Wade Eyerly on Creating an Insurance Product Out of Thin Air

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. Have an absolutely tremendous episode for you. A conversation that I thoroughly enjoyed. Someone who I'm probably going to be introducing you to. You probably haven't heard the name Wade eerily.

Probably haven't heard that name. But I think you're going to know about Wade as we go the next couple years. He's got a company, a new model for an insurance product that he's kind of invented out of thin air. And it's absolutely tremendous. It's Degree Insurance Company.

You can go to Degree Insurance. Just Google Degree Insurance Company. You're going to find what Wade is doing now. Degree is basically insuring your college education. That's what it's doing.

And I'm not going to give away the lead here. I just, the idea that you can kind of conceptually see where an insurance product fits in the market and manifest it to me is absolutely tremendous. It's amazing. And it's something that obviously I've never done. And just, you know, when you hear about people and you talk to them and you see the way they think, it just, it's inspiring, no doubt.

Kind of like the conversation we had with Jonathan Libby a few weeks back. Just creating insurance products in places that they didn't exist before. Absolutely tremendous. I think you're going to love this conversation. Wade's a super guy.

And just loved it. Just loved it. But before we get there, I want to give a quick shout out to the people who make this podcast sponsor, this podcast possible. And today's leading sponsor is Coterie Insurance. Guys, we are writing a lot of business with Coterie because small business is what we do.

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Big fan of the people that are making Donna possible, which is a big part of why I choose the tools I choose to use. All right. So, guys, with that, let's get on to Wade Earley and learn about the green insurance. You're going to love this one, guys. You're absolutely going to love it.

Here we go. Wade. Hey, Ryan. How are you? Good.

How are you? Good. Do you hear an echo, or are you good? No. No.

You're coming through loud and clear, my man. Good. I'm in a phone booth I haven't recorded from before. I'm getting an echo, but it's just a weird space. Yeah.

Whatever kind of phones you got there, iPhone technology must be doing its job. All right. Well, how are you? I'm good. I'm good.

It's nice to meet you. Anyone that Wes recommends over, I'm always interested to talk to. Well, it's funny. I've only gotten to know Wes in the last couple months around a little sort of Silicon Slopes insurance startup guys meet up. And at the end of the meeting, he was like, hey, I got a guy I want you to talk to.

I think you guys are going to hit it off. And that's essentially all the context I have for like, jump on a podcast. Yeah. So Wes and I have been buddies for a while. You know, it's funny.

You know, we met each other just kind of similarly. Like I've been in insurance space for. She's like 16 years now. He's been in it for. 15.

You know, I think neither one of us, you would classify in any regard as the traditional insurance mentality. I don't even think he knows really the standard, even what like insurance is. You know what I mean? Like it's I've probably bucked every standard methodology for for going about how insurance is done. You know, it's just I don't know.

We just our paths. We ran into each other and we became fast buddies. And I like the way he thinks about things. I also think he's crazy as shit. So it works out really well.

Yeah. He's just a super likable guy. Right. You meet him and you root for him immediately, which is a great skill set to have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He just self-deprecating and also like incredibly intelligent. And I just think that, you know, this is the case for every industry. I tend to, you know, I just happen to operate in the insurance industry. But like I just gravitate towards people, whether I agree with them or not, who are willing to take a different approach to the way things have always been done. But still have a respect for why they are done that way or how we got here.

And that to me, I think, is the key element when I'm looking at someone who's bringing a new idea into our space is. Do they have a respect for why it's being done this way today? Like, not that it doesn't need to be changed or reinvented or innovated. That's a different point. But do they at least have a respect for why 450 years later we still do it that way?

And if they do, then I'm like, oh, maybe there's a shot this person will actually make an impact. If they don't, I just become a little weary, I guess. Yeah, sure. Makes total sense. Tell me more about where you're based.

Tell me. Yeah. So I'm based in upstate New York, just outside of Albany area. I was born and raised here. Like Saratoga or where?

Just south of Saratoga. Actually, it's a town called Waterville. We're right across the river from Troy. Okay, cool. Yeah, so I can be from my house with my first bet in hand at the finish line rail in about 23 minutes.

Okay. So I lived the last five years in New Canaan, Connecticut. Okay. And we'd take our kids up to Saratoga and out to the Finger Lakes and up to Vermont and just hang out in the Adirondacks all day. Yeah.

What brought you to Utah? We moved out a year, well, two weeks before COVID hit, my in-laws live out here. Father-in-law just retired from a university here. And chance to raise kids by grandparents. Like, you know, you can give your kids a lot of things.

That's one not everybody can. And we had that chance. And so we did. And frankly, Utah's just built for kids, man. Yeah.

We're camping in southern Utah and hiking in northern Utah and just, you know, out on lakes and fishing. I mean, there's just social distancing here was so wildly different than it was in a suburb of New York City that I almost felt guilty for my friends. And we got – we randomly moved two weeks before COVID hit. It's not like it was a design thing, right? We just got real lucky and – or blessed, depending on your worldview.

But, yeah, it's been awesome. Yeah, that's cool. I agree with the grandparents thing. I don't particularly – for a whole bunch of reasons, which we can or can't – don't have to get into. I don't particularly care for New York State.

And not that I don't have friends here and stuff. But I just – it's just not me. It's not my – it's not the way that I view the world, although this is a decent place to raise kids. But I have three sets of grandparents within 15 minutes of my house. So, I ain't going anywhere because I grew up – my entire family is from South Buffalo.

And my dad got a job when I – like when my mom was pregnant with me and moved our little unit. So, I have like 30 Irish Catholic cousins. And they all still live in South Buffalo. And he moved me, my mom – or, you know, I wasn't born yet, but my mom – out to Albany. So, I grew up like on an island.

Like no grandparents around, no family around. So, now being able for my kids to have cousins and all that stuff right here, you know, this will not be forever for me living up here. Because I want to – I love other parts of the country, you know, but a lot – where you are is one of those places. But I'm never leaving until that family unit isn't necessary anymore. Well, I will tell you – well, first off, you can come to Utah and we'll adopt you.

