Gaps That Can Destroy a Pool Business - Kelli Clancy

In this powerhouse roundtable, returning host Kelli Clancy leads a deep dive into one of the most misunderstood—and most critical—topics in the pool industry: insurance and risk management. Joined by members connected to the Pool & Hot Tub Alliance (PHTA) Service Committee and industry insurance professionals, this episode breaks down what pool pros think they’re covered for… versus what actually protects their business when things go sideways.

This isn’t theory. This is real-world exposure—from pool pop-ups and design failures to catastrophic jobsite accidents and long-tail liability risks that can come back years later.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:53

And it's Kelly with Talking Pools Podcast. I'm here today with a bunch of gentlemen who are very, very knowledgeable in insurance. We're gonna do kind of like a 20 questions and see what we get covered with these very knowledgeable gentlemen. Would everyone like to introduce themselves?

SPEAKER_04 1:11

Sure. I'll just start and say Jeff Henriksen, vice president of the industry affairs and research at PHTA, pass it to Chase.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Thank you, Jeff. My name is Chase Chress. I'm an employee benefits consultant with Hub International, located in Asheville, North Carolina. And we also have our partner Tucker Smith here with BBSI, who is the PEL partner for Employee Benefits.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Yeah, I'm Craig Giedrick, uh Director of Construction for one of our regions here at Hub. I'm also a senior vice president. And thank you for uh having us on your show today.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

I'm just excited to have you guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Uh Tucker Smith with BBSI.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Uh so it seems like we have a great array of you guys that cover a bunch of different topics that us pool professionals need to consider when we're running our businesses and being covered. So I always joke around with people. I I pay for, I feel like I'm throwing money away when I pay for insurance, but at the same time, I have a peace of mind. And that's the one thing I don't mind throwing my money away at. Because I would rather not pay millions of dollars if something happens because things happen all the time. Uh that's just how I feel about it. Some people they're like, oh, it's a waste of money. I'm like, yeah, no, no. But let's get into our questions. And the first question we have is what do you think most pool professionals misunderstand about liability insurance?

SPEAKER_02 2:32

So, so what do they misunderstand about liability insurance? Yeah. So, you know, I I think it kind of gets back to you know how you began the show, right? You know, you you know insurance is something that you need, you know it's expensive. And every day that you don't actually use it, you know, you kind of look at it as a uh as you know, money going out the door for for no benefit, right? I would I would say though, you know, in terms of, you know, when we talk to entrepreneurs, you know, in this industry, you know, no nobody opens up a construction company saying something bad's gonna happen, right? You know, this this is this is an industry of risk takers, you know, whether it's pool construction or construction in general. But you know, what the liability insurance is actually doing, you know, for all of all of these companies kind of across the US is giving them some certainty. Certainty that if something does go wrong on a job site and somebody gets hurt or they do damage to you know a customer's property, that there's going to be something there to pay for that. So, you know, the liability aspect of all of these programs really is the underlying insurance that's really protecting the balance sheet, you know, the financial future, you know, of all of these pool entrepreneurs out there. So when what we would suggest is that they think of it as that, it is their safety net underneath them, you know, in case something goes wrong.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

And that's a great thing because I'll tell you, I have a pool and remodeling in an area called the pocket area. Like if you look at a map, the way the river runs, it literally looks like a pocket. And I've had it where I've I've bidded projects and I mention, hey, we may need to, we may need to bury a sump pump under your pool because of the amount of groundwater we have in this area. And they're like, well, no one else mentioned that. I'm like, well, believe me, my parents worked out here doing pools. I know this area. Let's not try to pop your pool out while and let's be able to build your pool. But now, like on my project that starts next week, same area. And even though, you know, I have waivers that are signed, I've warned the customer they're aware as well because of when they built their pool. I'm like nervous about pool popping out as I train it. And but then I have to remember it happens, but I also have coverage to help me in case that happens.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Yeah, and I I think you've I think you've really hit on, you know, one of the one of the key aspects, you know, for the entire industry. You know, it's it's the pop-up coverage, you know, and you know, you have again, you know, no, nobody, nobody starts a construction project thinking, you know, that the at the end of that project, you know, you as the contractor are going to have a pool kind of pop up out of the ground and start moving in some customer's backyard, right? Um it's certainly, it's certainly, you know, the customer who's you know investing, you know, 50, 100, you know, hundreds of thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars certainly doesn't want that either. So when you know, kind of getting back to question number one, you know, in terms of you know, liability coverage, what does it do? How does it how does it help us? Pop-up is certainly one of those things. And I do, you know, and it is a coverage that's available, it's a coverage that's really necessary. And especially if you're working, now you don't even need to be working kind of a high rain or high flood area to have that issue. And we'll get into this later. But if the you know design is just wrong or the implementation of the build-out is just wrong, you want to make sure, you know, that as an owner of a company, you know, that you're not sitting there holding the bag for something, you know, that maybe you do not have financial resources to go back in and fix. So transferring that risk to your insurance carrier partner becomes critical to sleeping at night.

