ADJUSTED

Overcoming an Opioid Addiction with Alex Elswick

April 17, 2023 Berkley Industrial Comp Season 5 Episode 58
ADJUSTED
Overcoming an Opioid Addiction with Alex Elswick
Show Notes Transcript

On this special rebroadcast episode of ADJUSTED, we welcome a special guest, Dr. Alex Elswick, co-founder of Voices of Hope and University of Kentucky Professor in the Department of Family Sciences. Alex shares his story of addiction and his road to recovery.

Season 5 is brought to you by Berkley Industrial Comp. This episode is hosted by Greg Hamlin and guest co-host  Mike Gilmartin, Area Vice President, Sales & Distribution, for Key Risk.

Comments and Feedback? Let us know at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/F5GCHWH

Visit the Berkley Industrial Comp blog for more!
Got questions? Send them to marketing@berkindcomp.com
For music inquiries, contact Cameron Runyan at camrunyan9@gmail.com

Greg Hamlin:

Hello everybody and welcome to adjusted. I'm your host Greg Hamlin coming at you from beautiful Birmingham, Alabama and Berkley Industrial Comp and with me as my co host for the day, Mike Gilmartin. Mike, if you want to say hello to everyone.

Mike Gilmartin:

Yeah. Hey, everybody, happy to be back on the podcast. I'm coming to you from Greensboro where it is seasonably warm. And Greg, we have way too much pollen already. It is getting ridiculous.

Greg Hamlin:

That is one thing I've had to adjust to being in the south is every day I get out to my car and there's like a thin sheet of yellow. I don't know if that's the pine trees or something. Because I didn't have that in Indiana. That's a new thing. We have our special guest today Dustin King, who's the vice president of underwriting here at Berkeley industrial comp. And we're excited to have him. Dustin if you want to say hello to everybody.

Dustin King:

Hey, guys. Yeah, nice to meet everyone. Yeah, I've been at Berkeley industrial comp since last May. So coming up on a year pretty soon here. And then in insurance for almost 18 years, it's kind of been a whirlwind, crazy to think about how quickly it all goes.

Greg Hamlin:

Well, we're glad to have you here. This is actually a fun podcast in that I have somebody on the underwriting side, somebody on the business development side, and then myself on the claim side, and all three of us started up in claims. So we decided with this group today, we are going to tackle experience mods and this is going to be something I think on the claim side, we get a lot of questions from our agents, from our insureds of what does this do to my e mod or my experience mod. And so I thought today would be a good day to tackle that question on the claim side, we don't always get our arms around, and maybe shed some light on that. But before we do that, Dustin, I want to talk to you a little bit about how you ended up in the industry. I know you if I'm remembering right, you grew up in Mississippi, and I'm assuming as you were growing up, you knew this was your calling in life that you were going to go into insurance.

Dustin King:

Oh, yeah, I knew since I was seven years old. No. Yeah, like like everyone else. I kind of fell into insurance. Born and raised in Brandon, Mississippi, it's a small suburb right outside of Jackson, right after high school, went to the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, about two hours away from Brandon, and was in the army and then ROTC as well throughout college. So I was really geared toward wanting to go into the art continuing my military career. I got commissioned as an Army officer in 2005. And I was going to do foreign army officer, however, that didn't really pan out, I ended up going logistics instead so and went National Guard and not active duty. So I kind of had to pivot my career afterwards. And through that process, and oh six, I applied for several jobs, and some of them that at various other companies, and one of them was insurance. And that kind of piqued my interest. I wasn't real sure. Anything about insurance at all. In fact, when I interviewed I thought I was interviewing for a property and casualty bite claims job, and not workers compensation. So yeah, I had a lot to learn about the industry getting into it. Looking back, I'm thrilled that I made the decision. I'm very fortunate that I fell into it, but it definitely was not planned. Once I got into it. I really enjoy doing it, though, and have enjoyed my career over the past nearly 18 years.

Greg Hamlin:

I gotta say, Dustin, thank you for your service. I've worked with many veterans and people who've been involved in the National Guard. And I'm always impressed with the amount of discipline and focus folks have in coming from that side. I just out of curiosity, how do you feel like your experience in serving in the army has shaped who you are as an employee? We don't know normally gets asked that question. So I felt like we should.