We'll make you family. You know, we'll give you what you need. But Utah has been really incredible that way. But I grew up in Kansas City. My dad moved out there, like we didn't have family around.

And my wife's family – and you see this when you get married, but like she just grew up differently. She had a super close relationship with grandparents on both sides. And like they have like a family reunion. Her grandpa was a cattle rancher. And they all go to the ranch, you know, twice a year, every year.

And she knows – she's closer to her second cousins than I am to my youngest sibling. Because we're 16 years apart. Like I'm like a weird old uncle, right? Yep. She – like we moved back to Utah.

And one of her second cousins lives around the corner of us. I didn't know. But I saw this one walking a dog. We're looking to get a new dog. I'm asking her about it.

My wife comes out and she goes, Madeline? Hey. And like just – like it was the most random thing in the world. Yeah, yeah. She's like, oh, yeah.

I see her at the ranch, you know, twice a year. So, yeah, being by family is a real treat. I have a big family. So, I'm lucky that way. But like now we're a diaspora, right?

I got a sister in Luxembourg and another one in Fresno and everything in between. So, Alabama. That's a pretty – that's a pretty diverse Luxembourg and Fresno. Yeah. We're all over the place.

I'm all just eight kids. Big Mormon family. So, we're all over the place. Yeah. But not from Utah, right?

And so, everybody – all the other like – all the Mormons that I know when they moved to Utah, the sort of cultural – like you make fun of it because you never go make friends. You just have so much family that you never need anybody else. Well, that wasn't our case. Like we moved out and we were like – we swore we wouldn't be that family that moves to Utah and only sees their family, right? And then two weeks after we got here, the government's like, yeah, Verily, you can only see your family.

Yeah. So, it's been interesting. But it's a good – man, it's just great for raising kids. I did have my – I yawned right as I got on this. I realized I was up all night in the ER with my 11-year-old broke his arm and tackled football.

Oh, man. But it's the thing like he's playing football and they're playing baseball and like doing all kinds of stuff that like parts of the country still aren't able to do. Yeah. We're – we've been blessed so far that being in upstate, the craziness that goes on like Westchester South and Long Island. Oh, yeah.

We've been able to avoid some of that. Thankfully, we have a few people here who still maintain some semblance of rational thinking. Sure. It's startlingly uncommon. It is very.

Yeah. I don't want to get – I was just – No, you're good. I don't want to hear his buddies about a technology project. But like they're like – you know, they're probably younger than me. So I'm 40.

They're probably in their early 30s. They're technology guys. They work for RT Specialty and we're just working on a project with them. And, you know, they're coming from Philly where – in the greater Philly area, it's like bananas. Like you would think that it's like, you know, we're being bombed by a foreign country.

You know what I mean? Like that's what it's like. And they come up here and they're like, look how – you know, look how reasonable you are. And I'm just like – I'm looking around going, it's fucking crazy. I was behind a woman with two masks on that was buying a carton of cigarettes.

Like what in the world are we living in? Like how is this – how is this real life? But it's just funny. So, you know, I guess it is – you know, like anything else, we'll get through this. And I think we'll all have learned a lot about ourselves, hopefully.

I think the people that actually use this time in a positive way, I think you'll have learned a lot about yourself. I think that's going to be the case for a lot of people is, you know, I think some people really let themselves go. I think other people really honed in and made themselves better, you know, better, whatever that means. I know my wife and I have used this time to really get fit and really focus on that and family and stuff. So, I don't know.

It's all – Yeah. I mean, I travel so much. It was a year of no traveling and hanging out with my kids. Like, you know, it was a terrible thing and we had people we knew who passed from it and whatnot. But, like, it wasn't an awful year in general for our family.

Yeah. So – and I think insurance has an interesting perspective on it, right? Because we're in the risk business. Yeah. Most of this fear is from an irrational understanding of risk tolerance.

Yep. It's novelty risk, right? And so, you're more afraid of this than you are driving on the – I served in Iraq. I did one tour in Iraq. And I was safer in Baghdad than my wife was driving on the freeway around Washington, D.C.

But nobody wants to acknowledge that or think about that, right? It's like, well, you're taking a new risk, so I'm terrified about it. And I've already accepted freeway risk. Well, this is the same thing. It's like, look, you've already accepted the normal flu variant.

You've already – you know, 100 other things. This is terrifying because it's new risk, but ultimately, it's not particularly worse than other risks we're already accepting. And I think it's worse than that, man. I don't even think it's – that it's novel. I think it's that it's politicized.

Well, that doesn't help. That's the part that I think really makes this – the only thing that makes this scary to me – and look, I've had people that I know pass or even have – like things with their heart or their lungs, like that aren't going to change. My little brother's on oxygen now. He's in his 30s with six kids under eight, and he's pulling around an oxygen tank. I mean – It's definitely real.

There's no doubt. Yeah. It's just – I'm with you. Like, if someone – you know, I had – one of the guys this morning said, if I told you you could walk into a casino and you had a 99.8% chance of winning, but the other 2% chance was you're going to lose all your money, would you walk in and place a bet? And he's like, everybody would.

You know, 999,000 out of a million would do it. And that's – Yeah. So, whatever. It's all good. So, dude, you've had a pretty wild career, it looks like.

I mean, obviously, Wes did the same thing for me that he did for you. It was like, hey, you got to talk to these guys. He's a good guy. You know, so then I was looking through your LinkedIn, and I was like, holy shit, you've been – you've, you know, been all over the place. It's – you know, it started a lot of companies, and it's awesome.

I mean, it's pretty exciting to see your background. I mean, it's pretty cool. I need to pull that up and see what it says because there's elements of my background that can't be put there. Yeah. So, yeah, I've had a random career.

Like, I've got, like, career ADD along with regular ADD, right? Yeah. So, bounce around a little bit. But I think you get a chance to bring experience from all sorts of different places and bring it together. And it makes you naturally challenge, like, how we started this, you know?