SPEAKER_03 6:22

I think both of these topics are are relevant in that whether you look at I'm buying an insurance contract or I'm putting in a pool, that's a very generalized statement. And it's only when you get into the details, it's only when something goes wrong that you really see how well that design was. The sump pump that's under that pool may or may not ever be an issue. But if there is groundwater, that's gonna be very important that you had it and the other person didn't. The same as the coverage details, the the language that's in the contract that Craig's gonna provide to a client, the things that are in there are not important until they're until they are, and then they're very important, whether or not you have them. What we see in the insurance industry all the time is somebody bought the cheapest policy they could find. And it's only when you have a problem, you know, six months, a year, two years down the road that you find out, you know, really how good or bad that contract was written.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Yeah, and I would just add to that, you know, every state kind of acts a little bit differently, but every state, you know, has, you know, what's you know, what's called a statute of repose, you know, and that's the length of time after the construction project is done that that owner has the ability to go back to the contractor and say, hey, you didn't do this right. There is a defect in the construct in the construction of my pool, and you now need to go fix it. So some states, that's as, you know, as low as three or four years, and many, you know, it could be seven to ten. You know, so all of in this industry have, you know, that long tail of potential risk tied back to any of their you know historical projects. And I don't think a lot of I don't think a lot of owners think of it in that, in that fashion.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

And I think it's good for the pool crows to be looking at that contract before they sign it. Like I know it's really, really lengthy and wordy, and you may not understand all of it, but it's better for you to at least read it and and notice certain aspects because when you are shopping around with companies, then you can see, okay, was this person this person had this? Why did they have that? Why is that important? But this other one doesn't have it, and you know, outweigh that cost because you know, insurance isn't cheap.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

But that's exactly right. And I think that's so important. You know, I I think a lot of times, you know, when you think about, you know, entrepreneurs running businesses, you know, having, you know, small to no back office, right? You know, so they're doing it, they're doing it mostly themselves. And, you know, they get to that time of year, you know, where it's time to rebuy, you know, their insurance, which is usually around the time that they originally initiated the business. And somebody said, Hey, I need insurance from you for you to do this job. So they went out and got it. Uh, once a year, you know, they're you know back in this cycle of you know re-repurchasing their insurance program. And many times, you know, it's okay, is this one less expensive than this one? Um, but they really don't have a lot of help, you know, from a good broker or a good agent to say, well, you know, this one is$500 more than this one, or this one's$10,000 more than this one. But here's everything it's going to provide to you. You know, so you know, having that very clear, you know, delineation between what is going to be covered by the insurance contract you're getting versus the insurance contract you might be getting, you know, with you know, another provider, you know, Cincinnati, FCCI, you know, American, you know, whomever, it becomes really the crux of the decision. Because otherwise, if it's just kind of two numbers on a piece of paper, everybody's always going to pick the smaller number.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yeah. Uh I've learned though, not cheaper is not always better. And that's just, you know, you get what you pay for. You know, are the things that we're taught when we're kids by our parents, you get what you pay for and all that.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

It's the old car analogy when there used to be Yugos, you know, do you want a Yugo or do you want a BMW? Yeah, I guarantee you the Yugo will be less expensive.

unknown 10:29

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Next question. Can you explain in your own words the difference between general liability and professional liability?

