RHS 116 - Raymond Lynch on Why Small Business Insurance Is So Hot Right Now

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In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show.
Today we have an absolutely tremendous episode for you. We're talking to Ray Lynch, Raymond Lynch from Coterie, the VP of Growth at Coterie Insurance, a company that I've talked about a lot here on the show, a company that I think is absolutely pushing the envelope in what is possible from both the ease of doing business as well as widespread underwriting, growth, connection to agents, providing resources and tools for agents to do business in a more modern way.
I see Coterie as part of the future, and I really like the team there. I'm also going to be interviewing one of their co-founders who I've known for a long time.
They're not going to tell you who or his name because I want you to be in some suspense. We're going to nerd out heavy on Coterie itself.
In this conversation, we're going to really dig into why he made the move from Liberty to a company like Coterie, what he saw in the future, what problems and I don't want problems, what were the aspects of Coterie that he saw that really presented such a dynamic opportunity that he would move from a place where he was well-established, well-respected like Liberty, you know, and kind of move from that more established player to a brand new player in the marketplace, what that decision was like and where Coterie is going and what are some of the major concepts in small business insurance, concepts isn't the right word, the trends in small business insurance that he sees coming down the pipe that we really need to be aware of. So this is an awesome conversation.
You're going to love this one. But before we get there, today's episode is sponsored by Propeller Bonds.
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You know, yes, they're sponsors. Yes, they help pay to make this show happen.
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All right. With that, let's get on to Raymond Lynch, VP of Growth at Cotery.
Dude. What's up, man? What's up? Just another busy day here at Rogue Risk, you know? It's all right.
I exchanged some emails back and forth with the producer yesterday. Oh, yeah, yeah.
We used the wrong link for the thing. Yeah, I mean, if you want to drive traffic directly to Coterie and not get any credit for it, sure.
well, you know, what he did was I created a bitly link, um, which is rogue SMB. So like bit.ly slash rogue SMB.
So that, you know, when, when someone comes in who we think is the right account as a disposition, we'll just send that to them and say, Hey, you can go right through here and at least get a quote. If not, bind yourself.
If you like what you like what you see that's the whole process well what he did was he put that in and then he copied because basically it it goes to the rogue specific one and then it drops you know it kind of drops that tag off yeah and he took the link without the tag and then sent that instead of the bitly link and i was you know whatever all good first time this has happened we'll get it fixed it's no worries so all good um and i have another one too that i'm working on just a another uh i'd uh it's it's funny you know this is one of the things that is exciting to me about what you guys are doing and um i actually said this in a promo for one of the episodes that I did for you guys, that'll come out sometime before this one. I said, you know, someone, someone, and this is true, someone tweeted at me or texted at me, one of the two things.
who are the five most tech focused carriers right now? And, you know,

and you guys were one of them and, and, and a perfect example of that. It was, and again, I, I coupled your promo with because I think they fit so nicely.
I was like, you know, I had someone, I was sitting here doing something on a Saturday, right? I was just working down, down here. The kids were off doing something.
So I was having a beer and finishing up some work. And so a lead came in and it was like, they just needed GL.
It was a pretty standard thing. They needed GL for whatever they were doing to get into their office.
And I just like right there, you know, banged out the quote, put it through, did my little video proposal off it went.

And that took me probably seven minutes total. Right.

So like I'm still working with my other hand on the computer over here and got that done.

And I'm like, you know, I think a lot of agencies, they would just delete that like that.

That that account wouldn't even they would just see that lead come in and they'd be like, nah, no, no, no, thanks. And, you know, I just look at it and I'm like, okay, that took seven minutes, whatever, all good.
That's, you know, maybe it's $500 GL account, but that could be somewhat, that could be, that could be the kid of the business of one of the largest business owners in his town. Or his best friend could have a startup that's huge.
Or it could be nothing. But you don't know unless you write the account.
And that $500 account in two, three years could be a $10,000 account based on their own growth, right? I mean, we all start like all these businesses and all these middle market accounts started out as that $500 GL. Yeah.
And that's one of the things that I think just, man, I just feel like so many agencies are missing and it's why, you know it's why I've enjoyed, you know, as much as we're just, we're just starting to get rolling with you guys. And a lot of that is just our internal process.
I kind of picked up right away when you and I first talked, I picked up on what you guys were doing. And I was like, this is absolutely like, like, I look at like you guys, I look at like propeller bonds.
I look at like pro writers and I'm like, here are companies and tools that are providing agents with both customer facing front ends and agent facing back ends

that allow you to be incredibly versatile, that allow you to work on your client's own time.

And I think that's the key today, man, is like being both that being digitally friendly while

still being an agent. And I think a lot of agents are still missing the point.

