Jeremy Goodrich & Stephanie Saunders (RTS #28)
Guest: Jeremy Goodrich and Stephanie Saunders
Topics: Insurance, investing
Transcript:
Chris Ressa 0:01
This is retail retold the story of how that store ended up in your neighborhood. I’m your host, Chris ReSSA. And I invite you to join my conversation with some of the retail industry’s biggest influencers. This podcast is brought to you by DLC management.
Welcome to retail retold. I am excited for today’s episode, because we have two different interviews. In one episode. We have not done this before. We have two related but different topics. We’re going to be talking to Jeremy about the insurance for commercial real estate. And we’re going to be talking to Stephanie but the public adjuster market. The public adjuster market was fascinating to me did not know a lot about it, I am sure you will pick up some great insights from both interviews. One thing I wanted to mention, before we head into the show, retail wisdom today will be done at the very end of the show. So both guests answers to retail wisdom, be at the end, you’re going to love this show enjoy, we hope to keep doing more unique shows for you in the future.
Today I’m joined by Jeremy Goodrich. Jeremy is a commercial real estate insurance advisor. He’s the host of the REI clarity podcast that talks about real estate investing in all asset classes. excited to have him on the show. Jeremy, welcome.
Jeremy Goodrich 1:33
Thanks so much for having me, Chris. I’m excited to chat and make insurance interesting for your listeners for at least a short period of time.
Ressa 1:42
Awesome. So tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do, Jeremy?
Goodrich 1:47
Yeah, so most of my adult career before I started Insurance Agency, I was an elementary school teacher, I was a third and fourth grade teacher. I taught kids how to read how to write, how to play soccer, you know how to play hockey, and all sorts of other things. I loved that. And during that time, I met my wife and business partner who is a third generation insurance agent. So she’s been a part of the independent insurance world. Her whole life, she was seven years old shredding paper in the office next to her dad’s desk. And during our we got together we got married. And at some point, we really wanted to change the way people experience insurance if even if it’s just a few people to help them experience insurance from a more personal place from a more open place from a not so sort of old boys club II type of scenario. And so we started shining insurance in 2013. And from the beginning, I’ve been focused on real estate that started with first time homebuyers and focus in that space and then moved pretty quickly into real estate investors, particularly in multifamily office retail industrial. And now I’ve got a portfolio of clients that are between 100 and 50 clients and all of them have portfolios from 10 to 20 units to 1000 to 2000 units.
Ressa 3:08
That’s pretty good scale that you’ve grown pretty quickly. Congratulations. Thank you. Let’s ask the big question. Insurance was a hot topic in 2020. With this pandemic, yeah. What are the hot trends in commercial real estate insurance right now? What’s going on in insurance? Let’s start there from a high level Workaway down to some more granular stuff. Yeah, that sounds good. So, I mean, when it comes to insurance, I don’t know that, like Hot Trends seems like way cooler than like anything you can say around insurance. You know, I think what most people want to know, trend wise, is what’s happening with prices, you know, obviously, that matters, and how, why we’re seeing insurance companies do what they’re doing with prices. And, you know, I think the trends that we’re seeing, certainly in 2020, we’re Commercial Auto is increasing significantly.
Goodrich 4:07
And multifamily real estate in particular is seeing pretty significant rate increases. Insurance companies tend to like retail, they tend to like office, they tend to like industrial depending on the industry that’s in that building. But we’ve been seeing that and insurance companies take losses and they say okay, that type of building or that type of business is not what we want to do anymore, or is what we want to charge more for or whatever. So we can get granular about why that is. But I would say the big trends in 2020. Were Commercial Auto premium going up. And insurance companies getting out even of multifamily. I mean, just some real changes around that particular asset class.
Ressa 4:55
Why are insurance companies getting out of multifamily real state.
Goodrich 5:00
So the simple answer is because they’re losing money on it 13 quarters in a row. Insurance companies have lost money on the insurance lingo is habitational and the real estate lingo lingo was multifamily. But they’ve, you know, lost money on that. Now, you don’t need to feel bad for insurance companies. I mean, they have a ton of financial assets that are invested in all sorts of ways, including in real estate. And so that’s where insurance companies make most of their money anyway, it’s not on the underwriting side, or how much money they’re making on it off of the actual insurance policy is sort of on the side of what they’re doing with their all their assets behind it. So insurance companies are doing perfectly fine. But they’re feeling more it’s becoming a harder market around those particular asset classes, because of roof claims is probably number one. So all these hail claims in Texas and Indiana, Midwest, Oklahoma, places like that is one piece. And then liability claims. So bad things that happened other people because of you, you’re driving a commercial truck, you hit somebody else’s car, something bad happens to them. It gets into state level laws and whether, you know, personal injury attorneys can take a bunch of money in a litigation scenario, and the laws have become more loose around that. And so personal injury attorneys have been able to take more money from that. And therefore, insurance companies are seeing losses around things like Commercial Auto higher than they have in the past.