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Sure. So when you think general liability, you're thinking about you've you've damaged you've damaged something. You've hurt somebody, you caused a bodily injury to somebody, or you caused property damage to somebody. So general liability basically kind of fix it, fits in that bucket. You know, you you broke somebody, you broke something that didn't belong to you, essentially. Professional liability is very different. Professional liability is it's errors and omissions, is another name for it, you know, generally speaking. But it's you did you said you were gonna do one thing and you didn't do it. So you said you were gonna design the pool correctly and then the design failed. Or, you know, you've got a salesperson out there wandering around the countryside selling pools to folks and saying, hey, X, Y, or Z is gonna happen, and it doesn't happen. So professional insurance basically becomes a financial remedy, you know, to fix what you said you were gonna do versus what you actually did, you know, in just you know, just short layman's terms. While the general liability is, hey, we dug a hole, we didn't, we didn't market, somebody fell in it and broke their leg. We've got to go pay for them, you know, to you know, heal and the doctor's bills related to that broken leg, or you know, we crashed our backhoe into the back half of the house and you know, knocked out a wall. You know, the general liability is gonna pay for those things. The professional liability is gonna take care of the customer in case we don't do what we say we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Yeah, I think this is something I always thought is you have a lot of these companies that get these sales guys for selling pools, like builds or remodels and stuff. And you have the sales guy design the pool and then you know, try to sell it, right? Um, I feel that these companies need to give some sort of training to these guys, especially the ones who have no pool experience, because they're not gonna know if something is proper or not before they sell the pool. And then you sell the pool and then you sell this image, and then oh, sorry, we can't do that. Oops, sorry, we can't do this, oh, we have to change this, and it just makes the uh experience not as smooth and easy for the client as would need to be. And I personally think that that's a little bit of a liability issue if you don't give your guy some sort of training on how pools should work. Like, for example, I'm a school like I love school, and I've taken Genesis classes and watershape classes to learn how to build a pool product. Hey, I had a pretty good understanding because you know, I've worked my whole life around pools and you know, grew up in it, took a break, came back, those classes, had the experience, but I still to this day like learn new things that I didn't know before. That's the way I look at it is if you have these sales guys, you need to give them some sort of like hydraulic class or construction class so that they aren't making these core designs that can put you in jeopardy.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

Kelly, I think you're making a great point here that in every industry there are people that are showing up every day, doing what they have to do to get the sale and go home. And you have people that are, I think, um, learning constantly about what the industry means, how it works, how they take care of their clients, and you know, in in working with the guys on this call in the same boat you're in, we're always learning new things, we're always asking questions, we're always trying to figure out how to better take care of the client. And frankly, not everybody does that. I mean, you know, we've I've been in this industry 20 years, and there are people that will give you a piece of paper with the lowest cost on it, and they'll go home and they don't know what's in it. And there are people that spend their time learning about their craft and and working with their clients to put them in the best position possible.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

I think that's a great point. You know, you want to have a quality team, especially with insurance. You know, uh I was a kid. I remember watching like a movie or a TV show, and they were like, you know, the insurance sales guy is like the sleepy car salesman. And I don't think that now, but you know, back then this is like the 90s. Uh you know, that's what people were experiencing. They but then you know, the same thing with pools. People who work in the pool industry just, you know, wear flip-flops and board shorts, and now, you know, all of our industries have really shown that we are professional and customers want that professionalism, you know, as us as business owners and us as you know, the consumers.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Well, it if you and if you think about, you know, because we have both, you know, residential contractors out there and commercial contractors out there, and some who do both, you know, so many times, you know, with without the proper insurance kind of in place, you know, they will not be let on a job site. So, you know, working, you know, working and understanding, you know, through all those contractual responsibilities and working with, you know, a good team to help them, you know, on the front end to make sure they're not committing to something, you know, which all which is also a problem. Um, you know, I think, I think you may have said earlier, you know, you know, do do all the contractors actually read all the contracts? Um, you know, it, you know, the answer to that sometimes is no, unfortunately. Um, but you know, what what we've designed and the way that we help, you know, the members of the PHTA is we become kind of an outsourced first manager for it, you know, because again, a lot of these smaller companies, you know, don't have the resources to do a lot of the things that they probably should do. Um so they need help doing it. And when you kind of put you know, the the cost of insurance now in the context of getting help with a big contract that you've never seen before, when you're getting help with a claim that you've never had to deal with before, you know, that's really, you know, if you think about how and where those insurance dollars are allocated to, it's not just paying the insurance carrier. It's what are you, what are you getting to help you run your business kind of associated with that. And so, you know, to everybody, you know, who who listens to this, you know, if you're not getting services like that, you know, you really, you really need to look for them.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Um, kind of like I was telling you guys earlier, when I was recently looking at insurance, I went to five different people. Uh, and one person didn't know what it was, but he was eager to find out because that's one of my criteria. I I was like, okay, I can respect you because you didn't know, but at least you you're willing to find out and find me that coverage. The second one, she knew exactly what I was talking about. The other three actually told me that that was not available, that insurance carriers don't write that into a policy. And that's when I was just like, well, you guys are idiots because I've had pop-up coverage the last decades. I'm unique because I do public speaking in the pool industry and I help mentor people. And I had to kick consider all of that after I found out what that there's coverage for what I said, like you guys said, the person the professional liability. No clue what that was before finding insurance this time. Have you ever seen a situation where a pool company thought they were covered but weren't?