Yeah. Well, why do we do it this way? Because we always have. That's never a good answer for me. If I don't understand why, then I'm not going to – then I'm going to challenge that every time, right, and make sure we're doing it the right way.

But if you understand why, then maybe you end up at the same place, but maybe you end up someplace totally different. And I get to bring in learnings and best practices from, you know, a dozen different places that don't overlap very much with, you know, whatever I'm doing today. Yeah. So, what's degree all about? What is – how do you – I mean, obviously, I read about it, and I've been, you know, checked out the website and LinkedIn page and everything.

But, like, what is this about? I mean, this is a pretty wild concept. Yeah. So, I was an executive at an airline, and I'm on the board of a school – a school board in Bridgeport, Connecticut. So, the largest and the poorest city in Connecticut.

And we took kids that are two years behind, and we get them caught up on the college, and that's the plan, right? That's what we set out to do. And it's a 97% minority school, and, you know, it's doing, I think, really good work. And that's what we were focused on. I'm really proud of it.

And so, as we're sitting there, the entrepreneur and me then on the board wanted to tell the story. Like, how do we alter the life trajectory for these kids? Like, what, you know, what do we change? I didn't – I mean, I came from a family background that was pretty similar. I was on and off government programs, right?

I didn't know you were supposed to apply to college. I drove to a college in August the year after I graduated and asked how to sign up for a dorm, you know? And because a kind-hearted registrar took pity on me, it changed my life's trajectory, right? And wildly so. And so, all right, like, how do we – let's tell this story, right?

That's what we want to be marketing to these families is like, hey, when you send your kids here, their trajectory alters, how does it change? And come to find out, 80 to 90% of the kids we brought in were going to drop out the first two years of college anyway. We had the wrong goalposts. You know, getting into college doesn't alter your life's trajectory. Getting out the right way does.

And it's a subtle but pretty important distinction to say that, you know, graduating college is the path to the American dream. Going to college is what we usually say, and it's wrong. What we had done was enabled these families to take out a lot of debt, which didn't help them if they didn't graduate. So I couldn't get that sort of thought out of my head and ultimately just said to my wife, like, this is the problem I want to go fix. And we're lucky enough to be in a place where I can choose what I want to do professionally.

And so set up to go to that with no idea what the right solution was and spent a lot of time in data. And ultimately, we were able to build actuarial tables and say, okay, this is an insurable risk, right? If a college degree were a stock in the stock market, it outperforms the market by 2x. It outperforms the S&P 500 by like 2.4 times and is simultaneously the most consistent performer in history. And that piece is really important when you're building an insurance product, right?

So it works super reliably. And this is, I think, the least confident generation in American history, right? They're old enough to remember the Great Recession and the job loss and the fear. And their whole lives, higher ed, has said that a degree delivered online should come with an asterisk, right? And so it's their turn of a, you know, once every sixth generation pandemic.

And everybody says, well, just go online. And they don't know if it's going to count. And is there going to be economy when we're done? And is anybody going to hire them? So they don't have the confidence necessary to enroll.

And yet we know statistically, the best thing you can do in a down economy is have a degree, right? In the Great Recession, unemployment goes to 10% nationally. 17% if you're Black, 5% is where it peaks if you have a college degree, right? And in the, you know, the pandemic, Raj Chetty at Opportunity Insights at Harvard is talking about a K-shaped recovery. And the breakpoint is if you didn't have a college degree, you got laid off.

Worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression. If you did, you worked from home. Bounced right back. And so quite literally, it is, a college degree is its own form of insurance, right? It protects you from an economic downturn.

What we need to do is convince kids that it's worth it. Give them the confidence necessary to do it. And insurance was a great vehicle to do that. Insurance gives you confidence where you can have none, where the statistics are right, but the confidence is wrong. And so, I mean, it's just, you know, it's a shared risk pool, right?

And you spread that so that if higher ed is the roulette wheel where 9 out of 10 spaces pay off, the right advice to give somebody you love is to borrow 10 times their net worth, make a single investment, and then hope, right? Spin the wheel. But in the event that it doesn't work, what do you do? Well, if you're wealthy, you spin again. You borrow more money.

You spin again. You go to graduate. Graduate enrollment spike in a down economy, right? If you're not, if you're a first-gen American, first-gen student, underrepresented minority, like otherwise poor, Pell eligible like I was, right, you often just have to go to work. And you anchor your market rate at a low point.

And the economy rebounds and your career doesn't. I mean, and you go back to a 2% annual wage increase or whatever. And so what we did was just spread that risk across everybody where it works to fill in the gas where it didn't. And it should do the same thing that homeowners insurance does for homeownership, right? The fastest way to build wealth in America for the last 150 years is homeownership.

And you borrow 10 times your net worth, you make a single investment with it, and then you hope that the market performs well. And it works really, really well. But if, but you couldn't do that if you were worried that your asset would burn down. Yep. Right?

And nobody's upset. The one guy they've known in 30 years who had to rebuild their home for a fire got to rebuild. But because we have insurance, we've enabled all of that wealth creation, all that risk-taking is possible. And in higher ed, it's been such a reliable bet. We've never needed it.

We haven't done it. But now we do need it. We finance it to such a degree that you set a family back for a generation. It takes 21 years on average to pay back these loans. So if it doesn't work for you, right?

On average, we know it's going to work. But the risk is still individualized, right? If it doesn't work for you, that family is a generation behind. And we can just fix that with insurance. It's so easy.

So that's what we, so we built the actuarial tables. We're now, we've now got a certificate of authority in eight different states. You know, we got Oklahoma's this morning. So we're, you know, we're rolling out a new product, but it's a little different than a lot of insurance conversations I have, because it's like inventing life insurance. Like this, this whole category, this product didn't exist before.

And we're rolling that out. So I was a first generation college student. My junior year, I, so I looked, I grew up in a house that everyone in my community referred to as the crack house. Now, thankfully, we did not smoke crack in the house, but it certainly looked like what you would think a crack house looked like on the outside. It just, it wasn't nice.