Yeah. They'll bitch for an hour about travelers.
Yes. And they're, you know, I think they're, they're missing in the ROI calculations on some of the stuff as well.
Right. Because there is some fuzziness to it, but it's a matter of the ROI has probably come two, three years from now, but like you can't No.
Well, also, when a lot of agencies look at ROI, if they even take the time to do so, they do not take their own time into account. And I remember, man, I'm going to forget the exact conversation.
It may have been Chris Burran. I don't know if you know him from Burran Associates.
One of the smartest guys. I don't always agree with every one of his takes, but there is no denying that he is one of the smartest guys in our space and what he does for sure.
Um, he, he brought this up. He's like, you know, we're not, um, we're not, we're not taking our own time.
We're not putting a time value against, you know, is the agency owner's time worth 500 bucks an hour?

Right. Maybe probably probably no less than that.

And but in that agency owner will spend three hours on quoting, you know, or doing doing nonsensical things and not realizing that they're just burning money.

And but then they'll go, well, you know, Coterie's new. Let's see where they're at in five years.
I'm like, who the fuck where they are in five years? I think, like, if you read the policy forms, it's not like there's anything missing there. Like, what are we talking about? So, I don't know.
That's just my, I just think it's funny. I hear that all this crap, and not just about you guys, but everybody, because I write a lot of workers comp with pi and um and i like what they're doing and actually i was super excited they just bought western insurance services or assurance or something um which means they're going to be moving to their own paper which is super cool um and they're like yeah they're so new and i'm like dude what did you think like they just never read another policy form ever and just started handwriting shit down from scratch like where do you think they they came from yeah i mean like we have to go through the state filing process the same way every other fucking carrier no longer you know that has right it's the same process it's the same regulation it's the same it's the same goddamn form yeah right i mean the mean, the, the innovation isn't in the forms because the regulators don't allow it.
Yes. Yes.
The innovation is in all the other stuff. Yeah.
A hundred percent. So, um, one of the questions that I wanted to ask you, uh, and you can talk about this as much or as little as you want, but coming from a company like Liberty, right.
And moving to Coterie, I'm just interested in, um, and I'm not looking for you to knock Liberty in any regard or anything like that. That's not the point of the question.
Just that's a big move, right? I mean, that's 55,000 employees to a startup. It's, um, uh, you know, Liberty has a personal arm, a direct arm, an agent arm, you know, used to kind of have a captive arm, you know, this very broad, huge organization to a very focused, small business kind of like, talk to me about the decision to make that transition.
What caught your eye? What really got you charged up to do it? And, um, you know, I'd like to just start there. No, I mean, so Liberty was a fantastic foundation to come into the insurance industry, right? I came in through like what they call their corporate development program out of an MBA.
I don't have any insurance background. And they really put you through like a two-year rotational thing where you get to expose yourself to a ton of different parts of the company.
You get to basically act as a consultant on these like projects on a six-month basis. And it kind of helped me understand where in insurance I wanted to kind of get invested in.
And, you know, commercial insurance resonated with me right away. And, you know, coming from the background I have, you know, within the military and stuff, I've always been looking for that kind of leadership role.
And I kind of knew pretty quick that the large kind of corporate type positions, being in the tower in Boston wasn't necessarily going to kind of get me jazzed up to go to work every day. And that I wanted to be more close to where the work's getting done.
And that's why I took that underwriting role in New York City and built out a small commercial underwriting team. The reason I've gotten into this kind of tech-focused thing is because I had the opportunity to meet Anaki and Rashmi and the team at CoverWallet when they were five people.
We were lucky enough to be one of the national carriers that gave them a shot when a lot of others wouldn't. And so I got to watch and see the progress and the hiccups and the different ways that they want about it and kind of their journey, you know, until the acquisition by Aon.
And so that seeing them kind of built and, you know, knowing the challenges and the frustrations and like, it's not easy, but that really like resonated with me and kind of put that idea in the back of my head was like, I want to actually build something. Right.
Yeah. I mean, it is great to come into an organization that has, you know, all kinds of systems and things in place.
It is very hard to impact and actually feel like you're changing things. You can do it around the edges.
Um, but you're not necessarily going to get that true,