Unknown Speaker 6:38
Are you
Ressa 6:40
seeing commercial insurers get out of other asset classes as well? Are they gravitating to those asset classes?
Goodrich 6:49
I’m not really, you know, besides Commercial Auto and multifamily. I’m not seeing them move out of those. In fact, I just had a conversation with an insurance company representative yesterday, where I was really pitching multifamily. And saying, Look, I’ll give you retail give you office, but I want to be able to give you multifamily too. And they were saying well, you know, we don’t like multifamily. We don’t want to do that as much. But we were struggling with retail. And we’re struggling with Office because of all this vacancy and all the vacancies that are happening, and it’s really affecting us negatively. I said what you just said you want retail and office, but you’re struggling with it. So I don’t see them jumping out of those other asset classes to answer your question. I see them staying in there and sort of doubling down on those particular asset classes, even though as you know, some of them have been struggling through you know, 2020.
Ressa 7:41
For us, we’ve been able to work through the property and casualty side of it with insurers, I think where a lot of groups struggle is on the liability side, because the claims come in years and years after, are you seeing more price increases on the property and casualty or on the liability side?
Goodrich 8:08
That’s a good question. I mean, it’s kind of even really, I mean, in general. So the prop, the property side is like buildings themselves and things like that. And then the liability side is, you know, like you said, claims from lawyers and things like that. I think I’ve seen both of them go up because on one side, you’ve got the property stuff happening, you’re having more natural disasters than you’ve had in the past. And some places are having more hail claims than you’ve had in the past in a lot of places. So that’s going up because of that. And then on the liability side, you’ve got the litigation like I talked about. So I would say I’ve seen a pretty even change. I do expect 2021 to stay pretty flat, though. You can’t keep going up and up and up. And I think we’ve been seeing a lot of that. And us agents are certainly putting pressure on the companies to say, Hey, come on you like people are getting killed here. Let’s turn it around. So there’s some push and pull there for sure.
Ressa 9:03
What? That’s helpful. That’s helpful. I I often wonder, you mentioned the natural disasters on the property and casualty side. What about these markets where there’s less natural disasters? are they affecting? Are they getting affected if I’m an owner in a market where there’s less tornadoes or hurricanes or blizzards? Is my are my is my pricing being affected by what happens in California, Texas and South Florida?
Goodrich 9:35
Yes and no. So it it depends in a lot of ways on what your asset is. It’s almost per asset and where that’s insured. So if you insure with a company like travelers or Liberty Mutual Liberty Mutual, these are two companies that I use a lot there now, national companies. They’re going to have numbers that are affected by everybody. But then there’s other companies like regional mutual companies who just work in the Midwest. So they’re insulated from California wildfires or tornado, or well, they’re not insulated from tornadoes, but hurricanes in Florida, things like that. And they’re going to tend to be less affected by some of those other things. Having said that, even the big national companies, if you’re in a place that doesn’t have as many things like wildfires and blizzards and, and hurricanes, your pricing is better. I mean, pricing is specific to an area. Even inside of a large 10,000 unit portfolio, that’s a national portfolio, you’re going to see different rates for different areas based solely on their exposure to bad things that can happen.
Ressa 10:41
understood that that that makes sense. I think that’s refreshing to hear.
Goodrich 10:46
I think one, one thing that I can see from the inside that’s like, is hard to believe sometimes, but is totally true, is that if you really dial down into the numbers, well, there’s some things we might not like about the numbers, they really do reflect the actual risk associated with that particular thing, based on claims experiences in the last, you know, 510 years or so. And a lot of times people can’t explain that very well. But I do think if you’ve ever met an actuary, these are the people that make all these decisions, right? They’re super I have my father in law is, or my sister’s father in law is an actuary, super cool guy, very intelligent, these people are trying to figure out these numbers so that they can charge the right price for insurance. So it’s profitable, but it’s not necessarily a windfall.