My mom was a secretary. My stepdad was a laborer and, you know, we got by. And I was, was, you know, I, I did all right. I did pretty well in school and blessed with a, with a reasonably decent, at least enough intelligence that I could look at the world and go my only way out of here. Is, and I, you know, I was good at sports, but I certainly wasn't becoming a professional athlete.

Like my only way out of this shitty town of 900 people in the middle of upstate New York was to go to college. So I said to my mom, I want to go to college. And her response was, oh, that's nice. I mean, like it would never even crossed her mind that I would do. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, I had to figure out how to fill the forms myself. Okay. So I go to college. I ended up getting some scholarships for baseball and some scholarships for being poor and shit like that from the university of Rochester.

And, and a blessing, great school. Um, well, after the first year, the head coach of the baseball team goes to another job. Okay. Scholarship goes away. I cannot afford full rate at the university of Rochester at $33,000 a year or whatever it was.

Yeah. College is over for me. Let's go. I'm painting houses and waiting tables. And, uh, you know, oh my gosh, even thinking about it makes me a little emotional.

Here's my, like, I have this great year, you know what I mean? Like played on the baseball team, part of fraternity. Um, I was part of the all campus judicial committee, which was like this student body adjudicating, you know, like if you didn't want to go before the Dean, you can go between this, this panel of your peers. Like it was a big deal. And, uh, you know, I'm like, I'm fully ingrained in this community.

And here I am back in, in upstate New York, in Albany, New York, I mean, I'm actually in upstate New York, Albany by my, you know, essentially by myself, all my friends. And it was, and it was like, my next path was probably, um, in the gutter, you know, swinging a hammer, drinking 30 beers a night. Like, you know, that's where I'm going. Yeah. And, uh, I was, you know, again, sometimes you just, you're, you're blessed.

You have no other way to say it. Someone that was on that judicial committee found out that I wasn't coming back and why I wasn't coming back called the Dean of the school who has since passed away, but, you know, rest in peace, this guy saved my life. Um, and this Dean got me that scholarship back and I went back to school the second semester. And I'm sitting here listening to you say this going, if this existed, I would have went back to the university of Rochester potentially on, you know, with this kind of insurance, I would have been able possibly, you know, I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I'm thinking to myself, like, here's a potential use case that I would have had in my life because it just poof. I mean, it was just, I had, I had, I felt like I had hit the jackpot.

I was out. I was on the path to never having to go back to this shitty little town again, um, where people said that the criminals didn't steal from our town. They lived in our town. So they didn't, that's the, you know, that was like the big joke. And, um, and then it was just gone like that.

And then, you know, thankfully a whole series of crazy phone calls were like, I'm on, I'm on the phone with the Dean of the college, you know what I mean? How does that ever happen? And, uh, he hears my story and says, well, just pack your bags. Cause you're coming back. And, uh, it was like wild.

It's just wild to think. And, and that changed my life. I mean, I'm one of those kids who, if it wasn't for college, you know, who knows where I'd be. 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.

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Let's get back to the episode. Totally. I couldn't relate more. I, uh, I got a scholarship. I was a terrible student.

Uh, so I was like 17 when I went to college and, uh, like barely turned 17. It was the summer. I was 16, turned 17 and, uh, and joined the fraternity and I had two great social years. And then I left and served the church mission in Moscow for two years when I was 19, came back at 21 and was grown up and just matured. Right.

But the first two years, like I didn't, I didn't know you were supposed to go to college, but then I got there and I didn't know what I like, how to handle myself, how to succeed, what I was doing. But a lot of the same things joined the fraternity was on like interfraternity council and student government, did a bunch of stuff. And then I went to Moscow, grew up a little bit, you know, post-Soviet Russia. I'll teach you a lot about life decisions you want to be making. And, uh, and came back and I was like, all right, well, like I kind of knew what I wanted to do for a career of thought I did and knew that I needed a 3.0 cume to get a government job in the federal government.

And I thought I wanted to work at state pharmaceuticals and, uh, and I had a two, five, seven and two and a half years worth of credits. So I had to get like a three, nine, six, the rest of the way in order to like, so I graduated with like a three, one, my last two years, you know, I just finally just. Did the work showed up to clap, you know, that stuff anyway. Uh, but didn't really have anybody like that could show me the way. And, you know, uh, loved my experience as a Theta Chi, but like those guys were the ones I was learning from and they weren't always making the best decisions either at the time.

So, yeah, it is. It's funny, man. Why, um, why, why Moscow? What was Moscow? Like I have a good, I have a very good buddy who did his mission in, um, uh, Chile.

And I want to say maybe Argentina as well. And we've talked about his mission so many times and how that's changed his, how that changed his life and all that. And, um, I'm just, I'm always interested because, and this is going to sound like a broad sweeping stroke, but I'm most sincerity. I find, um, uh, Mormons who actually did their mission to be some of the, like, I don't know. It just like straightforward, caring, empathetic people that you'll meet.

I know that's a broad stroke, but I do find the case. Um, I think you find a spectrum, like there's, there's no curve of anybody anywhere, right? Yeah. There's always some bad seeds. I get that.

But it's a formative experience. Yeah. And you spend, so it's disciplined and rigorous in that. Like you're up at six 30, you're out of the door by nine 30, you're home by nine 30 and bed by 10 30. Like there's a lot of structure to it.

You don't watch TV. You don't go on dates. You don't like phone calls and letters home. Like you, you called home on mother's days and Christmases. And otherwise you wrote a hand letter once a week.

Now it's an email. Um, but like, there's no failure to launch. If you go on it, like you have to, you had to figure out how to live, how to do your laundry, how to make a food, like, you know, you have to figure out. So it's very hard to come home and then just move back into your mom's basement and let her take care of everything. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, so, so there's an element of that. Um, you, you don't pick where you go. You tell the church you're willing to serve and then you get, then you're called and it's kind of a cultural moment.

