RELATIONSHIP

TRANSCRIPT

[Bruce Silverman] Hey, everybody, welcome once again to another episode of "Managing Risk for Tomorrow, Today." Today with Adam Perea, the vice president of Elite Risk Insurance. Adam, how are you?

[Adam Perea] I'm doing well. Bruce, how are you?

[Bruce Silverman] I'm doing great. If anybody has any insurance needs or questions, Adam is the gentleman to call at 602-882-1213. His email is a aperea@eliterisk.com. The website is eliterisk.com. And just to keep it going with some really creative topics, and titles for podcasts, and this episode is relationship or partner or client. So before we get into breaking down, which one is the best one for individual companies, let's just break down what relationship is versus partner versus client?

[Adam Perea] Sure, this is something we spent a lot of time on focusing on and what verticals and what directions we want to go right. So there's three different options that we look at. And all of them are good, we have solutions for all of them. But you know, let's start with relationships. Right. So we look for referral sources that have multiple clients, multiple needs. And we'd like to build a relationship with them, meaning they know exactly what we do, how we do it, what we like to do, we know what they're looking for. So there's not a lot of wasted time of them just sending us a bunch of stuff saying here where you guys write this, we write this, we write this, because, you know, oftentimes, if we're a last resort, or just another option in the mix, at some point one, or the two partners is going to get burned out and either stop sending stuff because you never write it. Or we're going to stop accepting, accepting stuff, because you're not sending us anything we'd write. So we'd like to build that relationship and say, Hey, here's what we do. Here's what you do, let's have a good understanding of what we're doing here. Right? So that's where we kind of start with the relationship piece of it.

[Bruce Silverman] And a partner.

[Adam Perea] Yeah, so partnerships is that could be again, with a referral source, we, you know, we're always looking for partners, but we always talk about it with the with people who bring in programs who write the end user, the client, and say, Hey, we're looking for a partner, right? We're not here to just sell you insurance or provide a solution, we want you to be a partner. Well, when you think about, you know, going into business with a partner, you guys both are sharing in the in the heavy lifting, right. So if you have a client that you're looking at, for to be a partner, that's where we we mentioned, and you hear this a lot in the industry, you've got some skin in the game. So we want you to partner alongside of us, which means taking a large deductible or an SIR retention, and possibly, and more often than not forming a captive, and taking some of the risks that we're writing for you alongside of us, right, could be a, quote, a shared deductible, but we want to be partners, right? We're both in this, we both have something to lose, and we're both committed.

[Bruce Silverman] And then on the client side of things, it's simply taken care of the individual business that has insurance needs.

[Adam Perea] Yeah, I mean, sometimes you do get a client, and they just come in and say, Listen, I have a need, I just want you to write a policy, whether it's short term policy long term, you know, I just, I have a specific need, you know, and I don't want to take any risk, I just want to be a client, right? Here's, here's my money, give me coverage, and we're gonna go away. And those are great as well, there's definitely the right fit for those in the right opportunity.

[Bruce Silverman] Now, obviously, Elite Risk handles and works with all three of these types of scenarios. But let's break down what does a relationship really mean, with Elite Risk?

[Adam Perea] You know, again, it's understanding who we are and what we do. Right. And, and that's when we have clients because we specialize in in specially specialty and hard to place risk. You know, we tell a lot of folks, we write anything and everything, and we also write very little. So, so that relationship with us is understanding what that means. Once we get people to understand what that means. Then we start to work in harmony together, right? So it's not just throwing things at us, like, like, you know, traditionally is done at renewal or quoting. So, a relationship is really understanding how we operate and you know, can you adapt to it or does it make sense to you?

[Bruce Silverman] And then on the partner side other things, it's more about self insurance and more about captives.

[Adam Perea] Yeah. Because, you know, we get folks that come to us in these markets. And they'll say, oh, man, I need to, I need to write this or I want to, you know, I don't have any losses. And I don't know why my premiums keep going up. And I say, Great, listen, if you don't have any losses, I've got some good news, I've got a program for you, where you can take some of the risk back, you can get some of the premium, we're going to lower your total cost of risk. And, you know, if you don't have any losses, you get to keep that underwriting profit. And by the way, there's a great vehicle that we do that in an efficient manner. And when you start to tell them, I'm glad you don't have losses, and I'm sorry, you're being punished. We want to be a partner of yours, because you're you're being punished by the commercial market, and you think it's unfair, send me your last runs, let's talk about it. And then you get their loss runs. And it's also Well, I mean, I, what I meant was we had good losses relative to the world, or you know, what, we didn't have a large loss, we just had, you know, a lot of little losses, or we don't have a lot of losses, we only had one, you know, they forget to tell you as a $5 million loss. So, you know, we want those partners that come in when they say, either, hey, I want to take that risk, right, one of the questions we ask is, do you want to take control of your risk, right? Do you want to have control over, you know, a portion of that. So if you want to grab control, if you want to share that underwriting profit, those are partners that we're looking for somebody who wants to share alongside of us, you know, we're one of the few companies that want our partners to take as little or as much as they want, right? The more they take, the more confident they are, the more confident we are, you know, if somebody starts telling you how great their businesses, but then they start backing away from wanting to take any financial risk against themselves, you know, that little cause for concern sometimes?