Dustin King:

Now that's a great one. Throw me a curveball on that. You know, the Army is one of the greatest organizations to teach leadership. And from a young age, I was in JROTC in high school and played sports as well. And I learned leadership from that aspect, but then in college and being in the Army in college, and then right afterwards, it really helped shape my leadership potential and just taught me a lot about people and really, the camaraderie of things and getting people to move in a direction even though sometimes there's challenges and really, there is no better educators in the army and in terms of leadership school, and that's really what it taught me but also core values about hard work, which was instilled in me as a young age through my dad, but also the reason I'm with my sergeants in the in the army, as well as some of my other leaders in the army also. So just, you know, a lot of good things came out of it, I definitely wouldn't ever change the trajectory that I've been on. It's been very blessed.

Mike Gilmartin:

Yeah, I want to piggyback on what Greg said, Thank you for your service, very appreciated. My brother was also in the army, so and my older brother was in the Navy for 25 years. So Oh, definitely hits home. And I'm always, like Greg said, impressed with with the discipline and the careers that folks have after their military career. Before we talked about emails, I think it'd be good to maybe go back to basics and talk a little bit about maybe your role in underwriting but just kind of an overview of your thought of, in a nutshell, what what is underwriting? What is the underwriters are trying to do when they're looking at an insurer when they're looking at a new account? What does that look like?

Dustin King:

Yeah, sure. So I'll start out just with the basics of what is underwriting, essentially pricing a business to cover its losses, and we want to give a fair price to the insured as well as enough to cover what the loss is going to be. And, you know, it can be the same when you're looking at property and liability. But for work comp, you know, we want to analyze what types of losses are going on, the first thing we start to do is analyze data. So when, when an account comes in from our partner agents, which we utilize the independent agent method, so we pay a commission the agents, they send us the business, the account rolls, then we start that process, the first thing we look at, we look at their five year loss history, we want to determine what types of losses they're having. Look at the trending, try to look at severity as well. And then we look at their experience mod also to see what that score is, and what's kind of driving that as well. And experience mods and we'll talk about that in a minute. We really want to look at payroll to see if there's any been any audit issues in the past, we want to look at class codes to make sure that the Accord app that the agent sends in is accurate based on what the e mod shows from whatever rating bureau that they're within, within their state. And then from there, we start doing our pricing model. So it's a really unique thing that our underwriters go through not only the data analysis, but also the people aspect to try to connect with our agents and insurance also. So that's kind of the neat thing about underwriting.

Greg Hamlin:

I remember Dustin, I was at a career fair for a previous employer, we were trying to recruit new people. And of course, I'm talking about claims and how awesome it is. And, and one of these college students is like, well, I am an English major, and I love writing. So I'm very interested in the underwriting position. And I it was well as both are like well, that's not exactly what this is. This is actually much more on the finance side, and evaluation of risk. So I'm glad that you took the time to explain that in case there's any confusion out there of what it is an underwriter does, but haven't been on both sides, Dustin claims and underwriting. What do you like about each

Dustin King:

side for me coming out from the claim side. And initially in my career, I was a work comp adjuster for nearly six years that really got my day set in terms of being able to analyze claims and look at trending and try to determine what might happen with with an account, what types of losses they're having. So I think some of the best underwriters Not to brag about it come from the claim side, honestly, I've worked with several folks that came up from the claim side and underwriting and they can just really understand that process. And it helps them analyze that better. But from the claim side, I love the analysis part of it. And being able to analyze what types of reserves we need to put up what the cost is going to be. And then some of the negotiation aspect from the settlement piece as well. Those were some of the most enjoyable parts of the claim side. From the underwriting side, I would say probably the people aspect in terms of partnering with our agents to try to come up with a solution and try to help our agents either win an account or look for better outcomes. So that's really the power from the underwriting side. And I like the best also with my internal teams just working with them. We have some of the best people in the industry here. And it's great to be able to connect not only internally with Barclay industrial, but other operating units around the Barclay company as well, such as key risk and the net preferred some other ones we really try to partner with and help out. We're always collaborating a lot. So that's kind of the unique thing about Berkeley in itself.

Mike Gilmartin:

Yeah, I think everybody good comes from claims so I think you can just broad blanket and poisonous prices is probably the best at what they do. But you know, going back to email so you hear about it all the time from insurance from agents. I don't want my email to go up. You know how Are these reserves gonna affect my Emad? How is this set up claim process is going to gonna affect everything in a nutshell what what is an e mod for everybody out there.

