Bobbie Collies on the Future of Small Business Insurance

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. We have an absolutely tremendous episode for you. Great, powerful, Bobby Collies, who just made a big move in her career from Grange Insurance to Coterie Insurance. And I wanted to see what that was about. Like, why that move?

Why Coterie? Why going from, while a very well-respected company, but a more traditional company, to an insure tech? What that looked like? What Bobby was seeing in the market? Obviously, I have a tremendous amount of respect for Bobby, and it was great to have her on the show.

Before we get there, quick shout-out to the companies that make this show possible. First, Tarmica, T-A-R-M-I-K-A dot com. T-A-R-M-I-K-A, Tarmica. Don't call us Tarmica. Tarmica, the number one commercial raider in the game.

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If you want to check them out, let's get on to Bobby Collies. Hey. One and only Bobby Collies, ladies and gentlemen. How's it going, Ryan? Can you hear me now?

Gotcha. It was my fault. Yay. My fault. Yeah.

I got a new – I got a slightly new setup. Still getting – still getting configured, so. Got it. Got it. All good.

What's going on? Well, I got a new gig since the last time we talked, so that's cool. Yeah. I know. I'm super excited for you.

When a power broker like you moves, you know, it just shakes the industry. Oh, yeah. Hopefully. No, I'm so excited for you. I think it's very cool, and obviously no disrespect for Grange, obviously, but it's very exciting to hear – you know, I just – I think it's – I'm very interested in thought process behind the move, what you're excited about, what's going on at Coterie, you know, what you'll be doing, all the things.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thought process behind the move. Ryan, I think reflecting back on my career, I think working for a legacy carrier probably was a little frustrating for me at times because I like to move fast, right? So if you think of a typical corporate carrier world, it just moves too slow for me.

Secondly, it wasn't exactly Coterie, but it was a similar model and business case that I proposed to two companies I worked for in the past five years. Let's do this, right? And let's fund it. Let's do it. Let's incubate it.

Let's go. So when Ray, when Ray Lynch called me and said, hey, I think you should come and think about working with us, I'm like, okay, I'll think about it. Let's have a serious talk, right? Because this is something cool. This is something I've wanted to build.

You guys are already building it. You're two years into it. I can come in and just help, right? Like help drive the growth and go fast and go hard, which is exciting, right? Yeah, it is exciting.

It's, you know, it is very fun to work somewhere where you can have an idea and people don't look at you like you're crazy and or immediately start discussing all the reasons that that idea shouldn't work or now is not the right time or whatever. Like, you know, I've worked in both situations and man, those, when you're sitting in a room and you can be like, what if we did this? And everyone goes, yeah, let's try that. Like, it just gets you so jacked up because then your brain, it's not, you never just have that one idea right now. You're like, now you kind of open yourself up to here's another cool idea and here's another cool idea.

And it doesn't mean you do every single one of them, but it just, it gets that momentum going where, you know, so many of the legacy players, it's like ideas are almost frowned upon and there's almost like social cred taken for who can, who can knock that idea down. Like who's the best at finding the reason that idea won't work. And like that, there's like a, a credit, there's like a social cred for that. And, and that is just a soul sucking place to be. Yeah.

Well, and, and here's the thing, a lot of the legacy carriers too, like they're doing really well. Yeah. Right. They're growing above market. Um, they're making money.

Um, and, and honestly, like in many cases, there's really not a strong reason for them to try anything new or bold. Right. Ryan, I mean, they're, they're, they're operating just fine and they're doing just fine. Do you think that's true? Do you, all right.

So I, not to cut you off, but, well, I did cut you off. So I meant to, but, um, but I don't, not in an offensive way. Um, I just want to dig into that, that idea because here's, so yes, legacy carriers are doing as well as I've ever done. Plenty of business coming in. Even the small innovations that they've implemented.

I mean, some have done really good work, but you know, even the ones that have done small implementations have helped grow, but all of that is still based on a surveyed agency plan that is going to phase out in the next five to seven years. Right. So like when I see that growth today, I think to myself, yes, I understand why if I'm looking at my, at my growth numbers today, and I'm a legacy carrier who has not adopted and innovated in any, you know, significantly, I can be like, you know what, we're fine. Look at, look at our numbers. We're doing great.

We're hitting our quarterly numbers, you know, all every court, every quarter. Um, but I feel like, I feel like there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a cliff coming where all of a sudden, you know, that those surveyed, that surveyed agency plan of like, you know, well, Ryan, you know, our agents have never asked for that before. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like that, that that's going to come to an end. Like all of a sudden, all those people are going to phase out and it's going to be the, the, the current 35 to 50 year olds are going to be those decision makers in that spot.

And they're going to demand these things. And companies like Coterie and others are, are, are, were built for like our generation of agency owners and decision makers. And that to me just feels like they're set up better for the future. Yeah, I, I agree with that, Ryan, to a certain degree, especially with, I would say your traditional retail agency, right? Um, a lot of those folks are heading into retirement.

So what does that mean for legacy carriers when all those folks kind of drop off that cliff that you're describing? Um, but then you also have like large networks and brokers that are acquiring agencies that are starting to build their stock tech, tech stacks, um, that I think do have a lot of potential future to help carriers grow and including Coterie right in our space. Um, and the majority of our growth right now, Ryan's actually coming from the traditional retail agency. I believe that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yep. I believe that. And we, we, we will continue, um, that trajectory of, of having an agency, independent agent be our, our primary source of growth moving forward. But what does that agency look like?