Ressa 11:38
Understood, yeah, there’s formulas for everything you can buy downwind in Florida. And, and I’m, I’m involved in, in our insurance negotiations with our carriers, and we have a large portfolio. And so but I understand the the formulas, at least on paper, they seem to make sense. But I think there’s a there’s a perception out there that it’s funny math sometimes, you know, so. And yeah,
Goodrich 12:07
I think the funniest part of the math is that in commercial insurance, there’s there are things called credits. And this is something that is applied to your pricing based on the safety measures, essentially. But there’s some flexibility in the definition of what a credit is. So a good insurance agent is advocating for you on pricing, using whatever safety measures you have in place, you know, and that could be a long laundry list for personal insurance. When you buy a home and auto insurance. It’s like, do you have two cars in your house? Okay, you get the multi car discount? You know, do you have two policies bundled together, okay, you get the multi policy discount, it’s really clear cut. In commercial insurance, it’s not as clear cut, in some ways your insurance agent is advocating to you to the company and saying, Look, you need to give more credits, because this safety measure or this approach, or this historical thing associated with this business. And I do that I think that’s where it feels like a little bit of fuzzy math, because there’s an element of flexibility in
Ressa 13:12
that. That’s a great point. I want to hit on that for a second and go to my next question. What I mean by that is, it’s leading me into the next question, which is, what can a property owner do a commercial property owner do? To push back in order to try to drive pricing down? I think the
Goodrich 13:34
best thing you can do is to is two steps. First, have an insurance agent that you trust and you believe has skills in the in your market. So in commercial real estate, who knows what they’re doing and has good relationships with their companies that matters, because when they turn around and talk to the companies, they have clout with those companies, and those companies believe that they’re bringing good business to the table. So that’s the first thing is picking the right agent. The second thing is articulating what you have, clearly to that agent, now you’ve got a huge portfolio. So you’re not sitting there and talking about every fire extinguisher you have in every building, obviously. But when you’re talking about what you do have, what safety measures you have in place, what contracts you have in place, how you’re making sure that things are done, right, how you’re updating, you know, you have a system for updating roofs after X amount of years, all those different things need to be articulated to your agent because then they can turn around and articulate that to the company and ultimately, in that fuzzy part in that place where credits are applied for safety measures. It’s all about how well your agent can pitch that to the company and how well that company will listen to that agent because of the clout that agent has.
Unknown Speaker 14:53
And I love what you just said there because
Ressa 14:57
we’re often told all that stuff. matters. What I always get confused about is
all the other math seems to be science. When the
agents are asking us for, we got to put together our security plan, right? What are we doing from a security plan, when we have to show our quarterly contracts, what we’re doing for maintenance, what we’re doing for repairs to keep up how we what we do for snowplowing, to make sure where limiting slip and falls, all that stuff matters. But it doesn’t feel like there’s like a formula feels like there’s subjective where the the insurer goes, Okay, this is a competent sponsor who’s doing all the right things, and therefore they should get some sort of a credit. Am I right? Or is there like math that goes behind that piece?
Goodrich 15:52
So there’s two pieces to what you were just describing. One is, what insurance company you get access to in the first place. So there I break insurance companies down into three tiers. So Tier one is like the best. Tier Two is the secondary. tier three is the worst. When your agent is saying, Hey, can you show me proof that you’re making sure that the parking lots are, you know, snow removal is done and all those kinds of things is one element of what they’re doing is just trying to get access to the best companies. Because those companies are saying, Look, if you don’t have clear contracts with your subcontractors that say XYZ or you don’t do these clear safety things, or you don’t have sprinklers in your commercial buildings, or you don’t have at least a central station alarm. So those tier one companies have a tighter idea of what they’re willing to do, right? So a lot of times when the insurance agent asks for asking you for all that stuff, they’re just making sure they can get you in with the best company, which ultimately, that company has the best coverage and the best price. So it is affecting price. And it’s affecting coverage to get the answer to all those questions. But it’s not in that sort of fuzzy part that we’ve been talking about
Ressa 17:04
before. That makes a lot of sense now. Yeah, so that’s one element.
Goodrich 17:07
And then the other element is the credits. So you know, to be able to say, look, I want to show them these contracts, I want to show them that sprinklered building, I want to show them XYZ, because I believe I can say, look, let’s put 5% credit on it. So it is a hard number, right? So it’s usually percent. And that may be you know, that’s likely where your agent is coming from. But a lot of that stuff, they just request and won’t stop and really say you have to have this for us to be able to do it. What they’re saying is that insurance company that’s offering coverage is going to cancel the policy or deny coverage if we don’t have these things in place. And you don’t want that, because we’re getting an awesome price from them.
Ressa 17:49
That makes total sense to me as well.
This has been great. What else haven’t
we talked about and commercial insurance we we mentioned so far that Commercial Auto is on the rise, we mentioned that, you know, there is a desire to do less in multifamily. We talked about some things that we can do to property owners can do in order to try to drive prices down even though it’s pretty hard to do. Yeah, what else should we be covering as relates to commercial real estate insurance?
