Maureen Maas, a founding principal of Collaborative Insurance Solutions, LLC

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W FORCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements radio show, program services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W FORCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W forcy Radio. Churchill said, those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Kevin Helenan believes that certainly applies to business. Welcome to Winning Business Radio here at W four CY Radio. That's W fourcy dot com and now your host, Kevin Helenah. Thanks everybody for joining in again today.

0:55 I am Kevin Hallanan and welcome back to Winning Business TV and Radio on W forcy dot com. We're streaming streaming live excuse me on talk for tv dot com addition to Facebook and that's at Winning Business Radio, as well as available in podcast after the live show on tons of outlets and including YouTube, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple, pretty much wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. The mission of Winning Business radio and TV, as regular listeners know, is to offer insights and advice to help people avoid the mistakes of others, to learn best practices. That's the how twos, the what twos, the what not twos, to be challenged and certainly and hopefully to be inspired by others. As you know, virtually every successful person you know what, they've had some form of failures. That's my experience and talking to them, they've had some form of failure in their lives and careers. So listen. I always say, while we all have to get our nie skin once in a while, I'm driven to keep those scrapes from needing major surgery. Let's endeavor to learn from history so we don't repeat it today. My guest is Maureen Moss, founding member a founding principle of Collaborative Insurance Solutions LLC. Here's your bio and in Shar's veteran with thirty years experience, Maureen began her career with Health Resources, a qualified loss management program, educating clients on strategies to reduce workers compensation, loss experience and to understand experience modification factors. We're going to talk about that calculations. Maureen later joined the ranks of Managed Camp, including or excuse me, introducing clients to self insurance groups as an alternative workers compensation

2:25 financing option. In ninety seven, she joined Liberty Mutual, where she worked as an account executive with a focus on construction and real estate clients in the Greater Boston area. Maureen was the recipient of Liberty's Top Producer Club, Millionaires Club, and Liberty Leaders Award. In two thousand and nine, she joined a large natural national brokerage firm when the agency acquired the renewal rights to Liberty Mutual's Northeast middle Market book of Business. In the agency environment, Maureen thrived and built upon her real estate and construction construction experience. Her clients included the country's largest affordable housing multi family operator, as well as several prominent general contractors and subcontractors. Her clients benefited from her team's ability to problem solve, focus on the details, anticipate issues, and think outside the box to deliver cost effective results. Her in depth coverage and historical loss analysis establishes the framework to negotiate favorable terms and conditions, uncover loss trends and data, enabling clients to understand the drivers to costs to guide decisions regarding program design lost control efforts such as fleet safety or post injury management program for example. In twenty sixteen, Maureen was a founding principle of Collaborative Insurance Solutions LLC, where she is now a boutique commercial and personal alliance property and casualty insurance agency specializing in customized risk management solutions for small to medium sized businesses and high net worth individuals. Collaborative has offices in Westwood, Massachusetts, Shelburne Falls, and Greenfield, Massachusetts.

3:59 An undergrad of Michael's and Vermont, Maureen also earned her MBA from Bentley. She has earned the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter, Associates and Risk Management, Certified Insurance Counselor, and Construction Risk and Insurance Specialist designations. She's an active member of the Boston Club, one of the largest communities of women executives and professional leaders in the Northeast. She's actively involved in the Foundation for MetroWest. In her spare time, she is a I want to talk about this volunteer docent for Boston by foot of Boston based not for profit organization dedicated to promoting public awareness and appreciation of Boston's rich architectural heritage, delivering Freedom Trail tours. Maureen, Welcome to Business Winning Business Radio. Thanks for being here, Thank you for having me. Nice to see you, No problem, you two, you too. So let's start with kind of the way back the wayback machine.

