How AI, Niche Markets, and Mentorship Are Shaping the Future of Insurance

Yeah.

Other communities might be a little bit more, no, just send me an email. We don't want to talk at all. Or we just send me a text message.

Again, when people serve those Latino communities, I always come back and say, hey, just make sure you got to be ready to answer the phone because they will reach out to you. Make sure you understand WhatsApp because WhatsApp it's huge on the Hispanic and Latino community. A lot of communications go through that. you have a contractor, an artisan contractor, and he's sending you 20 WhatsApp messages with all the certificates of insurance they need. And it's like, no, you

got to send us to the office? There's somebody there for that, but they don't care. They expect you to deal with that. we live on taking screenshots and sending it over to our team. That's what we did for many years. But yeah, I would say culturally there's the industry side of it and how regulation impacts and carriers and appointments and everything. Same goes for commissions are completely different. Anybody looking to expand to other state, it doesn't have to be Florida or anything like that.

Yep. Yep.

just look at the state, have the conversations with friends or colleagues from that state. You have no idea how many agencies I've spoken throughout the years that wanted to come down, establish themselves in Puerto Rico, others that wanted to come down, establish themselves in Florida. Markets are so different. If you want to go to Louisiana now or California, it's like, good luck. I'm not saying you're not going to be successful, you probably will, but adaptation process, it's a little bit different.

when it goes from state to state, I would say probably that's one of the biggest hurdles to overcome to establish yourself in another jurisdiction or state.

thanks for walking us through that. The key cultural differences with your experience in Puerto Rico and in Florida. Laura, when it comes to licensing, for example, with what we do, is there anything that stands out to you when it comes to, like say, the state of Florida

I know that both of them are completely different. Like Ariel mentioned earlier, that's the one thing that we have with compliance issues is every single state, has different lines of authority. have actually different licenses. They have different rules and regulations. have totally different appointment processes. Louisiana, everybody has to be appointed. Every agency has to be appointed. Texas is the same thing. Every agency you have to file DBA names.

Even some states are now requiring if you're a sole proprietor and you run under a DBA name, you have to file that DBA name with the state. you just have to be really careful and make sure that you're fulfilling every single nuance to stay compliant with every single state that you write in.

That's the key word, the nuance. And you both know the nuances of the industry very well.

Every single one of them is different.

I'd like to switch gears here and touch on something that we or myself brought up in the introduction. The mergers and acquisition part of things. You sold two businesses. For my side of things, I'm very curious since you've been involved and are involved in merger acquisition advisory, what's the most common mistake you've seen?

agency owners make when considering selling their business?

that's a wonderful question by the way, almost one nobody asks. There's two common mistakes. Number one, only looking at the number, right? Which is the purchase price. That's the first biggest mistake you could ever make. Number two, expectations. whenever you're working with mergers and acquisition, the number I tell, to clients and friends, I'm like, the number is the number. What they're gonna offer you is what they're gonna offer you.

We can fight, we can fight and they might reconsider and they might give us a little bit more, a little bit less. We can work on earn out bonuses. We can structure deals many different ways, but number one, every deal is different, right? This is like, it's funny because we're insurance agency owners and it's like, well.

Why did my friend get this? I'm like, isn't that the same question you get mad about when your client calls you and is like, why is my neighbor paying $1,200 for homeowners insurance? Am I, and I am only, and I am paying 4,000, right? it's a little bit ironic, right? And I say that of course, in a funny way. cause you know, it's when you build relationship with these clients, most of them are friends and are people that I've known throughout the years. So I'm like, you get mad when they say, why is my neighbor paying less? Well, it's the same thing for any M and A transaction.

Yes.

Mergers and acquisition, it's about what's important for you as an agency owner, right? And that's the number one thing. The expectations most of the time when people don't understand what can happen, the expectation is, okay, I'm going to get in. If I don't like it, I'm out in three years, right? And then I'll just wait for my non-compete, which is normally two additional years to lapse. And then I build something else. Well,

It all depends. Are you doing this at 45 years old or are you doing this when you're 65 years old? your expectation of what they can give you of how it might look like it's completely different. It could be, it could be completely different than reality. first things when I tell people when working with them is number one, understand your goals. What are you looking for? Are you looking for an exit strategy?

