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00:00:13.935Hello everybody and welcome to Adjusted.
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00:00:26.213I'm your host, greg Hamlin, coming at you from beautiful Birmingham, Alabama, and with me today is our special guest, jeremy Morrison, director of Underwriting.
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00:00:29.687Jeremy, if you could introduce yourself to everyone.
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00:00:30.410Yeah, hi.
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00:00:31.492Good morning, thanks, greg.
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00:00:35.871I am, as you said, jeremy Morrison, director of Underwriting at Berkeley Industrial.
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00:00:45.271I've been with Berkeley Industrial going on six years in July and have been in the workers' compensation space for about 20 years, believe it or not.
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00:00:47.487It's amazing how time flies right.
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00:00:49.765Yes, it is.
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00:01:14.986I was just telling my wife we went out last night for ice cream and I was telling her, like we were talking about AI, and I said people are never going to believe that when I started in claims 20 years ago, we still had paper files and we had walls of files that we pulled back and forth to like yeah, like that's just like mind blowing and I'd have to hand type notes to the file, otherwise we'd have to go pull the paper file.
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00:01:17.781So the world's definitely changing Absolutely.
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00:01:19.328Yeah, no, I'm right there with you.
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00:01:25.625Well, one of the things I thought was interesting we're going to be talking today about experience modifications the myths, the facts and the solutions.
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00:01:45.966But one things I thought was interesting we're going to be talking today about experience modifications the myths, the facts and the solutions, but one thing I thought was interesting as we go into this is that, as I was doing some research on this topic, that claims that are late reported in the fourth or fifth week following an injury are actually 45% more expensive than those reported in the first week.
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00:01:51.686So I thought that was an interesting fact, and, as we go into this, I think we're going to get to the why behind some of that.
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00:01:59.611So I thought first though, jeremy, I think we've had you on before, but I would still love to hear and remind our listeners about how you got into the industry.
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00:02:01.183Yeah, yeah absolutely Well.
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00:02:15.110I was fortunate enough to have a family connection that was involved in a small workers' compensation carrier when I was in high school and college and started doing some internship work for them in the claims department.
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00:02:22.320When I graduated college I was able to join their team as an associate underwriter and have been in underwriting ever since.
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00:02:28.752So it was really through the good fortune of a family connection that kind of got me started in the insurance space.
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00:02:41.473I would not have thought of insurance really as a career when I was younger, but certainly glad for that good fortune and very, very grateful for the opportunity and it's been a very nice career.
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00:02:42.681That's awesome.
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00:02:51.050So, if you don't mind me asking, jeremy, when you went to school, what were your thoughts at the time you were in college, of where you were going to go with your career?
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00:02:52.406Yeah, I wasn't sure, man.
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00:02:54.187I just really wanted to land a job.
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00:03:07.681I was thinking about perhaps going back to graduate school, but I just felt like I needed to get a job and start paying off student loans and just really wanted to just get hired somewhere, anywhere, and that was my focus.
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00:03:19.881I was just looking for an opportunity to go anywhere and I was living in North Carolina at the time, going to school there, and drove back to Pennsylvania for the job interview.
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00:03:24.569It started the next day and I was just really grateful to have a job.
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00:03:29.247But yeah, I wouldn't have thought of insurance as a career Wasn't on the foremost of my mind.
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00:03:32.008I just really wanted to get a job and start working.
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00:03:33.131Totally can relate.
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00:03:39.739I actually very similar path in that I was a criminal justice major and was planning to go to law school.
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00:03:42.489That was the thought process at the time.
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00:03:45.689And then, while I was doing my undergrad work, I met my wife.
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00:03:51.508We got married, had a baby while I was still finishing up school, so then it was time to get a job.
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00:03:52.262I was like man.
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00:03:58.627I got a daughter to feed and my wife wants more and so I need to go figure this out.
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00:04:04.343And knew nothing about insurance, but it's been a great career over the last 20 years, so definitely for our listeners.
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00:04:14.612Just would encourage you like this is one of those industries that does need more talent and I think we don't always do a good job of just getting people into the field, so I recommend a friend.