That's, that's a whole nother question, right? What does our target agency look like? How are they acquiring agents or new, new prospects? What, what are their lead sources looking like? Those types of things.

Yeah. One of the things that, um, so I've had people ask me, so I've been with Coterie for a long time. Um, you know, we, thank you for that by the way. Yeah. Yeah.

And I, I love what you guys are doing. And, and I immediately, uh, I immediately, you know, latched on and just, I love the people Ray and, and just, you know, um, had him on the show. And, and I just, I just think, you know, someone asked me like, what is it about Coterie? And I said, I'm going to give you a microcosm of why I think InsureTechs, what I love about InsureTechs, right? I said, when I want to get appointed in a new state, I have to talk to my local rep.

And then I got to talk, have that local rep talk to their regional manager and the regional manager's got a rubber stamp. You know, how much business is he going to put in the state of New Jersey? And it's like, we don't live in a world where anyone gives a shit about the New Jersey, New York state border anymore. Like no one cares. Like the business could be five miles over the border.

It could be, could be all the way down and you know what I mean? Like it doesn't matter. And Coterie's just like, okay, you're appointed whenever, you know, whatever state you write in, just send us your license, you know, just, just send it over you're in. And like, that's just a microcosm to the mentality of why I get why when we had to put mail in a mailbox or like hand it to someone on a horse and, and ride the note to, to the other location that states really mattered, right? That geographical state footprint really mad.

And I get that each state has its own department of insurance and all that kind of stuff. Like I, I get, I get the reasoning behind it, but like the next iteration of agency owners that are scaling and growing, do not think I'm a New York agent. I'm a Pennsylvania agent. They're thinking where is opportunity and attacking that opportunity. And it might be their home base is Pennsylvania and they don't have another appointment except for Minnesota because that state they see an enormous opportunity in and can market into.

And, you know, being able to maneuver with that, like, that's just a small microcosm of the mentality shift that I see that, that is, I think is going to push the industry. I think companies like Coterie are going to, that mentality is going to push into the legacy because it's just, to me, it makes too much sense. Well, Brian, one of the things that we're doing too is we're challenging the traditional definition of franchise value, right? So at Coterie, what does franchise value really mean in the independent agency plant now? Because it's not geography, right?

We know it's not geography to your point. So what does that really mean? And that's a debate we're having as a team. And we're trying to redefine that for Coterie as we continue to build our distribution strategy. So it's kind of a fun conversation to have, especially with a bunch of people that are open-minded and crazy and bold.

So, yeah, I agree with you there. We're entering into a new stage where geography, we're not drawing lines anymore. And we can't have, you know, only three agencies within a certain natural area of Chicago, right? Like, that's, you just used my favorite slash least favorite insurance term, franchise value. I have such a, I love to make fun of it because, like, carriers will call and, you know, talk about appointments.

Not like, hey, I want to give you one, but, you know, pitching, hey, are we a good fit? And as soon as I get to franchise value, I kind of chuckle because there's no franchise value in having a carrier appointment anymore. In my opinion, that whole concept is toast. Like, I know, I know how you're using it, but like, and I gave you a hard time about it when we were talking in a, we were in a different life. I was giving you a hard time about this topic too, because it's like, I just find it so funny when a carrier comes in, they go, look, we're going to appoint you.

And guess what? The franchise value of this appointment's through the roof. And I'm like, well, what, how much more multiple do I get for having, well, that's not really the way it works. I'm like, then it means nothing. And that is, that is, you're selling me right now through a made up concept that doesn't work.

Like, what do I get? Well, you know, nothing. I get it. It's okay. Like, let's, let's just talk like in real terms.

Like, what are you, you know what I mean? I just find that concept to be, I'm sure it had value. Like if you're Erie agent, right? Erie agent. And you believe in Erie, right?

The way that they're set up, like, you know, kind of like a very Putin-esque dictatorship. You know, they, you know, they're going to tell you what to do, tell you who you can sell to, tell you what you can write, tell you what other carriers you can have. Like, in that scenario, if you want to buy into that type of model, I could understand the franchise value. Because what you're saying is I get a territory, right? And because of their rating and how they go after, I could see that.

But man, the concept of like, you know, the concept of like any mainline independent carrier, like they're actually being increased value by having that appointment. I haven't seen it. Well, what does that mean anymore? Like, what does franchise value mean? So that's, that's our debate now.

And how do we at Coterie protect our brand, right? And make sure that we're, it might mean, Ryan, the types of agencies that will, will appoint, right? Like our franchise value is you're going to be able to play with other agencies who are at X level, right? Or something, right? But I, I don't, I don't like the term either, but, but it's, it's more about like, who is your brand associated with?

And how do we make a Coterie contract attractive to some of the best agencies? What would be a better term than that? Yeah, we need a better term. Let's do that. You need a better term because you guys are so out ahead of the game in so many ways that like, I just feel like hearing someone from Coterie use a term franchise value.

It's like, it's like, it doesn't make sense. I'm like, what are you talking about? You guys are so forward and you do so much cool shit. Like, what, why are you using that term that like these old farts use? Um, you know, so I'm, I'm just, I'm just busting your chops.

So let's let, so, um, I want to talk more about like, okay, so you're, you made this move, you're, you're with Grange and, and, and you made this move to Coterie and now you're there like, like what, what's got you jacked up? Like, obviously, I mean, it just seems like I've seen you doing a lot more selfies lately and stuff, which is great. You know, um, uh, the internet needs more, more Bobby. So I'm cool with that. But like, it seems like you're excited.