Are you looking for perpetuation? Are you looking to retire? Are you looking to grow? So years ago, M &A were only about people who were retiring. Most of them, the sons or the daughters, didn't want to inherit the business. So they ended up selling, and that was their retirement. That's no longer that way. Right now, M &A has become more about growth. if I took my agency from zero to five million in revenue,

If I join one of those big national agencies or firms, could I take it from zero to 10, right? From five to 10, sorry. Well, I've been stuck around $5 million in revenue for the last 10 years. What else do I need to grow? And then when you join one of these big firms, and again, the formula is completely different for everyone. You might be a normal main street agent that you will never do an &A because you don't care about doing that. Because the customers you serve, you want to stay local.

And that's perfect. That's great too. But when people try to do M&A or they want to do M&A's, the expectations are very important. Understanding if you're moving from a local mom and pop shop into a more corporate structure, there's a huge difference in that, there's a lot of hurdles you've got to go through and understand, well, now it's a lot. Put that on the corporate credit card and the expense and it's the same thing. No, now you got to file reports,

one thing I tell all my friends whenever they consider this, whether they're working with me or not is manage expectations. Understand, don't look at the number. The number is super important. I'm not saying it's not, but the purchase price will be the purchase price, What they offer, it goes up and down. It doesn't matter, but it's what happens after you sold. My number one thing was always, especially with Puerto Rico, because that was my main big agency. I mean, not big, but my main one that I started.

I wanted my team to be better how they were when they were with me. That was my number one thing. I did want a fair purchase price and a good one that I could say, okay, this might make the deal work. But the most important thing for me was my team. I needed them because I was moving away. not only was I moving away from Puerto Rico,

I would not be handling that business anymore. it was a full on, it wasn't M &A, it was actually a buy and sell. that was my number one thing, the expectations for me were if you're not offering something good for my team, I'm not even gonna consider it, when they come to you and acquire the agency, they have to be placed in a better position than ⁓ in the past how they were with me. every agency owner is different.

When there are partners, it gets a little bit more trickier because one partner wants something, the other partner wants another thing. That can happen too. But the expectations I would say and not focusing only on the purchase price are the most important things to understand. Also, try to understand and ask those questions about the organizational culture of the company or the agency you're going to be joining.

They are we call the mega agencies, the big boys, Those big national or international mega agencies, they have a different organizational culture than maybe a smaller regional one who's in the M&A marketplace now. understanding how you can fit their understanding, whether you want this for retirement, perpetuation, growth, however you want it, that is super important. And again,

Definitely.

The number is the numbers. Your numbers won't lie. At the end of the day, they look at your bank account and they say, after you signed the NDA, it's like, okay, send me your bank statement. Let me see what you get. What comes in, comes in. You can't make up numbers, it's a, there's no way around it. The number is always going to be one plus one will always equal two,

Mm-hmm.

To me, that's always the most important thing, having those friends or clients understand expectations and understand that you might be joining a firm that has an equity that's gonna be more favorable for you three years from now. but that firm is not a national firm, they're not as big. Well, what are you looking for? I want the equity to grow. Perfect. So then this firm or this agency, which is a regional one,

might be a better fit than a big national one. in that sense, things are different. I'm part of the Whole sure and Acri sure umbrella right now. So, I seen from the smaller ones, from being a mom and pop shop, from being a one man show, to having an office with multiple staff, CSR, business development, to now being part of a big corporate structure, because at the point where I am in my career, that's what works for me.

And it's all, that's why it's all different.

I just wanted to make a comment on what you brought up during the beginning where sometimes, back then, it might have been about retirement. But nowadays, I think you made a very good point. Maybe sometimes.

for a lot of people, it's about growth. And with growth, there's different types of growth. Like you could be a mom and pop growing, or you could be, like you said, even more well established. what you're trying to look for might be a little bit different and that growth will look different as well, whether you're regional, national, and then if you want to be a part of an international corporation, that's also gonna be a different type of growth. So those...

aspects I think are good to be considered as well. Laura, did you want to add to that?