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Of course. You know, and that those are really bad days. You know, so yeah, we we've we've kind of talked around a few different things, right? You know, when we think about, you know, the contract that you know the pool owner, you know, the owner of the pool company engages in, you know, with the owner of the you know, residential house or you know, the commercial project. That's one contract. The other contract is between the owner of the company and the insurance carrier. So, you know, we we talked earlier about, you know, how a lot of times, you know, they they have two numbers or three numbers sitting in front of them, you know, and if there's no context there, you know, they pick the smaller number. But each number is tied to what is being provided in that insurance contract. And unless they've had a real conversation with their agent or broker as to what is included for that insurance carrier, then they can be surprised. Now, most insurance contracts are gonna cover kind of the rudimentary stuff, right? So if you, again, you know, I used the example earlier, the backhoe hits the house and you know causes property damage. You know, that's generally speaking going to be covered in most policies. But if you're looking for more specialized coverages or some add-ons to you know the insurance contract, that's really where they can become very differentiated. And every insurance company acts differently, provides different stuff, and knowledge is power here. So you really have to spend some time understanding what you're buying when you're procuring your insurance to prevent any of these kind of future, oh my God, I really thought I was covered for that. And now that I now there is a big hole in my balance sheet because I'm gonna have to come out of pocket for what I thought I was already buying.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

I remember over the years listening to like horror stories of things not covered, and this was unique. I don't do this, but some people do, and maybe they need to like consider this bringing your dog to work. And what can happen when you bring that dog to work and you bring them into a customer's yard? You know, people can get bit, the dog could get hurt. This one was horrible, the gate was left open, or the the gate was open, the dog came in, the slider was open and ran into the house and put mud all over the carpet. Well, that wasn't covered by their insurance. Sure. Because who thinks that you're doing a uh commercial policy? You know, I've also heard where they they brought a dog and one of the kids got scared and ran off into the street. Um but yeah, I thought that was an interesting horror story for what is not covered on insurance.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Yeah. Um, and you know, the way that the way the insurance policies are written, it's it kind of, you know, is a 90-page document or 120-page document of here's here's what is covered, here's what is not covered. But you know, for anybody out there, I would say ask the question, ask for the for the exclusion list to see like immediately what is not covered by that insurance carrier.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

I would say that should be the first thing you look at, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:41

It is one of the first things for sure that you want to look at and understand. And surprisingly, there are a number of carriers out there, you know, who are probably writing policies for members of this industry who have some variation of some residential exclusion, you know, on their policy. So if push comes to shove and the claim gets big, you know, those insurance adjusters are going back to that contract to see what was actually sold to that business owner. And if it's excluded, you know, they're gonna dig their heels in and try not to pay that claim because that is not what the underwriter, the agent, and the business owner agree to. And those are tough days.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