Like what's, what's got you going? Like what's got you fired up? Well, so Ryan, number one, just being surrounded by a bunch of people who are, who are drivers, right. Um, and a bunch of really smart people to your point earlier that are open-minded. So we're, we're talking around ideas all the time.

Um, we're thinking through, um, you know, new partnerships, new types of partnerships, trying to, right now we're building a distribution strategy, right? Like that's my, that was my number one first goal. So I have, I have a draft, I'm meeting new people. Like, like I got really jacked up when I talked to Pete the first time on, on the automated underwriting and what's going on back there. Like my insurance geek went like 1050%, like excited.

I'm like, Oh my gosh, Pete, this is amazing. Um, but, but really it's, it's all. All about just, um, the pace, Brian, like it's, it's both kind of exhausting and energizing at the same time. I was telling Tim the other day, it's like, it's almost like I used to be a marathon runner and I took two years off and I'm retraining, right? Like I'm still running, but, but I'm tired instead of energized at the end of my run.

Um, so yeah, I'm getting there though. Like my endurance is coming back. Um, and I'm excited to wake up every day and just, just go. Yeah. Yeah.

That's awesome. We're building something like we're building something. Um, we're still in the infancy stages, but we're seeing a lot of, a lot of growth. Now we have a really good run rate. Um, so it's just exciting to be around people that are all trying to drive towards the same thing.

Um, because of the size of the company, there's, there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of ego going on, right? The, the co-founders have done a really, really good job of protecting the culture there. Yep. Um, and, um, and because of the size of the company, there's just not a lot of, there's not a lot of political governance or things that you have to have in a larger organization that kind of slow you down. So we're just going, which is awesome.

That's I'm, I'm so excited for you. I, I, uh, epic, epic hire, you know, I've said this before on the show and I don't want this to seem, I hope you take this in the most positive way possible, but I, you've always been on a list. I keep a list of people that I would love to like work with slash if I was ever in a position higher or have as part of my team. And you've like been on it for like four years. And when I saw you at a quarter, I was like, fuck, that's like three more years that probably at least I'm not going to be able to, so, um, well, you know, Ryan's always for sale.

So, um, so, um, all right. So coterie, small business insurance, right? That's the specialty. What, um, like what, what's going on in small. Small business, what, you know, what's got, you know, what, what's happening, what conversations you guys having inside there, obviously that's a big part of what we do.

And I'm very excited personally about the small business space. I think there's a tremendous amount of opportunity and, um, you know, what, what conversations, you know, that you can share that aren't secret sauce stuff, like what kind of stuff's going on internally that you're, you know, that you're thinking about small business that you're prepping for that you're, you're, that agents are coming in and excited about what, what's got you going on the small business side. Ryan, have you, um, have you played at all with our simply buying product yet? A little bit, a little bit. Yep.

So I'm super jacked about that. Um, and, and the concept there is we're using enough third party data sources to pull in enough data to automate our underwriting in the backend to quote off of a name and an address for, for small micro commercial. So if you just think about, um, number one, how does that impact an agency and, and their ability to make a book off a small micro commercial when they couldn't in the past, right? It's, it's, it's like two minutes to quote and bind versus 40 minutes to quote four different carrier, right? Um, portals and grab a quote and then, you know, the whole process.

It's out. Um, but if you think about how you can get creative on just taking a name. And an address and returning a bindable quote, there's a lot of cool stuff that our team is, is brainstorming on how do we take this and, and use it to help us scale. Um, so not only, you know, at the agent's desk, right. But, you know, even the drop-in on, on an agency website, right here, we can drop in our coterie white label solution.

You can have clients come to your website and quote 24 seven and it's, and it's yours, right? Yeah. Or think about, think about it in a big batch. Think about what we could do in a big batch with names and addresses. There's, there's a lot of cool stuff.

Yeah. One of the things that, um, I was talking to, I think Ray, maybe it was David. I don't know. Uh, like back in the fall and, and stuff and, you know, the things that are pot, like, I don't want to give all the way secret sauce. Cause there's a lot of people here.

No, I'm just kidding. So one of the things I think are great is, um, that you could do is take contact lists, take lost lead lists, you go out and buy lists. I mean, you know, we'll take the gray ethical nature of that, that practice. Um, and if you can, you know, just run off the API or just have a, have someone pinging the system when name and address. And now you have, you know, this is what, what, you know, we have in the hopper for later half of 2022 is to start literally emailing people, bindable quote numbers, like, like right, right into their email.

Like, Hey, I don't know what you're paying for insurance right now, but I have a quote bindable $975, $1,562, right? Like right now bindable, if that's less than you're paying, just respond to this email and we'll take care of it because you can just pre-quote these people and have, you know, obviously you want to just make sure and validate or whatever. You put some language around like disclosures, but this type of active outreach to people is almost a no brainer with that. Not to mention what you can do with forms and smart forms. And like, you know, one of the things that we're working on too, that, and, and this is something that, you know, I want to, I want, you guys are on a short list that I, that I want to work with is as someone fills out a form for classes of business that, you know, are an automatic, why can't you just immediately, instead of taking in a, a consultant, right?