I was going to take it from the carrier or the MGA side as well. A lot of the points that he made for mergers and acquisitions with an agency apply to them as well. You're going to take a small carrier to be purchased by a larger carrier. You definitely have to, if you're considering

your employees when you make that, what is the culture? That's a big thing is you've gone from this little mom and pop culture, even as a carrier, and then gone to a big corporate culture. Sometimes you do have a lot of turnover and the larger carriers don't understand, well, why are you leaving me? And it's like, cause it's not mom and pop anymore.

then you add up like all the whole work from home, hybrid conversation, in office conversation. things are, things change, right? And life happens. I love sharing my story because what I wanted 12 years ago, my daughter is 11 now. It's not what I want right now. What I wanted 12 years ago, I was working 14, 20 hours a day.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

just to grow and grow and grow. And I wanted to make a lot of money and I wanted to be, one of the largest agencies in Puerto Rico. And I work hard for that. And I worked very hard and I just wanted to keep going. But then she was born and she was a little miracle that God sent us. And now it's like, I want to work. I want to work hard. I want to be able to provide for my family, but I want to be at every soccer game I can.

Yeah.

I want to be at every soccer practice I can, I want to take her to flag football, to basketball, spend time with her, watch her concert at school. You know, it's, it's, it's so different how life, how things change in life. And that's one thing where, when somebody who's willing to take that step to either sell the agency or join a bigger one, come in, thinking about what do you want in life now? Try to think of yourself five, 10 years down the road.

What are you looking for in life five, 10 years down the road? Which again, things change. You never know. God bless us all. You might get sick 10 years from now. You just never know. Life happens. Yep. So try to think about all of that and that will hopefully give you a better decision other than any offer they can make you just based solely on price or numbers,

Right?

let's change gears a little bit again. And you mentioned your expectations when you first started out are not the same expectations that you have now. Can you tell us what inspired you to become the leader in the role that you are in now?

One of the coolest thing about my story when I was 23 years old, halfway through my MBA, I got an offer from the Clorox company, like Clorox wipes, right? The Clorox cleaning company, through one of our best friends. And I'll never forget that as a trade marketing specialist. At 23, 24 years old, I went to the interview, I got the offer, and then all of a sudden I'm being offered $55,000 a year, which as you can imagine, 23 years old.

Living in Puerto Rico where the salaries are much less than most of the states, I thought I was going to be rich forever. I'm like, this is perfect. I went home to my wife, who was my girlfriend at that time. And I told her, got, we got this offer, this can happen. And she was like, don't even think about it. She's like, I would much rather stay poor for the rest of our lives and have you work in insurance.

because you love so much insurance and helping people with their insurance programs, then you taking a job somewhere else that you're gonna be unhappy. at that point, she was already coming out of law school, getting her first job as well. she was like, don't even think about it. fast forward two or three years later, I got very involved in the insurance industry where I learned that to grow, to actually grow in the insurance industry.

95 % of the time you need to learn insurance, People think it's sales only. No, this is not, this is not, car salesman or anything like that. Not to discredit or say anything wrong about them. It's just, you gotta learn insurance. You gotta learn coverages, I went through different programs, designations programs, and I started learning. And the more I learned, the more I love. But also the more mistakes I made. Got involved with PIA Puerto Rico.

I had a great mentor there who was one of the instructors for one of the designation programs down there. And he said, Ariel, you should be teaching insurance. And I'm like, really? I'm like, I'm a young kid, 26 years old. It's like, no, no, no. You love it so much. You're so passionate. We need to get you involved in PIA. I want you teaching insurance. he sent over to the, risk and Alliance national Alliance. And now they're called risk and Alliance insurance.

I'm sorry, I apologize. I forgot their name. But yeah, they used to be called the National Alliance for Insurance Education and Research. They recently changed their name. Submitted my information and I started teaching their CISR, which is the Certified Insurance Service Representative Program. When I was 26, I was super nervous, super scared, probably one of the youngest ones in history. And the reason I did it is because I wanted other people to not go through all the madness that I went through,

or learning to build an agency from scratch, understanding insurance, that's where all, it was a huge hurdle. So if I can help one in that room, whenever I'm teaching or speaking, that's my goal. all it takes is one person to say thank you. started doing that, ended up getting involved with the PIA Puerto Rico board. I was tricked kind of by the...

veterans in the industry and they were like we need somebody young who speaks great English like you there is something called the national director I'm like really yeah you'll be fine it's only two trips a year to PIA national and you become a board member but what you represent your state right which was Puerto Rico they got me on the board

Mm-hmm.