4:49 Where'd you grow up? Long Island in New York? Okay? What's town specifically? Great South? Okay, yeah, okay, cool. So tell us what it was like to grow up there. It was pretty special. I was at the beach a lot, and so my father owned a restaurant. It was in the family starting in nineteen thirty one and he sold it in nineteen eighty one, and every one of us as children grew up working there, initially starting on saturdays to do things you couldn't hire people to do, so cleaning up the garbage in the parking lot and and just helping out the staff and learning how to do things. And I will say it was a great training direct ground to learn how to think on your feet and plan because once you became a server, I know, it's funny. I mean, this is like you talked about the influential moment, like, what was it. I mean it really was a training ground as to taking taking those skills and bringing me just being organized, I mean, work ethic, the value of just taking care of property. You know, I can't be talked about enough. It's okay, I'm gonna sound old. I know I'm gonna sound but you don't see that in some younger people today. It's kind of disappointing. Yeah, every Saturday we go to work with my father.

6:23 Yeah, every Saturday. So sorry for the younger audience. I'm just calling it like I see it. What were your early interests? Hmm. I loved to sail, love going to the beach, love skiing, really athletics, anything athletic outdoor and you know, sadly as one age as those things aren't always possible. But I still ski. I got a ski. Yeah, I will need you at that ski outing next year, I promise. Cool. Now, my dad was a Saint Michaels. I've been to oneo ski park. What what made you choose Saint Michael's. It's a long winding story. Yeah, my mother really wanted her children to go to a Catholic school. Let's put it that way. And I also it had the programming I was looking for, and it was also proximal to SKI areas, to be honest, I mean the confession, nothing wrong with that. Great and worked at Great and one of my brothers was also going to be there as well, and so I'm very very close to him and continue to be so.

7:40 And it was really nice to have him nearby. Always excellent. And then why business administration? Did you know from the family business or what was your motivation for that? I actually transferred to business administration and I just took it like, you know, a duck to water or Yeah. One of the strange visions I had as a child was, I know this may sound odd to younger listeners, but was wearing a business suit. I mean, let's face, I'm growing up in a certain era when women were allowed to just get credit cards, right, the e r A was bantered about as a possible amendment, and my mother always emphasized to us have the ability to be able to support yourself, right. And but I had this vision that I was going to be in a business suit. I mean, I haven't worned one in a long time. I've jettisoned every single one. I don't own them anymore. But there was a period of time in the eighties where yeah, yeah, oh yeah, with your you're looking at mine. It might have an occasional sports code, but that's about it, you know.

8:52 Yeah, no, that's as I get that. And then how long after your undergrad and why, when and why did you decide to get the BA I mean the MBA. Excuse me. I figured it was a way to secure a path to success. Was it ever required by a manager? No, but it gave me a skill set to process information and planned solutions, really see things holistically different components of the business, and that was very important to me to have that kind of a framework from which to see things, not just in where I was, whatever lane I was in at the time, but to see what other people who in senior level positions would be looking at right like, So it was it was a good, good experience.

9:45 Brutal, But I'll tell you one of those insurance designations was as hard as getting my MBA. Really, Yeah, you know, I've heard I've never done that, but I've I've heard some stories. Yeah, it was very hard, But then you have it and you have the knowledge and yeah, I'm not sure a lot of people appreciate it, but you have the knowledge and you're able to probably to do more than others can do with those that don't have it. Depth of knowledge, right, Yeah, And honestly a lot of it just comes from experience. A lot of the people that work in our department, in our business have same amount of experience as I do, and every week we still learn something. And in fact, I had someone in my office the other day, I said, how do you know that? She guys, I just do It's it's insurance is Well, we haven't started talking about that yet, but there's so many nuances to it.

10:45 Well, my first question is, how did you get into insurance? Well, I cannot the same the same day, I'm joking, the same day you saw yourself in a business suit, property and casualty. Right, it was an I don't know one person who said I'm going to go into insure with deliberation like it. I fell into it. So the funny thing is my grandfather was a life insurance salesman. I have all of his in my office office. I'm at home presently, but I have all of his awards from would have been the forties and fifties, these cards of achieving certain things and pins and I have it all framed really cool. So he was in the business. My sister was at Liberty Mutual when I started there. People sometimes God is confused. My niece went into insurance, so my nephew did for a period of time as well. I don't know. I fell into it and I found that it was something that I took to very easily.