Who's right in your guy's sweet spot, you know, with the little, with the professional liability that you can add on. And it's very simple. You know, you could have that, that consulting class come in on a form fill. Your people don't even have to talk to that person for that class of business. They can just be immediately pushed over to a, to a form that then their, their, their name and address is already in.

And you have that number in seconds. Like, why are we wasting? We're going to shop a $1,200 consultants, GL professional package to four carriers. Yeah. Why would we do that?

That makes no sense. And it's, I think it's those types of automations for certain classes of business that, that that's what saves time. And it increases the customer experience. Cause that $1,200 consultant, most likely now you, you always want to give them an opt out, but like most likely doesn't want to have an hour long conversation about their million dollar GL, a million dollar miscellaneous professional liability. Like they don't want to do that.

No, no, they don't even understand it. That's why I need you just to tell them, yes, you're covered properly. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But yeah, to your point, Ryan, there, there are a lot of small commercial micro commercial classes of business that are very easy to underwrite. Um, and yeah, they're easy to get the third party data. So that's where we can scale and that's where we can get really creative with some of these things you're talking about. How is like, um, a lot of agents, you know, when you talk about third party data and I think rightly so have questions around one, the legality to the validity and three, it's usage.

So, you know, could you talk a little bit about just, you know, from your, your, you could be your personal take or the general coterie line on using third party data, why it's important. I'm obviously a huge believer and think that it's, you know, an important part of our future, but, um, you know, where, where are you guys on it? How are you using it? You know, that kind of stuff. Yeah.

Um, Ryan, I think we have north of seven different third party data sources that we're pulling in. Um, and, um, we're using some machine learning too, in the background, just to figure out which third party data sources are most accurate. So over time, that model is going to get a little bit more sophisticated. Um, but, but really a lot of, all of our, our data that's coming in has been relatively accurate. Um, the, the ones that are the hardest to get at, which we typically will ask agents to verify, um, are the payroll and the sales months, right?

Because those are a little bit more estimates, right? And, and that's what we're using with, um, with simply buying too, is that, um, if it doesn't seem right, we're using it and estimate based on some other data points, like it's predictive modeling, the payroll and the revenue. But, um, that, that's really the one piece that is most difficult to get accurate and where we need some human intervention. Yeah. Yeah.

So is there any, um, just to kind of quell the concerns of those who may, you know, is there any legality issues around using third party data? Um, you know, I think a lot of people, they just, they, they don't necessarily even understand what that means. I mean, essentially, and, and please correct me where I'm wrong here. Third party data sources are just pools of information collected through different form fills through different services you use. There's tools like Axiom and all these different databases that collect information.

And then what, what, if I heard you correctly, what you're doing is taking say seven or some number North of seven and, and mashing them together and saying, geez, if these five pieces of information are the same in these seven databases, then that must mean they're accurate. We're, we're fairly certain they're accurate. And it may, maybe not even be that much, but, and then that way you can just inject those right in and you don't even have to ask those questions. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and Ryan, think about billing updates too.

Like if I go back to my underwriting days and I look at an accord app, um, like roof age updates, electrical updates, those were never truly accurate. Like I use 2015 for all of them always. Oh, I put a new outlet in, you know, 2020, but my electrical was updated in 2020. Right. So even, even that data is getting more accurate on our side where we're able to pull, you know, um, um, you know, building permit data, right.

To know exactly like what was updated. Was it updated enough to be considered an update or was it just a minor maintenance thing? Right. So we're getting a little bit more sophisticated there on the legality side. Like I honestly haven't looked into it that deeply, so I don't want to speak to that.

Um, but what I can say is I do feel like the data is more, more accurate than what we would typically get on in the court form. Yeah. You know, um, I did an interview with Bill Martin, the CEO of Plymouth rock. This is probably five or six years ago when Plymouth rock first came out with that home. Like you just put the address in and they give you a number feature that they had.

And, uh, I did it for agency nation. If I couldn't even find the podcast, I'm sure it still exists if you guys wanted to hear it. But the long and the short of it was what, what Plymouth rock was doing at the time was all you had to do was plug in the address and they would put, put an, send you a number. And everyone was like, how can they do that? How can they do that?

And how they did it was they, they did similar to you're doing, but with homeowners data. And they would go out and, and underwrite and price every home in a state, every single home would be pre underwritten pre price. So it would just be sitting there. They already know what the price is. And then when you put the address in, they would just pull that information.

And, and again, this is five or six years ago. So there was a lot of like, no way agents, this, what's going to, how do you do a visual inspection, all this, all this kind of stuff. And, and basically what he said was the days of visible agent inspections are over. Like we don't need them. One, you know, what do you really get out of a visual inspection?

Like, ah, maybe you need a handrail or something. It's like, that's going to get picked up when we send our person by, if we feel we need to do that. So it's kind of redundant in many cases. And two, he said, I would bet 95 out of a hundred times the information that we get from the pool of third-party data that we pull from is more accurate than what the agents send us. And not because the agents are trying to be nefarious, but just you're asking, like you just said, if I ask you, Bobby, when's the last time you updated the electrical in your home?

You're gonna be like, ah, 2015, right? Like you, who the heck knows? I mean, maybe you remember, but no one really knows. And if you bought the house X number of years, and I mean, there's no way to, you know, you're getting just humans are terrible at remembering this stuff to begin with. So to think that you're going to remember it accurately, share it with me, I'm going to capture it accurately and then accurately communicate that to the carrier is, is a, is a big stretch versus like you said, pulling permit data and, and title data and whatever else you can get access to and pulling it in from a homeowner's perspective.