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00:04:15.653Absolutely yeah.
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00:04:17.795There's a desperate need of talent in all disciplines.
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00:04:18.497I believe yeah.
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00:04:32.452So, jeremy, when I used to do career fairs it's been a while since I've been to one, but we would often recruit for both claims and underwriting and I remember having people who are English majors coming up to me saying, oh, I'm such a great writer, this sounds great.
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00:04:35.389And they didn't really understand what underwriting is.
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00:04:37.226Not that they couldn't have done well at it.
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00:04:48.913Yeah, for those who might not know what underwriting is, maybe they're on the claim side or they have limited insurance experience Can you talk a little bit about what underwriting is and why it's even called that?
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00:04:55.137Yeah, Well, I think I have to go back to the early days in London, the first insurance policies that were created.
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00:04:58.286But we're not going to get into the history of underwriting, I don't think.
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00:05:03.127But the name underwriting kind of derives from that origin a long, long time ago from what I recall.
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00:05:12.682But the underwriter's role is really to price the risk, it's to assess the risk and determine an acceptable premium for the risk that we're assuming.
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00:05:15.228And we're in the workers' comp space.
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00:05:20.642But underwriters are needed in all financial fields where there's some risk that's being assumed.
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00:05:24.225And for us specifically, we have to assumed.
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00:05:52.788And for us specifically, we have to evaluate a business and their management, their culture, their employees, their loss experience, the jurisdictions they work, the characteristics of what they're doing, whether they're ground level, in vehicles, at heights, underground, in ditches or trenches, if they climb, if they have exposure to chemicals or dust or other things that may cause loss.
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00:06:04.562But it's really assessing all aspects and facets of the risk and then trying to use that information to come up with a premium that will support losses profitably over time.
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00:06:08.586We won't stay in business if we don't make the underwriting decisions.
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00:06:15.072We have to be able to cover our liabilities and our expenses and that's very, very important.
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00:06:21.865So I think underwriting is a little bit more art than science, but it's interesting to talk about a misconception about.
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00:06:24.172You know, I'm an English major and I like to write.
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00:06:30.290You know we don't write creative stories in underwriting and we're not writing essays or papers or anything like that.
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00:06:47.826But there is an element to being able to communicate and articulate that is really really important and I think that communication is a critical, critical skill and can make an underwriter very effective if they're a good communicator, and that's both verbally and written.
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00:06:56.482A lot of our work is done through the phone, some via email, you know, in text, but you got to be able to listen and you got to be able to communicate.
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00:07:01.641So there is an element to communication and writing that is inherent to underwriting, I think.
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00:07:14.550I couldn't agree more and I actually think, as we move forward over the next decade, communication skills are going to be one of the most valuable tools for young, talented people looking to enter any industry.
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00:07:21.069Really, as we look at how much AI is going to automate so many things that were process-oriented.
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00:07:34.987So from there, one of the things that we hear a lot or I do, at least on the claim side, and I think even if you turned your TV on and you saw insurance ads for personal lines like house and auto, people are always concerned about price.
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00:07:39.509They're always concerned about what their rates are going to be and nobody wants their rates to go up.
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00:07:44.447And I know in the world we're in that in workers comp that's their experience mod or their ear E mod.
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00:07:47.800And I know in the world we're in that in workers' comp that's related to their experience mod or their e-mod.
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00:07:58.762And I wanted you if you could just talk a little bit about what that is and how that impacts an insured's rates For sure.
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00:07:59.403For sure.
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00:08:04.033The experience modification factor is a component of the pricing.
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00:08:07.319Experience modification factor is a component of the pricing.
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00:08:14.608It's usually thought to be something that the insured can control to an extent to influence their pricing up or down.
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00:08:25.918There's a number of states that have independent bureaus that publish experience mods for businesses and then the NCCI is a group of many states that also publishes experience mod factors for businesses.
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00:08:27.321So larger risks.
