What if you could confidently navigate the labyrinth of risk management in the construction industry? Imagine being able to understand and manage your insurance coverage without the fear of unseen gaps or assumptions.
That's what this episode with our guest Drew Boyd, an accomplished risk management consultant, is all about!
Tune in as we unravel the complexities, misconceptions, and critical elements of risk management and insurance coverage in the construction industry. Drew shares his unique perspective as a neutral third party consultant and how this approach helps contractors understand and manage their risks more efficiently.
From dealing with insurance policy renewals and claims to understanding insurance requirements and exposures, we cover a lot of ground as we underscore the importance of proactive risk management and how it can help protect your business.
|| Connect with Us ||
Check out all our episodes on all major streaming platforms, and further engagement with the 17Twenty crew on social media at:
https://17twenty.buzzsprout.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/17twenty
https://www.instagram.com/17twentypodcast
Grab your copy of the Mountain Mover Manual: How to Live Intentionally, Lead with Purpose, and Achieve Your Greatest Potential, by Kevin Carey
Originally in print:
https://amzn.to/441OPeH
And now available on Audible:
https://adbl.co/45YIKB2
What if you could confidently navigate the labyrinth of risk management in the construction industry? Imagine being able to understand and manage your insurance coverage without the fear of unseen gaps or assumptions.
That's what this episode with our guest Drew Boyd, an accomplished risk management consultant, is all about!
Tune in as we unravel the complexities, misconceptions, and critical elements of risk management and insurance coverage in the construction industry. Drew shares his unique perspective as a neutral third party consultant and how this approach helps contractors understand and manage their risks more efficiently.
From dealing with insurance policy renewals and claims to understanding insurance requirements and exposures, we cover a lot of ground as we underscore the importance of proactive risk management and how it can help protect your business.
|| Connect with Us ||
Check out all our episodes on all major streaming platforms, and further engagement with the 17Twenty crew on social media at:
https://17twenty.buzzsprout.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/17twenty
https://www.instagram.com/17twentypodcast
Grab your copy of the Mountain Mover Manual: How to Live Intentionally, Lead with Purpose, and Achieve Your Greatest Potential, by Kevin Carey
Originally in print:
https://amzn.to/441OPeH
And now available on Audible:
https://adbl.co/45YIKB2
I've reviewed insurance for large projects with large national GCs, ensured by large national brokers, with the best risk management company administrating the whole thing, and found gaps in the coverage. There are people making assumptions at every single level.
Stewart Shurtleff:Every single individual has a story to tell, and they're great stories that need to be heard.
Kevin Cary:I want every listener to know they have the ability to change the world.
Stewart Shurtleff:Welcome to the 1720 podcast.
Kevin Cary:What's up? Mound movers, welcome back to the 1720 podcast. We have our friend Drew Boyd joining us. He's with Jefferson Maxi Consulting and I think we're going to get into some fun stuff based on the pre-recording. We're going to have some fun, we're going to get some laughs, but then, when it comes to risk and insurance, I think we're going to have some eye opening facts here, and when you go scan Drew's LinkedIn profile, you see some things that get your curiosity thinking here. With what am I missing? What are the holes? What are some things when it comes to risk and insurance that I don't even know I should be looking for. So I have my journal ready and we're going to probably get into the weeds on some of that stuff. However, your title on your LinkedIn does include having six children. So yes, so when I look at Stewie, I have one child. Stewie has three. I ask him how does he do it? And his evening calendar is busier than his daytime calendar. You're two X him. How do you do it?
Drew Boyd:Well, I mean, I had six kids when I left the house this morning. I'm not sure how many there are now.
Stewart Shurtleff:I think earlier you said something about a stack of kids. There's so many of them. They're just stacked up at the house. A pile of children.
Drew Boyd:It's just a pile of kids and people are. You know, when we go out in public you can look to the left and right and people are going one, two, three, four. I'm like it's six, it's just six you know Right. And then then I always get the questions like hey, you know what causes that right? And I just look at them and say no, what, what does?
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, there's a lot of dad jokes in there, like oh, it's the something in the water. Or, as you guys said earlier, it's beards and bald heads that will cause it too. But yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of dad jokes around how one might end up with six children.
Drew Boyd:Yeah, we get it all. Are you Mormon? Oh yeah, Do you have a TV?
Stewart Shurtleff:Do you have a?
Kevin Cary:TV, as hilarious Jordan Peterson goes on this Ben, like once past three, like they. It's like what is the? What do they call it? They call it team mentality or like. I forget what phrase he says, but they start raising themselves a little bit.
Drew Boyd:I will say, if you have a pile of kids, it really is nice to have girls first and we did. They've been amazing Like they're. They're just natural mamas to the others and helpers. And the boys it's kind of like, yeah, I'll help you if you ask me to, but you know they don't quit quite as quickly. Volunteer.
Kevin Cary:And by help mean take away their stuff and beat them senseless, Like that's that's a boy's help.
Stewart Shurtleff:Man. That is more, that's more insightful than you think it might have been. Like the whole idea of like a guy, a boy, a man will help If you ask him to. We could do a whole episode on that. It's not that I'm unwilling, I just like I'm just going to sit here until someone moves me off the couch. You know, like I'm on right.
Stewart Shurtleff:Ask, ask me speaking of risk management. See what I did there. That's a good parlay. Yeah, there's a few.
Stewart Shurtleff:There's a few LinkedIn follows for me at least that anytime they post something, I'll stop down and read it. And you're one of them, and so I've been. You know, just like the other 5 million people following on LinkedIn, I've been just like lingering and lurking and watching and reading because you're one of them, man, like when you post something, I'm like, oh okay, I'm going to stop down because, like I said before you start recording, I've been in the construction industry and doing risk management as a lawyer for almost 20 years now. But, man, at least once a week I'm like, oh, I actually didn't, didn't know that about some deep nuanced issues.
Stewart Shurtleff:So we I reached out a couple of weeks ago, we talked and I was like we need to get you on, because most of our listeners are in the construction space and I think that they could really benefit from hearing from you about risk management and how, what the sort of entire panoply of that is.
Stewart Shurtleff:And then you know some top five issues or I don't even know where we go, just kind of turning it over to you to say say that's where thing. Also, let me give you another little pitch is is I understand you know your value proposition is you're not selling risk management or risk management or insurance tools Like this is purely like from a consulting perspective, like a fractional risk manager. I think is what it says on your LinkedIn yeah, just trying to help provide value, provide value, lean in, assess all this sort of things, which I think is super important, because most contractors their first call is to their broker Sure, because their broker is someone who's going to help them assess or whatever. But this neutral third party approach is unique to me and so I'm interested in hearing more about that.
Stewart Shurtleff:So, I said too many words. I will. I will shut up and say, drew, tell us a little bit about yourself, how we get to this spot, and then we'll walk through what you know kind of your top five or whatever, just kind of risk management, ensuring ideas that you have that you're working on, shoot on these days. So turn it over to you.