So I think this concept that third-party data is actually more accurate in most cases than, uh, a human questionnaire, you know, process. I fully believe that. What's up guys. Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show in an exchange for that. I need your help.

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I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode. Well, and Brian, what it does too for agents is it, it allows agents to stop being data collectors, right? And, and data inputters and start to truly become risk managers and do and sell, right?

Yes. Go sell more and help, help your clients manage their risks that they have. Make sure they have the proper coverages, right? That we're getting the data for you. Gone are the days of filling out a court apps for microcommercial.

If you do business with Cotery, right? And check our work, right? Like we're, we're, we're pulling in third party data sources. You can check our work on the backend, make sure it's all accurate and, you know, get yourself comfortable with it. It's a new way of doing business.

I describe it as kind of, um, do you remember when we first started using predictive modeling and underwriting and commercial lines? Yeah. I don't remember. What was that? 20, 2010.

Here, here we are again. Like trying to remember dates. It's like, what was my electrical last update? But that was, it almost seemed like a black box. Agents thought it was, you know, it was scary, but they didn't like it.

But now it's, it's, it's the way we do business. And I think that third party data is going to be exactly the same, right? It will be comfortable with your business in the future. I completely agree with you. I completely agree.

I think, I think it's, it's very exciting. Um, it's, it's just, and I think your point about it allows agents to be where they actually add value. I mean, this is one of the things that our agency was based off of is how do we remove these things that do not add value to the process? Me asking you the date that your electrical was updated adds zero value to the transaction. If anything, it just annoys the crap out of you.

Cause you're like, why it's, why does that matter? Like it's, they're circuit breakers. Like I could see that, you know, that question, but like you get into some of this nuance, you're like, ah, what, how I can't even understand how that matters. And, um, you know, that you're, you're, you're removing that layer of, of annoyance in the conversation. You're getting down and nitty gritty.

You can actually do your job. I mean, you can figure out whether someone is full of shit and a good risk in like 10 minutes of conversation where those conversations with a questionnaire take an hour. So now you're getting to the nitty gritty in 10, 15 minutes of conversation. And now you're going to have two or three of those conversations in the time period that you would have only been able to have one. And that type of that type, getting that time back, I think is the key to growth.

And, and what makes me the most excited because now salespeople can sell service, people can do service, you know, we can, we can help, we can be, we can be true advocates and advisors, advisors versus, as you said, data collectors. It's just that, that model. If you're still a data collector, I just, you're, you're, you're falling behind that. There's just no way other way to put it. Absolutely.

Well, and you know, I, I love to pick your brain on this a little bit too. I feel like in, in the last five years, if I visit a traditional retail agency, a lot of them will say, you know, my value proposition is I out-service my, the agent down the road. Right. What does that even mean in crime? Right.

Yeah. I think, like, I think we need to redefine service as an industry and, and where is it needed in the customer experience, right. For our policy holders. Cause, cause that's something we're tossing around too internally. Right.

Is, is what level of service do we need to provide to our policy holders to help support our agency plan? Yeah. And how do we build up that model to make sure that we're supporting our agents in the best way possible? So my personal take on this is if you guys have a dashboard slash service capabilities for, for an internal service department in my agency to do everything they need to do, I don't need anything from you. The only time that I need carrier help is when they, their functionality is so messed up, broken, or confusing that you can't get at it.

Um, or you can't actually make the change, you know, like we write a decent amount of business with Chubb. I like a lot about Chubb there. The servicing of policies with Chubb is probably one of the worst in the industry. I mean, just, I hope someone from Chubb is listening because just understand your small commercial servicing is one of the worst in the industry. It just is like, you can't do anything.

So I got to email someone for everything. And then they are quote unquote, still having personnel issues because of COVID like COVID even still exists. It's like, go freaking hire some people. You're Chubb. Like I can hire people.

You should be able to hire people. So, you know, my point is if, if, if my team has the capabilities to go into your backend and do the things we need to do, you know, whether that's make small updates, billing changes, whatever it is named insureds address, you know, just, just give us most of the standard stuff. Then we don't really need a lot. I don't think service centers and commercial work. Um, I don't think they work because no carrier is willing to service all of an agency's policies.

And there are very few clients in my agency who have just one carrier for all their policies. That's a, that's a very small number. Now in personal lines, I think it's completely different with service centers because the most part you go home auto umbrella, it's all with the same carrier. And, you know, that's great. But, you know, I, I actually, you know, and I talked, I think I talked to you a little bit about this.

I built my original model for rogue was going to be built on service centers. And what I found is that, you know, if I had two policies with Cincinnati and one with Liberty, well, now that insured calls. Well, now they, Cincinnati is only going to service the Cincinnati policies. And then Liberty is only going to service the liver. Now they're making two calls and two different carriers, two different systems.

It's, oh, there's no uniformity in any of it. You know, everyone's got their own little take. That is a terrible experience for customers. And then as an internal team, you're going, well, do this care even have a service center? Are they any good?

Because they are drastically different in quality. Cincinnati is being very, very high. Liberty is being not as high. And like, that's a very difficult thing to manage. Okay.

So I do think you need as an agency, a team to manage, to manage service. We call it internally client success. I know that's nuanced and kind of just like marketing, but I do think the mentality should be, how do I make this transaction a success? Not, I'm going to service your policies because a lot of times the customer, the customer may want to do everything themselves. They just want you to stamp it and say, what you're doing is right.