you know, roll up your sleeves, kind of getting dirty level of building something from scratch. And I've been patient, you know, I've been very fortunate to be well connected within kind of the startup community, just by the nature of the job that I had before I left Liberty.
and, you know, just kind of networked around and knew small commercials still had a long way to go. And there was going to be a lot of opportunities to do some really neat things there.
And I just kind of, you know, I've heard about Coterie, like I heard about a lot of other startups, you know, the guys at Coverage, you know, posted something about them raising their seed around or, or getting some of their funding. And I saw that they had posted a job that they were kind of looking to get into the agency space.
I networked and kind of connected with David. And three weeks later, I've joined the company.
Yeah. In October, in the middle of COVID and everything else.
And it was because like, it was the position that I wanted and the opportunity to actually build something. And I felt that I could add a lot of value to their team.
And so I came in, I was purely focused on digital at the start. And I mean, I haven't even been there a year yet.
And I've already had like basically three different roles. I got involved in so many different things and kind of trying to build, you know, there's, there's a lot of stuff in insurance that I don't think I even appreciated, like compliance.
I had no idea. There was a whole nother group at Liberty that like you would just send producer stuff off to and it would get done.
Yeah, we didn't have that. We had to build that from scratch.
And I was like, hey, we need to build this. And well, when you come up with an idea in a small company of 30 people, well, then you have to actually go build it.
And so, like, I was, you know, one of the people helping our ops team come up with a process just to onboard agencies and producers. I wouldn't have gotten that experience at Liberty.
I have a team of, you know, seven people now, when I didn't have anybody reporting to me with more than doubled in size since I've joined here. And it's not all sunshine and roses.
It's hard. I have so much more respect now.
And I think it's easy for experienced industry people to throw shade and be like, oh, they don't know what they're doing. It's true.
We might not know what we're doing all the time, but we're pouring a lot of effort with a lot of smart people to improve and try to get better and to try to do things just a little bit differently. And sometimes we swing too far and doing things differently and we get pulled back in just by kind of the inertia of the industry.
But we're always, we're always moving forward on the edges. And, you know, I think if we can continue to stay focused and really making sure that the value we're adding is resonating, that's where we'll see the success.
The challenge is you have to do it on DC timelines which is a little bit different. And so how do you impact and show some of the growth that the investors want to see when you're working in a channel that moves a little bit slower? And it's a lot harder to do.
So, I mean, it's been a ton. I've learned more in these nine months, to be honest, than I did probably my last five years, just because I got to wear so many different hats and pack so many different things.
And I'm back doing what I love most, which is leading people and getting them to succeed. Yeah.
Well, there's a lot in there. I would, you know, coming into Rogue, one of the biggest mistakes that I made was having a bit of hubris, feeling like, man, I'd been in this industry for 14 years at that time.
I, you know, had been all over the place, had been an agent and spent a lot of time with a lot of people in a lot of different places. And you just, as much as you can have some understanding until you've lived it, had to make the decisions and have to

deal with the ramifications of decisions. There's just, you know, it's very cliche, but there is literally nothing that can be experienced.
And I've also, one of the things that's really opened my eye or one of the things this experience and kind of sharing the startup experience with you, um you is now I have even more respect. I like to believe that I had some, or, you know, I had respect for them, but I've even more respect for the people who, who share ideas that have been through it.
Now I like listen with a little keener ear, try to pick up on some of the things. Cause I'm like, yeah, they actually so what they're saying I should probably take a uh I should probably take a little little deeper listen to what they're saying because it's just until you no it's it's true.
Sorry, I lost you there for a second. I can't.
You got me now? Yeah. Sorry about that.
That was weird was weird no it's okay yeah even the small stuff even the day-to-day decisions that don't work it you learn all those lessons yeah and you learn a hell of a lot faster you learn a heck of a lot faster yeah you know the speed is is a whole different different thing and um you, you know, this is a huge opportunity for growth. And I, you know, honestly, like I have a different respect for agents now than I think I did, you know, living in Karyoland, it was very easy to kind of discount, you know, agents and be like, oh, they're not adopting whatever we think is the next best thing, because like, they just don't understand.
And that's not could be further from the from the truth it's just like i don't think i had a fully respect of like what they are actually trying to do and what it takes to actually run a business um and those that are really successful at it and have been doing it for a long time like have found a way to to stay focused and get through that and so it gave me a whole new appreciation uh just even for the independent agent channel then then, then I had as an underwriting manager complaining about, you know, the agent that kept calling me because he, he didn't like his renewal and things like that. And I was just like, you know, so I get it a lot differently now.
I'm, you know, I was talking to, I did this podcast with a, with a kid. He's 22, 23 years old.
He's doing his work in the risk management program. It's super good kid.
Uh, his name was Darren and, um, he was interviewing me and, you know, and he said, you know, what question was something around, like, what would be, what would your recommendation be for, for how someone starts? And I just said, do all the things like go work for a carrier for a couple of years,

go work for an agent for a couple of years, try to find a tech company for a couple of years.

Like no matter what you choose after you have a couple of different experiences,

you're going to be, you're going to be so much further out ahead of everyone else.