Drew Boyd:Yeah, first off, stuart, thanks for reading my stuff. I'm glad to know that at least one person actually reads those things, and I do try to, you know, always post stuff. That would be very helpful. Fractional risk management is pretty simple. It's like you just described.
Drew Boyd:You know, most larger businesses would have someone in their office that oversees insurance decisions, contracts and liability, and that would be someone that works for the company. They're not an insurance broker, they don't sell any insurance products or benefit from, you know, those kinds of sales, but their job is to sort of evaluate those things and make sure that the company is one protected and two compliant. And as I do that sort of on an outsourced basis, it just enables people to sort of offload that risk and legal and not legal but contract assessment part of it to somebody that they don't have to pay benefits and salary and all those things too. And I'm a fee for service guy. But yeah, that's my job, that's what I do. I dive deep into the insurance. I'm getting into the fine print of everything, looking at the company's operational and contractual liabilities and then telling them hey, you bought a general liability policy, that's great, but you might be interested to know that you are an excavation company and your general liability excludes earth movement. That's kind of a problem, yeah.
Stewart Shurtleff:I feel like those exclusions lie in there a lot, or in the classifications, kind of feed through to an exclusion of some sort and folks don't even realize it. The one I've seen the most is when you go from commercial to residential or quasi residential like I build skyscrapers and then all of a sudden you're building multifamily and you got an exclusion in there All of a sudden. You didn't even know it, but you're uninsured. Those things like that lurk in there all the time. Let me go back because, like I said, one of the foundational points is tell us, how did you get to this? What's your come up story that leads you to an expertise in risk management? Oh that's really easy.
Drew Boyd:I couldn't keep a job. People laugh when I say that, but it's really true. So University of Florida graduates wanted to be a teacher, love teaching, taught at public schools, private schools, and every year it seemed like I just wasn't asked to come back and say, hey, we love you, man, but we can't afford to give you a full time schedule. I had the superintendent for the county where I live calling around setting up interviews because I knew him and nothing. I didn't get one job offer. So I thought, you know, I got to do something different here through a resume up on monstercom and of course, the turn and burn. Aphelac hit me up almost immediately and said, hey, we think you'd be a great fit. So well, look, I currently have zero dollars coming in, so I'll take any opportunity I can to earn some money and sort of, through the prospecting process with some of these larger companies, found a consultant that we clicked really well and you know he and I hit it off and he offered me a job and I accepted and found out what I never would have guessed.
Drew Boyd:I love this stuff. I mean, it resonates with me. I was early to work every day and left late. You know, it was my dream job and then that job kind of went away and I was like, all right, well, I'm just going to do this for myself then. So I opened up shop in 2016 and I've been doing this now for the last what's that? Seven years?
Drew Boyd:November Little over seven years this month.
Kevin Cary:Yeah Well, yeah, before we spin into the risk and insurance, just like the life lesson there that we might not have it all figured out and it might not even be an opportunity we're interested in, but in order to find our purpose or go through some discovery, it takes some calculated risks and opportunities that you lean into that maybe you wouldn't have picked otherwise. Sometimes you just have to start right and go into something to figure out, whether you like it or not. You can't just sit and wait and wait and wait, you know, but you got to sometimes just start and that'll help you discover your gifts and your purpose. Yep, I agree with that.
Stewart Shurtleff:Well, there's an overlay too. I'll give you like a Jesus overlay too, through a crazy Garth Brooks lyric. But remember that song, anybody, garth Brooks? They're like thank God I answered prayers, like if Kevin is this, this doesn't hit for you, does it, garth Brooks?
Kevin Cary:I just noticed you put Jesus and Garth Brooks in the song.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yes, I did. So I'm kind of, yes, I did, I am a master like that. But in any event, like that's sort of the story, I mean I'm imputing, right, but like I want this, I want this, I want this, but that closed door shows you know this and you're like, well, I actually love doing this, I didn't know it, but for that door being closed, right. So there's some of that overlay to sprinkle on top of that story too, man.
Drew Boyd:Yeah, and it's looking at. So the job with the consultant. I actually was, I was let go and it wasn't because of anything that I had done, but there was there was a family conflict and it it went very sideways. Um, and it was. It was really tragic and I remember coming home and just sitting in my, my office at the house, feeling sorry for myself and just being sad and really praying like Lord, what do you want me to do? I mean, I've been trying to hold down a job, find a career, something that I could really sink my teeth into and put some roots down and provide for my family.
Drew Boyd:Um, and nothing's working, nothing's clicking, everything is is just falling apart here and I'm wondering where in the world you are and what on earth you're doing, cause I know you're working, but it sure doesn't look like it to me. Um, and as I, I looked up and I just was, I just was looking across my walls and I just felt this sense of why don't you just do what you love doing? What's stopping you? And I, I looked at my wife and I was like, huh, what would you think about me doing this and going into business for myself? And she said I think that's a great idea, and I knew at that moment, when she was right on board already and everything was like okay, lord, this is definitely you. So here we go, we're gonna, we're gonna dive into this thing and take the plunge and I wouldn't trade working for myself for the world. Now it's it's. It's hard to get crack, get get started and build, as you both well know, but once you do, it's just the most rewarding thing in the world.
Stewart Shurtleff:So when you had a post I'm scrolling your LinkedIn right now from a few days ago. I think it was your wife's. Was it your birthday? Is it her birthday? Or was it your celebrating wedding anniversary, one of the two?
Drew Boyd:Well, we celebrate twenty years on the twenty second. Her birthday was on the night gotcha and so you.
Stewart Shurtleff:The tag on that was she supported me and encourage me while it was quoting the world's biggest grump getting my business off the ground. That's the hard. That's a hard time, man. It's hard to get going. I know that's true.
Drew Boyd:Yeah, I didn't. When I say I was the world's biggest grump, that's not an overstatement. I was. I was miserable to be around and I, if I had myself on film, I would just be a poll. Everything was negative, everything was grouchy, everything was really me alone. I got stuff I gotta do, you know gotta get up in the morning and fill out the stupid paperwork.
Drew Boyd:You know, yeah, it's just yeah. That was in two years. It took me before I got my first client and you know it's like odd jobs, working earning very little money. And then on somebody caught a, an article that I wrote on OSAP insurance, and she sent an inquiry through my website. Who at the time was hosted by company that I fired immediately because they never notified me. And then I found out about a month later and color and she could. We talk for like an hour and a half and I felt great about it. They sent me all their stuff and when I sent them back what I found, they said where do we sign help? Yes, all right, my pleasure. So they've been with me now for seven well, not seven, five, I guess years and they've just been amazing well, there's a lot of rewards to being able to answer the call for help, right.