It's like my, you know, Jewish friends that have a bar mitzvah and like, now you're a man, there's this like element of like, you go on your mission, you come back and you're eligible now. Right. Um, but when you get your call, like every like high school girlfriend and all my friends growing up, everybody was like in the room, we opened the mission call together. It's like a big moment. Um, cause you don't know where you're going to go and you don't pick.

Uh, and so, uh, when I got, I mean, I, I left in 98. So six years after the Soviet union fell and, uh, learned Russian and moved to Moscow. Right. Like that's in what was the world capital of atheism. Right.

They had institutionalized for 70 years. Um, you know, so for missionaries who serve in, in Chile, Chile is the country in the world, the second highest population of Mormons, I think it's about 5% of them. Um, the highest concentration of Mormons outside of, uh, Pacific islands, like Samoa, Tonga. So, and, uh, and like when you go there and you have a conversation with someone, you're really sharing, like, here's what Christ did for me and how that helped me. And, uh, and so it's more like additive to what, like you all, people already know about the savior in Moscow.

It was like, here's who Jesus is because institutionalized atheists. I mean, everybody knew Christianity cause their grandma was a Christian, but nobody, like nobody could be religious and get a job. Like the party control all the, like, so anybody aspirational, you just didn't go to church. Like it wasn't, wasn't like a thing. Um, and so it was, uh, but it was cool cause you spend all day, every day caring about other people.

You have no concern for yourself. I mean, you, you have, you know, food in an apartment and so you're, you're like, your base needs are met. And otherwise your job is to leave your apartment in the morning, figure out how to help people and then come back at night. So I remember we, we met this guy who had just been released from prison, Russian prison, not a great experience, I'm sure. Um, and we literally like, we're walking down the street and you recognize missionaries, the name tags and the white shirts, the ties and whatnot.

And, uh, and we're always like talking to random people can share a message, brighten your day, like whatever it is. And, uh, he said, you know, can we help you with something? And he's like, I got to quit smoking. Everybody in prison smokes. It's going to kill me.

I need to quit. We're like, okay. Um, Mormons are good at not smoking, right? Like it's kind of core to what we, we don't want to smoke. We don't drink.

We don't have to coffee. Like, great. So we're happy to help. Right. And, uh, and I said, all right, so when is it hardest for you?

Like when I first wake up in the morning, when I go to bed, we were at that dude's apartment at like six or seven o'clock in the morning. And we were at that dude's apartment at like nine 30 at night, like just distracting him. We'd read some scriptures, maybe sing some songs, like whatever kind of other thing we could do so that he wouldn't think about it. Yeah. And, uh, you know, if you spend two years walking around trying to help people as your full-time gig, right.

You learn to love those people. You learn to care about them. You learn what's important to you. You're not, it's not an aspirational experience, right. You're not like trying to get a promotion, like the rest of your life, the career, like all that stuff is there.

You're just very centered where you're at. And I think that gives you a real base of genuine confidence and like who you are, that you're a child of heavenly parent, you know, like, you know, that you are God's son or daughter. Right. And like, there's some real genuine confidence in knowing that about yourself that I think gives strength to do things that other people might think are risky or to like center you when you're like, when you're dating and figuring out what you want in life. I don't know.

That's a long answer, but I kind of think that's part of it. I think it's a great answer. I think that, um, I was talking to a couple of buddies again, you, you, and I'm, I'm interested in your taking this because, you know, at some point in your journey, as you mentioned very early, you then do a tour in Iraq. Um, and I'm, I'm interested in that. And I, I think, you know, I think that I look at my own kids.

I think about my own life, think about my time in college. I had a very similar thing. I was an engineering major and switched to be a math major just because I wanted to graduate on time. Right. I'm staring at a two, one in engineering going, I'm, I'm not going to make it.

And, uh, and had to switch and ended up getting to a two, nine, three, I think is what I graduated with, but same kind of deal had to freaking crank the last like year and a half. Um, and you know, so much of our, our, our, our lives is spent, I feel like, and this goes for work too. And we'll get back to, to degree insurance. I know we're off the path, but this is interesting. Um, is, is like, what do people think about this?

What do people think about the decision I'm making? How is this going to impact the way these people view me or interact with me, or am I going to be invited to this club or whatever? And, you know, I look at, um, I have a high respect for, uh, a lot of the people, the people like Israelis that I meet, I love, uh, their, their mentality, very pragmatic, uh, view of the world, you know, some of being where they live, some of being the service that they have to do as part of, you know, um, coming up. And I just think like that we're missing, I feel like today, that service component of our lives. And it used to be through the church, but, you know, secular, secularism is, is really, you know, destroying, I feel like destroying our society in many ways, but, um, you know, it, it, the service component, like I'm listening to you talk about that.

And I'm going those two years allowed you to actually figure out like who the hell you are. Yeah. Like, you know, you think about how many existential crises, so many people seem to be having every day right now. And I'm like, you probably not knowing you, you know, knowing you for 36 minutes, um, seem to have a pretty good feel for who you are, at least for the most part, as much as anyone can. And, uh, I'm assuming that that, that just that time to be able to figure that out played a large role in.

Well, you know, there's another interesting thing, as you mentioned, uh, Israelis, many of whom I admire as well. My, my wife lived in Israel a couple of times growing up and, um, we've been, been able to go a couple of times with our kids and, um, uh, how do I put this walking around with white shirts and ties, wearing a name tag for two years is you're never the cool guy, right? Like that layer is like, you're a dork for two years and you learn to be comfortable in your own skin and rather than be externally validated, um, you, cause there's no show you can put on, right? You can't be cool as a mission. Um, if you look at like, uh, other religious folks all around the world, my, my father-in-law was a religion professor and he, uh, he talks about a concept of religious envy.