That can be a three minute phone call, right? Hey, I'm going to do this. You're doing the right thing. Bamp. All good.

Make a note. Off you go. Like, that's all it is. And I think, I think a big problem, you know, I just like a new front, uh, which is an agency just got some ridiculous amount of money, 200 million at a $2.2 billion valuation from Goldman Sachs or whatever. New front runs our entire service operation off of, um, uh, foreign call centers.

I, their retention level has to be terrible. Actually, I, you know, from some of my friends, I know the retention level is terrible. I think you need a hybrid American licensed professionals mixed with, with, uh, a team of well-trained virtual assistants to do unlicensed tasks. And I think that model optimized through technology can provide the most efficient, effective and, and, and retention and high retention, uh, service model possible. That, that is my personal belief is that that mix is what gets you where you need to be.

I know every VC in the country looks at American, uh, C you'll call it CSRs for the industry term and says too expensive, get rid of them, use a call center. And you watch your retention rate drop from in the eighties to in the forties. And it's happened over and over and over again. And I absolutely refuse to do it at rogue. I will not do it because you can't show me a retention model in our industry.

That is, that's a foreign call center or service model that is retaining in the eighties, like a local agency. I, I, if someone listening has that number, I would love to see it, but I haven't, I mean, I've been doing this for 17 years and I have not found one model where someone is retaining equal to a local agency and has exported all their service. I just don't think it works. I agree with you on that. I think there's a good mix there, right?

There, there's certain tasks that offshore would be perfect for certain tasks that you just need to have a little bit more control and influence over Ryan, right? I think that's, that's the biggest piece, right? Domestic, close to it, licensed agents that can help counsel your client, um, through some of the changes. And I don't think it needs to be local. I think it just needs to be, as you said, domestic, right?

So like my head of our, our select business team, she lives in Jacksonville, Florida or outside Jacksonville, Florida. We have maybe like two clients in Jacksonville, Florida tops, you know, the rest are all throughout the country. Nobody cares that Leslie lives in Jacksonville, Florida. Nobody. I think they would care if she lived on the other side of the planet, didn't really understand our culture.

That wasn't from here. Um, you know, didn't have the same timetable. You know, I think, I think in a, in a, in a, in a, in a service capacity, I do think they would care about that. I just, I honestly do. Um, not that I don't think those people, I think if they weren't, I'm not saying anything about the Philippines, about India, it's more if they were in France or the UK, I just think it's about being here.

There's a sense of like, there's a sense of security that I think, especially small business owners are still looking for. Yeah. Well, yeah. Security and trust. Yeah.

Trust. Yeah. I think about personally, just a few, you know, service calls I've made outside of our industry, um, in the last six months and how frustrating it was because what I was saying wasn't being ingested in a way that I wanted it to be ingested. So solving a problem probably took 90 minutes when I could have taken 10. Yep.

Yep. If it would have been someone who just understood what I was trying to get at. So I'm with you. I'm with you. The hard part is, um, you know, and I, and I, so I don't want to be, you know, I know there are a lot of people and, uh, that, that are very invested in VAs and I'm very pro virtual assistants.

So I don't, I don't want to be, I'm not trying to be negative against virtual assistants in any regard. Um, you know, I had, you know, this service can be crappy from local small business Americans too. I mean, I just moved my bank to chase, you know, from a local bank. And I know as an independent agent, I'm supposed to use a local bank because the money stays in the community or whatever, except they're terrible. They're absolutely terrible.

They, they closed their bank at like 4 PM. I can't get ahold of anybody. Like their stupid app for virtual check, you know, take the picture of the check and deposit it like works one out of three times. You go to the stupid line and it would, you know, and try to talk to them and everything's like takes forever. And I go to chase and it's like, snap, snap, snap, done, done.

Oh, you have this problem. No problem. Okay. Here you go. Snap, done, done.

I'm just like, I guess I just, I can't, I can't handle. I can't handle the pace of that. Well, I, well, right. And that's the thing, right? Like there, there are certain, um, customer experiences that are becoming so great that they're becoming a necessary, almost a necessary evil.

I don't even like that term, but they're so great that you can't not use them. Right. Even if you think about just Amazon as an example, the amount of stuff I buy from Amazon versus, you know, anything local now is, it's outrageous. Um, and it's almost it. And insurance has always been a relationship that's right since I started, but I think that there will be a shift where the customer experience outweighs the relationship.

Right. And that, that's kind of what we're seeing with even your bank, right? You might've had a great relationship with your banker, but your experience and the convenience of chase is outweighed the relationship that you have. Yeah. And I know this is a very, very hard concept for a lot of agents to swallow, but I could not agree with you more.

Um, you know, I, there's a local, there's a local men's clothing store that I like to go to, um, partially because I can be an open conservative in that environment and not have like tomatoes thrown at me. And partially because they just have cool, like really classically, they get cool, cool, great clothes there. So I like going there. Problem is I'm six foot four and I have a size 13 shoe. So they never have clothes that fit me.

So like, I go there and I look at the clothes and I'm like, this jacket's dope. I want this jacket. And then he's got to send me to a website to buy it half the time. Right. If I want this thing, because he doesn't carry my size or length or whatever.

And, you know, it just, it's like one of those things where it's like, I really want to support this guy. And he's a great guy. And I really enjoy him and, and all the people that work there, it's like a cool experience. Like they'll give you a, you know, they'll give you a glass of scotch or whatever. And you can, you know, there's like a whole thing.