Stewart Shurtleff:I mean, I like that a little bit as a lawyer is just like People come, people walk through that door over there with the problem, biggest problems, and I'm like I can help solve that. There's a lot of reward in Helping folks in those situations. So I get, I get that idea to just like, no, they needed a solution and I could provide it. There's a lot of value there and there's a lot of just intrinsic Reward to be able to. You know, I'm gonna do this again this is there's an endorphin kick in there to I'll say one other thing.
Kevin Cary:So you had that God wink to start, right that it's almost like the consulting that you do. Sometimes the advice is so simple, like, oh, just start. You know that was like that kind of God wink like you should do what you love. What held you in there for two years, pro that two year season of not landing account man, that's, that's a scary season for the moment. Looking back at it on hindsight you're like, yeah, of course it makes sense, but in that season, what? What made you hold on to the bar?
Drew Boyd:Well, the fact that I had Failed to hold any other job for more than a year or two at a time, and just trusting that God really is good, that that was the big one, that I actually believe you're good. Even though it sucks right now and I feel miserable and I wake up and I hate the world, there's going to be goodness out of this and you're gonna reward me if I don't give up and I love doing this and I felt like all of the things that had happened up to that point had sort of prepared me for this moment to say, hey, let's, let's take this dive. Trust me, I'm gonna do something great. You just gotta hold on and walk into this storm with me, because what lies on the other side is amazing and I want you to have it.
Stewart Shurtleff:There's a great lesson and we don't need to linger on it now, but there's a great lesson or perhaps even a thought around the lamentations of that too. Right, like we started at risk management, we ended up talking about Jesus. But there's a great study on like this really sucks, but I trust that you're good and I just want you to know God. I want you to know that this sucks and I want you to know that I'm wrestling with it, but at the end of the day, I trust that you're good and I'm gonna wake up in the morning and I'm gonna be right here again. And we've been talking about lamentations in our small group the last couple three weeks and I didn't realize it, but I think it's like somebody will correct me here but I think it's like one third of the Psalms are not like why am I here? Like just crying out lamentations, and so we sort of miss that for you.
Stewart Shurtleff:We miss that like two year phase of like this is brutal but I trust that you're good, and I'm gonna stay in the fold and I'm gonna listen to your word and we're gonna make something great out of this.
Drew Boyd:So I'll briefly, because it applies. In 2021, I had a what I call a 180 moment, where the Lord just took my shoulders and turned me around and said look what I did, because in 2020, our family just went through a really big tragedy. And I'm not gonna get into what that was, but it was. It was bad, it was probably the darkest time in our lives and I was able to be home with my wife and my kids and walk beside them through the grieving process and just be present and you know how to have a nine to five. That never would have happened. I would, I would have been away. And so you know, as I'm driving out of my neighborhood one day, I just start weeping because the Lord brought this to my mind, and so you know the two years and all the struggle. I just stopped my car and just raise my hands and I was like thank you, lord.
Stewart Shurtleff:That's a great moment. Yeah, what a great moment. Yeah, to just have the, to have the metaphorical, metaphysical I don't know what the right word is like tanzling shoulders. Like turn around, just a look. Yeah, like you hadn't thought about it and I'm in a bit look and have a moment and then have the awareness to be thankful for that moment. All that, man, that's great.
Drew Boyd:That's a great story, that's a great moment yeah, well, it's just an evidence, you know, for the people that are listening. I mean there could be somebody in that exact scenario where they're in the middle of the two years of suck and they're like dude every day. I just want to throw this towel and I just want to quit and I just want to encourage those folks don't do it, just don't do it. Hang in there. Trust God, he will come through. He is working and good things are. As we say at our church, the best is yet to come. It's on the way.
Stewart Shurtleff:We could end it right there, kev. We could just be like boom, run the war drums, like what a great, like poignant moment of all of it, right?
Kevin Cary:Oh, there's one person. It's total God moment. That is just screaming in my head. I'm not going to call this person out, yeah, but as you just said that, I'm writing this person's name and writing needs to hear the first 20 minutes.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, there you go, man, I'm going to do the impossible, which is like grab the steering wheel and yank it to the left and go hard. Pivot from lamentations to risk management. Can we do it?
Drew Boyd:like yeah, yank the steering wheel.
Stewart Shurtleff:Walk us. I mean walk us through, just like some of your hot topics right now. If you have some that live in contractor space specific, that'd be perfect. But, like some things that you're working on, thinking on advice for folks who are trying to manage their risk or don't have any idea what's in their policies, walk us through some of those big ideas. We'll we'll be curious throughout the process here.
Drew Boyd:Yeah, sure, sure, one of the things that I would start with is to say that it's important to understand the difference between a requirement to have insurance and an exposure and see if for some of the smaller guys, they go live. You know, I may have exemptions for workers come, I don't, I don't have to carry it, like, okay, that's fine. But you need to know that you could still have a claim that is, workers come. And if you don't carry workers come, you're just choosing not to have insurance to pay the claim. Right, so you're choosing to not be covered in.
Drew Boyd:And I think a lot of times for the smaller contractors that are just getting cranking, they're under the impression that, hey, if I don't have to buy workers, come up and that's, that's my get out of jail free card. No, it isn't. Actually, you're gonna find yourself in a really tough spot. Most of the bigger contractors, that's not an issue. But that spills into the contract side of things and as they're looking at these job contracts and it says, hey, you have these insurance requirements, but you could have a claim that is more than what the insurance requirements are in the contract. So maybe you've got three million dollars of liability insurance, but you have a five million dollar claim, you know you might be required to, or not required to, ensure the materials that are stored on the job site awaiting installation.
Drew Boyd:But that doesn't mean that you couldn't have an issue where those materials are either damaged or stolen and you have to pay out a pocket for that if there is no insurance to cover them. So, understanding the difference of I'm required versus not required, versus I have an exposure and I tend to look at you know, contractually you have to meet the requirements. That's the bare minimum. If you don't have what's required, then you're in breach, and when you're in breach they can unleash all sorts of horror, and it's it's you know. They can withhold Money from this job. They don't have to pay you if you're working on multiple jobs with the same contractor. They can withhold money from every single job that this job has really nothing to do with If you're in breach of contract and they have to remedy that somehow. So it's very important to be compliant with the contract because it just avoids a ton of headaches.
Stewart Shurtleff:From an exposure perspective. I mean, what's your? Obviously that's company to company specific right. I don't need to have this policy or this is this exclusion matters or doesn't matter, or or whatever the case may be, how do you go through Figuring out how you're covering theoretical or potential exposures? Or let me juxtapose that against the everybody, or it seems like lots of people just get blanket cookie cutter. You know, this is the policies. I'm punching these out for everybody. There's a difference between that approach and I need to understand your business Better so that I can help you manage against and ensure against your actual exposures. How do you work through that?