Dustin King:

So an EMA is essentially a multiplier, and it's used to factor to adjust the cost of premium, you've probably heard that terminology, a one is considered a unity mod, if it's less than one, then the account can get a credit if it's greater than a one, and it's a debit on it. So if an account has a debit mod, for instance, a 1.25, they're paying 25% More than they would, for an account that has a one point o mod, the opposite way, if it's a point seven, five mod, they're getting a credit on it. So they're paying 25% less than someone at a one one mod. And the reason these were constructed from our writing bureaus is essentially what they say is that it really measures for some instance, the overall safety program and loss prevention program have an account. Because the theory is, the better the program, the better the mod should be. And that's kind of the theory behind it. But yeah, it's a multiplier that adjusts their premium.

Mike Gilmartin:

Thank you hit on something there. That's really important. I think the foundation of an experience mod and something that I think every once awhile gets overlooked is a lot of it's in the hands of the insurer, right. So, I mean, you need to have a good program. And we'll get into kind of claims and how that all factors in. But it really starts with the insured having a solid program and a solid understanding of what safety looks like what return to work looks like, and how picking the right insurance carrier can make a difference in their EMR going down or going up, if they decide to go a direction they shouldn't go. And I think that gets missed a lot. And you're speaking from the claim side, I understand how it works from that, but but talking to agents on a daily basis, in my role where hey, you know, we have these three really cheap prices from these three carriers. And that's great. And you might have a cheaper price now. But if your EMR goes up year, over year, over a year, that price is going to start climbing. And in the long run, you're probably going to be out more money than you would have had you pick the right, the right program. If that makes sense. I just I get very passionate about this. So I want to make sure everyone understands, like EMRs are important. And they affect long term costs for an insured. And I think that gets lost a lot of wives want the cheapest price or I want you know, it's all bottom line for me right now. And that's great. But that's not the long term view that you need when looking at earbuds.

Greg Hamlin:

That's a really important point, Mike. And, you know, we do see that a lot where, you know, one of our I can think of one of our accounts that ended up going with a cheaper price. They they called us a few months later. And they were asking us, hey, you know, we need to get this these claims reassigned, because nobody's answered on the phone. And, and they've moved this around four times different people and the person who's handling doesn't have people skills, and then we looked at it, and we're like, Well, this is your new carrier, we can actually make any changes. You know, that's what came with the cheaper price. So there is a lot there when it comes to service and partnerships that really can impact that. e mod. Dustin, I wanted you maybe if you could talk a little bit about I know we don't want to get too deep into this, but just what class codes are and how those factor in because there's so many different types of jobs out there. And getting that right. Pretty important.

Dustin King:

Yeah, so the classification system came came around in the early 1900s. Essentially, what what happened was there was similarly related risks that will just say, for instance, the candlestick maker and a shoemaker were being in class the same. And they were having to pay the same premium. Well, when NCCI and other writing bureaus came in, they decided, well, that's not necessarily fair, because there's different exposures, different classes of business. So the classification system came around to put a unique identifier on each class of business, so that they're charged a different rate per class, for instance, and construction, 5403 general construction, it has a different rate and 5645. So when NCCI looks at all these classes, they look at it on a per state basis. And then they do a rating analysis every year to where they will look and see what their actual unexpected losses are in develop out rates based on that. So each year the rates can change, depending on what their past loss history and payroll was, for the past period that NCCI is analyzing on that. But classes divide up different types of risk based on what their governing class code is or type of industry that they work with.

Greg Hamlin:

I think that makes a lot of sense. You know, I'm an office worker. So obviously that's a very different work, different type of risk than working in construction. And so when we start talking about II mods just need to keep that in mind that the class codes matter, too, because the type of job you're doing could be more or less risky, depending on what it is you're up to. Yeah, that's

Dustin King:

a really important piece for not only insurance, but obviously agents to understand as well. I know a lot of agents that will go back and look through the experience mod to make sure that things are class properly, and they're not being coded differently to where maybe they're paying a higher rate based on a class code that they shouldn't be classed as.