Cause the problem is you get into the carrier system and you think agents and technologies are the worst. You get into the agent system, carriers and technology systems and vendors are the worst.
And like you talk to technologists, these stupid agents, carriers are so slow. And you just you don't have this respect for really how hard all the pieces of this industry are for a whole myriad of reasons.
It's just not nothing we do in this industry is straightforward. You know what I mean? We're not selling t-shirts or widgets.
This is a complex thing that has real ramifications on people's life. And, you know, that's why I think really the only people in this industry that I've ever had a real problem with are the ones like the guy from Lemonade who just, you know, basically acted like, like these are users and we're all idiots.
And, you know, and again, well, his stock price is tanking, although I'm sure he got paid. I don't take any pleasure in that outside of the pleasure that I do take.
And, you know, I just think to myself, like, it is long, if you can just have a healthy respect for what's happening here, man, there's so much that can be done. And really that's, again, that's why I get so excited about, about you guys, because I see, you know, I would be lying if, when I found out that you were part of Coterie, it didn't give me some peace of mind.
I was like, ah, they got somebody

who spent some time on the other side in there. They're going to have that perspective.
Like that perspective is going to be in the building, which is a really positive thing. Yeah, no.
The one challenge is though, like we have to adopt faster. Like we're going to have to get better at change management on all parts of the the value chain um over these next couple of years um or you know something or you know consumers are going to push away um and i think that's that's the the hardest part um at a tech company or at a startup you know really trying to kind of push the envelope envelope is how do you find that balance between the way we've always done it and really being like, but is that the best way to do it? And I think we have to have a much more open mind and I don't have all the answers.
And I certainly know that I don't have all the answers. And I learned that quick here.
It's like, you know, you pull levers and you're like, oh,

well, that used to work. Well, yeah, it used to work because you had like this massive machine behind you.
Like it doesn't work when you're still trying to build on the fly. But if we can't adapt and kind of move some of these processes forward, I mean, just like, you know, when we were starting, like the thinking about the microspace, right? you know I've listened to some calls and of some partners that we have, and I've seen, you know, people that have taken a different approach to the microspace, right? A lot of it has been like, it's just transactional, it's purely transactional, it's like, I don't want to think about it, I'm going to offload it to somebody else, whether that's some sales center or something like that.
But when you actually take the time to,

and it's not a lot of time, right?

If you have the right tools,

it can actually be pretty quick.

You just take the time to listen to them

and treat them with an ounce of respect

because they've been bounced around three or four times.

Your conversion is going to skyrocket.

Amen.

And then we're seeing that.

I mean, I have a story of a partner

that we're working with

it's one producer you know she's a new commercial producer um you know they're doing a good job

it's a high volume type opportunity and for two months in a row she's closed 100 accounts

now everyone will poo poo it's like oh but it's like you know 400 dollars 500 dollars 600

accounts i don't care like show me anybody being that productive and having that type of close rate

Thank you. like, you know, $400, $500, $600 accounts.
I don't care. Like show me anybody being that productive and having that type of close rate.
And just think about it. If you, you know, if you put better workflows, you put efficiency in place and you give them the freedom to treat every account the same.
I don't know. I think there's some magic there.
There absolutely is magic. I mean, you just literally defined what we're trying to do at rogue.
And what's been very interesting to me is, you know, we're, we are reevaluating relationships that we have with, with gold. I'm doing air quotes.
No one can see gold standard carriers because of how absolutely terrible dealing with them is. And that is not me bitching from on high.
That is day to day, boots on the ground, trying to get things done. Just, it can't be this hard.
I'm emailing the underwriting overlord to get whoever our person is to respond within a week. And then the person's yelling at us because a week should be, you know, it's, I, I'm busy.
Don't you understand? I'm busy. And I'm like, you're our F and underwriter and we can't move without you making this, telling us this is okay.
Like, it's like simple things like that. You get to the point where you're like, you've, you've, you're not, I, you know, I don't care what, what, what the name of on your business card is like, you're starting to not help us close business.
And, you know, I, but I, that, that aside, I don't want it to be the bitch. I think the point that you made about taking care of every customer, you know, one of

the things that we're doing is, you know, or one of our value, you know, you write down your values.

The number one thing that I wrote down that we live by every day is no customer left behind. And, and that means if it's right down Broadway, main street office, that's great.
We can write that. That's awesome.
If it's a crypto miner, we can help that crypto miner. If it's someone with a seven car fleet, we can help that car fleet.
If it's a $200 GL policy for, for a mom who's starting a side business and needs to get into a building to do whatever she's got to do, we're right. That frigging policy too, because that's what, that's the right thing to do now.
Granted, do you have to have automations? Do you have to have efficiencies? Do you have the right partners to make that, to be able to make some money doing that? Absolutely you do. But I just, you know, there is going to come a day if, if, if, if the agency force, if we're, if, if we don't kind of get our head wrapped around this, that where the business is not even going to hit the independent agent.
It's not even going to get down to that layer. It's going to hit starting their bank account.

Gone.

It's going to hit signing up for a Shopify account gone. They're not going to walk into your agency.
They're not going to ask their friend for a referral because there's 10 other things they do before they look for insurance. And one of those 10 things is going to provide them with the insurance and the business is going to be out.
They're already going to have done business with somebody. And then if that company can take care of them in the human way that you just described, they're never going to leave.

So what you just said to me, I agree with it.