Drew Boyd:So a couple things. The first, the most common question that any insurance professionals gonna ask is how much insurance do I need? That's a question with absolutely no answer, correct. You know you, and that's not entirely true. You, I look at what. What are we trying to protect? What could someone take from your business? And then, how much money do we want to have available? That isn't our money that can be used to make right something that we got wrong.
Drew Boyd:So the answer to those two questions, when considered in tandem, I think gives us a pretty good idea of how much insurance somebody needs to purchase. So if you have a company that does fifty million dollars a year in revenue and they've got I don't know three million dollars worth of equipment, a couple million dollars in property, you you look at the what we call the attachable assets, right in lawyer speak and with you and say that you know this is what could be taken from us that we need to protect, and then you know the value of the jobs that they're doing are, on average, five million dollars or something.
Drew Boyd:Say, okay, what's a reasonable amount of liability coverage that we would want to purchase For these jobs, regardless of what the requirement is. We have to meet the requirement, but there may also be a need to carry more. You know, just just by virtue of the type of work that we do and you can look at claims histories for similar companies and figure out. You know a reasonable number. If I'm a concrete contractor and it's a ten million dollar job in my contract values one point five, then a typical liability claim is probably gonna be in the millions, right, so I don't want to only have a million dollars of insurance because I'm gonna be up the creek without even a boat for get paddles. So that's, that's kind of the first piece. And then look at you know what do they do? What does this company do? And when you say that, say, well, I'm a carpentry guy. Okay, well, that just tells me use wood. But that doesn't tell me what you do.
Drew Boyd:What kind of buildings are you building? What industries are you serving? Who are your top clients? What are? What are you signing contractually? What are you agreeing to protect and what are you agreeing to assume in terms of somebody else's liability? Because that's a big, huge deal. If I'm a small contractor by small I say relatively small and I go work for a big national general contractor and I agree to hold them harmless, well, I've just taken on a significant amount of risk because I'm now protecting a company that does billions of dollars a year and I only do millions of dollars a year. So I have to consider that there's a lot going on and also be, of course, holding the developer harmless, and maybe the architect and the lender and a host of other people you know. So what does that look like? How does that change the risk profile? So there's a lot that goes into it.
Drew Boyd:And then, of course, once you start getting into the actual policies is, as you mentioned, stuart, you find these exclusions.
Drew Boyd:You say, well, this, this is gonna be problematic because if I'm a foundation repair contractor and I have an exclusion for damage done by any work that was done underground, I'm that's not, that's not gonna cut the mustard. You know, there you find, you find things like this all the time In these policies. So when you get the shelf product policy because that's a standard exclusion on a lot of general liability policies and it's not on everyone but earth moving and subsidence, you see, you see fungi and bacteria, you see OSIPs excluded, you see residential work excluded, things like this, and so for one contractors maybe those things are an issue, but for another contractor it's there a nightmare, you know, and so they have to be careful for those things one of the things you're talking about Kind of I'm just taking notes so I don't know how to connect it back connect back the dots but it was the idea of your policy and your policy overlay and your protection schemes and your risk management schemes and all this.
Stewart Shurtleff:They have to morph as you grow, because that policy you got five years ago may no longer be reflective of either the work you're doing, your attachable assets that you have, the locations that you're operating in, etc. And so, unless you have someone who's like actually sitting down with you and reviewing what that overlay looks like on an annualized basis, or perhaps even more often than that, you can't always just run it back like whatever we had last year is fine again. No, it's probably not. You've grown. You have a larger workforce, you're doing something different, you're in a new niche, you have a Different risk, you bought a new piece of property. All those things need to be assessed through the renewal process. I mean, tell me, tell me how to manage that, or maybe I'm wrong. You can say, stuart, you're wrong, that's stupid.
Drew Boyd:But help help us do that.
Drew Boyd:You're absolutely right and renewal is a. You bring up a great point there, stuart, because so, for example, the client I mentioned before that has been with me forever. We've done five renewals with them now and every year at renewal new exclusions show up on the policy that weren't there the year before. And then you know, in terms of auto, this year we got the renewal.
Drew Boyd:I always ask for all the paperwork before renewal. I want to see everything. So if there's gonna be anything new on this policy that's not currently there, I need to see it before we buy this coverage, so that we know what we're doing. And of course, I get all the forms. Everything looks fine, and then blow and the whole the policy comes out and there's three drivers that are excluded by name from the coverage and I called them up and I said, guys, this, this form, was not included in what you sent to me. They said, oh well, we don't run the MVR is until you agree that you want the coverage, because you know we don't want to spend the money if you're not gonna buy the coverage. I said, okay, well, that's fine and very understandable. But here's the problem. My client has been exposed for nine weeks and we had no idea. So if one of those guys had gotten into an accident you would have denied the entire claim and that could be millions of dollars. And we asked you up front to make sure that we weren't missing anything. We were missing something super significant.
Drew Boyd:And then, of course, as it turns out, those three guys should never have been excluded. To begin with because California, when they do motor vehicle reports, they list failure to maintain personal insurance as an accident financial responsibility. So the underwriter ran those MVR is oh, these guys have had accidents, we're gonna, we're gonna exclude them from coverage. So I had to go back, get the information from the California DMV submitted to the insurance company and say, hey, I think there was and misunderstanding, and sure enough, they were fine with it. They took them, put them back on the policy, no problem. But that's just an example of things, that renewal that can just go sideways and so often that's gonna get missed entirely. Nobody's gonna see that. If they ever see it, you know, if one of those three guys had gotten into an accident before we had taken care of this and it was a big one, I think the odds at the insurance company come back and go, you shouldn't have excluded those guys in the first place is pretty much zero zero.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, that would have been exclusion Kings X, goodbye, move along. Scenario. And I say this sort of cheek cheekily a lot, is it? None of this matters until it matters. Huh, like that exclusion doesn't, who cares? Until Kevin gets in a motor vehicle accident and has a turret right. And now all of a sudden, like well, and you start flipping through papers and there's a missed email and you forgot to check a box and so Right, the importance of having some foresight on these issues. It's paramount because it doesn't matter until it matters. Right, kevin's smirking because he's he's the one who got in an accident here.
Kevin Cary:Kevin gives blood and then passes out cold and dry. Wakes up in somebody's backyard with a total truck.
Stewart Shurtleff:That's a real story that actually happened that's a real story.
Kevin Cary:Who I'm still paying double coverage. That's rough that's rough.
Drew Boyd:But you know I I say Stuart all the time like the guy, the guy who's gonna find out in a year that he's got late stage four cancer feels fine right now. He's not going to the doctor because he doesn't have any reason to think he needs to write, you know, but next year he's gonna feel it and when he feels it then he's gonna go. I better go get this checked out. And you know, in risk management I say we gotta get this done before that feeling arrives, cuz once that feeling arrives it's gonna be too late. We need to do this now.