Mike Gilmartin:

Yeah, that's a really good point. I think it I think when it comes to experience mods, it's just all groups understanding how they play into it, and how they can affect the outcome of it just by doing what you're talking about. So making sure things are class properly, making sure claims are handled properly, making sure you have solid return to work programs and what have you. But one of the biggest things I think on the claim side you hear is reserving reserving, reserving, hey, you know, can you lower these reserves? They're they're ima, you know, blah, blah, blah. Can you kind of explain a little bit how reserving plays into an e mod? I mean, obviously, it looks at last history. But can you have to run through that a little bit for running?

Dustin King:

Yeah, for us. From the underwriting side. Whenever we have an account that comes up for renewal or a piece of new business that comes in obviously, renewals are easier because we can call our claims department and or resolution department and chat with them and talk about each account and determine why why things were reserved a certain way that reserving gives the underwriter an accurate picture. And what claims is for saying the cost to be for that type of claim, so that we know from an underwriting perspective, how much premium we need to cover for those types of losses. So it's probably the most important thing to ensure that claims are adequately and accurately reserved, so that pricing is on point. So there's no major swings and pricing for an insured, it's really the best thing for uninsured to not have these huge ups and downs in terms of premiums and pay a consistent price over time. If you were to look at an account that stays with a carrier for multiple years, they're likely paying less than shopping and go and having these major swings, because they'll have so many ups and downs that the variance is just major instead of staying consistently with one with one carrier that keeps that consistent rate keeps a consistent premium over time.

Greg Hamlin:

Great, great, great points. Dustin, you know, I know, one of the things that can be confusing, and I don't know if I'm sure all of us have seen it, even both of you and your claims life is sometimes we have insurance that maybe don't want to report claims, because they're thinking I think I could probably just take care of this myself and save a little money. You know, when I was at I always use the example when I was

Mike Gilmartin:

really well Greg really? All right.

Greg Hamlin:

So when I was in high school, I had a wood paneled minivan. That was my first car. Nice. And I got a little wreck, I was leaving a carport and I hit the pillar lease. That's my story still today. And it took out the door. And my mom was like, There's no way we're turning that into the insurance. You're a boy driver, you're gonna go the junkyard and get a new door. So I did so then I had a door that did not have wood paneling, that was a different color than the rest of my minivan. That I guess was character building, because we were trying to save some money on the insurance premium. Right. So I think sometimes though, people think about their work comp program, the same way that I thought about my parents thought about my car. And I think there's some some fallacies in that, as we talk about men only claim. So Justin, I wanted you to talk a little bit about how medical only claims are treated differently than a last time claim. And then maybe, you know, between Mike and I, we can talk about some of the challenges and thinking you can do it better if you just pay for it out of pocket.

Dustin King:

Okay, yeah, just coming from the experience writing side on that. There. The rating bureaus actually incentivize companies to report claims for medical onlys. Because they're actually discounted by 70%. So the insured is actually only getting attributed 30% of that to the actual primary and excess portions of the client of the EMA to Yeah, it's really incentive to report is going to be discounted. So from that side, you know, there's really no reason not to report that.

Greg Hamlin:

Mike, have you seen things go sideways when people thought they could do it on their own when you're on the claim side?

Mike Gilmartin:

Never Greg, it's always a good idea, as I've said before, no, I think it's, you know, it's, again, it's a short term view and instead of a long term view, and I think, you know, it's done with good intentions, right. So it's I don't think it's ever done with oh, I don't want to do this or I don't want to do that. I think it's really the idea of oh man, like you said, My insurance premiums go up, my email might go up, you know, I can pay for these three office visits, or I can pay for these two PT visits. And I think what insurance quickly realize is they do 700 other things. And so their main job isn't to make sure that that person is getting the care they need, getting the referrals authorized. And all it takes is one or two non return phone calls or a visit not to be set up timely or questions from from that injured worker. And they're seeking the counsel of an attorney, or they're, you know, no one's answering my questions. And I feel like I shouldn't be working. So I'm going to figure this out on my own, which generally, is not a good thing. commercials for attorneys on TV. And so a lot of times, by the time we get the claim, it either comes in through an attorney, or oh, shoot, now they need surgery, and we're not prepared for this at all. And we don't really know what kind of care they had and you lose a lot of the control, you would have had to help give that person the care, they truly need to get them back to work and kind of back in their daily life as best as possible. And that directly affects an EMR because that claim that could have been$5,000, or $2,000, or 500 bucks, is now a $25,000 claim with an attorney with time out of work. And it's a little bit of an exaggeration, but you see it all the time, it's why early reporting of claims is so important. Because then as a team, you can figure out the best way to get this person back to their whole life and back to what they were doing as successfully as possible. And you really miss that boat when the right parties are involved. That's my opinion on it.