The timetable is obviously we just can't handicap that because it's very tough.

But the day of business just not even making it to the Main street agents level, like it just never comes down that far. That's absolutely coming.
What's up guys. Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show in an exchange for that.
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Peace. Let's get back to the episode.
Yeah, but it doesn't mean that if you're well-networked and actually, you know, within your community, you can insert yourself into a similar touchpoint on a local level. And that's what we're trying do is is bring tools that allow you to provide that digital shopping experience or embed that experience into a you know a lower level affinity player whatever buzzword you want to use you know whatever platform um you know that's the biggest thing i've noticed with you know all this api technology that everyone's's talking about and like, it's going to be the savior of all of our efficiency.
And it's like, yeah, but that's just getting data back and forth. I mean, that doesn't take into account, like you actually have to have an application that makes freaking sense.
yeah you get the best apis in the world but if you're asking 70 different questions, like, no, thanks. Yeah.
And if you're not responding quick enough or you're not giving them, you know, if everything is call, everything is call, everything is call.

Like just being able to put a price and knowing that they can buy that, I think is valuable, even if they don't buy it, just because you have a qualified customer that is informed and educated and your discussion is less about this is what it's going to cost and more about this is what you get um that's what api technology can do right yeah i think that gets lost sometimes i think it's just like yo it's like an efficiency play is an efficiency play no yeah course it's an efficiency play, but what it is is it's just basically changing the way the funnel works. You know, to truly leverage it, you got to get used to funnels that look a lot different.
And I remember that was always the challenge I had in large, you know, Gold Star is like, they want their funnel to not change. You know, it's like, I know I got a 30% hit ratio and I know, you know, everything kind of stays consistent.
And as long as we're meeting those marks, we're going to hit our financial plan and stuff like that. And then you introduce this frictionless data transfer.
And all of a sudden your submission shoot to the moon, your hit ratios tank because it's no longer a hit ratio. It's a yield.
And then, you know, the everything in between changes. And you have to have a different perspective of, you know, your financial plans of, you know, what success looks like, how to make, you know, iterations, because when your funnel is that primed at the top, one or two% change in a close rate or whatever ratio you want to look at is much more meaningful than when you're just kind of eking by and you're just staying flat.
and that's something I learned over the last couple of years is like it's going to be about like price is price, like transparency has to come to insurance and commercial insurance in general, right? Like it can't be this mystery of like, I'm an electrician, like what the hell am I going to pay for insurance? What it has to do is that, well, you're an electrician, you got a lot of needs, right? And service is the biggest need, especially if you're working for different GCs and trying to get different contracts. You know better than I do, like servicing and like cert requirements and endorsements and all these different things that we like to kind of forget about and be like, oh, like let's make a sexy new business flow.
That's where agents, I think, win, is because you can provide that service and that education and that basically you're advocating for them with whatever carrier, whatever they're working with. That's the value.
That's why I would use an agent on my own business is because I need somebody that can do that stuff for me and advocate and go to bat for me, whether it's a claim situation, whether it's a servicing thing. It's less about like, you know, give me a quote.
Because I can go to 10 different websites now and get a quote. Yeah.
I would love for you to, I think you made one point you made in there that,

that I think is important for us to go back on is yield versus hit ratio. This is one of the concepts that I know from firsthand knowledge, there are carriers that get, and there are carriers, carry partners.
And I don't think any agent, and this is not a knock on agents. This is kind of a high level, more marketing related, sophisticated idea.
So I don't want to knock anyone who doesn't understand, but I think this concept, the people that get this, this is, in my opinion, it's a defining concept in the actions that people are taking. So can you just break down the difference between hit ratio and maybe its legacy versus this new idea of yield and why you may want to kind of pivot your mentality? So to go back to the kind of the standard funnel that we've always thought about, right? So like the way, and I'll give a carrier lens, that's what I know best is like I knew, you know, you have your portal, right? And so you know how many agents have started a submission.
So there's

your submission count. You know how many have gotten through and gotten to the point where like,

yes, it's an approved quote. That's your quote.
And then you know how many policies you sold.

Traditionally, a hit ratio is that approved quote or that finished quote to how many policies,