Kevin Cary:That in that pie chart? When, when people are bringing you on board, is it more reactive or proactive, like percent of a hundred? Is it you get brought to the table when something bad happens or people coming to see you like? Prevent us from this happening, please.
Drew Boyd:Well, thankfully, kevin that's a great question I would say 70% of the time it's proactive, which is awesome because it's far more effective. Now I'm in A claim right now it's a six figure loss where a company had the loss and then, through a connection, was put in touch with me and their insurance companies denying the entire thing, when the entire thing is covered. So good news, they're gonna get paid. But that's fortunate for them, because you know that that doesn't always happen and I have had rare instances where Someone reached out to me with a claim and said, hey, can you help us? And I said send me your policy and went back and said, guys, I am so sorry but no, you know, if the policy says it isn't covered, then that's pretty much it it's not covered.
Stewart Shurtleff:Right. So at that point there's nothing you can do but but the sort of forensic analysis or, after the fact the claim has been denied, review of that. Also very helpful for this, because oftentimes people don't have A drew on staff to say, no, this is, this is incorrect, right? Your broker submits the claim. You get some blanket form denial letter from the carrier. You're like well, shucks, just put it in the drawer If you don't have someone on your staff or inside your organization that you can say was this right? Help me assess like this is. Is that exclusion actually exclude this? Let's parse through this me. You may literally be leaving money on the table with some of these claims get denied. You're not challenging them or pushing back or don't know even what to say or who to say it to.
Drew Boyd:Yeah, and it's sad that. So you probably know this even better than me, stir, but nothing said in a mediation is admissible in court. It's all protected, right. So if you ever have the misfortune of sitting through a mediation with an insurance company that's trying to deny a claim and really just doesn't want to pay it, it can get Ugly. That you know.
Drew Boyd:The insurance companies have almost unlimited resources. They know this and the business owners do not. They know this too and they've got very subtle ways of saying like hey guys, you know, we, we want you to walk away with something here. We don't want this to be long and expensive and drain your bank accounts and just you know using these subtle intimidation tactics to try to get people just back off and go away. You know, and it's because of nothing is admissible in court, I've seen some not so above board decisions and things be made. So, yeah, you need someone that knows what's coming and they know what to do when it happens. Because most of the time you get the denial letter and, like you said, you're not an insurance person, you just go.
Drew Boyd:Well, I guess it's not covered. And most of the time the insurance brokers are going to agree with the insurance companies and say, hey, if they said it's not covered, then it's not covered. It's just one of those things, because they have two juggling balls they're trying to juggle. They have to honor you as their client, but they also have to honor the insurance company that's paying their bills that they're selling for. So they're in a really tough spot in that regard because they can't swing too far one way or the other. They got to do that balancing act, which I would never want to do. I just get to be fully on the side of the business owner and say, hey, I'm here for you, the insurance company. Obviously I've got a responsibility to be ethical and preserve relationships where possible, but I'm here to fight for you. I'm here to stand up for you and make sure that you get what's fair.
Stewart Shurtleff:You know it's interesting because that issue of the tripartee relationship comes up in terms of the allocation of counsel, right, so there's an insured claim, the insurance company picks it up to defend and uses panel counsel, for example.
Stewart Shurtleff:We want to say panel counsel, I mean lawyers who have been approved by the insurance company to do work almost exclusively for the insurance company at predetermined rates.
Stewart Shurtleff:And in those instances most of those or let me say that differently in those instances those lawyers derive most of their business from the insurance company. And there's a big issue in the state of Texas that for most part has been resolved with this juncture as to who the loyalties of that lawyer lie to. Right, and I never really I won't belabor the issue here, but I never really thought about it from the broker perspective like you just presented it. They, the broker, also has a divided sense of loyalty, as you articulate it, and I just never thought about that which sort of highlights the value of a third party, fractional, neutral person to come in and say I get that it says the night and I get that your broker says it was denied. But let's look at that because that's a big number and I don't think that. I don't think exclusion, get J actually applies here, and here's why you need to read these definitions, and there's 700 of them, and there's actually a writer that amends the definition and all that stuff, and that's where folks like you're like hooray.
Drew Boyd:I want to read those policies right.
Stewart Shurtleff:Like, I'm not to over, not to make it sound silly, but it's kind of silly that you'll have to do that Cause that is that is my numbing word. But if you don't have the expertise to live in those documents and know how they work together and assess it all, you're at the whim of those folks who are telling you what it says.
Drew Boyd:You're right, and it is. It can be my numbing. I often get funny looks from people when I tell them what I do is like, oh my God, I can't, I'd rather watch paint dry, you know, but it's. It's. The thing of it is, when you get into it and you, you attack it from the perspective of.
Drew Boyd:I know that what is being provided to this business is going to need work and there are areas where they've bought this insurance and they're spending a fortune and there are gaps in the coverage that no one knows are there and it's not fair for someone who has done the work, as we talked about earlier, to build a successful business, to pay all this money, trusting people to take care of them and have their back, and then all of a sudden they just wave goodbye and keep the money.
Drew Boyd:I mean that. That's, I can't, the sense of justice. So when I'm looking through, I'm looking for those gaps and it provides a just a tremendous amount of satisfaction to me to know that, hey, I've identified this for them, we've talked about it and we've found the best possible solution. So they have a ground to stand on. So if they get that denial letter, I'm not worried about it because I know we have coverage and it's here and you know we've got a, a means to hold someone's feet to the fire if we have to, to make sure that that money comes in when they need it the most. And there's no better feeling than you see a friend go down and you're the first person there to pick them up and say I got you, man, let's do this. Yeah, it's, it's, it's awesome.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, I get that. I get that Good Kev.
Kevin Cary:You just schooled me on requirement versus exposure because I'm a specialty contractor and that's all I'm doing when it comes to insurance because I don't understand it to the level you do. So it for me, quite honestly, it becomes a check of the box, like, do I match my clients' requirements? But I've never looked at it from a proactive exposure standpoint, and especially in startup mode. We were just clinging on for somebody to say yes and it was hallelujah when somebody took us as a new client kind of thing. But, man, once we get a year under our our belt, man, you're going to be hearing from me because I'm going to want to know all of these exposures that I'm walking into because a dummy like me that doesn't understand insurance to your level, I'm in the camp of man.
Kevin Cary:Insurance is there for you until you need them. Like I'm sure you hear that from a lot of people Like that is my opinion on insurance. Like once I need them, they disappear, they don't cover. But I might need to look in the mirror on that because I'm not paying enough attention and it's probably something that I inked that they're just saying gotcha, like this is what you signed up for and I think for I mean most typically people like me are listening to this podcast. That's why we need you, because you're covering blind spots that we don't even see come.