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00:08:59.519Generally speaking, if you're deriving $10,000 or $15,000 of premium on your policy, you're going to be considered large enough to be experience rated and the rating bureaus or NCCI will take your experience from three years, not including the most recent year your lost data, the losses that you've had and also your payroll data, and run it through a formula and come up with a modification factor that's applied to the policy.
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00:09:10.491Of course, if it's over 1.0, that's a debit to the policy and it will add more premium, and if it's under 1.0, it's a credit and will subtract premium from your policy.
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00:09:14.792So it is a factor of the pricing, but it's not the only thing that matters.
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00:09:23.951Carriers have a lot of tools at their disposal to assess and price a risk and the rates and the lost costs are part of that pricing.
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00:09:26.442The experience mod is part of that pricing.
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00:09:29.904Underwriters typically have schedule rating right.
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00:09:59.289If you'd use 1.0 as a baseline, that's kind of the big part of the bell curve and risks that are above a one are considered to have performed maybe a little less satisfactory than risks that have performed with a mod under 1.0.
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00:10:09.734So you kind of get compared to risks that are in your class of business and the data sets for insurance you're being compared with other risks that are in your class of business and the data sets for insureds you're being compared with other risks that are similar to you.
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00:10:13.465But that's kind of the experience mod component to the rating.
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00:10:27.844And they often do get a lot of attention from insureds because larger insureds can be significantly impacted by their modification factor going up or going down depending on how their historical losses have been.
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00:10:42.450So if I'm following you, say I'm a roofer or I have a roofing company and I've got, you know, several hundred employees, I'm big enough that I have one of these experience mods how far back, first of all, does that go?
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00:10:46.450You might have mentioned this how many years back are they looking at my loss history?
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00:10:59.210And the other question that I have is let's say that I'm completely average, I'm at a 1.0 as far as that history goes, and maybe I'm paying 20,000 in premium.
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00:11:03.626If I'm completely average, if I'm paying 20,000 in premium, how far back does that go?
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00:11:12.327And then kind of talk about if I'm worse than average or better than average, how that could change that number with the EMOD Sure.
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00:11:20.528Okay, well, in your scenario as the roofing contractor, the rating bureaus are going to go back three years, not including the most recent year.
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00:11:27.371So for 2025, payroll data is going to be used for 2023, 2022, and 2021.
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00:11:48.394Your audit's not going to have been completed for 2024, most likely and the losses that are incurred for 2024 are going to be considered too new or too green to be evaluated fully and, frankly, the experience mod for 2025 is published several months in advance of your effective date, so that's another reason why the most current year's data is not used.
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00:11:57.129So 23, 22, and 21, right, the last three years, not including the most recent year, will be utilized payroll data and loss data.
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00:12:08.792And in the scenario you described, the premium is $20,000 and you have a 1.0 experience not going to impact that pricing for that premium really at all.
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00:12:27.450But if you've had some losses in the rating period that you're being evaluated for and your experience mod goes up to a 1.10, like a 10% surcharge or a 10% debit so that premium that was $20,000 would now be 10% higher.
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00:12:39.505On the other side of it, if your losses have been better than average and your experience mod is published at a 0.9, you'll have a 10% discount applied to your rating.
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00:12:47.163So that $20,000 premium you may not think well, that's not a ton of premium to go up 10% or down 10%.
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00:12:58.796But the larger the risk gets and the more premium that is involved in the rating, obviously the more of an impact and the more significant a debit or credit mod is to the insurer.
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00:13:02.928Absolutely Well, and if I'm a small business owner, a couple thousand dollars is a big deal to me.
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00:13:06.730Correct, yes, I think all small businesses would agree with that for sure.
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00:13:08.563So I could definitely see that.
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00:13:11.730So talk to me a little bit about I mean.
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00:13:14.846Obviously there's different types of claims that go into those losses.
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00:13:30.413There's med only claims and then there's lost time claims, or we call them indemnity claims, where the injured worker is actually off work receiving wage loss, and the other instance, when it's a med only file, maybe they go to the doctor but they're back to work and it's more of a treat-and-release situation.
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00:13:34.009How do those impact the experience month differently?
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00:13:44.913Yeah, the med-only claims that are smaller and don't have lost time associated when they are reported to NCCI or other state rating bureaus.