And then the national director for PIO Puerto Rico had been there for 11 years now, almost 12, I think he was retiring and he was like, no, we're bringing Ariel. And I was like, okay, I'll take the challenge. I'll go. So now with that day was it opened my world, And the insurance industry from, you know, a hundred miles times 35 miles, island to taking it on the national level. when I joined

the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents Board of Directors, you join as a national director for your home state, right? Or the region you represent. We have some regional affiliates. But then you start meeting people. And then I started meeting amazing people. Florida, of course, we were super close. Brian Samberg, one of my closest friends and mentors. I mean, he's one of the very few men that I can see him and I just cry out of joy just seeing him.

the Savino brothers from New York, Tony Kerrey in Michigan, you start meeting so many amazing people. Gerald Hemphill. I mean, I have so many names I can just throw out there of people that I spent time for the last 10 years that they guided me in many different ways to the position I'm in right now. I was blessed.

to serve under Keith Savino. He was the president of PIA national somewhere around eight years ago or something like that. every national president gets to appoint two advisors. in addition to your executive committee. he brought me in, he showed me the way into PIA and into the executive committee. And it was funny, I come in as an advisor to that first meeting and everybody, I mean, they're talking about high level discussion, national things. And there I am just listening.

soaking it all in. got many things I want to say, but I'm not an officer. all I'm thinking is I can't talk. one of the breaks, Keith Savino pulls me aside, takes me to the bar, looks me in the eye. He said, Hey, I appointed you as my advisor because I want to hear your thoughts, your opinions, your recommendations, your expertise, your guidance. in his New Yorker Italian voice, he's like, so speak up, Ariel.

Nice, nice, nice.

and I love him. love him. And I'm like, I will. I'm sorry. I didn't know I could speak. And he was like, of course you can. You don't have a vote, but you have a voice. That's why you're here. And then history was made. The late Andy Harris, who was also an advisor. He passed away last year. I also loved him so much, very dearly. He was one of those guys who was like, you're a young kid, Ariel.

but you understand you've been in the industry so long. And PIA throughout the year started changing for the last 10, 15 years, I would say maybe. In the past, used to be more senior veterans will be the national directors and board members. some of them would just serve on the executive committee. And then most of the time they will retire after that. But as generations, and the baby boomers are retiring,

Mm-hmm.

our generation, one of the things it's doing is it's coming in and now national trade organizations are changing so much. There's so much need out there. Before you had a couple of needs if they were fulfilled, fine. But now there are so many needs. every year people are getting more involved and more involved with younger people, more women on the board, Latinos on the board as well. It's it's so different now from

Mm-hmm.

from when I started 12 years ago on the national level, that's what inspired me to say, and when I ran, this was what was my speech. I want to be the bridge between generations, that's where I was blessed enough to have the support of my national directors who voted for me to run for office. I mean, to the position of secretary, because you got to go through the chairs and now become president, the youngest one in history.

The whole thing for me was being the bridge between generations, those veterans in the industry that bring so much mentorship and guidance to bring in the young generation to just growing in the industry who's going to take over in the next 20 years, right? So the 35 to 55 right now, those are the ones that are going into those C-level positions, C-suite level positions, right?

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

building agencies, acquiring agencies as well. So I think the industry is changing so much. And I was inspired by all of that, by all I learned from those wonderful mentors I had throughout the years that I said, you know what, I'm going to go for it.

I did find a very interesting article Because I'm one of those baby boomers that's looking at retiring and I'd like to pass my knowledge on to people that are younger The position that I had with a carrier slash MGA as a licensing and appointment manager

There's typically, like you said, a very, very small team. It's a very, very niche market. And we can't find those people now to take over for people like me that, five, 10 years from now looking to retire. As the PIA president, how do we get, you mentioned 35, but how do we get those 20 to 35s?

into the market because the only thing that I've seen as far as an insurance degree is, reinsurance degrees that are offered in colleges. How do we pull them in to help us?

Yeah, that's a great question, Laura. I, in my opinion, used to have got like 20 more years old. So don't, don't even think about retiring five. So, that means no, no, no, we'll hold her. We'll keep around. going back to the question, that's a wonderful question because from the PIA level and even other organizations, you're going to see it. there's, there's a lot of state that have.