Stewart Shurtleff:Well, and to have a process or procedure in place to assess them too. Right Cause you have the, you have the typical insurance risk management, but then you have the contractual overlay risk management stuff to it too, and I don't know if that, I don't know how much of that drew you do in terms of there's the entering overlay to risk management, but there's the black and white boilerplate contract stuff too. Do you? How much do you lean in on those issues?
Drew Boyd:Oh, a ton, and so when you look at a construction subcontract, obviously it's broken down into a number of subsections. I typically don't get involved in the scope of work because I'm not I'm not a contractor. I work with a lot of contractors. That is my bread and butter at the time at the time. So I have familiarity with the processes and things. But I lean on the folks that work for the construction companies to go through that scope of work and say what are we specifically doing? Because if we're not doing it, we need to make sure that it cannot be included in this scope of work at all, because this contract and what we're agreeing to protect people for is going to be based on what's in that scope of work. So if something goes awry and it has nothing to do with what's in that scope of work, we should be pretty safe. We should be able to say, hey, we did our job well and we're not gonna be dragged into a construction defect claim, which those are always long and super painful. So it's one of those things where, if you can avoid it 100% of the time, you want to.
Drew Boyd:But my focus obviously would be on the insurance requirements and the indemnity in particular and looking at places in the contract where you find that. So, for example, cancellation the owner say we can terminate this contract for convenience. We can terminate it for cause. We can kick you off the job site, take all your materials and supplies, finish the work for you or hire somebody else to do it. And the thing is, when you see those, nowhere does it say that if we do that, you're released from any liability for what we do or for what the other sub does. In fact, what you've agreed to most of the time is to be liable for that in addition. So if they just get into a heated argument with you and throw you off the job site and then hire someone that's lousy, now you have to basically suck it up for those people and hope that they've got decent insurance, which, if they're lousy, they probably don't. So it's gonna come back to you and your desk and they're gonna say hey, this is still your scope of work.
Drew Boyd:You've agreed to indemnify us for anything arising out of, in any way connected to resulting from your work on the project, and it's always neutral. It's not your negligence, it's not something you did wrong, it's just something you did. So if we can connect it back to something you did. You don't even have to be responsible, but you're gonna start paying and you're gonna start paying immediately. We're gonna send you a written notice and you have to defend us. So I look for that and I edit that out. I look at the contractor, says oh and by the way, even if we, the contractor, are negligent and that's the cause of the claim, you still have to defend us. So big red line there. No, you can pay for your own negligence, that's fine.
Stewart Shurtleff:Let me put my lawyer hat on for just a second, because the issue of indemnity is a jurisdictional issue to some very large extent. So if you take a survey across the country of how different states are managing that, it shows up differently in different places and different spaces as to what you can and can't do, and so in some instances I can't boy, I won't bore everybody with my Stuart's five hour lecture on indemnity, but you have generally three different forms broad, comparative, broad, limited and comparative. And the language in there that nobody reads tweaks through like is this broad form or is this limited form? Is this comparative form? How does it manage? What am I supposed to indemnify you for, what are the triggers, et cetera. And in Texas specifically, there's an overlay that says a statutory overlay, that says what you can and can't do. So it's very complicated but it's very important. It's kind of.
Stewart Shurtleff:The point I want to come back to is knowing what it says, what the triggers are, what you're required to do, whether or not it's enforceable when it kicks in, how far it extends, all those things. Nobody ever pays attention to it, mostly because it's in bold letters and you're just scrolling right. The non-risk manager is like I just want to see scope and price Scroll scroll scroll scope, price signature or off and running, whereas you have a huge, huge potential in those clauses to be rubed back into something, and in some instances those clauses don't thread through a CGO policy. The language doesn't meet up and so you have a coverage gap for something you've agreed to do. So it's a real big risk issue in there.
Drew Boyd:Oh, 100%. And you know excuse me, one of the things that I see in every subcontract in the indemnity sections it starts with these words to the fullest extent permitted by law. Okay, and I always tell people, legality does not define morality. They are not the same thing. Just because someone is allowed to do something legally doesn't mean that it is the right thing to do or that they should do it. So you know, when you're having these contract negotiations and they say, well, it's, you know, the law allows us to do it, well, that's fine.
Drew Boyd:You know, I live in a standard ground state and for anybody that doesn't know what that means, that means that if I feel threatened by anyone, I am fully within my legal right to blow them away. I can do that and it's. The law says I'm allowed, I can defend myself from the feeling of being threatened, and. But I think all of us would agree it's not okay for someone to just pull a sidearm and start shooting people indiscriminately. Now, it's allowed by law, but it's not okay.
Drew Boyd:You know and that's an extreme example, but it gets to point across that, you know I might be the law may allow for someone to say you have to pay for all my bills, even when it's completely my fault the law might allow that I still think it's wrong and I still think if that's what you're requiring people to do, you should not be sleeping well at night because you have no integrity. But that's just me. So you know, I look for those things. I look at the additional insured, which relates in a lot of ways to that indemnity and those claims, and they say well, you have to have this particular form. Almost 100% of the time they don't. And the certificates of insurance are the big deal too, because the entire industry runs on those. And if you'll look at a certificate of insurance, right at the top it says in big bold print this means nothing.
Drew Boyd:It does not confer any coverage on anybody, you have to refer to the policies. You can't hold this up in court and say well, the certificate says it's covered. The certificate's irrelevant, it's you can sneeze and wipe your nose with it. You know You'd have more protection if you printed it out and held it over your head in a rainstorm.
Kevin Cary:Ha ha ha, Just like a bond letter, right.
Drew Boyd:Yeah, it's wrong and I see this all the time and people think I'm full of prunes. You know, you mentioned the residential exclusion earlier, stuart. That's, I've seen a certificate for a client that I have from before the time that I was with them and the certificate says no residential exclusion. So I use this in a negotiation once and I have the other the contractors, brokers on the phone and we're talking. I said, listen, you see this certificate, yes, I do. Said okay, I have this policy too, because it's the one I reviewed when I won this client and there aren't one, but two residential exclusions on this policy. I'll send it to you right now. Here you go.
Drew Boyd:So you have an example of a certificate that is completely inconsistent with what the policy says that's listed on that certificate. And I would wager a good crisp new dollar that if you pull a random policy for any of your other subcontractors and compare it with their certificate, you're going to find inconsistencies every time, every time, and that that subcontractor, whether they know it or not, is in breach of contract. And I promise you, if something goes south, a Clever attorney is going to find that and they're going to notice that they're in breach of contract and they're going to use that as a positioning, posturing kind of thing To be able to get what they need from the situation, and they'll they'll be right, there'll be nothing we can do.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, I won't tell a story to tell a story here, but I've had that case before where we were on the cert Listed as an AI but the policy didn't have the appropriate endorsement. So you fast forward that through, make a claim that were not insured, blah, blah, blah. Like I've actually handled that case before and if you're listening you know who I'm talking about and I won't bore you with how it all worked out. But now that's not just a theoretical problem.