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00:13:48.660I'm going to be very general and broad here because there's a lot of nuance.
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00:13:55.964So in general, medical-only claims are discounted by the rating bureaus by various percentages.
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00:13:57.809It just kind of depends on what state you're in.
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00:14:04.173But the cost of the medical-only claim if you had a $1,000 claim, it's going to be discounted.
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00:14:08.494If there was no lost time and it hits your experience model worksheet, it's going to be discounted.
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00:14:15.826If there was no lost time and it hits your experience model worksheet, it's going to reflect a value that is not the same value on your loss run.
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00:14:16.528It's going to be discounted.
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00:14:23.087And that's something that I think NQCI utilizes as a way to keep mods from inflating too much in the face of medical cost inflation.
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00:15:05.073Lost time claims are generally a little bit more expensive and are probably going to have a higher claim dollar because not only do you have to provide medical treatment for the employee and make them whole, but there may be some time off of work, right, they may be out of work for a couple of days or a couple of weeks or months, depending on the nature of the injury and while the medical costs and things of that nature will be discounted, it's still going to be a sizable claim and so most state bureaus and NCCI will cap the maximum value of a loss on the experience mod worksheet and every year that changes.
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00:15:09.044That changes a little bit year to year based on what the actuaries do.
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00:15:26.668But for instance, if you have a $50,000 claim that was a lost time claim for one of your employees, that value is going to be capped on the mod worksheet and it's, I think, right now again depending on the state, maybe $18,500 or $19,000,.
00:15:26.668 -->
00:15:31.655There's a claim cap, again based on different states.
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00:15:37.591People that are interested can look that up on MCCI or the various state bureaus.
00:15:37.591 -->
00:15:45.785But the capping of losses again is designed to help keep the mods from swinging too significantly just because of one claim.
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00:15:54.452Those are really important points because I think this is one of the pitfalls we sometimes see on the claim side is there's a thought process.
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00:15:59.571And so I'll go back in time to 16-year-old Greg, who I wouldn't trust with anything.
00:15:59.571 -->
00:16:03.946But my first car was a minivan with wood paneling.
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00:16:06.630It was really cool, a hand-me-down from my parents.
00:16:06.630 -->
00:16:09.917Minivan with wood paneling it was really cool, a hand-me-down from my parents.
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00:16:32.388And one night I went to watch a movie with a friend who lived in an apartment and I was a new driver and I backed out of this carport and I don't know how I did this, but I somehow, backing out, took out the driver's side door with a pillar on this carport and so, of course, you know, cracks the window, breaks up the door, and I'm telling my mom about this and she's like not believing me.
00:16:32.388 -->
00:16:34.187But that's exactly what happened.
00:16:34.187 -->
00:16:42.369And we drove there the next day and of course there's nothing like the carport's fine, you can't even tell anything happened and my car is like messed up.
00:16:42.369 -->
00:16:51.682So I told my mom about it and she's like well, we're going to go to a junkyard and get a door because I don't want to report this to the insurance carrier that's going to make our insurance go up.
00:16:51.682 -->
00:17:00.168So for the rest of my high school career I had this door that was a different color than the rest of the van as a reminder of being a dumb six-year-old driver.
00:17:00.690 -->
00:17:35.134But I think sometimes, when we talk to our insureds, there's a misconception that if I pay for that med only claim myself and I don't report it to the carrier, that's going to keep my insurance rates down, and what we see on the claim side is that often is a pretty big misconception, because if they were to go to the ER and that bill's $2,500 for I don't know, a laceration where they get some stitches, by the time we would pay the PPO fee and everything else associated with our discounts and the fee schedule, that bill might be $800.
00:17:35.701 -->
00:17:44.028And then, if you take into account NCCI's rating right and how they're discounting, it may impact them half of that by the time.
00:17:44.028 -->
00:17:52.470It's all done for a med only file, and so what ends up happening, though, is, in those claims where it's more significant and we don't know about it.
00:17:52.470 -->
00:17:57.250Going back to that initial fact, what happens when a claim's late reported in the fourth or fifth week?