11:50 It because every day is different, every opportunity is different, and one has to be creative to figure out the right solutions. Whether it's a claim problem, right, we have those all the time, claim situations, tough renewals, particularly now with the property market. We can talk about if you want, But you're right. The analytical piece I love. I just love to dive in and figure things out. What's causing things to head into a certain direction, and what can we do proactively to educate our clients to mitigate that.

12:30 I am going to actually dig into that. I've got a few more. I want to do that right after the break or shortly after the break. How did you I always like to ask this kind of a might sound like a cheesy question, but there are different answers, and I really appreciate it, and I think people do as well. How did you get the first job in insurance? In your case, it was the company I think called Health Resources? Right, Yeah, how did I get that? Gosh, that's you're really asking me to go into training? The gray area? I think it was. I was referred in. To be honest with you, that's what I hear a lot. Yeah, I was referred in. And the workers' compensation market at that time was it just, for lack of a better word, just completely blew up. And most of the policyholders were in what's called the assigned risk pool. That means that no carrier says, hey I want to write your insurance, You're put in a pool of last resort. And it was, it was, It was bad. So then there was a reform for workers compensation in Massachusetts and a lot changed and this QLMP, the Qualified Loss Management Program, was a big driver and kind of turning the ship on that as was a carrier called AIM. Associated Industries of mass started their own insurance carrier way back when and to this day, if people have been with them all along, they will continue to stay with because they took them out of a very bad situation thirty years ago. So there's

14:03 still loyalty out there. So for those that don't know, probably most do. But workers Compass is mandatory. You have to carry it, but then it can be difficult to get in some cases. Right, yep, it is absolutely mandatory for almost every business unless you're like a sole proprietor or something like that. But if you have employees, you must have workers comp So, although it's rare to actually pull it off legally, what about a ten ninety nine organization that is only ten maybees they have three or four ten ninety nine The ten ninety nine people need to show that they have their own coverage or the person who was paying them needs to procure a policy and count them as their own. Yeah. Again, in most cases, ten ninety nines are not really ten ninety nine, but we'll cover that another time. Yeah, that's more for an a journey, there's like three years. There's like certain criteria as to are they doing what you do? Are they under your direction? Yeah? Yeah, all right, we're gonna take our first break.

15:07 We'll be back with Maureen Moss Mareen. We'll be back with Maureen and you with the audience in about sixty seconds. See on the other side, you're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helena on W four c Y Radio. That's W fourcy dot com. Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio. All right, this is Roger mcgwinn and you're listening to radio. Have you ever dreamt of being on the radio, Well, now it's your chance be a radio show guest on the number one ranked internet radio station and promote you and your business for free.

16:03 Yes you heard it, free business advertising right here on W four cy dot com. Call five six one five zero six four zero three one now to get booked on one of our shows. That's five six one five zero six four zero three one. Get your free advertising now. And now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helena, presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again is Kevin Helena. We are back with Maureen Moss, founding principle of Collaborative Insurance Solutions. I wanted to ask about this next company because there's an interesting term in there. You aren't managed comp for three and a half years SIG's self insurance groups to tell the audience about those and how it might benefit some.

17:03 Yeah, so there are a number of self insurance group administrators and they're pooled with like kind companies. So there could be a healthcare self insurance group where nursing homes or hospitals, most hospitals are too big to be part of one, but the names or something like that, or retail or truckers or auto dealerships, so they're grouped together and they can opt out of what's considered admitted insurance, right what most businesses get and the experience is pulled together and they have an opportunity to earn what's called a surplus return in exchange for good experience.