Goodrich 18:22
You know, I don’t think we talked about coverage at all. And we don’t need to get in the weeds on coverage. But what I would say is come to an understanding, especially if you’re a newer investor, or you’re just coming up in the investment world into commercial real estate, like come to understand the basics of your policy, the basics of your declarations pages, so that you can talk this talk, you know, when you get together with your insurance agent, that was probably one time a year basically right, where you’re negotiating it and then going through the whole thing.
Ressa 18:51
I tried to make it more but yes, it is one time a year, let’s talk about some of the top things to be aware of on the declarations page.
Goodrich 18:59
Yeah, so there’s really four things like one is the building coverage, right? This is the coverage to replace the building. And people make a lot of mistakes with this, you know, I really suggest to you that you make sure you cover what you think it would actually cost. And a lot of people push back on that. But if something bad happens, you do want it you likely will want to replace that building. And if you don’t, you likely will at least want to replace the value of the asset and things of that nature. And insurance policies are set up that if you under insure, if you don’t insure for what it would actually cost to replace that building, you’re gonna get penalized in a claim situation even more than the fact that you’re already under insured. So I think when it comes to building coverage, it’s looking at that number and thinking about what it would cost to rebuild that building and trying to get it close. No one knows exactly how much it would cost to replace a building but get close. So that’s that’s that the building coverage right? The other one is law. passive income, you know, like if your buildings down if you’ve got a strip mall, and like we had a laundromat that had a fire, and that laundromat, you know, went down for a year, basically a little less than a year. But we you know, the property owner had to rebuild the property, the occupant had to get all their stuff out, had to buy new laundry stuff and all that they didn’t have any income for that entire year, that period that we were doing all that work, well, they had loss of income coverage, so we covered that lost income, incredibly value for valuable for that business, they probably would have shut down had they not had that coverage on their insurance policy. So loss of income is the other big thing. And then liability coverage. And we’ve already talked about that. I mean, be smart about your liability coverage. If you’re gonna You can skimp on other things if that’s where you want to go. But do not skimp on your liability coverage, because you just don’t know how big a lawsuit is going to be if someone slips and falls or whatever worst case. So those are the three biggest coverages. And then the fourth one would be business personal property. So the stuff inside the building, a lot of times commercial real estate owners don’t have much of that. There’s just nothing you own inside the building. So that’s not your responsibility. So you don’t have much of that. But if you do have stuff in the building, or in your offices, or whatever, and you want to make sure that’s covered. And I think the best you know, the best thing to know about your declarations pages is probably if you look at all that stuff, you feel good about it, then think about your deductible, because that is the true place where you take on risk yourself, you know, if you want to have a 5000 10,000 $100,000, deductible, great, whatever you’re comfortable with habit, you know, for a portfolio, your size. I don’t know, maybe you have $100,000, I don’t know what deductible you have. But you know, that is the place where you can take on the risk yourself and say, Hey, I’m going to take on $10,000 myself, something bad happens. Okay, well, I’m going to take that risk on, but I’m going to save that money in insurance policy insurance premium, so I’m not paying it out of cash flow and stuff like that. So that was the things that I would pay attention to on your decoration. That the main things, the four main things.
Ressa 22:16
Thank you for sharing that very helpful info. This has been great. Don’t talk about property insurance a lot on this show. New topic for the listeners. But I think educational. So thank you for coming on and sharing your insights on the commercial real estate insurance market.
Goodrich 22:36
Yeah, I think the biggest thing, Chris is just don’t be scared of it. Like it’s just another part of like, I know you talk on your show all the time about all these different elements of investing in real estate. And this is just one more of them. You know, and I think there’s there’s knowledge to be had. And once you have it, it really is just a part of the process as you obviously know.
Ressa 22:57
We are going to take a quick break here. And now a word from one of our sponsors. With over 80 years of architectural practice, NWS architects, and its sister MBE firm, Shahadat, and associates are committed to the visions, budgets and schedules have their clients incorporating the best in architectural sustainability licensed in 48 states with a 98 percentage rate. It’s easy to see why clients such as DLC management, Brookfield properties, Dollar General and many major Junior anchor and anchors trust NWS architects with their projects large or small, call Sanjeev at 312-735-7123 or visit NW sa architects.com To learn how they can provide value for your next project. Alright, everyone, I hope you really enjoyed that. Now we’re going to move on to the next interview with Stephanie. Stephanie is the partner at UCS. She is a public adjuster in all 50 states. I am excited to be joined by her today. Welcome to the show, Stephanie.
Stephanie Saunders 24:16
Hey, thanks for having me, Chris. I’m excited.