you know, policies divided by quotes. Yields is when you talk policies versus submissions.
And it's still pretty standard, you know, because you know, your quote ratios are going to be, you know, in the 80% or whatever it may be. But when you get into true marketing efforts, and you are getting into true volume plays, that submission number is very important.
And like the approved quote becomes less important. That's a matter of like, how well are you able to get people through the funnel? And it's really, so yield is when you look at truly policy sold at the end of the day, based off of that activity that you draw.
You know, it's a big in kind of like any type of marketing effort, right? If you're going to cast a broad net, or even if you're going to cast a narrow net, right? And you're going to run different campaigns and you're going to try to bring attention to your agency, bring customers to you. Yield is much more important than how often you quote them.
And like, once you quote them, yeah, you should be closing at that same level, right? Like, you know, that doesn't necessarily change, but like understanding that I have a thousand submissions and I'm only writing 10. Well, if I go from, you know, I'm going to do mental math and that's probably a mistake right now but anyway so you go one percent hit ratio yield ratio right if you go to two the math is just different right because you still have that thousand submissions but you're closing at two well now you're you know it's you grow the bottom line much faster uh and it can be more impactful from like a premium standpoint or from a revenue standpoint.
And so it's just like, I'm much more concerned is like, because I want to get a swing at every single account that's out there. That's why Coterie is integrating in just about every platform you can find.
One, I want to be where the agents are transacting, not making them come to us to transact with us. And so I want to swing at every single time.
So that means I want as many submissions as I can possibly get. And then I'm going to see how money we actually can close based off of that.
And then I'm going to work at how do I close more based off this huge volume of submissions that we're getting. Because making those small tweaks, whether it's making ourselves more prominent on Tarmaca or making something easier in the way they get from Tarmaca to us to, you know, sole policy, things like that.
You know, that's where we can impact much differently than just doing the like, well, we got to drive this many quotes to our platform. You know, our portal, our dashboard, whatever you want to call it.
And I saw, you know, my hit ratios when I was working with, you know, the, the big insure techs of the last couple of years, my one, because my quote ratio was like a hundred percent because it's getting filtered out. You know, I'm quoting 90 plus percent because every time I'm getting a bat, I'm only closing 10 percent then you have to get comfortable with that and you have to be like okay this is a lot more data a lot more power in understanding what's going on from that first API hit to a sold policy and making changes on that can can yield a heck of a lot more lift than just saying like well i want to move my hit ratio from 34 to 35 yeah i think that's a really important concept and you know it the the the volume plays are where everyone is going to too the the the one-off stuff is nice and is nice.
And I think that, and I, and I get, you know, everyone's still going to need to do that occasionally, but you know, I think more and more to get attention from the carrier space from agents, you know, obviously agents being a primary listener to this, you have to be able to push weight. You just have to be able to do it.
And I know that, I think everyone's kind of always known that. I don't, you know, the, the, what FinTech and the, the platform, the B2B platform, the, the, the B2C platform as well, you know, from the personal perspective too, I just, you know, whatever.
These platforms present so many opportunities. And you can also get this from your local attorney firm who does LLCs.
You can get this from your accounting firm. So I don't just want to talk about technology.
There's tons of opportunities to, you know, in our space, everyone gets hung up on home mortgage broker referrals, right? It's everyone talks about this. There's every conference ever

has the, you know, whoever's doing the most home broker referral, they got some new shtick and I'm not, I'm not knocking that, but, um, and that, but the next play is the small business. And obviously that's where we're going.
And, but, and these partners are everywhere. And just need to open our eyes the accounting firm

real estate managers yeah they just they're all there and um and the ability to be that partner and set up flows like you said it drastically increases number of the bats you get now you you you have to deal with like you said a potentially a lower hit ratio or a more spread out book i think that's, that's a to it one of the things that we found is um you know you need to have a couple different players there's no carrier regardless that's going to have the appetite that solves the singular problem but you know you pick a few that are able to that are willing to mentally play this game with you and you can do damage i mean you can do real damage i mean that's get, you get the few that get you the 80% and you get hyper efficient on the 20%. And then that's, you know, cause just think about the, from the point of view of the referral partner, right? Like in the traditional model, it's like, Hey, call this guy or, you know, go to see this guy's office or stuff.
I think it's a better experience when like, it's right there, they get a couple of quotes right away. Yeah.
And I think your referral partners, like it will make them look good because they're providing a value service to their customers too. And then, you know, anytime it's a mutually beneficial partnership, that's how these things work.
Yeah. Right.
That's how I frame it with all these platforms out there. Like I want these platforms to succeed because I know if they succeed and I'm part of that, you know, we're both going to rise up together.
so let's uh i want to change the topic a little bit to um uh data and and the disposition i don't want you to give away any secret sauce sure but the um i think a think a lot of people, uh, haven't a lot of agents haven't necessarily wrapped their head around, um, how, uh, carriers like, like a coterie are using third-party data and pulling it into the system to reduce, like, I know Tarmaca does this. I know you guys do this.
It's happening more and more. I'd love for you to just maybe just help everyone better understand.
Um, one, I think the questions I get all the time is like, where is this data coming from? And then can we trust it is another question I get a lot. And then how are you actually using it? How is it improving the process? There's a lot to unpack there.
So where the data is, right? It's just like anything else. There is no one source of data.
But anybody that knows and has kind of seen like your online persona is very mindable. Let's just put it that way, right? I don't even know all the stuff that they do to get it and to fill in the gaps.
But I mean, there's a couple of different things. The easiest, I think the one that's easiest for people to kind of wrap their heads around maybe is property, right? Because it's just tangible.
It's like, it's physical. There are a lot of records.
There's a lot of sources out there that, you know, whether it's imagery, all kinds of different things that can say, you know, this building, you know, you can go to different towns and it's just like, there's data out there and there's really aggregators is what they are. They're aggregators of data.
And so, you know, Hazard Hub is a great one on the property side. And so they've built different models, they've built different ways of collecting information.
And so with one call to their API, I can pull back a whole ton of information on that property. Information that as an agent, you would have had to either fill in yourself or go back to your client to be like, hey, can you like look outside and see what your roof's made out of? This is my number one pitch.
And even educating, right? I mean, like, why are we still asking roof types? Why are we still asking, you know, construction types, BG codes and all this other stuff? Like it's, it's all there in one sense or another. All right.
This is my number one. I can do it.
Yeah. When, when was your roof updated? Who has ever gone? It was 37 years ago.
What agent is, you know, whatever agent does 2015. Yeah.
It's the, I mean, I just, I look at that question and I'm like, who, who, every, everyone who answered this question knows that if you put it more than even 10 years, in some cases, they're going to penalize you. No one actually knows when the frigging roof was done except for the property records.
So seven years ago, five years. I mean, it's just, it is ridiculous.