We don't want her to retire either, so.

younger insurance professionals within their PIA, at least that's how it works for us. They call it the YIPS, which is the Young Insurance Professionals. What it's looking for those young agents, right? Those young insurance professionals, the real demand and people coming into the industry. Our approach for many years has been, and it's mostly done by our affiliate executives. They're all amazing. They go into their state.

Yeah.

They go into their members from that state and they go into those agency principles. And they said, Hey, I want Johnelee I want this person to come to this event. We're doing a bowling event. We're doing a continuing education, a CE and SUDs like they do in Michigan. Louisiana has a huge young agents force Northeast as well. So it's, it's, it's impressive how from the PIA standpoint, our affiliates keep pushing and we try to help each other, right. And compliment every affiliate.

Mm-hmm, they do.

and feed each other from what's working, what's not working, how do we bring them in? From the education standpoint, it's always tricky because not every state kind of like pushes hard towards trying to build a program, even if it's through a local community college, but many of the states are doing it. So many of our affiliates are working on trying to get something in place. Even in Puerto Rico, we used to do it for like 14, 15 years. But the thing is,

it never took off, right? So you would have, you know, one, two, three students and that's it. Most of the people they go back in the days, they used to go to what? The College of Insurance, right? So that's where, you know, you come from the College of Insurance and you are really good at insurance. but that was after your undergrad. It was not, it was never people coming into college and saying, hey, I want a major in insurance. I think risk management is changing that a little bit because

Right.

Yeah, risk management is not insurance, but it's part of insurance, people say, you know, we handle risk. That's what we do on our core. The insurance policy we sell, that's just the outcome of the, of the whole, sitting down with the client and going through things. that being said, it's still hard to bring that young generation. I think it's going to rely a lot, not necessarily on the baby boomers. It's going to rely a lot on this Gen Z years and millennials.

Mm-hmm.

that are taking the lead, that are becoming the new leaders in the industry to reach out and say, join us. Wherever I go, I start most of my podcasts whenever I get invited to a podcast saying the same thing I told you guys, the insurance industry needs everything. even if you're a CPA, you go into college, I wanna be a CPA and accountant, that's awesome. Do that, but give a chance to the industry, right?

So if you're a lawyer, same thing, When you guys deal with compliance, that's what you guys do every day, which I completely admire you by the way. My wife is a super compliance person. it's one of those things that we gotta keep pushing hard to send the message out there. A lot of our affiliates are making partnerships with like community college more locally to build insurance programs for their offerings

It's still tough because I'll tell you one thing to me. And again, this is just Ariel. is not PIA has nothing to do. This is not even RGS limited. Nothing. This is Ariel Rivera Miranda speaking for himself. We do a poor job of showing the world and especially here in the country in the US, we do a horrible job of showing what we really do. we I think it's.

think so, yeah. I agree with that.

It's super fun to watch the Super Bowl and see all the funny commercials. It's amazing. But what we do is not funny. We protect people's assets. The wildfires in California, God bless them all. We are going to rebuild that. It's not going to be the government of California or federal government. It's going to be the insurance industry. But then most of the time, all we get is that bad press saying,

Uh-huh.

You know, X, Y and C carrier, it's increased rate or they're not paying or and that's where I believe to make it attractive for future generations. We need to start showing the good things we do, not the funny things commercials. I mean, I get it. Carriers want to be funny. It's OK, but we need to. Yes. And things that I didn't want to say any names, but they came in, you know, we need to show the world what we do. We need to show.

The Geico commercial and things, yeah.

the caveman?

Mm-hmm.

that when the hurricanes destroyed us in Florida for the last three years, the insurance industry paid what, $26 billion to repair that? And somebody might be disappointed because their claim might have not been paid properly. those things happen, There are mistakes, but you cannot say that we didn't do anything because we paid $26 billion, Go to the California wildfires. Same thing, it's gonna be what, $20, $30 billion in losses?

Yeah. Yeah.

do.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, look at the flood losses, look at Puerto Rico, all the hurricanes, how we got destroyed in 2017. And this is probably the topic that I'm most passionate about because I feel people only look at, or most of the people, they look at the premiums going up. Yes, the premiums are going up. The hard market is horrible, but everything that happens in the country has an impact on all of us.