Greg Hamlin:

I couldn't agree more, it's it's so hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube once it's out. And on a lot of these types of claims. That's what we're dealing with. I can think of one recently where the injured worker fell from heights very, very seriously injured, and had methamphetamines on him at the time. But we didn't get the claim for 10 days. And in that 10 days, he had already been discharged there in the in the hospital did not do a drug test. So that put us in an extremely challenging position that if we had had it on day one, we would have made sure that those steps were taken, because in that particular state, having that affirmative test is critical if we're going to try to determine whether this meets the criteria of a compensable work comp injury. So you know, I think it was a good intentions. But in the long run, getting that us that information as soon as possible is really, really important.

Mike Gilmartin:

The other big one, Greg, and we talk about all the time, and it's an example I used to use with my staff when why every claim that comes to the doors important and that that they all need the exact same level of investigation, and they need 700 hours of work. But it is important to make sure you're looking at each claim with that I have what what's going on here, and what do I need to do. And the biggest one is cuts for people that have diabetes, right how many times that's where honestly, I've seen a lot of claims come in late. And we're the amputee stage because so and so you know, cuts their foot on what whatever they're doing, right, and it's a normal card and they give them stitches where they suddenly the urgent care and that claim never comes in. And then no one's checking on this person to find out, it's infected, then it has gangrene, then they're in the hospital, and then you're talking about a below the knee amputation. And that's when we get the claim. It's like, oh, hey, can you guys fix this now? And but it sounds silly. But how many claims and in your guys's careers have you seen that started as a cut or a back strain or something very simple. They're the most serious claims you've ever handled. And I think that's it's a it's a jarring example, but it happens and it happens a decent amount of the time if care is not given appropriately. And so it's all downstream, right? I mean, a cut on a foot and amputation are going to affect your EMA drastically differently. And, you know, having that carrier that can work on those things and can do it in a timely manner. Yeah, it's the toothpaste back in the tube is a real thing.

Greg Hamlin:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So switching gears a little bit here, Dustin, on reserving, we talked a little bit about the importance of that on the claim side. Why is it important when you're looking at renewals, you're looking at, you know, get making sure that we have the right price that our claims team is accurately reserving the claims. I you know, we hear a lot about well, that's too much up. But conversely, we could have too little up and that could impact you negatively to talk a little bit about that.

Dustin King:

Yeah, so it can it can go either way. Obviously if if a claims under reserved, I don't know if that's PC to call it but you know from the underwriting side, it makes it very challenging for us to realize how we should price their premiums, because we're not really getting the full picture on that. And then conversely from the unit stats report, which goes to the writing Bureau section mines past policy expiration, they're not getting accurate data. So they're Ema is going to be impacted, whether it's under reserved or reserved, adequately or over reserved because of that impacting the EMA as well. So for us from underwriting, it really gives us an accurate picture. And we're kind of playing a guessing game on where to price premiums based on that. So it's super important, not only for that, but also for the writing bureaus for us from the carrier side to report the unit stats report accurately. So the insurance mod is, is as accurate as possible. And Gray, I

Mike Gilmartin:

think that brings a big point that I'm sure you talk to your folks about a lot. And obviously, key risk, you know, I know work in the industry was the same way. I mean, we reserved for most likely outcome, given the facts that we have today. And I think that's the tact that most insurance carriers should take or hopefully do take. But that goes both ways, right? I think claims adjusters at times, forget that. It's not just hey, I need to increase this reserve. But it's, Hey, something has happened. And I need to now decrease this reserve. And so it's always I think we always look at reserving one way, or at least historically, we looked at it one way to say, Yeah, you know, I need to increase this, which ones we need to increase. But it goes both ways. You have$500,000 on a file and you somehow settle for 100,000, you should be decreasing, or look to decrease those reserves based on what's going on. It's just a huge, a huge thing. I think it's missing our industry at times. Would you agree, Greg?