17:52 So if an experience for the audience, oh, absolutely so. Premium is determined based on payroll end rates. Rates are based on the class code for workers comps, so that just a dangerous administrative verses forklift, a roofer is going to be a lot more expensive than a carpenter and so with those comes expected losses. And so if you're able to keep your losses within like forty percent of the premium collective, that's considered a favorable loss ratio, and in most self insurance groups you would get a return of what they call surplus.

18:36 And it's a way for smaller businesses who wouldn't qualify for that loss sensitive you know, the opportunity to get returned premium. It gives them a vehicle to do it. Self insurance groups will be very judicious on who they allow in the group. Not just anybody's going to get in. You have to demonstrate you have good financials, right. You have to demonstrate that you have good experience meaning the losses, and have good hiring practices as well as a safety program, and that makes you eligible for a self insurance group to receive a quote and then after analysis they decide it makes sense for them. Most employers who go into an self insurance group don't leave. It's they find it to be a very good long term solution. So is that different than an organization that says we're self insured? That is that a different or is that the program they're referring to they could be. So for an organization to be self insured on their own, I believe they need to generate approximately a million of premium and that's a very large organization. They have to have a lot of assets. Yeah, yeah, yeah it most most places. If they're saying they're self insured, is probably they're in a self insurance group, would

20:07 be my guess. Yeah, I mean they're gonna everybody's gonna have a loss, right, If somebody's gonna get hurt, somebody's gonna you know, stub a toll, let's say. And if you can't handle that, you're in trouble. Right. So I have a little interesting factoid. Workers comp is the only policy without a limit on it. Wow. Yeah, So let's here's an example. A catastrophic injury to a young person on a construction site, twenty two years old. And I'm gonna this is insurance speak right now. It's cheaper if they if they if they die, right, this is just a fact. I don't mean to be I know where you're going with this. It's a fact. You're right. But if they survive and need intensive medical care for decades, I mean that the cost of that is in the millions, and so the policy will continue to pay medical and wage replacement.

21:04 It doesn't ever say we're done until you're done. When the individual either transitions to different life, you know, like it's probably not going to happen until they pass away. Right, Yeah, Well that's awful to think about, but it's a fine I'm so sorry. I don't know, No, you're I love examples. Examples are good. They drive it home. Right, Yeah, So that's fine all right? At Liberty, I want people to understand what it takes to do this the Top Producer Club, the Millionaires Club and Liberty leaders. How does one earn awards like that? Hard work? Yeah, and a little bit of luck. So there's a there's a podcast, not a page on Instagram now called hard Market, and there's the person who runs it is anonymous, but I heard it's a female. The message is know your product, like don't change jobs for a small raise, Like know your product, know that which you are selling. If you do not know the product, you will not survive. You will not. You will not What are you even talking about? Right? You have to know the product and it takes a very long time. So it's just hard work.

22:33 I don't have any other answer than hard work. I wish I did. That's good. That's a great answer. People need to hear that. So you're worth Liberty very well known company. Funny ads, but a strong, solid company. What was your key takeaway? What was your most important I know this is a big question. You'll have to think about it for a minute. What's your most important lesson from being at Liberty. That's a really great question. I would say learning how to prepare a submission for an underwriter, anticipating the questions they're going to have, anticipating the concerns, answering those in advance, and teeing it up so that my submission elevates to the top of the pile. Right. You want to make their job easier.

23:27 You want to do their heart analysis for them. And that experience applies everywhere because as we go to market for our clients insurance, it's the same principles apply. Do your homework, put together a type submission, and be clear on what the ask is right and know what information is needed. I don't have this, but with this experience, we know when we have enough, like there's no and to be to establish the reputation that you're going to tell them all the good and the bad. There's nothing worse than withholding information when you're writing insurance because it's not a good idea. It's just not a good idea. If they had a if something, you just have to address it and address it up front. This was what happened, this is the issue, this is what's being done to address it. And then you build credibility with the underwriter. They know that they can trust you, because it's like everything Kevin. Yet you need to have trust, you need to be trusted because they're the ones who are putting up what we call putting up the paper to write a risk because it's a risk, we call them risks, and they're going to collect one hundred thousand dollars or whatever it is, and they