It's like a whole thing. And, um, but man, he doesn't ever have the stuff like that fit me. So, so it's like one of those things where it's like, I would love to support this local guy. But the problem is I, if I just go onto the same shop online and size 13 shoes, there they are click, click. Two days later, they're in my mailbox, you know, we're in the, in the, you know, packages outside the door.

And I think that our lives are, our lives are so busy. Um, there's so much to think about today. There's so much, you know, I, I, I, I, when I talk to people a lot of times, I talk about brain cycles, right? We only have so many cycles. We only have so many cycles we can go through.

And then you just, you don't have any more capacity. Like there's only so many things you can think about, like at a certain point, even the smartest person, like you just can't think about another thing. So, and, and, and going back to my chase versus local bank thing, I don't want to support. I have no, I like, I'm not like proud to be supporting chase bank. I mean, they're a mega bank and, you know, I'm sure in large part, a lot of the financial issues we have are because of crazy, stupid shit that they do.

But the problem is I can't, you know, all the things that I, that, that the prioritization of things that matter, I can't handle doing a mobile deposit and having one of them go through and two of them not go through for whatever reason, then I got to do it again, or I got to drive to the thing. And I'm just like, I can't handle that. Those are brain cycles. I don't want to waste on that activity. So I have to make the move.

And I completely agree with you that I think in insurance, there's going to come that time now, granted complex accounts, accounts that involve a lot of trucking or manufacturing or whatever. I don't know that day is way far away for any of those, but for, as we talked about, you know, like we put a lot of consultants with you guys. Cause I really like your GL prof thing. It takes two minutes. It makes complete sense.

And so we, we do put a lot of, we put that type of business with you guys, that type of person. Do they really want to have a hour long conversation with me about the dynamics of a professional liability exposure? No, they're like, am I covered? Yes. Okay, great.

Off I go. Like, I don't want to waste time on this. Well, and it's more, it's more when insurance is a necessity for them to continue on with their day. Right. It's the same situation with you and your bank, right?

The small business owners, they just want to get it taken care of and move on. They don't want to think about their insurance. Just like you don't want to think about your, your deposits that didn't go through twice and try to use the bank before. Right. Where, where is your mind at?

What are you guys talking about as it relates to, um, like embedded insurance or, uh, that concept? Because when, you know, 2015, 2016, the insure tech, um, you know, insure tech wave or whatever, they were going to disintermediate all that stuff. Obviously that didn't happen. But when I, when I've, you know, in, in going through rogue, you know, channel partners is something that we, we, we approach and work through and, um, and learning more and more about what embedded insurance really means and what it really is. That to me scares the crap that, that to me feels like it could have a serious impact on the independent agency channel.

And, and, you know, and, and I'll just, this is my last piece of context and then I'll be quiet, but like in, when, when, when. Embedded insurance is actually working, the independent agent never even gets a shot at it. Like if you, it never even comes down to their level. Like it just like, I, I, I create my business. I get my LLC, you know, the LLC place is pitching me insurance.

I set up payroll. They're pitching me insurance. I get a payment system. They're pitching me insurance. Like I've had three, four, five different insurance opportunities pitched at me by all the tools I'm using before I even get to the point where I would normally think about it.

And an independent agent would get involved. And that to me, you know, not, not today or even tomorrow or whatever, but that to me looks like it could make a real dent in the independent agency channel because now there's just not as many at bats available. Yeah. Well, so Ryan, here's what I'll say about embedded. Actually, David's actually talking about that on a panel coming up, um, an industry event in the future.

Um, I think Coterie set up to, based on our technology, we're set up to play there. Um, we, I, based on my projections though, Ryan, like even in the next five years, I think it could be a small portion of our distribution, but it's going to be the IA channel all the way. Um, and, and here, here, here, here's some other thoughts on that. Like, um, new in business risks are very hard to place for agents. Right.

And typically an embedded experience is going to be a new in business risk. It's a risk that's not their LLC to your point. And they're, they're going to get payroll services and there's, there's an insurance option there. Um, so to some degree, yes, I think that agents might lose out on that business, but it's hard to place business. So like how much time were they spending trying to place that business anyway, when those risks become a little bit more complex, that's when I think they're going to call an agent and say, Hey, like, I don't know what to do with this anymore.

Um, right. And so, so how does, how does that play? You know, I, I'm a new in business startup contractor. Um, I go to get a certificate of insurance somewhere or I, you know, and, and I buy insurance, right. Because I need a cert and, um, and maybe, maybe it's, it's quoted and bound through an embedded solution, but then now I have 15 employees, right.

10 fleet vehicles or comp issues, right. My mod's going out of control. That's what I'm going to call an agent. So I still think that there's going to be a need for it. It's just like what part of the cycle, right.

In a, in a commercial lines risk, will the agent need to step in? Yeah. My concern there is if we keep seeding new businesses to digital players, those, eventually those digital players are going to be able to provide the service and consultative offerings that that person never leaves. Right. Cause that, that is the argument you just made in, in small part, I know it wasn't your whole argument and I've get this from a lot of agents.

Well, Ryan, you're writing all these small accounts, new businesses, whatever. Yes, we do. We, that are, we, you know, based on our, how we acquire business. We do write a lot of small and new businesses, but you know what 32% of our new business inquiries, the reason they're inquiring their agent blows. Can't get ahold of them.