Well, and put your underwriting hat on. Like, I don't care if the roof, if the roof was updated five years ago, but the guy did a crap job, is that any better than it was done 20 years ago? It was done right.
And so it doesn't leak. Right.
I mean, cause that's all we care about is like, is there going to be a water leak? And is there issues there that we're going to have a loss over? so why ask right again like

if we're going to you know have a loss over um so why ask right

again like if we're all if everyone knows we're kind of pencil whipping it what's the point of

asking yeah like is it truly that relational to your loss ratio or to what makes a risk good or

not um and that's what we're trying to eliminate or at least get a better a different source of

information for it's not a trust thing i don't want people to think that oh yeah like they don't

Thank you. a risk good or not.
And that's what we're trying to eliminate or at least get a better, a different source of information for. It's not a trust thing.
I don't want people to think that, they don't trust the agents to give them the right answer. It's not that at all.
It's just like, why waste hours of your time trying to figure out how to answer these questions when we can make an API call to five, six, seven different vendors and pull in a lot of information about that. Right.
I think what will be interesting to see is like classification.

Can we build some models around, you know, understanding what somebody does that gets us close enough, to be honest, to a proper classification so that we know we're getting an appropriate rate for that risk and things like that without making it a painful experience for an agent to try to figure out how the heck to classify them because everyone can classify a bakery yeah everyone can like a brand new person into the industry be like yep that's a bakery except for maybe some of those people that like to have like baking without actually doing baking on premise or something like that. But, you know, that's, that's another story.
But, you know, there are, there's a lot of information out there on all these businesses, whether it's in their social media feeds, whether it's, you know, in their services, in their menus, you know, wherever it might be, there's a ton of information you can glean based off of an address, based off of a named insured, things like that. And we're just using different sources and we're constantly changing them and looking for better ones.
And then we have some really smart data people in the background that are trying to build some scoring and some models around because it's not perfect. It's not going to be accurate 100% of the time, but we don't need it to be accurate 100% of the time, to be honest with you.
And I think what we're looking at is like, how do we present it in a way that an agent can verify it, right? And give that agent still that say to be like, yeah, no, no, I know that your sources are saying this, but like, it's really that. And so, you know, it's not a, we're only going to use data.
We're going to use data and let you verify it at times when we think it needs to be verified.

yeah i i this is i look at what branch is doing i don't know how familiar you are with branch on the personal line side where first name last name and email address sometimes and you can get

full home auto and umbrella quotes i mean anyway and and what's been interesting to me and i think