24:57 want to know that they're not going to lose money. So however we can alleviate their concerns, I guess is my takeaway from my experience at Liberty. So just for the audience that may not be aware, just generally describe the underwriting process. What do they look for? What's your job? You just explained part of your job, clearly described all the part and information. But what do they do with it? They evaluate is it in their wheelhouse? Right? Do we want to be on this kind of a risk. So what's presented to them as a description of the business, What lines of coverage are we looking for, So it could be property, auto, general liability, umbrella, workers comp whatever, And there are companies that specialize in certain types of insurance and not others. Right, Yeah, and that's something that again we talked it before about experience. It's just afterwhiles, it's osmosis.

25:51 But appetites change overnight, so you really can't count on yesterday's appetite. So they've been just basically look at it and say, is this, how's the laws experience? Are their class codes on there that we don't like? Are they doing things we don't like? I had written a client at one time and their website said they did all kinds of things that I'm not sure they ever really did, but they are. Clients sometimes put themselves out there as being something that they're not to attract more more business. So this one client I think was saying that they worked on like nuclear power plants or something, and so the underwriters like, nah, we're going to take a pass.

26:41 And so what I mentioned before about the pre work, that's the pre work. Look at you know, check out the website. Is there anything there that's going to cause alarm? Talk to the client or prospect, do you really do work on nuclear power plants and then address it in the submission. Oh that's just and because once they say no, very hard to unwind its hue, very hard to unwind it, then you might be looking at another carrier who may not be as favorable. Ratesman may not be as good. Coverage as may not be as good. You can always find coverage, it's just what's the freemom going to be? Yeah, good point, coverage point. And part of your expertise clearly is knowing who to go to for which policies. Sure, yeah, all right, So fast forward a little bit.

27:27 Co founder. It said you're you're listening in your bio a co founder, which would suggest there's more than one of collaborative insurance solutions in twenty sixteen. So talk about your current business, why you decided to do that? Who who? You're gonna name names or just describe people, It doesn't matter. They can give them a you know, a shout out if you want to. But talk about the business that you formed in twenty sixteen. Yeah, I so, my business partner and I I think we both kind of knew we wanted to do something different. Where we were wasn't for the long haul. What either one of us maybe wanted to be doing. And with running your own business, you can choose what market you're going to be in and how you're going to run the business and how you're going to hire, and so it's been. It's it's different challenges, different stresses, but it's been great. So we're in six and a half short years. We're up to twenty four employees and have grown pretty quickly. It's been, it's been great. How many producers which in your world, that's what I would call salespeople? Yeah, well it's you're looking at it me and my business partner.

28:51 Yeah, I kind of figured, but I want to ask. And so the others are customer service, Yeah, yeah, you're writing or so most of we have I think three solely dedicated to operations. So are we have an operations lead? Fantastic. She's been working in this business as a consultant for insurance agencies our size for at least a couple of decades and she brings an incredible wealth of experience. Just phenomenal to have her with us. She's a principle as well, and we have operations as well as accounting, and then everyone else is direct interface with the clients on both commercial which your business and personal alliance, which is for example, your homeowners and auto and both policies and things like that. All right, we're going to take another break. We'll come back and learn more about your firm, your current collaborative insurance solutions firm. We'll be right back and everybody, we'll see in about a minute. You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helena on W four CY Radio. That's W fourcy dot com. Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio. Hey, this is Elliott Lewis of Hall and Oates and you're listening to W four c Y

30:23 Radio. The yp dot com website is your local search engine. If you're looking for a good restaurant, it can help you find the right one nearby with ratings and reviews. Or if your car breaks down, you can use the ypapp to find the closest repair shop. Or maybe you're just looking for something to do on a Friday night. While it has great local coupons for all sorts of things in your area, no matter what, when or where. If you're looking for something, YP local search can help you find it. So go to yp dot com or download the app to search local, find local, and save local. And now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helena, presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again is Kevin Helena. Welcome back.