Greg Hamlin:

Oh, absolutely. And I think you know, we're so focused on trying to make sure we have enough money up and that we've reserved appropriately because no one likes to surprises. But conversely, if we've lived, we've had that great outcome, or we thought that hospital bill was going to come in for, you know, $300,000, and we ended up paying $30,000. We get back in there, we need to fix that, because that's just hanging out there. And you know, we're cautious not to drop reserves too fast. But I think those swings do happen, and they sometimes get missed. Sometimes we only focus on the ones that go the other way. So I think that's a really good point. You know, talking about EMR, it's one of the things I think we all feel passionate about is that insured's do have an opportunity to impact that they have more control than they may think they have. So Dustin, what are some of the things that stand out to you? That could allow an insurer that they're maybe they're listening to this and they realize you know what, our experience mod is not great. We've got some problems in our program. What are some things they could do to try to turn that around?

Dustin King:

Yeah, great question. There's several things that they can do to impact their mod. First off, I would say either them or their agent should look at their mod and confirm its accuracy. And we talked about this a little bit, looking at each payroll, ensuring that it's class properly as well. And then looking at the reserving also from the claims aspect. So that's one component they can look at. Secondly, I would say that ensuring that there's a strong safety program in place, they're really going to want to analyze trends and look at look and see what are the drivers not only from a cost perspective, but those near misses, and try to impact those accidents that they're having from a safety perspective to try to stop those accidents. Not only do you want to protect the people, your greatest asset that works for you, but also it can control your mod as well. We hit on this a little bit reporting injuries early. That's one important also, Greg, you had mentioned, the gentleman, I believe, that had fell out and ended up injuring themselves and we got it later reported. That's just really important letting the adjuster handle it early on. That way they can make their points of contact, they can get a case manager involved as they need to to try to help spur along that treatment plan and impact the claim in a positive manner to try to bring that injured employee along to get them back to the best outcome possible. Another part of that implementing a return to work program. We see a lot of larger insurers that do have return to work programs. And that helps when someone's put on light duty, reduces the cost of indemnity, which greatly can impact the cost to claim which in return would impact the mod as well. And then investigating accidents. Make sure there's a investigative process on those near misses that I mentioned earlier. And then from a hiring perspective, making sure that there's a good hiring plan in place in terms of drug testing being done, there's background checks being done and you're hiring the right people up front. As well as continual training with your employees, especially the space we work in being in a high hazard environment. You want to make sure that training is being up to date and safety is really being integrated and incorporated into those programs, that's probably the most important piece is this last part I'll touch on, which is management commitment to safety is really having management all the way from the top up, bought into safety, and trying to impact their safety culture overall. And that's really what we look for, from our ramp team, our loss control team here at Berkley industrial, they'll go out and make sure that that's one of the biggest drivers that management is committed to safety program are really bought into it. So those were just a few that I could think of offhand.

Mike Gilmartin:

Yeah, I think you hit on some great points. And I'm gonna use a phrase My wife hates that I use when we get in an argument. But it's a two way street, not a highway in a bike path, right? Like you need both sides to be invested. So if you have a carrier that's really invested, but an insured that's not or doesn't have that culture, it doesn't really matter how good the carrier is, because you're not going to get people back to work. And you don't really have that thought process of safety. And vice versa, if you have a really good insured that maybe he's had some tough years or really wants to do the right thing, but doesn't have a carrier that's going to help them implement those programs and handle the claims in the right way, and make it a collaborative process. You're setting yourself up to fail. And so I think you brought some great points. But you truly do need somebody who is willing to have a culture of safety and that 100% starts at the top. And I know that when we're on our underwriting meetings, the key risk and we're doing point of sale calls, or we're doing underwriting meetings with larger insurance to learn about them. It's the number one thing we ask, what is your culture? Like? What? What drives your safety programs? We know, what do you guys do internally to make sure you're doing the right things? Because if that isn't there, you can have all the programs you want. But if people don't enforce them, or it's not ingrained in people, it doesn't matter. So I think your points are spot on. From my side and the sales side in both the claims side, Greg, I think you

Greg Hamlin:

would agree. Oh, yeah. And I think you hit on something that's really important is you can have the processes in place. But if the culture is not there, it's not going to help and you know, a perfect micro example, that we had an injured worker that's wearing their safety harness, but all the slacks out. So when he falls off the roof, he ends up dying. And it's so sad that that happened. So did they follow the process? Yes, the process was to wear your harness. The problem was they weren't bought into the safety culture. And the slack was all the way out. So, you know, with a lot of these things, it's really about good strong partnerships. And, you know, we hope that in this marketplace, whether it's key risk, or its Berkley industrial comp, we're offering that I think that's one of the things that makes us a pretty unique. And going into that a little bit further. All three of us have worked for different employers that probably had different models than the Berkeley model. One of the things that I found refreshing about working for Berkeley industrial comp is the partnership between claims and underwriting and knowing our underwriters and our underwriters, knowing our claim staff, just how do you feel like that adds value in the process?