So I recently was on a expert as an expert witness on a case for swimming pools. And it was a gentleman had passed away uh in a sleep who he was at this cabin in you know one of the mountain areas and uh working. Well, the only thing that they could think of happened was he passed away from gas from the pool heater. And I think people need to remember you need to do things by code and standards to help you also be covered, because if you don't do things right, they had messed with the gas valve on the heater and they did it, and then this remote is a remodel so that they use the existing venting and it ended up billowing back into the wall, and that's how she passed away. Well, this gentleman he uh or the the remodeler ended up not having enough insurance because it was a you know multi-tens of millions of dollar lawsuit that they went after then the manufacturer and all these other people because the guy, the remodel company didn't have enough insurance to cover this incident.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Yeah, so you know, great example about you know what's going on, how they're running their business, what are they doing? You know, I I would actually probably go one further and say, you know, a lot of these companies have some trucks on the road, and you know, kind of the worst case scenario is pick up trucks. comes up against school bus, um, you know, who's at fault. And so, you know, the way that you really protect yourself there, you know, obviously you have your auto policy. Um, but a lot of times we'll talk to our clients about, you know, how big of an umbrella do you really need? You know, an umbrella is just GL, it's just liability insurance kind of sitting on top of the auto and the and the liability and the workless cost, you know, to pay for any kind of catastrophic claims. And those do happen. You know, you don't want them to happen. You're not trying to make them happen, but you know, they do. And when they do, you you know, you as a business owner need to make sure you've got, you know, sufficient protection. The other thing I would add to that, and and again, as you know as you know, the you know the listeners kind of think about how are they judging or who are they working with, you know, you know, one of the other questions you need to ask is, you know, tell me what is what is the agent or the broker providing in terms of helping, you know, helping you through a claim. Do they have a claims department? Do they have claims professionals to help, you know, protect you against the insurance carrier or the insurance carrier's adjuster just kind of running all over you? Who's advocating for you and those processes? Try to try to bend the policy to get more coverage out of it to again, you know, protect your balance sheet better. I think that is kind of an often overlooked product.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

The pool industry has shifted from simple service to design, consulting and construction. How has the change how has that changed insurance?

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Yeah, so I I guess it kind of goes back to you know some of the additional coverages that we've already talked about today. If you're just kind of a straight servicer and you know changing filters or or or changing you know the pumping system, that that's kind of one set of insurances. If you're actually sitting out there doing design work um and consulting you know with either business owners or residential customers about this is what this was what would be best for you in this situation, then again, you know, that's not pure general liability. So you can't kind of operate like we did, you know, many years ago, you know, when we were just buying a liability policy, an auto policy and a workers comp policy. And then we went about our business and you know sold some jobs and made some revenue and at the end of the year you kind of toss the calendar up in the air and you're like, hey, it's competition. So nowadays, you know, you know we really have to dig kind of deeply into all of the services you know that you know the business owner is providing and making sure that they truly understand what is being risk transferred to the insurance carrier and what is being self-insured for because it is not covered or they've elected not to procure the insurance. And it's so long as that business owner understands you know this is where I'm exposed and this is where I'm not exposed, hey, that's okay. You can run your business that way. But if you don't understand that or you haven't had kind of that deep of a conversation, then that's where the unexpected happens. That's really where you kind of get sideways that's really where your balance sheet becomes really exposed.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

And just just the subcontractors is a really important point, right? So if you're if you're the designer, you're the overall engineer, you got to make sure your subs are very well covered, right? So going creating a checklist, working with a broker who understands what to ask, what lines of coverage do my subs have because if they don't have it, it all falls back on the business owner. We certainly see that in the workers comp area but that covers under the other lines as well. Right. And you know so do the owners understand that will they pay a premium to make sure that their subs have coverage right that again part of that shining that light on the insurance thing is super important.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

And I think that's where we at least I do it because I worked like I said earlier I worked for a builder for a little bit and he had gotten dinged on workmen's comp because his sub said he had it on this employee and this and then there was no proof of it. So then he had to pay it and then they got investigated it and me not wanting to go through that when I do these projects I asked for updated certificates so that I know that they are covered for workmen's comp and general liability because I don't want that to land on me. I think it's important to have it I do have my prices are a little higher because my vendors who have all these insurances charge a little more but hey I would rather pay and have a peace of mind than be like don't know if that guy's covered today or that guy got hurt is he going to sue me and the homeowner because his boss doesn't have insurance on him and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04 27:32