31:22 We're here once again with Maureen Moss, a founding principle of Collaborative Insurance Solutions LLC. Now the business is in Westwood, Massachusetts. Do your clients need to be I know the answers to lay up. Do they need to be within driving distance of Westwood, Massachusetts? Oh no, Well, as you know, after the pandemic, everything is different. Oh yeah, I rarely, I won't say really, but it's not often that I see clients anymore. Every everyone has become so accustomed to simple phone calls, emails with an occasional zoom. Some clients we do need to meet with in person, but I don't need to say need. We meet our clients where they're at and if it helps them for us to visit to discuss it, we will be there. So I want to back up just slightly. How difficult or what was the process of starting a firm. You knew you didn't want to be where you were long term? Yeah, I did. What long term would look like for you? What's that process look like? That process is not violating the non solicitation Sure, yeah, that's it. That's good.

32:42 That's that process. The other is a funding mechanism to get us to the point before we have revenue coming in to cover our expenses, to affiliate ourselves with an organization before we were able to go out on our own. So, because very few people start insurance agencies, they're being gottled up like a pac man right now. Big ones goble up the medium ones. The medium ones gobble up the small ones. And so we've actually had how we've grown is through two acquisitions. So we affiliated ourselves with an organization so that we could access markets and have a platform to conduct business. All right, define markets for the audience, Yes, thank you, travelers, Liberty, so insurance carriers, because they're not going to say, hey, you know mo, we've we've worked you with you in the past, We're going to give you an appointment. They're just not going to do that. So we needed to align ourselves with an organization until we've built up a sufficient volume to then go out on our own, which was about two and a half years ago.

34:04 We did that, and then shortly thereafter we acquired a couple of agencies. What was the most difficult part of getting up and going building the business? Starting really starting over business development wise? Right? Bring? Yeah, bringing the clients and the other thing. That's interesting that you asked that when I was working for Liberty and then at that large middle market broker was working in a market segment that was a lot different working with fewer, larger clients, Okay, and now it's a lot of smaller clients and their needs are different. So when you're dealing with large, you know, middle market to large clients, they know they know insurance, they've been doing it a while.

34:54 And so we now deal with new business owners who don't what they don't know and they rely on us for education. Why do I need insurance? What insurance do I need? And so it's it's a different approach. And I would say that was that was an interesting transition because the markets are different and the coverage is something is different as well. To know what to look for, Yeah, that was that was a big learning curve. But I'm going to be fun. I'm gonna let your geek out a little bit. I want to I want the audience to understand the following terms. So just explain it in the best way of possible. Risk management. That's a big thing that you do. Risk management. Yeah, so that's identifying exposures.

35:45 So exposures could be the building, the employees, the vehicles, claims, history, what do you do to to then you look at losses. What of the losses? Yes, historical claims, experience and is there a story to be told. I'll give you an example. A client of ours, for about the eighth time, submitted a claim they were a hotel of somebody slipping in the bathtub. So I thought, okay, this is bizarre. We keep getting these claims, and so I went into the carrier website and I said, okay, client, this is X number of slips and falls in the bathtub. I said, nobody's been hurt seriously yet. But in our business, we say frequency breeds severity. If you haven't similar situations presenting themselves, the big ones coming. I mean, that's just the way it is. That makes sense. And within a week they had anti skid grips on the bottom of every tub in this two hundred room hotel. So that's what we do. Like they didn't see it because nobody you know, I'm gonna say they're arguably smart people. They just didn't see that. Yeah, right, you did. Yeah. So that's that's the best example I can give you in a story what risk management is and then loss analysis, says

37:15 you just alluded to, is taking a look at where their losses have come from, what policies, where the policy had to pay out. How can you minimize yep, those, as you said, risks from continuing. I'll give you another example on that. For fleet safety. If we look at the historical claims experience of a large fleet and we see that there's a lot of ensured vehicle claims, and then you take a deeper look and it's backing up. Okay, they need some training on backing up their vehicles, and if their trucks, they can put some The carriers have lost control people out there. Some carriers call them risk control people. They will send them out and show them how to put lines in the parking lot and then give them the roadmap so to speak, no pun intended, on how to navigate.