Ressa 24:19
Well,
this is not a world I’m all that familiar with. Tell everybody what is a public adjuster? Let’s start there.
Saunders 24:28
So it’s interesting too, because really, I think property owners should always have all their ducks in a row with experts, right? You need like your title agent, your closing attorney, your broker, all of that, but you don’t usually have the expert lined up for when you have property damage. So when you have an incident with property damage, you have an insurance claim you’re going to file and if you do that most people don’t realize that they have the ability to challenge their insurance company. Eat. And that’s what we do we come in we represent property owners or policyholders against their insurance carrier to prove why they deserve more money or why they should be getting paid at all.
Ressa 25:14
That is fantastic. And you do this in residential and commercial,
Saunders 25:19
we do. But we specialize in larger losses. So commercial and industrial. Really, really
Ressa 25:25
interesting. Let’s back it up, though. Tell us a little bit more about you, your career, who you are, I wanted to get the public adjuster out there to so people knew where we were going with this. Tell us a little bit more about who Stephanie is how you ended up doing what you’re doing.
Saunders 25:41
Right. So I live in Miami. I’ve been in real estate for about 15 years now. And I started on the corporate side during the last recession. And I was in the distressed market working for a large servicing company or servicing support company, really, we kind of house like auction platforms and all retail driven during the foreclosure crisis. And I had a large client at the time, that was leaking money, and they needed to do something with property damage issues. And I stumbled across public adjusting, and I really fell in love with being able to help consumers versus hurt them. So I’m pretty passionate about what I do. So real estate is my is my forte and my thing, but now in a little bit different of a way.
Ressa 26:34
Wow. And you ended up How did you end up at UCS?
Saunders 26:38
So I actually found UCS because at the time, UCS was a firm we were interviewing to help with a large client that needed help. And I met the owner and we we really hit it off. We hit it off so well that he’s actually now my fiancee. That’s a little ganker. Right. But yeah, I became a partner after a couple of years. And I realized I had so many clients that needed this that i i Yeah, that’s how I found that I got into it.
Ressa 27:13
Incredible. Yeah.
Now you’re in the Public Adjusting world. What is your day to day? What are you doing? Are you out working on finding insurance companies yourself? Is that what you’re doing?
Saunders 27:25
So no, I am actually more I come from like an investor perspective, right. So I understand asset owner interest in their property, right, they want to save money, it’s about their pocket. And then we have a team. So we’re about 50 people. And we have a team of experts, we have engineers on staff, all of our people, including our sales reps, and our desk adjusters are licensed individuals. And they’re reviewing policy, they’re reviewing damaged photos. So I’m really proud of I’m dealing with marketing and branding, and I’m dealing with my investor, you know, large asset groups that need help. And I’m kind of then bringing them to our experts in the company to review actual incidents, if that makes sense.
Ressa 28:13
To me, if I were to bucket it, you’re doing a lot of sales and marketing. Is that where you’re focused right now?
Saunders 28:18
For sure. So when I was in corporate before, you know, it was all about getting the funds to use the auction platforms. And so that was it was a brand positioning communication and sales aspect of of real estate at that time. So So currently the same here.
Ressa 28:36
That is a really interesting pivot that you haven’t, I don’t see often but I Yeah, fascinated by it. Yeah.
Saunders 28:44
Listen, it’s all real estate driven. And it’s all I really like the the fact that when you’re in corporate a lot of the time you’re working for the man. And you know, there’s you see like the behind the scenes when you’re when when you come from like working for the bank. And so now it’s like a complete one ad I understand the other side. So I understand like the insurance company’s position, their insurance companies are necessary, but like, you’ve got to be kidding me. If you think that an insurance company is gonna actually pay the maximum amount anytime there’s a claim, like they’re not. So you need to have an advocate or someone on your side who’s representing your interests, which most people don’t even know they have the right to. So I really, I think it’s a cool, it’s a cool gig.
Ressa 29:29
It is a cool gig. I love what you said there.
Quick question. Should homeowners in claims get a public adjuster?
Saunders 29:40
Absolutely. Any property owner of any
Ressa 29:42
kind? Interesting.
I don’t think most homeowners are getting a public adjuster when there’s a claim working directly with their insurance company.
Absolutely.
Saunders 29:55
And it’s a big mistake because I think the issue is really the people mainly the believe that they’re at the mercy of the insurance company, and they believe the insurance company has their best interest in mind. Yeah, that’s the whole pitch like your friendly neighborhood insurance agent. And I’m, again, I’m friends with insurance brokers. But insurance brokers don’t actually know what happens when a claim is filed, you know, like, so you need your agent, so that you get the right policy, and you’re covered on on all ends. But when an insurance claim is actually filed, they file it and then it goes to another department. So you don’t really have that, who’s the person to tell you about this process? Or isn’t really anyone other than someone like me? So I agree, most people are not getting a public adjuster?