Stewart Shurtleff:No, it's not seven years ago I handled that case for a client and it's.
Drew Boyd:It turned out as crazy as you might think you turned out, but yeah, and look what I have seen most of the time when a certificate is required, a Contract is sent over and someone on the broker's team looks at it and goes, okay, this is what the requirements are. They list that in the certificate comment section and send the certificate out and, you know, very rarely is it checked. Hey, do we actually have All of these things that are required here? Is that consistent? You know, a lot of times it just gets sent out and no one checks and you know, you go back and you go hey, wait a minute, guys.
Drew Boyd:Thankfully we can't be held liable for what's on a certificate of insurance, because it does say right at the top that it doesn't mean anything, but we're putting out information that's incorrect. So you know, that's on us. I think that's our integrity. We got to be able to make sure that if we're submitting something to somebody, the accurate the information we're putting on it is accurate. So yeah, it happens. And again, like you said, stuart, with Because if I don't have insurance coverage, that doesn't mean I don't have the exposure. I certainly do, because I signed an agreement saying that I would back up all of this stuff and my insurance company now doesn't have to back it up, because the the form stipulates that they don't, but I still have to back it up, so now it's just coming out of my pocket.
Stewart Shurtleff:I would do be reductive a little bit, but I've contractually agreed to pay for that. Irrespective of whether or not my policy covers it correct, there's a gap.
Drew Boyd:Yeah, yeah, 100%. So yeah, that's that's me. You know another area that a lot of people, I think, skip over and in fact I'm working with us, a fairly small contractor right now, but you know this guy is overpaid by Probably $60,000 or close to it over the last few years for his workers compensation insurance because all of his payroll was classified under carpentry. And when we went back he's actually got a project manager that accounts for a significant portion of the payroll. They do mostly interior trim and cabinetry work. They do some painting, a little bit of snow removal to clean the job sites. And when we went back to NCCI, which is the rating Organization, and did the math, so holy smokes man, you way overpaid for all this stuff.
Drew Boyd:And you know it happens on general liability as well. Typically an insurance company, when they underwrite something, is just gonna find the most expensive Possible class code and put it in there. So you know it could be years of overpaying because your general liability classes are are. They work for coverage but they're not the most favorable to you. That could be applicable. Same thing on the workers comp. Sometimes vehicles are rated improperly and they've got them as long radius of haul when it should be medium or local, or they have the gross vehicle weights mixed up and they've got them in the wrong class of business. And you just see, you know people are overpaying for what they're getting. And so I like to go back and figure out how much of this can we recover? And typically, on the the GL and work comp, most states give you three years, so the current year plus two prior, and one business here in town and my old office they overpaid by three quarters of a million dollars.
Stewart Shurtleff:So you know you can somebody a 750 thousand dollar check.
Drew Boyd:You just made a really good new friend.
Stewart Shurtleff:What's the audit tail and that? You see, you might have mentioned it, but do you have, as a policyholder, audit rights to go back and say, hey, man, in 2021? I think I had my classifications mixed up. I need to fix this.
Drew Boyd:Yeah, absolutely cover premium.
Drew Boyd:Yeah, this is a reverse-looking problem too right, yeah, so you you as a policyholder can go back At least on general liability and work comp and, and you can go back on anything really it does.
Drew Boyd:I don't know, you know, if the insurance company has any onus or Responsibility to make a change on the other lines of insurance. But if you can demonstrate that what was insured Wasn't properly rated and that they overpaid or they overcharged you, then I know, for GL and work comp, I'm pretty sure they're required to make it, make it right. And you know, if you can demonstrate it, at least refund the overpaid money. And then, of course, I don't mind using the court of public opinion as a Little bit of leverage too and saying hey, if I have overpaid you by a hundred percent on this property and you know I overpaid you by a hundred percent on this property, do you really want that to be your? You know where to mouth going around that this is what you did and you know that you overcharged me, but you're just gonna keep all that money, even though I overpaid you. I don't mind saying that at all, because I feel like I'm giving someone an opportunity to do what's right. Whether they do it or not, totally up to them.
Stewart Shurtleff:Well and again, as your and as your position, as a third party to the process, you have no like, there's no qualms in saying that because you're not worried about what ABC insurance company thinks about it. Yeah, like, yeah, abc insurance company 2x, 2x to client for no reason, and when we try to fix it, they told us no and we ended up in a right like that doesn't Divest you of future business and so there's no no's and saying right and even, even you know people say, well, I do, I do need to Make sure that I don't make a bad name for myself out there in the insurance industry.
Drew Boyd:But any insurance company that would say, oh, we won't do business if there's an unbiased consultant involved. Think about the optics on that. That looks Terrible. You know, we don't want someone without a someone to come in here and mess up our Wizard of Oz thing We've got going on, you know, telling people that the guy behind the curtain is pulling some strings Because it just it makes it look like they're up to something. So I don't think that's ever gonna be an issue. And of course I. The benefit to the insurance companies is I don't want anybody defrauding anybody. I don't want business owners to be trying to swindle their insurance companies by reporting, underreporting on revenues and underreporting on payrolls and Not reporting claims that really should be reported. You know, I I think it's a two-way street and there needs to be integrity and honesty on both sides of the table at all times. So I yeah, I wouldn't help a business that I felt was willing to be dishonest in any way. But they're with their insurance company or anybody else. Yeah, it's a good point.
Kevin Cary:I think, being the outsider the on this conversation with you, know both of y'all are kind of consultants in a way, and Sometimes you need to tell us what we need to hear, not what we want to hear, even when we're hiring you. And and I think I know there's a specific story that Stewart was there for me I flew out of state. Do you know what I'm talking about? Me? You probably now that I said I've flown out of state and you had to tell Me, like Kev, you, you can't sign this. He was breaking it me down and breaking it down in layman's terms, like Kev, if you sign this, this is what this means. And I had to walk away from a mega job which was painful, but, man, that's that's why we have y'all Locked arms with us to prevent us from walking into heap of trouble, because it's it's beneficial. I'm sure you've had a time or two where you were hired by somebody like me and then had to break Some pretty unfortunate news, but it was news that needed to be heard.
Drew Boyd:Yeah, these things happen. I Looking at a job by job basis there. There's another area that I focus on a lot and that is If you think about a construction project from start to finish, the developer is gonna find a spot and go we're gonna build something here, and then they are typically the ones that will buy what's called a builders risk policy, and you know it's intended to cover the entire project during the course of construction, from start to finish. Once the building is occupied, it's put to its intended use, the builders risk is gone, it's bye-bye, it doesn't do anything any longer. But there can be huge issues in that builders risk policy. Most recently I looked at a couple big OSIT projects and the builders risk excludes earth movement of any kind. So you know, if there's an issue because of something the excavator did and there's damage to the project, well it's under the course of construction. The builders risk isn't gonna pay it. Well, the issue with that is so did the OSIT policy. So the OSIT policy excluded it, the builders risk excluded it and of course all of the subcontractors on the job are gonna have an OSIP Exclusion on their geo. So we have the trifecta. It's just excluded all the way around.