And what he says is you can learn a lot about how to practice your faith by watching other people practice theirs, you know, and, uh, if you're a Sikh and you wear a headdress everywhere, you can't hide that you're a Sikh. It's the first thing anyone knows about you before they've ever, before you've ever opened your mouth or they've said a word to you, they know you're a Sikh. So how do you, how does wearing your religion that way change how you behave and who you are? Because you represent now, not just yourself and your family, but this like entire faith. Yeah.

Um, what do you learn about, you know, Hasidic Jews getting, you know, themselves into a trance-like state at the Western, at the Wailing Wall, right? Like, what does that teach you about how you are going to live your faith? And missionary service does similar things. Like you're willing to be not cool. And if you can give up, it's like for you and I, uh, I'm going to project here a little bit, but our circumstances aren't too dissimilar.

Um, I know how to be poor, right? I know I can get by, which means, which enables me to take some risks because I, I was poor, but also relatively happy, right? I had a happy childhood. I played with neighborhood kids and whatever else. And the house behind us gets busted for, busted for meth or whatever it was, three cop cars on their lawn.

Like, um, you don't know as a kid, right? There's much, you're not like the comparisons are all very small. It's like inside your elementary school, not, you know, global stuff. And, and so, um, you can be poor and happy and that like realization is empowering as a, you know, risk-taking entrepreneur, because the worst case scenario is you still get to be happy. There's a lot of power that comes from genuinely understanding that.

Well, I think in, in your faith journey and other parts of your life and in the world, um, you know, as soon as you can get over needing to be cool or validated by your peers for what you have or how you wear, what you look like, or, you know, whatever it is, how good you are at sport, you know, whatever that thing is that you're getting external validation from, as soon as you can get past that and you just get to be comfortable in your own skin, right? That's a superpower in the modern world. And, uh, and being a missionary kind of forces you to get, I mean, two years of not being cool will break most people of their needs to, you know, wear the right clothes and say the right thing. Then it doesn't mean you don't fall back into that or whatever, but there's a baseline of like, I know who I am. And I think that happens for a lot of missionaries.

Yeah. I think that's a, I think that's a really good lesson, you know, not just for obviously for faith and, and, and living our lives, but also for our work and how we present ourselves to the world. Um, I get people and I don't, if any one of them are listening, I don't mean this in a negative way. If you've asked me this question, but I get people who, a lot of people who are reached out to me because of the podcast or because of some of the writing and at different times in my career, I've had some reach we could say. And, um, people will say, well, how do I become an influencer?

I want to become an influencer. And I'm like the very first way that you become an influencer is to never, ever refer to yourself as an influencer or think about being an influencer ever. Like, uh, you know, one of the misconceptions I think that a lot of people have about, and I, I know this, I know this in part because I've, I, I've had the opportunity at different times to talk to people who have substantially more reach than me, Doug, real, real outside the industry, um, large millions of people, audiences. And the people that I think the ones who sustain, and I think do real, real yeoman's work is the ones who do it because they're there personally, it's like their own personal journey that they're on and they're trying to learn and grow. And they have, and if 10 people listened, they would be doing the same exact thing as if the millions that did listen.

And I think that, um, that's a very important part of growing a company like degree insurance or, you know, some of the things I'm trying to do here at Rogue is like, you know, a lot of people have asked me, how come you didn't try to start this agency sooner in your career? You know, obviously I wasn't there. Like, you know, the way that I can sit here and talk to you today, even two or three years ago, I may not have been of the same, you know, I may not have had everything as dialed in and, you know, I think when, but when the opportunity presents itself, if you are in some of the mental state that we've talked about, and you're not trying to do something to be cool or to have a place, but because it feels like a problem that you need to solve or want to solve, um, then, you know, that opportunity seems to present itself and you can go get it. Um, it's when you start forcing things that I think you really find yourself in trouble or you start making bad decisions, partnering with the wrong people, um, becoming losing focus on what you're trying to do. Um, and, and all of that, all of that, you know, can, can hold you back from where you want to try to get.

You know, you sit in the military too, right? Everybody wears a uniform. And one of the things that does is strip away a lot of the, you know, cool guy stuff, right. And puts everybody on the same place and lets you grow and, and, you know, your work product stands out and discipline stands out. And, you know, you know, those sorts of things.

And I feel the same way about sort of the influencer comment you made and, uh, and networkers. I get, I'll get asked a lot about, um, how do you grow a network or be a network? And I have never tried to do any of those things. So I'm like, I don't have great advice for you other than to don't, don't be that guy at a conference, hand out business cards, giving everybody finger guns. Like, you know, like if you, if you say that you're here to network, I'm immediately, you know, not interested.

Yeah. Um, but if you're here because you, like adult men don't make friends. Well, just like, especially adult American, like, it's just not something we do. You have old friends and otherwise you're family. Right.

And so if you just genuinely care about somebody and you, you know, help them out with something, right. That then you, you build that sort of group of people who want to be around you. Want to go build genuine friendships instead of trying to network with everybody under the sun. And then you'll just do a lot better. Yeah.

I, one of my favorite conversations that I've had on this podcast with wit was with a woman by the name of a Shefi Ben Huda. She runs, um, her and her brother are the founders of coverager, which is, uh, uh, insure tech publication. Um, I have a lot of respect for them and the work that they do. And, uh, she's one of my favorite people in the space for the way that she, uh, she just views things and attacks them. And we disagree on different stuff.

Um, and we were having a conversation around the good old boy nature of the industry. Right. And we were talking about how, you know, I mentioned to her that at different times in my career, I felt blessed to sit at tables that I probably shouldn't have been at listening to old fat white guys tell stories about how they conquered the world and that without actually shaking hands or without actually signing a contract deals were made and, you know, tens of, if not more millions of dollars of business would then be passed based on these relationships. Right. And it was never like, Hey, we're good now.

Right. You know, it was just this conversation was had and things were done and you learned how to, um, how to navigate in this world. And she said, and her response was, um, I hate that that's still our industry. And, um, while I, while I pushed back on her and I said, I'm, I think we need more of that except not just old fat white guys, but the idea that there should be some barrier that, that you have to earn your way into that space to me. Like there's a reason why those groups now, now granted, I'm, I'm all for diversity and meritocracy.

