an agent who has the expertise and market access to deal with that as soon as possible, puts them in a better position. Because in the Midwest where we're located, there was a couple major national carriers who decided to pull out of the older multifamily at the same time.
Mick:So what happened was the remaining carriers, 60% of the market had to switch carriers at one time. When that happens, everyone freaks out. All the underwriters get really picky, and they only want to take the top 5% of whatever's floating out right there. So we had a lot of clients, you know, who probably shouldn't have been pushed off into the what we call a surplus market, which has typically has less coverage and higher rates. But because they were a little bit late to the party, got stuck there.
Mick:Right? So trying to trying to deal with, you know, work with an agent who can be proactive and, you know, hopefully have a solution for you before they deliver that kind of news is paramount.
Heidi:Absolutely. Mick, any, any advice on that end?
Andrew:No, I think Andrew hated it. Mean, it's all about making sure that you have the agent that has access to markets or at least have the proactive communication strategy. And just for all the listeners and viewers, understanding that your state also does have a guarantee fund. No matter where you're located, at a minimum, the state administrator.
Heidi:Good to know. Yeah. That's interesting. I I wasn't aware of that, so that's interesting. So shifting gears a little bit, Mike, and this is for my own personal information.
Heidi:I think it's amazing you have a top 50 podcast, Mick Unplugged. So tell me about your podcast. What do you talk about on there? Tell me about your guests. And then also after that, I would love to hear about the your favorite guests that you had and what they did to either inspire you or, you know, I don't know, something you learned that was life changing.
Andrew:Yeah. So the podcast that comes out is in the self improvement category. There are two or three in self improvement at the top. It's all about finding your because. It's all about being fueled by your because and not giving up.
Andrew:All of my guests been through something, and so we hope that their stories inspire others to fight through whatever it is that they're going through. So so that's what it's about. You know, I I have to say all of my guests are my favorite guests.
Heidi:That's the right answer.
Andrew:Yeah. But I will say some of my favorite ones have been Robert Irvine, chef Irvine. We didn't talk about food. We talked about leadership and resiliency. David Pollock, former NFL Superstar.
Andrew:We talked about resiliency. And then one of my mentors, Les Brown, we just talked about life and and how there's always an another thing that you can get to for payment.
Heidi:I love that. Well, people who have listened to my podcast know I get a little bit on my soapbox about really looking at how we balance business and how we balance client service and workload with taking care of ourselves physically and emotionally, mentally, and, and finding that balance in our lives as a, as a whole person and also with authenticity. So tell me a little bit then final closing words as we kind of wrap up from both of you to know, what do you feel like is the most positive shift you've seen in the insurance industry as a whole? And for you personally, what you've seen over the last maybe three, four years that, gets you excited and really just, I guess, feed your soul?
Andrew:I guess I'll take that. And so when you said positive shifts in insurance, I was like, I got it. No. So
Heidi:So if it's not insurance, if there's no positive shifts in insurance, maybe it's just the business world.
Andrew:No. No. No. No. I'll tie the two together.
Andrew:I'll say from a leadership perspective, emotional intelligence is becoming more of a thing that's been needed, not just in in business, but also in. Like, you're starting to see policies feel a little more emotionally intelligent. Right? I think Andrew and I could both tell you five years ago, there were a lot of exclusions in insurance policies where now there's conversations that like, how do we include certain things and not the black guys? I would definitely say what excites me is that there's a newer regime that are seeing things in today's society a little bit better as it relates to insurance, which hopefully is gonna lead to better policy development or concerns.
Heidi:That's awesome. Yeah. That's interesting. Andrew, what about you? You're on mute.
Mick:I'm actually surprised that Mick didn't bring this one up, but I I'm really excited about some of the AI implications on our industry. A huge amount of the back end of what we do is just moving data from one place to another. There's a huge amount of, you know, manpower dedicated to just that. There's there's lots of really cool innovations coming. We're leveraging some of that in house already and, like, the impact and the customer service and everything.
Mick:Just like it affects us across the board. Like, it allows us to mix point to, you know, that EQ and, like, the relationship with the client. We can we can spend time building that relationship and less time just copying and pasting things around. So really, really excited about that. And to answer the second part of your question, I think that's really interesting.
Mick:The work life balance thing and, you know, focusing on ourselves, that's something that has consistently been a challenge for me. Right? Like, I get lost in in what I do, but I think, you know, I have three kids now. And, you know, now that I have three kids, especially two really young ones, you know, every time I go home, I remember why I worked so hard. Right?
Mick:And I think just keeping them at the forefront and, you know, just knowing that, like, you know, it's not obviously, there's there's self drive that, you know, I wanna be successful. I wanna do things for my clients, for my business, and all those things. But driving you know, working so hard for your family, like, I I don't know if there's a better cause.
Heidi:That is amazing. Well, you have a beautiful family and, definitely some some young ones, very recent little one. Yep. That's absolutely amazing. So that balance and taking time to enjoy the little moments is everything.
Heidi:Cause it goes fast. I know everybody says it, but it really truly goes I'm
Mick:not going to lie right now. I'm kind of wishing some of that away, but I know I'm not going say that aloud.
Heidi:I know. I know. I remember being there. It's, it can be tough, but but yeah, it's it goes fast and it's amazing. Well, I hope everybody enjoyed getting to know both of you.
Heidi:In final closing, we will share your contact information in the show notes, but is there anything specific or any place specific you guys would like to direct listeners to contact, reach out, or to listen to what you guys are putting out there?
Mick:Yeah. Mean, for us, the EngineeredInsuranceServices.com website is probably the best place to reach out to us. Our both of our contact information, I believe, is listed on there. So if you need to get in touch with either of us, you can also find both of us on LinkedIn if you need something insurance related, especially from Mick. He's, the leadership king, I'd say.
Mick:So, yeah, if there's anything you need from us, just feel free to reach out.
Heidi:K. I love it. Mick, what's the best way to get in touch?
Andrew:Same thing. So our our business website, and you're kind of on your end, and I'm plugged everywhere else in the world.
Heidi:K. I love it. Well, thank you both again so much for joining. I appreciate your insights on the industry, what we're doing, and we'll look forward to chatting with you next time. Well, was an important conversation today with Mick and Andrew, digging into the because and really how behind engineered insurance services.
Heidi:We talked about how insurance isn't just a box to check it's a critical component of a smart business strategy. With the same values that guide us at Engineered Tax Services, we're really proud to be bringing a more transparent and consultative and a cost effective approach to insurance planning. So whether you're a CPA advising clients, if you're a business owner managing risk, or you're a real estate investor and you're concerned about protecting your portfolio, now's the time to stop overpaying and start optimizing. To learn more or get a no obligation policy review, visit us at engineeredinsuranceservices.com, or there's a link in the show notes. And thanks again to Nick and Andrew for joining me.
Heidi:And thank you all for tuning in for another episode of the Healthy, Wealthy, and Mize podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, share, or comment so I can continue bringing you more meaningful content. Thank you.