Ressa 30:42
Well, I love how you articulated that. And
you explained that
someone needs to who’s in the weeds,
who understands insurance needs to be working with you, on your behalf no different than an attorney or other facets where people or an accountant, it’s the same. Most homeowners and individuals aren’t experts in the home insurance market. And we’ve all heard the horror stories of them dealing with insurance companies to try to get paid the claim. Right? Definitely. Let’s change gears for a second on the economics of a for a public adjuster for a client. Are they paying upfront or you getting a piece of the claim? So it’s
Saunders 31:33
I it’s that’s such a great question. I was just talking to someone about this the other day, I think that’s the biggest fear. So we are we have a little bit of a interesting reputation, because people don’t understand, you know, our involvement unless they’ve gone through the process. So do you know how typically, an attorney pitches that no cost, we don’t get paid unless you get paid for contingency fee. So same for us. But we don’t have any type of retainer. So we come into any situation at our own risk, we assess if it’s a very large loss, you know, 15 to 60 million we bring in our engineers, we bring in all the equipment we need. And if there’s nothing we can do, or we can get a settlement, we eat that cost. So we only get paid a percentage of what we settle.
Ressa 32:26
What is the relationship like with the insurers because insurance companies must be going well, the public adjuster only gets paid if they find some loophole or find some crack in the system. My initial gut reaction would be there’s a little bit of tension, it’s a contentious relationship.
Saunders 32:47
Okay, well, there’s that was voted. So we don’t only get paid. If we find a loophole or a crack, we get paid, because we have to fight for what is not being paid for. So I’m going to give you a real life scenario. So what I have noticed, let’s say trend wise in our business, is that insurance companies are becoming harder and harder to deal with, they’re holding on to their money more and more. So they put up a fight and they offer less and less money than they used to. So as an example, we have a we have a community in Pensacola that was affected by a hurricane, it was Hurricane Sally hit last year. So it’s 19 buildings, and all of the rooms were damaged very badly, millions of dollars worth of damage. The insurance company right now has offered a couple $100,000 Like they’re and they’re not budging, and they want to fight that the community is responsible for the damage because they tarped it improperly. So we we’re not looking for things that aren’t real or finding loopholes per se. We’re just we’re there as backup to enforce why it should be paid for. Right. So that’s the answer to that one. But really the question you asked me about the relationship, listen, you know, I think there are some good guys who just want to help their clients in terms of agents. You know, we actually work with a lot of agents they they have a customer who insures blanket policies with them are lots of properties and they want to keep that client happy. So if that client is saying listen, I’m not getting any help here from Chubb or whatever the insurance company is, what do I do? And then agent kind of has to offer a resource which would be a public adjuster or an appraiser. But I think the agents in a general sense are not happy to have anyone challenging them?
Ressa 35:03
Not everyone loves to be challenged. So I understand that. When is the best time for a insured person to seek out the adjuster? Is it after they’ve made the claim? before they’ve made the claim? When in the process? Should they be reaching out to an adjuster like yourself?
Saunders 35:22
So I would say, really, it’s in the beginning, but you can do it at any point. So the reason for that is you may present it incorrectly, you know, there are, unfortunately, policies are written difficult, or they’re difficult to understand they’re written that way intentionally, right. So you may not understand that you’re filing a claim for Water Damage, yet, it’s really caused by a roof issue, right? Because you, you only realize that you had water damage, but you didn’t know where it was from, but your water damage was then denied. So that’s a little complicated. But um, I think it’s, it’s more helpful to file with an expert, but you could still come to someone after you’ve been given an initial offer of you know, something you feel is not satisfactory? Well,
Ressa 36:12
that’s some sage advice. I appreciate that. Now, I know if I ever have an insurance claim, hopefully I don’t have an insurance claim at my home. Hopefully you don’t. But if I do, now, I know some of the the right ways to go about it. Yeah. Let’s talk about either the adjusting world or the insurance world. What are some of the trends that are happening? If you were to give me the top three trends in your world right now? Coming out of 2020? What are those?