I'm a firm believer in meritocracies and, you know, I could give a shit what color you are and all that. Although I do particularly have a swing slant towards Americans. Um, I'm, you know, but, but I do, but, but outside of that, where you come from, who you are, I can give two shits about what religion you are. That part has to change. But the idea that these little groups of people form who trust each other, I think that's a good thing because you should have to earn your way in and you should have to, you know, I have to treat you well for a period of time before you're going to trust that if we do business together, I'm not going to hose you.

Like that's, that's human nature. And I think there's this misbelief by some people, particularly younger people who are trying to move up in that because they showed up to the party that we should just, you know, take them for, for what it is. And I'm like, nah, man, you need to get bashed across the rocks a couple of times and you need to have the door slammed in your face a couple of times and learn why that happens. And then when you come back in, you're going to, you're going to still be that, you know, the, the innovative, inventive, energetic person, but you're also, but they'll, but everyone will know that you're around for the long haul, which is, which is who people want to do business with. Does that make sense?

It does. There's, there's an interesting dynamic between trust and regulation, right? So I, uh, trust and reputation are earned and take time and, uh, and are valuable. Regulation is a shortcut for when you, when you need to interact in a space where you can't afford to build trust or don't have that time. Right.

So when, when an average homeowner walks in and needs a new policy, they don't know a good agent from a, from a not good agent. Right. And so the government, or in some cases, like with lawyers, like the bar association or others, they'll step in and they'll create barriers that are designed to ensure some believability in what's coming up, right? Some trust. Um, and it is a, it's a way of building trust in an area where you don't naturally have it.

It is always better to be able to build and have that trust. Right. And, uh, and, and I think there's, you know, a lot of trust comes from shared experience, which can't be shortcut. That's time. Um, and so getting in a room with a bunch of other people who have shared an experience with you, um, does a lot to build that trust, but, but that you don't need regulation in a world where we know who the good actors are and who the bad actors are.

And I think what's interesting is the, uh, the, the balance between the two, between allowing people to make mistakes, to trust the wrong person. Right. And like, we do this with dating, right? Like everybody gets to forge their own path and find their own people. And you've got buddies who you've seen date the wrong girl, right?

Like, and you know, it's wrong and everybody knows it's wrong. And then a year and a half later, they break up and then, and you're like, Hey, we could see it. And they're like, yeah, it was horrible. Right. But you have to let them make that mistake or they won't be ready when the right person comes home.

There are just industries and places where you can't do that. Right. I used to run an airline and guess what? I can't put somebody in the cockpit and be like, oh, they'll figure it out. Right.

Give them a little time. Let them crash a few, right? Like that, that doesn't work. And so you've got to have some barrier, but when you put too many barriers and then too much structure, one, trust doesn't get built because you never learned to rely on trust. Right.

And, and two, you can impede progress and innovation. Right. And so I'm always fascinated by innovating in spaces where the trust quotient is shallow because the regulatory quotient is high. Right. So we have a lot of regulation because, you know, pharmaceuticals, airlines, insurance, there's a ton of regulation because we need these things and we can't afford to build the relationships of trust that, that need to make it work.

And so we use regulation to do it. But regulation is a very heavy tool, right? It doesn't, it's not a soft, nuanced thing. No. And so, and regulation has a hard time keeping up with the speed of technology and the speed of growth and the speed of change and the speed of need.

So insurance is a great example. I mean, you know, 15 years ago, you didn't need cybersecurity. That wasn't a threat. But right now, my friend, Josh Steinman, he was head of, he was on the National Security Council in charge of cybersecurity for the last four years. He just started a company.

Oh, I wish I could plug it and tell you the name. I can't think of it all of a sudden, but he just started a company who's working to go secure our industrial like systems and controls, right? Because right now, like hacking into the dairy plant, right? It's probably one of the easier things you can hack into or hack because the software that those things run on, it's a, you know, it's a, it's an Excel spreadsheet and, you know, and a blinky light, right? That's telling you the milk's good or the milk's not good.

And those systems are weak. We've been able to trust for a long time at a certain level, you know, your food systems are regulated and you're not going to get bad milk out, but the systems we're now relying on have become vulnerable, right? And you didn't need that 15 years ago. So, so now you got to roll out new products. You got to build new actuarial tables, understand new sets of risk and do that all in a regulatory framework and structure that was built for challenges a hundred years ago, right?

And so we're applying old laws in new ways where they don't always fit and not always right. And what you see are the very best insurance commissioners are those who understand not just the regulation, but the why, right? Seasoning on your capital. Seasoning on your capital can make great sense. We want you to, I want you in another state to show that you know how to be an insurance company before you come here.

Great. In premise, fantastic. So does that clock? So I want a year of seasoning before you come to our state. Does that clock start the day we're an insurance company there or the day we pay claims there?

Like, when does it start? So we had a state tell us, it starts when you pay claims. I'm like, okay, two years of seasoning we need before we come to your state. You understand that in our product, because we're built differently than auto or whatever else, we're going to sell it to a college and those students are going to start school today. And they're going to go to college for three to six years and graduate and then work for five.

And then they're going to make a claim. So you're telling me don't come to your state for a minimum of eight years plus two years of seasoning. So I shouldn't come here for a decade. I want to make sure that you're telling me that's how far behind you want to be. Right.

And they're like, I mean, I'm like, and you just passed a regulatory sandbox where you said, hey, innovative insurance companies come here. We'll waive away the regulation so that you can come here and innovate and take chances because we need these sorts of products to, we need to move it faster. Like we didn't apply through the sandbox, but you can waive away the seasoning, which doesn't, it won't teach you anything in the next two years. Do you really want to stay away for 10? Well, no.

Right. And they were able to get their minds around and come around. Right. But that, uh, we see that a lot in insurance. We're a, uh, we're very much a trustless industry industry because we're in the business of risk avoidance, right?