Sometimes I say we need to remove ourselves from our little selfish world where it's like, why do I care about the California wildfires? I am in North Carolina. Well, guess what? It impacts the reinsurance premiums, right? when you look at the insurance treaties, they all go up. Premiums go up. There's so much going on. But as an industry, if we turn the conversation around towards for California, we have paid billions of dollars and then we make commercials around that. We're helping people.

Mm-hmm.

And in Florida, by the they do a wonderful job, especially after the hurricanes. You can still see on TV, good commercials. Some of them, unfortunately, they like to put the drama, dramatic music, sadness and stuff like that. It's like, listen, yes, it's horrible. Trust me. We lost our house. We lost our office with Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. We lost the whole thing. And of course we had insurance, which helped me rebuild a life where I live now in San Agustine.

Mm-hmm.

Again, it's just that we need to do better and the better we do, out there in terms of how the world sees us, the more we're going to be able to bring those younger generations they live on social media. That's where they get their info. They go to YouTube. Are we pushing, a bigger, better message on YouTube or things like that? I think that's it's going to take a lot of effort in the industry. The industry is not going anywhere. Independent agents are not.

not going anywhere. The clients, the average American still likes to have an agency or someone represent them during the insurance buying transaction, right? that's because what we do matters and it brings, we support our communities, we sponsor swim teams, baseball teams, soccer teams. I mean, we get so involved that we want to help everyone.

I was going say, I've done my share. I'm a, well, it's a total of three generations. My aunt was in insurance. I'm in insurance and my son is in insurance. I did, I brought in mine. I'm good. But to go a little bit further with that. you've been in the insurance industry for over two decades. Can you tell, yeah, not 10. Can you tell us what

it.

Good for you.

technological changes have happened during those time periods.

When I started, I rated commercial on the little round thing, which I forgot the name, that you used to put the, yeah, the rater. It used to be, Johnelee it's, I always, if I find one on eBay, I'm gonna buy it for myself, because I started rating commercial that way, right? So we went from that to now you can quote and buy easily on a website. technology plays a huge role nowadays.

I remember having everything on spreadsheets where we couldn't afford an agency management system back in the day because they were super expensive because there were not too many options. we did spreadsheets, we did lists, we did paper file, and I went from that conversion of having 3,000 files converted in a year into the digital file, which took us a whole year, year and a half.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Technology keeps changing, keeps evolving. Artificial intelligence, I'm a huge believer that it's here to help. It's not here to replace anyone whatsoever. It is here to help enhance your job as an agency owner, how you market yourself, different marketing strategies. it's more about helping you become better than saying, artificial intelligence is gonna replace everyone. No, it's not.

It's not going to replace underwriters. People are saying with AI, underwriters are going to be replaced. No, you still need an analytical person to look at what the AI produce to review it and determine if it's the right way or if the right thing to do. I'm a huge advocate of technology. I think it's here to help us. And again, I believe, I strongly believe that every agency should embrace technology. I know that

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

We still have some agencies that they don't want to embrace it. even what you guys provide, I remember going one by one to renew my licenses. I don't have time for that. That's insane. then Agenzee was built, we should help with the licensing renewal process and things like that. And I think that's where technology is going to take us. It's going to make us more efficient. It's going to have.

help us have better communication with our clients, a more real time communication, not necessarily a chat bot on AI or stuff like that. Some people like it, other people don't like it. It doesn't matter how much you want to get involved with technology, at least get involved, right? And that's what I tell everyone. I seen one of my friends, he owns a $4 million revenue agency and they still don't have a management system.

I'm like, how do you do that? They've been around 35 years and what they do works. And I'm like, but think about it. If you integrated technology, you could be a $10 million agency because it helps you grow, right? It speeds up the processes. You put standards in place, set up processes, you build templates. There are so many things that technology can enhance your agency. There are so many ways it can enhance it that

No, how do they do it? No.

Mm-hmm.

If you embrace it, and again, you gotta spend time with it. People think technology is a pill you drink like the Matrix. No, it's not. You gotta invest time in it, I tell this with everything, even with your family, with PIA, with, if you wanna get involved and you get back what you put in, right? So you're always gonna receive as much as you put in. same thing for technology. Embrace it, bring it.