Saunders 36:43
So when I think of trends, it’s funny, because not a lot changes in our world. But I will say the COVID business interruption has been like number one on topic, right? Course, because both property owners, especially those with net leases, their main concern is who’s who’s going to help me with this, who is responsible is my is my property insurance going to take responsibility, because my business was shut down due to a virus. So there’s not been a lot of moving movement there. You know, there’s been a few lawsuits that were filed, no one has won in favor of a property owner. So the insurance company has, and the courts have taken a hard stance on the fact that they’re not responsible. So I think a trend coming out of 2020 will be that policies are being rewritten
Ressa 37:34
to
Saunders 37:36
more blatantly express their responsibility for viruses, or for loss of use or business interruption because of a virus or something non
Ressa 37:48
physical. I’m seeing it,
I hear you. Yeah. Do you think that products will come out to actually protect people in the, from a scenario like this?
Saunders 38:01
You know, I asked myself that all the time? I don’t believe so. I think what we’ll see in this just an opinion, I think what we’ll see is just a harder understanding in terms of language and a policy of the lack of responsibility. Interesting,
Ressa 38:17
you don’t you don’t think that the jobs are the guy goes, anyone’s going to come out with a policy that, here’s how we’ll do it. It’d be crazy expensive, and
Saunders 38:27
maybe maybe more from a lender perspective.
Ressa 38:29
Maybe. But I hear you, right?
Saunders 38:33
You would say listen, if you’re willing to spend a million dollars, I’ll ensure you for a business interruption next time there’s a virus maybe, but I think it’s going to be more positioning to make sure they never have to be questioned about whether they’re responsible for something that’s non physical, because a claim is supposed to be a physical dwelling effect. Right. So like you had a fire something that physically happened to the dwelling for that property insurance to take effect. So that’s, you know, then the business insurance might might actually make a play on on virus protection or something.
Ressa 39:16
Yeah, you’re focused on property and casualty, correct.
So, not a
lot happens. But obviously, you think language is changing and policies to make it crystal clear on property and casualty policies that they’re not covering in a pandemic or from a virus or whatever the language might be.
Saunders 39:36
I think they’ll clean it up to make sure that there’s never a question as to whether they’re responsible for something like that.
Ressa 39:43
And you mentioned there’s been court cases on this already.
Saunders 39:46
Yeah, they’re actually I think the first one was out of Louisiana. And it was for a restaurant owner and the attorney filed within the first few weeks of the pandemic and No, no. No verdict.
Ressa 40:03
And they were suing on I assume that restaurant owner didn’t have business interruption insurance, or they were suing the property and casualty insurance company.
Saunders 40:12
They were trying to pursue a claim for business interruption. On the property casualty got it. And I’m not clear on whether or not they had business insurance. I would imagine they did. But they were trying to also go after Property Casualty and no luck.
Ressa 40:29
No luck. No. unfortunate, but I think
there was a lot of documents that when that contracts that did not contemplate
a pandemic, no, definitely not. But they will now.
They certainly will, there will be a significant amount of contracts in the future that contemplate what will happen in a pandemic. This is why contracts and we talked about this and commercial leases, is why contracts are so long,
because some event happens.
And then after that event happens, attorneys try to make sure they cover their clients in the future. If that event happens, again, even if it’s a Black Swan, once in a lifetime. And over the last 100 200 years, these have continued to enter business contracts and all sorts of business contracts. And it’s why so many business contracts are hundreds of pages long, because they’re covering things that have happened over time that in most instances are really rare and probably won’t happen again. i I hope I’m no medical professional. I hope that’s the case with the pandemic, but
we will see, right agree. What else
haven’t we spoken about, that we should talk about about Public Adjusting what is happening in the insurance world that you think might be informative to the listeners out there?
Saunders 42:02
I think the main thing is really, I really truly believe what I said in the beginning, there’s a lack of, of education is probably the best term around the ability to challenge an insurance provider. Right. And so you you need just like you line up all of your experts, you need an expert that is there to help you challenge in the event of an incident. And I think more people need to be aware that even an option.
Ressa 42:30
Agreed, I
spot on, I don’t think enough people know that it’s an option.
Yeah. You all do a lot of business. What is the
I guess the percentage that an adjuster typically gets that the individual or even the business couldn’t get on their own? That’s an
Saunders 42:50
interesting one, because there’s so varied, you know, like we handle. So there’s an actual there’s an article that’s out there that says an adjuster, typically a claims adjuster typically gets 500% More than a property owner would get on their own. Oh, my God, that’s like a crazy number. And it’s very hard to you know, say that because every time is different, you know, we handle claims that are 15 million 50,500,000 50,000 In our home states, which is the residential stuff. So it’s hard to say but it’s, it’s, it’s definitely a very significant number. Wow.
Ressa 43:33
Well, then we will end on that because
Saunders 43:36
that is funny. That’s what matters.
Ressa 43:39
And listeners should look into the public adjuster world.
Yeah, definitely. That brings us to the last
part of our show. And we didn’t talk about this, so but it’s
all fun and games. Are you ready? Oh.