I was just gonna add that you know traditionally we've had the three sectors of service construction and retail and the lines between all those are definitely blurring where you know you have the construction company wants the service revenue on an ongoing basis. So they want to keep a connection with the customer you have the service pro who's on the front line and arguably has the strongest relationship with the customer consumer and therefore gets those remodel jobs release a pump you know just continued service or when they move even you know build a new pool. And then the retail everyone's adding retail in just to have that storefront for new opportunities to you know connect the other two with the same company. So it's it's really evolved and I think just you know as people consider their evolution of their business they have to reconsider their insurance frequently they start stepping into new territories.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Yeah and and to put a finer point I I'll throw this to Craig when a general is asking a sub for proof of coverage what should they be providing to the general contractor?

SPEAKER_02 28:51

Yeah so it should be a an updated insurance certificate right you know that's that should come from the subcontractor's agent or broker. You know I would caution I would caution the business owners out there to kind of accept you know a standard certificate or a sample certificate that was made months ago because you don't know if the coverage is lapsed unfortunately and you know it's it's interesting you know insofar as all of the business owners out there, you know, you're exposed you know because your insurance carrier is going to do some sort of audit at some point uh on what they've sold you you know for your receipts your payrolls and the like they're gonna ask for they're gonna ask for your subcontractors insurance uh and that's gonna be evidenced by those certificates. And if you don't have them, you are subject to providing insurance for for those folks. So I've had clients in the past who didn't do a good job of gathering up their certificates and you know it becomes a knockdown, drag out brawl with the insurance carrier as to how much they're going to charge for that. And it can be it can be a lot of money. Money that you did not put into your job because you thought the sub was bringing bringing it with them money that you didn't discover that was owed for a year until your audit was actually done you've got some exposures if you don't kind of handle you know this evidence of insurance process really well for the folks that you're you know using as a subcontractor on your job.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

It kind of goes into the next question. What should pool companies understand about workmen's comp?

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Especially Tucker you want to go with that one? Sure and this dovetails on on what you just spoke about right. So for the most part's comp isn't very expensive if you're clean, if you have good loss history, right? But if you have an accident it very quickly becomes costly right and what I mean by that is standard carriers will run away if the loss ratio is too high. And then you're gonna have your broker, your agent's gonna have to find alternative markets. And that means costs go up significantly most folks don't really think that much about workers comp because it's not a big cost driver in their business, right? When they're clean and when they're safe, right? But when it does happen if suddenly my workers comp premium goes from$5,000 to$15,000 a year that's a big difference. And imagine if it goes from$15,000 a year to$50,000 a year right big difference. Particularly if it's an uncovered stub not even one of your guys right and he did he or she did not prove coverage and now you've got to pay for that injury right in the pool industry and and and Craig can speak to this too we don't see a lot of of uh small injuries little cuts they happen obviously right but what we see are bigger things so we call that severity right so that when somebody gets hurt some is very often it's very expensive. It's it's not a a a$300 stitch it's a it's a$10,000 surgery. It's a$15,000 broken this right so it can happen very quickly. So when it comes specifically to insurance it's making sure that you have coverage while your subs have coverage and you're respectful of the low cost. How do I manage that low cost, right? That means proactive safety management. That means hiring well that means managing well those types of things that's how you mitigate your workers' cop risk sometimes we we talk about in the terms of we'll have a business owner come to us who's got a terrible loss history right and they're looking for the best price for their dysfunction. They're not going to change it's like it's not my fault. It's the employees' fault it's I can't believe that sub didn't have coverage they come up with all of these excuses as it happened and they want insurance carriers to give them a good price. It's it's it's not fair, right? It's not it's not realistic. So so the reality is like how do you take ownership of that line in your in your uh PL, that insurance line every line particularly workers comp is one of the ones that you can control really well because it's employee behavior right proactive management is going to help you keep the line item manageable but also just smart tactics like making sure that everybody's covered that everybody is properly coded. We sometimes will see pool companies they're coding their installers as clerical people injury happens the insurance company says wait a second you said this was a clerical person. So playing games with insurance always catches up to you particularly as it relates to workers comp.