00:17:57.250 -->
00:18:18.710Sometimes we see those claims get off the rails, and so I think that's a really important thing to educate those who are listening about is there really is value in just getting those met-onlys reported to us, because it's not going to really make that huge of a difference on your e-mod in the grand scheme of things and it's going to actually save you money probably in the long run.
00:18:20.560 -->
00:18:22.001Would you agree, jeremy?
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00:18:42.038And contractors in particular are in a tough spot because a lot of times to get on job sites or to be used as a subcontractor or a prime contractor, you've got to show that your experience mod is under a 1.0 because that's considered safer and better than average.
00:18:42.038 -->
00:18:51.128So contractors are in a tough spot and a lot of times this question comes up with contractors in particular and we insure a lot of contractors.
00:18:51.128 -->
00:18:54.067But I think the points you're making are very, very good points.
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00:19:07.755You started this call with kind of that fact about Claims that are reported late generally are significantly more expensive than claims that are reported timely within the first day or the first couple days.
00:19:08.200 -->
00:19:18.115I certainly am empathetic to contractors that really have to manage that experience mod and keep it under a 1.0 to keep their jobs and their livelihoods lined up.
00:19:18.115 -->
00:19:19.184I totally get that.
00:19:19.184 -->
00:19:26.054However, I also do agree that reporting claims reporting all claims timely is a best practice.
00:19:26.054 -->
00:19:26.779You know.
00:19:26.779 -->
00:19:42.175I just think that's the best way to make sure that things don't become that a small you know, a small issue does not become a larger significant issue for the insured down the road and again everybody's got to manage their business differently.
00:19:42.175 -->
00:19:42.896But I agree.
00:19:42.896 -->
00:19:47.403If you're reporting claims based on fee schedules, there's going to be discounting of a claim.
00:19:47.403 -->
00:19:57.761Ncci is going to discount the claim even further in all likelihood, and what might have been a few thousand dollars will show up on the mod worksheet typically as significantly less.
00:19:57.761 -->
00:20:12.884Ncci, the actuaries, penalize frequency and so if you have a lot of claims, even if they're a lot of small claims, the mod formula is harsher for claim frequency than it is for one large claim because of the capping.
00:20:13.385 -->
00:20:22.298The belief there is that risk with many claims is unsafer than a risk with one claim that happened to be a large claim of significance.
00:20:22.298 -->
00:20:28.880And you know we could debate those points and talk about you know if in fact that is or is not valid.
00:20:28.880 -->
00:20:30.386But that's what the actuaries do.
00:20:30.386 -->
00:20:32.174That's the rationale behind it.
00:20:32.174 -->
00:20:36.788But there is mechanisms in place to keep those costs very low on the bottom work sheet.
00:20:37.148 -->
00:20:41.306And I think, going back to everything you just said, that's where teamwork makes the dream work.
00:20:41.306 -->
00:20:58.207If dream work, you really want to have a partnership with your carrier and you want to make sure that, if you're a contractor and you have certain goals that you're trying to achieve, that you're working lockstep with your carrier, with your claims team, with your underwriter, with their safety department, because that's when the really good results happen.
00:20:58.207 -->
00:21:10.347And I can tell you from my experience, when things do get off the rails, it's often because there's not good communication with all those parties on what the goals are and how we can work together to achieve them.
00:21:10.347 -->
00:21:12.858So I think you hit on some important things.
00:21:12.858 -->
00:21:23.509There's a lot pulling at an insured to try to manage their risk and I think this whole EMOD process is very confusing If this isn't what you do all day long.
00:21:23.509 -->
00:21:27.518Trying to understand this while you're running a small business is hard From your end.
00:21:27.759 -->
00:21:30.105I'm going to switch gears a little bit and talk about reserving.
00:21:30.105 -->
00:21:31.671This is more of a claims thing.
00:21:31.671 -->
00:21:40.184How does accurate reserving impact an underwriter and how does not getting reserves up timely impact what your team's trying to do?