You should be nervous. It’s called retail wisdom. I have three questions for you. Are you ready?
I think so. Do you like shopping? Of course. This isn’t one of the questions. What’s
your favorite? You need an outfit? Where
Unknown Speaker 44:11
are you going? Okay, we’re
Saunders 44:13
getting personal here. I really like Bloomingdale’s.
Ressa 44:16
Okay, great.
You ready for my three questions?
Yes. Question one.
What extinct retailer Do you wish would come back from the dead?
Unknown Speaker 44:27
Oh. Oh my gosh,
Saunders 44:31
Sears.
Ressa 44:32
Sears, you’d like Sears
Saunders 44:34
reminds me of being a kid with my grandparents walking around all the mattresses.
Ressa 44:39
I love nostalgic answers. So I’m going to take it That’s great. Jeremy what extinct retailer Do you wish would come back from the dead?
Goodrich 44:48
Well, so I was gonna go with like a blockbuster or something like that. But I figure people have probably said that on the show a lot. I think that I’m gonna go with extinct in 2020 and And that is Deer Creek music center up in Indianapolis, Indiana. It’s not actually extinct, although it’s gone through a lot of different names, but it has been extinct because no one’s been able to play shows at this music center and I love music. I love going to shows. And it has been extinct for the last year and I can’t wait to bring back Deer Creek Music Center and go to a concert there.
Ressa 45:25
No one has mentioned Deer Creek Music Center on this show. And no one has mentioned a live concert venue before. So I appreciate the answer. Stephanie Saunders, question two. What is the last item you purchased over 20 hours in a physical store?
A pair of shoes from where? Bloomingdale’s All right.
Bloom is is is making some dough from Stephanie Saunders.
Saunders 45:54
Guilty.
Ressa 45:58
Jeremy, what was the last product over $20 that you have purchased in a store. So
Goodrich 46:04
I’m on the extreme COVID side. So I’ve been pretty much out of stores 100%. Since March, it’s just been easy to do my business from inside my house, I kind of can’t think of a good reason to go into a store very often. So I haven’t been in store for a while. But the last thing I bought that I really liked was a zoom h6, which is a record a hand recording device to be able to sit down with people and record an interview right next to each other. So kind of like a mixer but a hand recorder a field recorder. And that was a couple 100 bucks and I haven’t really got to use it at all because I bought it right before COVID
Ressa 46:42
Where’d you buy it?
Goodrich 46:44
I bought it at in Indianapolis at Fry’s
Ressa 46:49
Electronics very familiar. Last question. Question three. Stephanie. If you and I were shopping in Target,
and I lost you. What aisle would I find you in the vitamin gummy aisle?
Got me i Oh. Is that an actual eye on the vitamin gummy? I
Saunders 47:09
think it’s like a very large section now. Yeah, you can pretty much buy a vitamin gummy for anything.
Ressa 47:17
Vitamin gummy. All right. What’s your favorite brand of vitamin gummies?
Saunders 47:23
Oh my gosh. You know what? There are so many of them. Olli is very good. They have one that’s for your brain strength or brain power. It’s a lot of beats well, so I like that one. It’s pretty tasty. It’s my excuse for being able to eat candy. It’s a vitamin.
Unknown Speaker 47:40
I love it. I love it.
Saunders 47:44
All right. honesty. Honesty is key. You know, honesty and
Ressa 47:47
transparency are key.
If Jeremy and Chris, were shopping at Walmart, and I lost you,
what aisle would I find you in? Oh,
Goodrich 47:59
I mean, probably like, do they still have magazine aisles at Walmart? Like that’s where I always ended up, right? Like checking out some sports magazine or like some vehicle magazine or an art magazine or whatever. If you lost me. And you couldn’t find me. I think you would find me at the magazine aisle. Is that a department store thing that might age me for all I know.
Ressa 48:23
It’s a great answer. No one’s mentioned that before. I love that aisle as well. I haven’t been in that island a while. I’m gonna go to Walmart. And I’m going to see if they still have that aisle. I’m not sure if it’s there. I’ve seen it in my local grocery store. It is in my local grocery store at Stop and Shop. They have that aisle. Yeah,
Goodrich 48:45
cool. Well, you have to stop there next time. And you know, just do something. If you’d like as a teenager, I just used to do that all the time. You know, go to the magazine. I’ll hang out and just flip through stuff. But that was before YouTube and everything else.
Ressa 48:58
Very cool. Well listen, Jeremy, thank you for the insights. Thanks for coming on the show. This was great.
Goodrich 49:04
Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Chris. I really appreciate it.
Ressa 49:07
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