Dustin King:

Yeah, that's a great point. We've all, as you mentioned, worked at other carriers before and you've probably been at some that would operate in what I would probably call a siloed aware claims zone. One thing underwriting is doing something sales is doing something else finance audit. And you know, there's no true collaboration on that. Well, you know, it's equally important to have that collaboration. I feel our collaboration super strong here. We're always talking. One from the underwriting side, it's really important for the claims to communicate issues that they're saying up front so that underwriting is aware of it, especially getting ahead of some larger renewals so that underwriting can realize how we need to factor that into pricing. But also what can we do to leverage the agent to try to get involved, if there's issues we're seeing, such as maybe a insurer that doesn't offer return to work and we're seeing a major impact to their indemnity costs? Well, that's something underwriting needs to know. And, Greg, your team has really been great on trying to give our team a heads up on that as well. Not only that, but hiring practices because you're really the day to day that's communicating with these insurance. So you're seeing the issues a lot sooner than it would bubble up to underwriting. So that's really important to have that partnership and collaboration together.

Mike Gilmartin:

Don't make Greg's head too big. We don't we don't want that to happen. We're good. I'm thinking about everything we're talking about now to get to. It's not metal, like big picture. But all of this is just effort and intentionality, right? So it is effort to do the things we're talking about it's effort to not be siloed. It takes effort to collaborate back and forth. And it's easier not to do it right. Like the reason a lot of companies don't do it is because it's just easier to work in your little silo and move on. The reason companies don't have a safety culture is because it's a lot easier to Greg's point. Yeah, we're the hardest but like I don't really do all the things in the checks I need to do, but I'm wearing it. Right, it's effort. And I think if people are willing to put in the effort and their intention about what they're doing, it makes a difference. And that's where I see the biggest difference in the burglary companies and key risk, and certainly been is, we're intentional about the way we're set up. And we're set up this way for a reason because it delivers better results, in my opinion. And but it's not easy, right? Like, in anything, you put the effort in, you're gonna get more out of it. And I think that gets lost. Sometimes it's like, yeah, you can have all this stuff there and in place, but if the effort to do it, that actually makes a difference.

Greg Hamlin:

I couldn't agree more. And I think, you know, just even thinking about Dustin on our end with Berkeley industrial comp, we have our own safety folks that are out there you work with those guys talked a little bit a little bit about them. Dustin,

Dustin King:

yes. From our safety side, I mentioned earlier, we call it our ramp team and ramp has, they've been around for several years with they've got tons of industry experience, the majority of them work within the industry that we actually operate in, whether it be mining, construction, some oil and gas and cell tower work, things like that, what we do is essentially, we like to see ourselves as an extension of that insured, we really want to get in there, look at their programs, analyze what's going on and help them impact that we could do specific training that we do. With us being a smaller carrier, we can really partner with them and help impact their safety culture and programs that we offer unique things that we can bring to the table, we have a risk management center that we utilize that we offer to our insurance at no cost. And this is a program that essentially can do both training from an HR perspective, HR is type system, as well as if it's a smaller insurer that doesn't have a safety program that needs to create a full safety program, we can help partner with them on that as well. So it's kind of a unique process that we can do. And I can't thank my guys enough. They're really great at their jobs and just really passionate about what they did.