00:21:40.465 -->
00:21:46.086Well, the reserves when we're looking at a risk, whether it's a piece of new business or whether it's a renewal.
00:21:46.086 -->
00:22:01.012If there's open claims that have a reserve posted, that reflects what the claim professional and their management team believes is going to be the ultimate value of that claim or the ultimate cost of that claim.
00:22:01.012 -->
00:22:14.056Again, I think that reserving claims is a really difficult science or a difficult art to really master, but the claim reps have a lot of experience in how much certain treatments or procedures are going to cost.
00:22:14.056 -->
00:22:19.352They're experts in this is how long they're going to be out of work until they're able to go back to work.
00:22:19.352 -->
00:22:28.163So we need to allocate this much for their payment or their paychecks in lieu of working, and it reflects what the final cost of a claim is likely to be.
00:22:28.163 -->
00:22:42.088It helps us price the risk because we're trying to determine what the premium for this year is going to be, and one element of that is what have the losses been in the past five or seven years?
00:22:42.088 -->
00:22:55.930So, if the reserve is accurate or close to accurate, that kind of helps us get into an area where we can see, based on the last couple of years, the last 60 months or 72 months.
00:22:55.930 -->
00:23:06.169This is what we think we're going to need for the next 12 months If the reserves are not adequate, if the claim isn't reserved correctly or doesn't have any reserves.
00:23:06.529 -->
00:23:30.990That can be a little bit tricky If you're working on an account that you wrote coverage on and you look at their loss experience on the mod worksheet in 2025 and you see a claim from 2022 developed and, and last year when you evaluated the risk it was a $2,000 claim on the last run in the mod sheet and then this year at renewal it's a $100,000 claim.
00:23:33.027 -->
00:23:40.612Boy, that's a tough thing to kind of evaluate because somebody thought it was a not only claim and actually is much, much more significant.
00:23:40.612 -->
00:23:49.147So maybe that was the claim that would have been kind of a late report, or maybe the company didn't have good information or who knows what the circumstances could be.
00:23:49.147 -->
00:23:58.006But we do see that actually more than you'd believe in underwriting and it does make the pricing a little bit tricky because we have to say well, what happened on this claim.
00:23:58.006 -->
00:24:04.733On the last run it says it was a minor issue and on the mod sheet this year it's reserved at $100,000.
00:24:04.733 -->
00:24:06.037Something must have happened.
00:24:06.037 -->
00:24:08.464Do we have our hands around what the exposures are?
00:24:08.464 -->
00:24:13.163So it does lead to some questions and it kind of leads to some pricing steps for the carrier.
00:24:13.163 -->
00:24:19.924But yeah, reserving practices are critical and really do impact kind of how the pricing is going to be for an underwriter.
00:24:20.286 -->
00:24:24.233So, jeremy, I've had that exact circumstance happen in a prior life.
00:24:24.233 -->
00:24:25.705I've been in claims for a while.
00:24:25.705 -->
00:24:44.112This isn't a recent example, but we had a injured worker I think it might have been something minor like came in as like a shoulder sprain or something like that and eventually that injured worker needed to have surgery and the employer was one of these amazing employers that had modified duty.
00:24:44.112 -->
00:24:45.201The guy was family.
00:24:45.201 -->
00:24:49.972They got him in to work right away, so there really wasn't any lost time on that claim.
00:24:49.972 -->
00:25:01.924But in that particular state there was still an impairment rating that was due, which falls under the indemnity category along with lost time, which makes it considered a lost time claim, even though he hadn't missed any days from work.
00:25:01.924 -->
00:25:18.007Really, the adjuster just didn't think about that and two years later they put this large reserve up for his settlement for his impairment rating and that really frustrated the underwriter because they had already quoted the account without that information.
00:25:18.508 -->
00:25:29.121So I just put that story out there as a cautionary tale for adjusters that what they do when they're reserving a file really does impact what the underwriters are trying to do on your side.
00:25:29.121 -->
00:25:36.448So I appreciate you spending some time on that to explain that and I want to take that a step further than you know.
00:25:36.448 -->
00:25:42.767I know some companies are really large and claims and underwriting maybe don't talk as much as they should, but why do you feel like that?