Drew Boyd:Of course, no one knows, because no one reads insurance policies, especially OSIT policies. They just sign up for the job. Hey, here's the manual. You got $50 million worth the coverage. We're all sharing it. Back your insurance rates out. Give us a credit. Done, you don't have a choice. Sign up. No one has a clue, no one gets the builders risk. And so I Hit the broker up and said hey, I found this. I think we probably want to deal with it because I don't want to have to call your client, or you to have to call your client and say, hey, by the way, we got a massive exposure here. That's just Bear naked, nothing. And they said, oh yeah, thanks for bringing that to our attention, We'll get it sorted. And sent me the endorsement saying you know, we've got this covered under the the builders risk and we're all set like okay, perfect when the builders risk policy I don't carry it.
Stewart Shurtleff:And when I stand up for sign up for an OSAP, you're further removed from like letting me look at assessed risk under the policy. Like okay, you did it, I'm gonna assume that it's covered because you did it. And the owners carrying builders risk, I'm sure they took. No, just as much as you didn't you. The business owner didn't look at your own policies, neither did the developer and neither did the GC around like so, like right, what you've infused into that is just a Gross assumption that it's caught somewhere. Someone has to be tending to the shop here, someone has to be minding the policies and knowing that caught, that catch that you made exists to be caught. Otherwise, again, it only matters when it matters and building shifts because of the earth moves and all of a sudden it's a full demo and like, well, we need a 80 million dollar resolution. We don't have one, right, we don't have one.
Drew Boyd:Yep, and that's that's what I have said for years. You mentioned the word assumption. The entire construction industry builds on a foundation of assumption, with a framework of assumption. It's all Assumption. And you know you think, well, surely these multi-billion dollar general contractors, they're savvy, you know, they've read all this stuff, they don't miss any of this stuff and like, no, no, let me. Let me just put put it this way for you I've reviewed insurance for large projects with large national GC's insured by large national brokers, with the best risk management company administrating the whole thing, and found gaps in the coverage. So it doesn't matter, the who is not important, it doesn't matter. There are people making assumptions at every single level. So the only way to safeguard against this is to actually get the information and read it, because if you don't, I promise you nobody else has right, drew.
Kevin Cary:This has been awesome information. I know when I'm gonna reach out to you timing wise but what there might be a lot of people thinking like when do I reach out to you? What's the best timing? What's the right timing? Maybe there's multiple answers. I'll just tee that up to you for an answer or answers.
Drew Boyd:Yeah, thanks, kevin. It really just depends on what it is we're looking at. If Somebody wants to take a look at what they've got in terms of insurance coverage and what's available to them in the marketplace, I Really need four to six months before renewal, because I want to be able to really get in and assess what they've got and Then be able to find the people in the insurance marketplace that have the right relationships and and that's. That's a whole other ball of wax, because if you don't understand the industry and how it works, I'll just put it like this money talks. So you know, if I'm a broker that has 50 million dollars of business with a given insurance company, I'm gonna get a way better result with that company than someone that only has $500,000 of written premium with that company. I might have a completely different underwriter. You know my rates are probably gonna be better. What I can do coverage wise is gonna be better. So I've got to have time to identify those people and be able to bring them to the table for the business to say hey, we're gonna not just get one guy trying to swing all the bats or one person. We're gonna find out who's the best person for this particular bat, who's the one that's gonna take this thing and hit a grand slam for us and we're gonna get all the heavy hitters swinging at one time and Let them actually compete for the business, versus the conventional approach of I just went to one broker, or maybe two, and said, hey, get me what you can right, which basically, whoever gets there first is gonna be guaranteed to win the business. It's just a matter of which insurance company they put it with. So, you know, four to six months is a good time frame for that to be able to do just a great, stellar job.
Drew Boyd:But if a question comes up and someone's looking at a contract and they go, hey, I Don't have a clue if I'm covered for any of this. This, you know, this scares the living daylights out of me. I wish I was wearing a diaper when I'd started reading this. You know, yeah, call me anytime. You know, hit me up on LinkedIn with a DM, or call my cell phone or shoot me an email and just kind of run me through the situation.
Drew Boyd:What are we dealing with, you know, and there can be situations where we need to do something quick. We, we got to get something done and it's. It's not a matter of having four to six months to do it, it just needs to be done and it needs to be done as well as it can. So there, there are a couple different ways to get involved and into help, and it may be a situation where we deal with this immediate issue right away and then we calendar for a couple months down the road to say, alright, once we get to this spot, we're gonna dive into everything else. It's gonna be, the timing is gonna be right and you know we it's just cast to be done on a case-by-case basis, because there's no one-size-fits-all solution.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, and I will say, if you're not, a following drew on LinkedIn. I don't know where else you live in social media space, but if you're not, go follow him now. Let me give you an opportunity to like Pitch the ways to get connected with you, specifically for listeners. They say, okay, grab your pen, I'm gonna write that down. Here's your handle on whatever, whatever, I don't know. I'm saying like old people things right now, but let me say it easily how do we get in touch with you?
Drew Boyd:LinkedIn's great. I'm always on LinkedIn. It is my, my social media platform. I don't really use anything else Because it allows me to actually illustrate the point of you know what I'm trying to share and give examples and stories, which I do pretty frequently. So, yeah, that's that's the best way. Of course, if you want to shoot me an email, it's real easy. It's drew my name at Jefferson maxi. That's maxycom. So yeah, that's it. I'm not big on social media other than LinkedIn. That's, that's my platform.
Kevin Cary:I saw, I saw the phone number there and I was rooting for it to be Mike Jones Cell phone number two. Oh no no, might not ring a bell, but every time I see that I'm like you're just drew, doesn't get that joke. Yeah, nor should me here.
Stewart Shurtleff:I'll read you in. There's a rapper from Houston who, every time he would release a New track, would put a cell phone over on there and he would say call Mike Jones, and he would say cell phone number. That's the joke. Okay, that Kevin and Kevin and I are read in on, and now all of our listeners are too.
Drew Boyd:I had no idea who that was.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, yeah, mike. I think there's a few people right now who heard that and they just ran. They ran through Mike Jones cell phone number in their head. That's how like locally popular it was. But any of it you didn't need to know that.
Drew Boyd:No, good to have context.
Stewart Shurtleff:Yeah, yeah, all right, drew, this has been awesome man. I appreciate you thinking through things, chatting through things with us, providing some Additional avenues of information, support for our listeners. If you guys need anything now, you know how to get in touch with Drew, and until we see you guys next time, you guys stay out there and keep moving mountains.