SPEAKER_03 33:26

Yeah coming from a risk management background you know the the risk management process is identify analyze finance control implement and what they always reminded us in those classes were you can't do anything unless you identify what those risks are. And if you're again we've we've talked about this from the top if you're just buying an insurance policy that's the lowest cost, you're not identifying anything and you're not doing any other part of that process. You know a lot of the insurance savings or the reduction of premium is finding out what the those things are. Are the subs covered properly is your contract proper properly written for you that will save you money in the long run. Even if you pay more for it even if you take a little bit longer to go through those due diligence processes to see where your business is going, where those pitfalls could be identifying what the risks are so you know where to concentrate that training to help you know stop anything from happening as much as possible.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

All I think most if not all business owners want to send their employees home the the way that they showed up. Maybe a little sweatier maybe a little dirtier but you know they want to send them home you know the the way that they showed up to to work that morning. And you know it's the person on your job site who would ask permission you know to spend five dollars to go buy some duct tape who is making a hundred thousand dollar decision about the safety and health of their body by not properly you know wearing the right you know shoe on the job, not wearing their goggles on the job, you know, not wearing a face mask as they're cutting concrete and you know getting you know you know the sil silica dust kind of inhaling the silica dust. So you know sometimes we have to protect the employees from themselves and think I think the best practices out there are you know toolbox talks and just you know putting your arm around your crews and saying hey get home today the way that you arrived today you know you know don't jump off the second rung of the ladder and break your ankle. It's okay take two seconds and use the final rung on the ladder. You know don't use the band you know don't use the saw that doesn't have the guards on it any longer. Let me go buy you a new saw so you don't cut your fingers off so I can get you home today the way that you came to work today. You know and I know it sounds simple and I know we're kind of smiling and chuckling about it, but it's really as simple as that. And for the business owner, you know, number one, you're taking care of your guys, you know your crews out there. And then number two, ultimately you're driving your cost curve down because you're not going to have kind of all these you know little to intermediate to to larger you know complaints. So if we can kind of culturally think about how we want to approach workers comp, um then I guarantee you the you know the the business owners are going to you know wind up making more money and driving their costs down and probably retaining their crews for longer.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

And I'll just say and that Craig's exactly right and the word that comes to mind is courage. The business owner needs to have the courage to tell his crew to do it a better way. If he sees something to say something the vast majority of business owners and quite frankly leadership don't do that. Most workers' comp claims come from employees within the first 90 days and those with five years or more of tenure. First 90 days they didn't know what to do something went wrong. Five years more is they've they've been doing it for such a long time of course they know what to do right they kind of take it for granted it'd be and and in many way cases they get lazy about it. So you know the silica thing that Craig mentioned is really important right so this is the biggest problem in workers comp right now it used to be asbestos now it's silica exposure. So all of that dust that comes from right comes from cement etc how oftentimes we go out there we see people without a mask on without a without a wet saw the vast majority of the time right because it's a pain in the ass it's hot I've been doing it this way forever but silica is very very real and it's one it's a long term problem. You won't get sick tomorrow you're not going to probably get sick next year but in 10 years 15 years as that silica builds up in your lungs it becomes this huge problem. Business owner needs to take ownership of that and recognize this is a guy you've only worked for me for a year but I care about your long term right so I want you to wear a mask my guys wear a mask I use wet saws whatever those things are to to mitigate that exposure is critical. And that goes back to courage meaning I think of this as a human not just a part in my business. And I care about they're not just today they get the job right but to Craig's point that they get home safely tonight and that they have a long life we have to wrap up because we probably talk about insurance all day.

SPEAKER_02 38:25

Well we could for sure I think that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

It's great to have extra resources with everything that we have to pay for to run a business. Because you know I'm not the expert. I I do pools you guys are the expert when it comes to everything else. Well thank you guys so much for being on today I really appreciate it and I think that we would I at least learn a lot and it makes me think about you know the next time it coverage well thank you very much. You're welcome yeah thank you thanks for having us so everyone keep an eye out or ear out for my next episode we do bonus episodes every month and thank the guys for coming and educating us today on insurance please like us share us uh download us so we know that you're listening and have a great day.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

Thanks a lot Callie bye bye thank you