[Bruce Silverman] How long is the process when someone comes to you and says, I want to partner? I'm looking at a captive? How long does it take to really analyze what the options are in setting that up?

[Adam Perea] You know, that's a great question. And I'm going to get the answer that nobody ever likes to hear. And it's depends, right? And if somebody gets us all the data, usually it takes us about 48 hours or less, to take a look at the data that if they send us what we requested. And we analyze it, right? Because we're not we're not looking at industry and class code. And you know, we're looking at the company, right? We're looking at the numbers and the metrics. So we're gonna look at it to see if it makes sense, you know, what you're telling us? Does the financial picture give us the same story is what you're telling us so, so we take a look at it, within a couple of days, like I said, but 48 hours, and then we'll go back to the, to the prospect and say, here's our thoughts. Right? That doesn't mean we're done. That doesn't mean we're ready to write it. That simply means that we're interested, let's let's learn some more. So that might be you know, tell me more about these clients that are, you know, your your business is dependent upon, you know, what are you writing? What are the? What are the risk factors that we need to be aware of, you know, that you think you're getting shorted in the commercial market? So, yeah, we do, we do a very good job at underwriting.

[Bruce Silverman] And then obviously, with clients, they're just either being referred to you, or they're finding you and saying, I have an insurance need, this is what it is. How much is it gonna cost me?

[Adam Perea] Yeah, and you know, because we like that specialty, hard to play stuff. We get a lot of folks that bring us specialty, hard to place risk. And what's what's unique about that is I get people that call me to say, hey, nobody else is going to write this. Nobody will. It's perfect for you guys. And I say, Well, wait a minute, if nobody would write it, why would I want to write it? And they're like, Well, that's what you said. And I'm like, Well, that's what you heard. But you know, that's, that's true, but it's not true. Right? If nobody else is gonna write it, they know something we don't. So yeah, so it's definitely a delicate balance of we liked that specialty, hard to place risk. But, you know, if every market is declined it we're not going to jump on it and say, Yes, that's great. It still has to make sense.

[Bruce Silverman]  As you're, you know, painting that scenario, I'm thinking if five other companies turn you down, and now you come to Elite Risk, are people really going to sit there and tell you five other companies said no?

[Adam Perea] Yes, as a matter of fact, the the the you would, you'd be surprised that we do get some people that are honest with us. And tell us here's, here's where I'm at, here's where I've been. And sometimes it's a little bit easier to shake out those that you know, are telling you what they think you want to hear. Because it's going to come out in the end, right? If, if, because if they say if they come to us and say, Oh, no, we haven't gotten anywhere else than our questions, why haven't you gone anywhere else? Why? Why are you bringing it straight to us? You know nothing about us who we are you referred to us? Why haven't you gone anywhere else? So, you know, you know, we've got Jeff on board, who is tremendous at underwriting. And I've learned the questions to ask from him to kind of start to vet some of these things out. So yeah, we're not looking for for the folks that are trying to hide from us. We're looking for the folks that say, Hey, listen, I've got two people that quoted it. We think it's too high. You know, we think because they think they're the only game in town, they can charge us what they want. Or there are things that people bring to us to say, Hey, I've gotten to three people. They've declined it, because that's just not their business. Right? It's not their vertical, it's not what they want to do. So, you know, there's there's multiple different reasons why we sometimes prefer you tell us where you've been, and why you've been declined? Because that helps us quickly, address, you know, where are we at with this client?

[Bruce Silverman] Relationship, partner, or client, Elite Risk can do all three for businesses. So that's why you want to reach out to them. That's why you want to pick their brain. That's why you want to do business with them, because they're going to find you a solution if the solution exists. Managing risk for tomorrow today with Adam Perea he's the vice president of Elite Risk Insurance,  602-882-1213 , aperea@eliterisk.com. And the website is eliterisk.com. Adam, always learn so much when I am with you. And I am. I am thrilled to be a relationship and a partner. And as a small business, I don't need to be a client. But I appreciate that you're a client of mine. So really enjoy it. And I'm looking forward to more episodes that we're going to do together.

[Adam Perea] Absolutely. Bruce, I appreciate the time and it's always great speaking with you and I'm sure we'll do it again.