We're in the business of a hedging against the worst possible outcomes. And so by nature, by nurture, both self-selection and what we're sort of trained to do, we avoid risk. We shy away from things that haven't been done before and sort of trust the process. Just let it go. What we don't do is move very quickly to address, you know, things and, um, and you get caught sometimes, right?

If you move quick and you bring in a new product no one's seen before, like that can come back to bite or bite somebody. Right. And then are they, do they learn a lesson and apply it or are they burned from quote anything new? Right. And all, all those things sort of come up as you're thinking about how do we build new products?

I mean, why, why don't we see a rash of new products? We've seen a rash of new businesses, right? Moving from physical goods to online service industries. So cybersecurity is the example everyone points to. Um, and then global warming, which is changing, you know, the, the actuarial tables, but that's more of a shift in the math than it is a fundamental difference in the product nature.

Right. Cyber security is a new product. Ours is a fundamentally new product. We should be, it's, I'm of the opinion, we should be seeing a lot more new products. Right.

In all sorts of different industries, but people don't think of it because we're not an industry that's prone to taking risks and to innovate. Yeah. The, um, the episode that's coming out this week that we're recording, this is actually with a guy by the name of Jonathan Libby. So when this episode comes out, people can go back and listen to that one. If they missed it, he runs, um, or founded steady state insurance, which is smart defy.

And I'm looking at some of the things that they're doing in crypto, which is, which is really interesting space, which I'm, which I'm super interested in, but what, what I thought was most interesting about our conversation was, was not just, you know, the crypto piece, which is interesting. A lot of people don't know, but, um, ensuring defy transactions, once you understand the math behind it makes a lot of sense. What, what became even more interesting to me was, okay, we're using defy as almost a loss leader for what blockchain can do for the insurance industry in terms of creating new insurance products over time that, um, and new ways of viewing how we, um, how we tackle risk in the way that, uh, we can spread risk out to, to, to smooth out rates, to smooth out, um, opportunities to, to, to finally do away with, you know, even some of the loose red lining that still happens, even though we want to pretend like it doesn't like, you know, things like blockchain can really help us massage some of those problems and attack them. And I was like, you know, it's why it makes me so excited. And I know we didn't talk about a degree that much.

Um, but obviously everyone's going to be very interested now that they understand, um, the way that you're talking this problem. It makes me very excited that there are people like you out there bringing these ideas into our industry because it's exactly what it needs. It, it, it, a lot of our industry is not broken. It needs innovation and some invention, but a lot of it is not broken, but I agree with you. There are many gaps that we just don't see that like black holes looking out into space because we just haven't had someone come in who, who understands how gravity works in that particular part of the universe.

You know, one of the challenges is you got to build that X rail table, right? But I could easily see an executable contract on the blockchain that does parametric insurance, right? Where you're sort of everybody's pooling in capital and splitting it. And a set of regulations that's a lot that allows those to exist. And suddenly you can create digital insurance, right?

Where there's no manual underwriting that like, it's an automated process. Do you fit this category? Do you put the money in shared risk? Here's how, here's how you're going to, you know, make a claim later. Um, you know, and those parametric, paramutual parametric models don't need an actuarial table, which opens it up as a, as a model for where you can innovate and, and doing that in executable contracts, right?

Building that on ETH or, or in a DeFi product or whatever. Those are, those are real things that could happen. Um, you know, but they're going to happen one at a time. And you got to have a champion. You have somebody who's willing to say like, I'm going to stick my neck out and try this in an industry where if I just put my nose down and outwork my peers, I can't, I can do really well building an amazing agency.

Do you know what I mean? Like there's, that's the, there's a, the central conflict isn't always like attracting the right people. It's like, look, risk reward. There's great upside if you're going to build something new, but insurance is, I mean, it's such a great industry where if, if you can put your nose down and hustle, you don't have to be the smartest person out there. If you can put your nose down and hustle, you can do really well in any part of the country, right?

With, with traditional products. And so, um, yeah, no necessity is the mother of invention, right? So, yeah, I agree with you. You know, I want to be respectful of your time. So we'll wrap up here, but you know, I think, I think you just hit one of something that a lot of people don't talk about that, that I'm kind of facing in, in, in what I do, but, um, some of our most talented people look at our space and rightly so go, I could sell seven middle market accounts and never have to worry about money ever again.

Why would I do something that could possibly force me to be uncomfortable when, if I can just learn how to make a few cold calls network a little bit and write a few big, large accounts, I'm good spouse has got a seven series I'll have at second house in Florida in a couple of years, I'll be able to golf all the time. Why would I want to go bash my head, you know, take a chance of, of, of running into the rocks when this path is tried and true. And there's a lot of money still on the money tree. And, um, you know, I, I, I think it's, it's that all being said, it is such an interesting and amazing time to be part of this space. And, uh, like I said, I'll say it again, I'm not blowing smoke.

I'm very happy that there are people like you out there, Wade. And I just appreciate you coming in and sharing so much, not, not just, obviously we only heard a little bit about your business. That'll give us a chance to have you back on the show, but, uh, um, just about you and your mindset. I think it's exciting stuff. Well, I appreciate you having me.

I, uh, like you, I think I can talk about insurance all day. Um, I think there's just so many great avenues for growth and great places where you can innovate and great places where you can do really good things. Insurance unlocks other people's ability to take risk and nothing is going to drive the economy faster, build more wealth, do more things than letting people take responsible risks. So, um, yeah, degree insurance. We're going to let people do that.

They're, you know, we're going to take the risk out of higher education and hopefully help a generation that I have taken to referring to the, as the least confident generation in American history and get them in college and get them through to a place where their financial futures are secure. So, yeah, guys decree, degree, insurance.co. There's a white paper you can read. There's all kinds of resources. Um, go check it out.

Get to know what, what this is, because to me, uh, we're going to be hearing a lot more from you. I'm sure. And, um, I just new products in the space are a good thing. So I appreciate it, man. Hey, thanks for having me on.

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