38:08 So there's a solution for everything. You just have to identify the problem and then discover the solution. And then most importantly, the client needs to be willing to address it. There's some clients that just simply can't for whatever reason, they don't have the bandwidth, or some they or they just don't. Some clients just don't care. Don't say that. Look, so it might be might be backup cameras, It might be as you said, better training for the drivers. It might be one driver if you'll drilled down, it might be one particular driver, right, yeah, Charlie, no offense to Charlie. How about program design, Yeah, that's an interesting question. So program design for the listeners is not one all size fits not one size fits all. So for I'll give another example, complex property. So we don't need to look even two weeks back to see catastrophic property damage claims all over this country and a budding nations. So we have the fires in Canada, we have the fires in Maui. We have the earthquake and the rain and the mud slides in la Vermont that had the flooding, historic flooding a month

39:44 ago. So the property market is the hardest when and when we use the word hard. What's meant by that is there is no negotiation. It's the rapes are going up and deductibles are going up. Risk sharing is going up. That means that the client just takes more of a deductible. And so program design is okay, you have to build up. Say they need one hundred million of property limits. How are we going to get there? Because depending on where they are located. So I'm working on a renewal now in Florida, Broward County, probably the worst county in the country to get coverage right now, we just have to be we have to get a standalone named windstorm policy. We need to build up the primary ten million, and then above it get another layer and then another layer. And so it's really just fitting these tetris blocks together and taking a step back and say does it all fit? And also having the right partners to get us there. That's program design. Getting the right coverage at the right price and understanding where can you be flexible to achieve optimal results? Sounds easy, but it's not. No.

41:09 I mean, it makes sense to hear you describe it that way, but I'm sure it's not. How about post injury management Oh, that's a great question. So it's not necessarily what happens after the accident, it's what the client has done beforehand. And what I mean by that is if you are a free standing location a fixed location, so say you're a large manufacturing facility with five hundred jobs, and if the health and safety people ought to I mean best practices, not so much the job description. Right, we have job descriptions to hire the right skill set from an academic standpoint, but the physical job description. This individual needs to be able to push pull ten pounds lipt ten pounds overhead under whatever it is. Have that physical job description ready for every job. Identify a preferred provider near your manufacturing facility, meet with the action occupational health doctor there and tell that MD that you have transitional modified return to work. And then when your employee goes to them for an occupational injury, they have their physical job description and the doctor knows that you're

42:40 open to transitional modified duty. We prefer for our clients not to call it light duty because that implies that the person returning to work isn't pulling their weight. You have issues, coworkers, because transitional implies it's temporary modify implies that again, you know you've you've made accommodations in keeping with ADA. So so it's not so much so we haven't even talked about the injury yet. This is all before the injury, and then after the injury. It's staying in touch with the employee, letting them know that you care, letting them know there's a position, whatever it is, and that that's a that's a successful return to work program. Summarizing what's your favorite success story to date? Oh, this is a hard question, or it doesn't not be favorite, just a success story to date. Hm hmm. I promised her that these would be layups. Yeah, no, I'm just trying to think. Go to the next question. I'm gonna all right in the back, all right, Yeah, think about that. So tell us about the Boston Club and Foundation for MetroWest. Yeah. So the Boston Club, it's a group of professional women about forty years in the in existence, and we help women advanced to