00:25:42.767 -->
00:25:45.393Partnership between claims and underwriting is important?
00:25:45.393 -->
00:25:46.303That's critical.
00:25:46.303 -->
00:25:47.026It's critical.
00:25:48.140 -->
00:25:53.823Underwriting companies' profitability is not just on the underwriting team, right, it's on everybody.
00:25:53.823 -->
00:25:57.637It's everybody working together and claims is a big part of that.
00:25:57.637 -->
00:25:59.101Many, many times.
00:25:59.101 -->
00:26:04.403The claims team and the risk management team are really the eyes and ears for us.
00:26:04.403 -->
00:26:07.465We don't often see a lot of our insureds.
00:26:07.465 -->
00:26:14.671We don't talk to our insureds, we're not really engaging with our insureds and we rely on our risk management team.
00:26:14.711 -->
00:26:29.912Have a client or an insured that maybe isn't as cooperative as we'd like, we feel like they're hiding something or just not being forthright.
00:26:29.912 -->
00:26:31.923That's good information for us to know.
00:26:31.923 -->
00:26:40.068It's probably not a great partnership then for our company and that insured and thankfully that hardly ever happens.
00:26:40.068 -->
00:27:02.771But being able to communicate with our claims team on a regular basis before our recording today I got a note from one of our adjusters on that very thing, on something that one of our insured needed, and I just don't think that happens at a lot of places where claims and underwriting are separate silos and there's really not a unified togetherness about servicing a policy.
00:27:02.771 -->
00:27:15.691So, yeah, communication on what's happening with accounts and if there's any challenges that claims is experiencing and needs, those things are critical to help keep the policy going smoothly.
00:27:15.691 -->
00:27:17.682So I can't stress that enough.
00:27:17.682 -->
00:27:20.448Communication is critical between disciplines.
00:27:21.108 -->
00:27:22.952And then let's take it a step further.
00:27:22.952 -->
00:27:35.011Jeremy, I know you and I work in a specialty niche in workers' comp where we ensure some pretty difficult risks, so we're probably built a little different than some of our competition out there.
00:27:35.011 -->
00:27:41.790What are some of the solutions that we offer to the marketplace that maybe others don't?
00:27:41.790 -->
00:27:50.034Tools that we can help them as far as their e-mod goes, things that we can do to really help them with their business.
00:27:50.440 -->
00:27:50.621Yeah.
00:27:51.061 -->
00:27:58.403Well, I think every carrier is similar in a lot of ways and there's a lot of good people that work at a lot of great underwriting companies.
00:27:58.403 -->
00:27:59.625There's no doubt about that.
00:27:59.625 -->
00:28:13.528I think one of the things that makes Berkeley Industrial special and a great solution for insureds and the agents and brokers that represent us is that we are very agile and very nimble.
00:28:13.528 -->
00:28:17.523Right, we have a very responsive team that is here to help.
00:28:17.523 -->
00:28:21.292I think our risk managers are some of the finest that you can find anywhere.
00:28:21.292 -->
00:28:24.926There's a lot of good risk management professionals and workers' compensation.
00:28:24.926 -->
00:28:26.871Our guys are right up there.
00:28:26.871 -->
00:28:29.423They're all experienced in the field.
00:28:29.423 -->
00:28:46.300They have industry experience before they've come to us on the carrier side and they really try to work collaboratively with our insurers to help make their programs better and safer in a realistic fashion.
00:28:46.300 -->
00:28:55.141Right, in a fashion that is not micro ticky-tack, inspector-type, checklist-type of consulting.
00:28:55.141 -->
00:28:57.846It's a very partnership-heavy.
00:28:57.846 -->
00:29:03.768How can we collaborate to help with the realities of what you guys are insured, what they do?
00:29:04.400 -->
00:29:16.785Likewise, I think our claims team is really special, because the claims team that you built, greg, are really experienced professionals who do a fantastic job.