No, yeah.

100%.

If you don't want to touch it as an agency owner, put someone on your team to help you with that. That's the best way to do it. I will bring my team. We would have a meeting and say, this is the technology. Do you guys like it? Because you're going to use it more than me by the way. Yes, we do. And then we have one person who will be the one that will look at every little detail and say, we need to improve this. We need to do this. We need to. And that's that to us, that's what work. But then again, right now in our current agency,

Mm-hmm.

Right.

We're embracing a new project management technology and we're working. There's two of us working on it's me and then one of our managers, working on developing the best project management that we can have for us internally, not even for our clients to enhance and make us better. technology is here to stay. It's not going anywhere. It's just going super fast, maybe too fast for my liking. Cause whenever I think I dominate

Right.

Mm-hmm.

and I am good at AI, for example, then I read a blog post and I just learned that I am still like a year and a half behind. It's just so fast. it's technology is crucial. We should all embrace it and don't think of it as a substitute for somebody in your office. Just use it to enhance and strengthen your team.

Right. Exactly.

Yeah.

And get rid of human error. That's the big key, with what we do. It's getting rid of human error. bringing in what you do and technology, tell us how areas like cyber liability and digital transformation are affecting the use of technology.

that's...

Yeah, technology wise,

I think that's a great subject.

So one thing I learned after many, years of serving small businesses, The RGS Limited, what we do is we have three main programs. We manage risk purchasing groups that we build master policies and we give it to carriers, MGA's and wholesalers so they can distribute our program as a bolt on solution, The reason we do that is for many, years,

our managing directors and partners when they built it originally, it was to cover a simple cyber problem because people were not wanting to go through the application process and the underwriting process and all that. when you go to a gas station, when you go to a food truck, when you go to a small retail clothing store, they don't have the time to fill out an eight page application. should.

I'm not saying they don't, they should buy a one $5 million cyber liability policy. But considering the nature of the SMBs, we built this solution and at RGS, what we did is we figured out a way, how can we give seamless, no application, no underwriting, no anything, cyber liability to every small business we can get in the country, And the solution was to offer it and give it to carriers

and MGA's and wholesalers so they can offer it as part of their commercial package or box or things like that. we use that and it's a bolt on program because everything is done through our risk purchasing groups, which are regulated by the Liability Risk Retention Act. Every carrier has the ability to add the coverage to the current offering. we try to figure out it's not micro insurance because it's not parametric or anything like that.

But it's similar to micro insurance where we're given a solution, number one, to protect the consumer. Number two, to protect the independent agent that the client that is not getting a signed statement from the client saying, no, I don't want to cyber liability insurance because sometimes during the day today we can forget about that. And one of the number one exposures of E &O for every agency is, and it's been proven in court all time and time.

over and over, it's, my agent never told me. And then my agent never told me now becomes a huge exposure. by an agent using a carrier, MGA or wholesaler that uses our program, most of the time they will automatically get the coverage included within their quote and the buying process. Now some carriers or MGA will do it opt out, others will do it non-voluntary.

We used to do it opt-in, we don't do that anymore because it's just not cost effective. So we give consumers, especially small businesses, it could be 100K, $250,000 cyber liability, but we do it on a master policy basis. The beauty about risk purchasing group is there's no aggregate, everybody has their own limit of insurance and everybody, the advantage for the carrier and the MGA is that they don't have to carry that on their paper.

So cyber as it is, it's still super hard to quantify. when you look at, you know, it's adjusting a cyber claim and how hard it is, and even from the actuarial standpoint, how do you set up a treaty, a reinsurance treaty based on cyber? It's like, it's hard, And carriers, unless you have someone specialized to manage those claims, it's still a super complicated subject.

What we did is we partnered with different carriers nationwide. we're approved in all 50 states and Puerto Rico as well. nationally, we partnered with the carrier. We use their paper within our risk purchasing group, and then we give it to our clients and partners, which is the carriers and the MGAs and wholesalers. we use that as part of our offering to make sure that

especially those carriers that have the technology in place to just plug and play, the program works great. It works wonderful.

That is so interesting. I think we can talk about that subject in particular and other things that we've covered today in length. But you're a very busy person and you have other things that you have going on today. So let me go ahead and just ask the final question if you don't mind, Laura.