Greg Hamlin:

So Mike, you know, on your edit key risk, your we obviously our company solve different problems in the marketplace. So we're really in the high hazard area. I know you build similar partnerships with the insurance and agents you work with. Talk to us a little bit about that, Mike? Yeah,

Mike Gilmartin:

I mean, it's, it's it's fairly similar to what you guys were describing. I mean, historically, we've always been a company that, that we'll look at the companies with higher e mods. And our thing is, we want to help you bring that down, right, like we have groups in place. So we have a risk management team as well, that's made up of loss control folks. And then client service executives. And the plan is, I love the way you said it to be an extension of the insured and work with them throughout the year to make sure they're implementing the things they need to implement just to get a better result. And so we're a lot more hands on when it comes to the service level and what we're, we're willing to offer folks and so I think that's, but that's huge, right? I think you go back to those risk management folks have meetings with the underwriters, they have meetings with claims to say, how are we doing with this insured? What's going on? Are they reporting claims timely? Hey, are there some injuries or some trends we need to look at and go out and do some training for or work with them on how they can set up their their manufacturing plant in a safer way? So it's similar, you guys, we don't do as much of that scary high hazard stuff. But we look for the opportunities of the folks that want to do the right thing and are interested in doing the right thing. And that's who we partner best with, because we're going to be hands on, and we want you to get a better result. So that's awesome.

Greg Hamlin:

Well, I you know, I just appreciate both you guys being on this episode. I think this is a really important one, I can't believe it's been two years that we've been doing a Justin, we haven't covered this topic, which I think will be really helpful for both folks on the claim side, even those that are vendors that might be involved in the process to understand what an e mod is and how all this stuff plays together to work. The one.

Mike Gilmartin:

One final question, sir, yep, go for it. I'm very passionate about this topic. Sorry, as I said, so you're you are the claims guy, right. And I think you and I've talked on previous podcasts about how games folks at times can get very involved in the tasks that they're doing, and not see how that affects the big picture. How do you is the guy that runs the claims group, get the message that what they're doing on a day to day basis affects the mod effects like how do you how do you get them in that mindset in that culture of what you do makes a difference. And it plays in all the bigger things we're talking about?

Greg Hamlin:

That is great, great question. And I don't know that there's a silver bullet, but I think it involves, again, what you talked about earlier about effort. You know, it's the little things we right now yesterday, I spent two hours of my day meeting with adjusters that have one to two years doing a mentorship program, talking about how can you move the needle at your desk at your level. Now, I don't know how many VPS are taking title from their desk to spend time like that with folks, and I'm not trying to pat myself on the back. But it the reason you don't is it takes time. We're all busy. So I think it's prioritizing and deciding that the people matter, they have to understand how what they're doing day to day connects to everything else. I also think getting them out of the office. So they get a chance to either meet with an insured, or come to meet an agency to see how those things can act really, really helps. You know, we have one of our adjusters, we sent to Vermont to meet with one of our large insurance out there. And he came back and he's like, wow, now I understand how this injury happens, because I've seen the machinery that they're using. So when they say I got hurt doing XYZ, I know what that is now. And that's a challenge when you're staying in the office all day long. So I think any of the things we can do to help connect the dots really matter. But again, going back to what you said earlier, I think it's effort, and it takes a lot of intention to do it. Because the default setting is to roll through your day to day follow your handbook and process the claim. So

Mike Gilmartin:

that's great. Sorry to throw a curveball at you. I just figured it was a good segue to that.

Greg Hamlin:

No, I'm glad you asked. I think it's a really, really important. And again, it's one of the things that attracted me to this organization, from others that I've worked for is I felt like there, the opportunities are here. And the support is here to do those things. And I don't know that I can say that in every place along my journey. So kudos to the Berkeley companies for doing that. Dustin, as we wrap up this episode, one of the things I've wanted to do this year, is again, I'm just a really big proponent of putting positive vibes out there in the universe. I felt like Karma can be a good thing. So one of the things I wanted to end each episode with this year, is asking each of the people that we had on the podcast, something that they're grateful for. So I know for you Dustin, there's a lot lot that you have in your life. So I just wanted to ask, pose that question to you. What's something you're grateful for this year? Dustin? Yeah, so

Dustin King:

great question. Honestly, I never even imagined I'd be in the position. I'm in currently and able to impact so many lives. And you mentioned positivity does actually on StrengthsFinder. That's one of my top attributes. For me, just being able to positively impact both of my teams from the ramp perspective and underwriting and being able to make people's lives better. So that's really the most important part of it.

Greg Hamlin:

I think that's what leadership is all about really, is if you're doing it right, other people's lives get better. So at least that's the hope. Well, I want to thank you both for being on this episode. And remember, our remind our listeners our motto to do right think differently. And don't forget to care. And with that, we'll end up this episode. We hope you join us for future episodes that aired every two weeks on Monday. And don't forget to follow us on our blog, which you can find on our website at Berkley industrial calm. Thanks, everybody. And so long