Doesn't, doesn't, doesn't produce COIs, doesn't get back to me. Um, 32% of the 32% of the accounts that come into rogue risk through our form field. The reason that they're contacting us is because their agent isn't getting back to them. So when I look at that, I say, I feel like we all assume independent agents are good at what they do. That's not true.

They've been local and local was their competitive advantage. And, and a lot of them have gotten lazy and sloppy. Now, most of the agents who are listening to this are probably not that case because you're listening, you're, you're spending your time, you're listening, you're getting better. And I'm not just stroking my audience ego. Like you wouldn't spend this time if you didn't think about your business.

So I know the people that we're talking to right now are not necessarily that, but there's 36 plus thousand independent agencies across the country. And if we're all just going for the complex scaled risk and forgetting about all the new businesses, those new businesses are going someplace. And eventually agencies like mine who say, I'm going to take that new business and then provide them with the same service they get from a local agency. Eventually some of these VC funded ones are going to wisen up and start to add real service offerings and that, that contractor who starts with one truck and goes direct or whatever, as he or she business grows, they got seven trucks. Eventually that digital player is going to have the consultative offerings.

They're just not going to need to leave. They're going to, there's going to, they're going to escalate. I mean, that's what it is for us. Everyone, everyone who comes in starts with select. And as they grow, they graduate from a, from a client perspective, they graduate to what we call premier.

It's a completely different producer set. It's a completely different service team. Like you get basically onboarded to what, to a team that thinks and operates like what we kind of cliche, uh, an independent agency does. And that by, so we're capturing them new and then allowing the ones that need to, to graduate to a more, our team that can handle more complex risks and that type of dynamic. And my, from, I say like, again, like with what we were talking about earlier, I feel like there's a cliff coming if you completely forget about new businesses because there's not enough premium or whatever.

I know you guys aren't doing that, but I'm saying in general, I feel like that's a big risk because you're just, you're seat, we're seeding too much new stuff because it's new. Ah, it's new. Ah, you know, they, they, yeah. But fucking every business started with one or two people, every business. Yep.

Absolutely. Well, here's what I'll say, Ryan, um, similar to you, there are a lot of independent agents out there that are investing in positioning themselves to be able to continue to play as our industry becomes more digitized and, and, and some of those are big players, right? There's some, some big networks, some big brokers out there that are building tech stacks and they're going to, they're going to be able to continue to play. Yeah. Um, those that aren't are going to fade away and they'll fall off that cliff.

Right. Um, and that's why I think too, you're seeing so much M and a happen and some of your larger networks grow so quickly because agents don't know what to do with it. They just don't know what to do with it. We're doing some things at Cordery to help coach them and try to help set them up for success. But again, they have to accept it.

And I think that's one of the hardest things that I've seen from a tech standpoint with, with the IA channel is they understand the concept, but operationalizing anything into their operations is very difficult, right? To, to pull in, you know, any comparative raters or, you know, a new marketing tool, right? If you think about, you know, agency revolution or even record referrals, like how do you leverage those the best to, to grow your agency or retain your agency agency through some digital experiences? The concept is sold to the agents, but how do you actually do it? It is very difficult.

Yeah. Well, Bobby, I think that you guys at Cotery are doing a lot of the right things. It's very exciting to have you in the space. I love that. You know, I love that when David and the founding team came in, it wasn't this like anti-agent thing that it was all about agents.

I think that it's, it's, it's got a lot of agents. I know personally, a bunch of agents who are more personalized focused, who this has allowed them to start to dip their toe into providing small business insurance, which is a huge thing. You know, a lot of carriers hold small business appointments over the head of personal lines agents and won't allow them to get these appointments. And I think that's a travesty, but you guys have, you know, I, I, I just know agents that they're predominantly personal lines want to get into small business and you guys have, have set them up and given them that opportunity. I think it's an absolutely wonderful thing.

You have a huge fan in me, obviously, and obviously we do business with you too, but, and I just, you know, the only thing I'm pissed about is that, is that, you know, you work for them and not for, for rogue. So that's, that kind of makes me upset, but. Well, Ryan, maybe one day we'll work together, but I'm super excited. You know, we talk about speed, simplicity and service at Cotery. And to your point there, we're not requiring our agents to do any free underwriting, right?

We're, we're, we're 100% relying on the model that's Pete's building in the, in the automated underwriting and third-party data. And that's what makes it exciting because anybody who's an insurance agent that wants to write small commercial can write it with us. There's no pre-qualifications there. We're just, you know, you want to, you want to contract, you're going to write business with us. We can have, we can have a, right.

That's awesome. Uh, Bobby, if they want to learn more about Cotery or connect with you, where are the best places to do that? Um, I would say look on our website, Coteryinsurance.com. C-O-T-E-R-I-E insurance.com. Yes.

Um, there, there's some cool information out there about our agency partnerships and what those look like. Um, you can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Um, Ryan, I'm sure you'll put like my profile or something with this podcast. So if somebody wants to. I'll have the links in the show notes and all that good stuff.

Uh, bye. I appreciate it so much. Appreciate you coming on the show. I wish you nothing but the best. And, um, I know that, uh, you'll do some awesome things and we'll be hearing a lot more from you and the Cotery team as you guys continue to develop.

It's great stuff. Well, thanks for the invite, Ryan. I appreciate it. Looking forward to grind with growth. Yeah.

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