44:13 the c suite and board of directors. So there's a lot of training for that, great networking. I met some wonderful women there in the last ten years. It's really a solid organization. Peer development is there mentoring. Yes, there's actually yes, there's a mentor mentee program. Absolutely, I thought so. Yeah. And the Foundation for MetroWest, Yes, it's one of about eighteen or nineteen community foundations in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and I think there's like twenty eight communities that belong to the Foundation of MetroWest. So it's providing funding for various organizations in the forms of grants, so it could be for food and security. We also I sit on the distribution committee, so once a year we review grant applications and I participate on the health I'm sorry, arts and culture and it's really great and I'm very passionate about the Foundation for MetroWest. That's very cool. And this one I want to have a little fun with. We've got a few minutes. You're a docent Boston by Foot, so tell people what that is. Yes, Oh, I love it, so thank you for asking. So I will be I have yet too, but I will take you up on this, by the way.

45:28 Good. So Boston by Foot also is a little bit over forty years in the making, and we have we give so many tours on a weekly basis, and it's volunteer driven. I give freedom trail tours and we's it's great. So it's about an hour long. We start a Faniel Hall, we talk about events leading up to the American Revolution, and we end up across the street from King's Chapel and it's really a great group of individuals. Was very passionate about history. I'm sure, I'm sure. How did you get into that? Oh this is funny. I was taking a relative in my car on a a very unprofessional tour a Beacon Hill and I saw my old boss giving a tour and I'm like, Charlie. Anyway, I talked to him afterwards He's like, yeah, I give tours. And so that's how I found out about it. How do people sign up? Boston by foot dot org. Yeah, and very easy, very cool on it. You guys in period costume, No, no, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope nope. And it's walking tour. Boston's a walking tour.

46:51 Yeah. We do have two architectural tours. One leaves by boat from the Cambridge Side Galleria and it goes through the locks out into the inner cover and then back and then heads up to the Salt and Pepper Bridge and then there's a scooter cruise that leaves from the aquarium. There's a doc right next to the aquarium. And so yeah, we have two water water tours so to speak. Are they seasonal? Yeah, pretty much. It's April to November ish, okay, so there's still time for this year. Cool? Yeah, all right, let's check that out. All right. One, excuse me? Who and why in the audience, both listening and viewing audiences should reach out to you? Who should and why should they? Huh? Okay, thank you for asking. I would say anyone who has been confused by their insurance program. Know someone who's been confused by their insurance program wants an explanation of coverage in layman's terms, as to what does this policy cover?

47:58 What is it intended to cover? So that asked, That answered the why and the who I get. Most of the people that we do speak to are those who are making the financial decisions for either their own company or a place that they work. And certainly anybody who has seen their homeowners policies insurance rates go up happy to talk to them as well. So the contact information I know we had in the crawl prop it up there again is Maureen at collaborative Dash Insurance dot com and or sell six one seven six eight six six one four six six one seven six eight six six one four six. There's the crawl right there, Maureen. This has been fun. Thank you so much for being in. Really appreciate the time. Thank you, I appreciate it. Kevin, great to see you, you two, and thanks everybody for listening and for watching. This is a show about business and business challenges.

48:57 If you've got concerns about the growth of your company, feel free to reach out to me. You can find me on Facebook or LinkedIn at Winning Business Radio. You can drop me an out. One of my many email addresses is Kevin at Winning Business Radio dot com. Our company is Winning Incorporated. We're part of Sandler Training. We develop sales teams into high achievers and sales leaders into true coaches and mentors. I always say we're not right for everybody, but maybe we should have a conversation. Thank you to producing an engineer one for another job well done. I really appreciate it. One. Be sure to join us next week that's Monday, August twenty eight for another cool guest. Until then, this is Kevin Helen and thank you. You've been listening to Winning Business Radio with your host, Kevin Helena. If you missed any part of this episode, the podcast is available on Talk for Podcasting and iHeartRadio. For more information and questions, go to Winning Business Radio dot com or check us out on social media. Tune in again next week and every Monday at four pm Eastern Time to listen live to Winning Business Radio on w four c radiowfocy dot com. Until then, let's succeed where others have failed and win in Business with Kevin Hallinan and Winnie Business Radio