Please.

As the final question, if you could give your 22-year-old self one piece of advice about entering the insurance industry. Just like Laura mentioned, there is a bit of a recruitment gap at the moment. But when you were 22 years old, what piece of advice about the industry would you give to yourself?

By way I'm happy and honored for the invitation. thank you for having me before I answer the question. I wanted to let you guys know I'm super happy ⁓ that we did the podcast and happy to help in any way I can. Number one, that's a very, very good question. It's a hard one too, because right now with, with everything I have gone through in my career and all that, things are different.

For me, would say if I could go back and make a recommendation or advice to my 22 year old self would be, stay focused, Understand that building something for the long run, it's more important than trying to build something right away or even when you're joining a company, It could be an underwriter who's 22 years old and is just starting.

at an MGA or a carrier understand that there's so much within the insurance industry that can be done. And it's all about going and do your first five years of just soaking it all in learning. By the way, insurance is overwhelming too. So it's not, it's very overwhelming. I mean, it's a, can picture all the pretty and the beauty of it.

yeah.

But I can also tell you when you're answering 300 calls a day and 300 emails a day, it's very, very overwhelming. Definitely education. Education is crucial. I learned that very, very young and go out, get your designations. That's my number one thing. Do it now before you're married, before you have kids, because as you get older, it gets harder. by the way, one of our managers at our office is a young 20, mid 20s kid.

And we had a call and I was like, I want to be your mentor. was just like, so excited. And I said, listen, I need you to go out and get all the designations you want to get. That's the most important thing. Learn as much as you can get involved as much as you can meet as many people as you can build solid, strong relationship, the industry, the United States of America, including Puerto Rico and USBI is huge, but you will be.

very surprised how small the insurance industry is, especially on the independent side. I can fly from Florida to Puerto Rico to California, and there's going to be many people that I have built relationships throughout the year that I know. And it's funny because even with my daughter and my wife, they're like, how are we in Minnesota? And just, know, this person and people are, scheduling dinners or something like that. I'm like,

yeah. yeah.

and

That's what we have built, That's the relationship aspect of it. my best recommendation to anyone in the industry, especially young people coming in is study, learn the industry and build good relationship. If you have a horrible boss, that's okay, okay? You can always move around, but don't shut your doors with that horrible boss, because that horrible boss might have a son.

who inherits or a daughter who inherits that agency and 20 years from now might be asking you for a partnership. it's a career and it's a marathon, it's not a sprint. And there's going to be up and downs. we had, and I tell my story, easily to everyone, we were doing amazing and we were making tons of money. And then all of a sudden we were struggling because, the market was hard and then it was difficult.

you got bills to pay and accounts and you have so many expenses by managing an independent agency and then things were back again. Good. it's, it's a roller coaster. It's never an easy solution to, to, to a problem. but you were always be entertained. You would never spend a day bored. ⁓ you will have so much entertainment stress. of course, because it is stressful.

Yeah.

No, no, you won't.

And understand that, the relationships that you build throughout your career will always mean something and get mentors. Don't be afraid to ask for people to mentor you and help you out. Ask the questions. Most of the time people in their own nature, they always want to help. I don't know. I will give many advices to my 22 year old.

I think as far as anybody who's looking into getting in this industry, if they're young in their 20s and they're looking into, is this something that I could possibly see myself doing for a very long time? That long-term planning is really key. And also, if you have that

learning a growth mindset, I think the insurance industry is a very good place to really sink your teeth in. as far as joining associations like PIA is a great avenue so that you can do that learning, do that growth, meet people.

build those relationships. I really thank you for stopping by, giving us your insights, sharing your knowledge, your stories. I think the most enjoyable thing about talking to you and I hope we have many future great conversations is that you're just so passionate and you're an absolute delight.

Mm-hmm.

I enjoy your energy, so smart and genuine and down to earth. really appreciate you and thank you. And for our listeners, thank you for tuning in. I hope myself and Laura, we hope you found the info we shared today valuable and inspiring. If you enjoyed the conversation,

You're making me blush by the way.

Yeah

Be sure to subscribe and follow us on our social media for updates and more great content. We'll see you next time.

I thank you for having me. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you.