00:29:17.349 -->
00:29:41.912You have built the department to have folks that have, I would call, industry lows in terms of what their desk claim count is is, and that's on purpose because, as we mentioned earlier, we don't necessarily write a lot of companies that have a lot of claims in terms of the frequency with which they have claims Our customers.
00:29:41.912 -->
00:29:50.636When they have claims, they're typically lost time and sometimes they're a little bit difficult or challenging because of the nature of what we insure.
00:29:50.636 -->
00:30:09.223So our claims team, which you built strategically, are able to respond and provide a better customer service experience because they're not trying to manage hundreds of claims at the same time and bouncing from file to file.
00:30:09.223 -->
00:30:17.922They can really work with our insureds, I think, in a little more collaborative fashion, and those factors are significant with the space that we're in.
00:30:17.922 -->
00:30:22.680So again, I don't want to knock any other company or carrier.
00:30:22.680 -->
00:30:28.882There's a lot of wonderful workers' comp carriers that do a great job, but I think our folks are top notch as well.
00:30:29.569 -->
00:30:29.971I agree.
00:30:29.971 -->
00:30:31.292I agree with everything you said there.
00:30:31.292 -->
00:30:33.557I think we do a lot of things that are pretty special.
00:30:33.557 -->
00:30:59.116I've worked a number of places and in good places, but the underwriting team, the claims team and the risk management team really are in lockstep and I had our attorney in the office last month, does a lot of work for us and one of the things he had told me he's like I have my associates handle some of my other accounts, but I always handle yours because your people are fantastic to work with and I don't have to pull them through the claim.
00:30:59.116 -->
00:31:16.884They're working lockstep with me and I think, if you went around and looked at whether it's our risk management team or underwriting team, that engagement is where we stand out and that personal touch and the ability to really answer the phone and solve problems sets us apart a little bit from others that are out there.
00:31:17.425 -->
00:31:19.854Jeremy, I really appreciate having you on this episode.
00:31:19.854 -->
00:31:23.592I think this is always helpful just to revisit every so often, because it is confusing.
00:31:23.592 -->
00:31:30.133One thing I've really been trying to focus on in my own life, and even with the podcast over the last couple of years, is gratitude.
00:31:30.133 -->
00:31:46.152I felt like we live in a world where there is a lot of noise, and I think there could be a lot more happiness if we focus on the things that are most important and the things that we're really grateful for, and it's something that I've been working towards.
00:31:46.152 -->
00:31:53.174So I would love it today if you could, jeremy, and it doesn't have to be work-related or it can be, but what's something you're grateful for.
00:31:53.435 -->
00:32:04.583Well that's wonderful to ask and I appreciate it, but I'm going to stay right where we're at and I'm extremely grateful for the work I do.
00:32:04.583 -->
00:32:09.058I'm grateful to work for WR Berkeley and Berkeley Industrial.
00:32:09.058 -->
00:32:19.212We've got a fantastic team and I'm probably one of the you know maybe not a lot of people that wake up every day and love their job, love going to work, but I absolutely do.
00:32:19.212 -->
00:32:20.977We have fantastic co-workers.
00:32:20.977 -->
00:32:23.143As you know, we work with a lot of great people.
00:32:23.143 -->
00:32:27.398Yeah, very, very grateful to have the opportunity to work here.
00:32:27.398 -->
00:32:28.622It's awesome.
00:32:40.217 -->
00:32:43.578Well, I'm going to hop on that same bandwagon, Jeremy.
00:32:43.578 -->
00:32:46.840This last week I went through some challenging stuff where I had to.
00:32:46.840 -->
00:32:56.946It's awesome thing that normally I would be worried about was taken care of, and we even had some really challenging losses that came in that everything was covered and I felt supported.
00:32:56.946 -->
00:33:10.857I felt appreciated and grateful that I get to work with people who really not only do I call them my colleagues, but they're my friends, and that means a lot to me.
00:33:10.857 -->
00:33:20.373So I'm going to stay in that same lane with you and certainly encourage our listeners to do right, think differently and don't forget to care.
00:33:20.373 -->
00:33:23.259And like to also encourage you.
00:33:23.319 -->
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00:33:49.050Take care everybody.