this is the the idea that hopefully we can break down a little bit here just in this podcast for agents is that it doesn't mean because we're using third-party data, and this is just, I think, one of those common misconceptions that over time we'll just get past, is that I think there's there's this feeling that because we're using third party data somehow we're doing less underwriting and that's not the case right we still have to have models the companies still have to make money they're still based on actuarial tables and you know maybe maybe some of the thought processes are a little more progressive in the underwriting methodology but it but there's still there's still underwriting happening. It's just where the data comes from.
It's really that simple. It's just, instead of you telling me this house was built in 1955, Hazard Hub is telling me it was built in 1955.
Instead of you checking a box that says, is this in a flood zone? Hazard Hub is telling me this is not in a flood zone. You're good.
And the amount of what that does to put it in perspective for agents is instead of having to ask those questions, you now can be more of a problem solver on the phone. And that to me is where we need to get to as agents is get back to our roots of solving problems for people instead of being data collectors.
And that's again, one of the reasons why I'm so bullish on you guys is I think, I think one, I think you have the right mix of people. Um, and two, uh, I think that how you're infusing this information, the experience and the fact that you are still heavily relying on agents, it, to me, it's a, it's a, it's a winning, it's a winning strategy.
I mean, I know you'll probably have a long way to go and it doesn't always feel that way, but certainly from the outside, it looks like you have all the pieces in place. We have some of the pieces in place.
I think what we have to do is prove that, that our ideas and our processes work, right. You know, black box underwriting is sexy until it blows up and you lose your paper and then Coterie doesn't exist.
Yeah. So, yes.
And it's more about and to be honest, like we're in the micro space. So it's more about like, how do we put better guardrails in using data to keep that hyper efficient experience that everyone kind of needs to, in a sense, like, you know, save time, which saving time saves money.
And again, it transitions your conversation to much different. You can actually give that smaller account, you know, a good five-minute explanation on what their policy actually covers, as opposed to just, you know, not wanting to deal with them.
So yeah, I mean, I think it's evolving evolving it's changed probably just in the last three four years and it'll be even more uh in the next you know four or five years and i don't i'd love to say that we're the only ones doing this but i'm sure we're not um and we're not that arrogant to think that we are um i think what we're trying to do is is you know iterate towards that that goal um and find a way to be transparent in how we're doing it right because the biggest lesson we've learned or at least you know i think a coder is like you have to be very transparent to give agents that confidence one we know what we're doing two they know what they're selling um and anytime that we've had a gap in in kind of that transparency or or that understanding um is where like we've been a lot of pushback um which is healthy uh and that's the thing it's like work with us because guess what like we listen um yeah not that other people don't but like we are hyper focused on that feedback. Yeah.

You know, my favorite story of our, you know, that I was involved with and things like that goes back to something very simple, a cool proposal, right?

So we're like, hey, we're a tech company, man.

We're going to do some tech stuff.

Like we're going to create this cool micro site that you can email to your client.

It'll look awesome on a cell phone. It'll look awesome on a computer whatever like it'll it'll give them the basic information that they need uh to move forward uh and no one used it they're like where's my pdf we're like but but we've got this awesome website man like this is like so much cooler like your customers are going to think you're amazing because you can provide them this and like no i don't want that i want a pdf and now we're like you know pulling our head out of our ass and getting a pdf out in the market which i've used it's great so yeah it's it's just part of the fun and uh that's why i love being at codery is like you know one i get get the chance to learn these lessons and have the freedom to fail.
Right. Cause I think a lot of times people get wrapped up in fear of failure.
And, you know, at the end of the day, you know, we're all trying to make a difference in some small way. And I just feel a lot more comfortable screwing up right now.
You know, as long as I don't bring the whole company down. But you know what I mean? Like, it's just, it's a different culture.
And I think that's another thing that kind of freed me, you know, from some of, you know, the previous things that I've done. Yeah, it's awesome, man.
I, you know, I'm a big, big, big fan of what you guys are doing. I, I've been on it since,

you know, I, I remember I talked to David like three years ago and he was telling me,

oh, we got this thing where he pitched me the idea. And then, uh, you know, just from afar

watching, you know, it kind of takes shape. And then obviously when I started rogue, I reached

out to you guys and, um, you know, now we're, we're starting to, starting to integrate more

and work together closer. And, you know, I'm excited because I think that.

For some reason, my microphone keeps getting wonky on me. But when a company like Coterie comes into the market and starts doing the things you're doing at the pace that you're doing them, it pushes the rest of the market to get better.
I like to hammer on lemonade because I really didn't appreciate the way that they approached our market space. But you can't knock.
Lemonade changed a lot of the way that a lot of people do business and the mentality and the mindset. They have had a major impact on the culture of our of our industry in a positive way.
And so I think I think it's good for the space. I think the innovation is good for the space.
I think the way that you guys treat an onboard agents, especially new agents is good for the business because, you know, you, it doesn't feel good when you're trying to be, when you're an entrepreneur and you're trying to start a business and you have some carrier come in and speak to you like you're a peon because you're only going to give them a hundred thousand dollars in premium in the first year. And, you know, you know, they, they can care less, you know, about, about, you know, that's the way that a lot of the carriers make you feel and whether you get the appointment or not, it doesn't feel good.
Um, it's nice to talk to somebody, have a 20 minute conversation and have them say, Hey, let's go. And then the paperwork is about five minutes and you can, now you can write business and you feel like it's, there's a sense of empowerment there.
And I think that's a small, but important piece of the puzzle as well. So we want to grow together.
Right. I mean, I love working with new agents.
They're fired up. They're trying to bring new ideas.
They're, they're experimental in themselves of just trying to get a footing. And I'd work with anyone, uh, that's just trying to figure it out.
And like, we're bringing tools, like we're not

only delivering things for our top tier agents or things like that. We're bringing these tools to,

to everyone. Um, and we're going to continue to do that.

It's awesome. Uh, and you guys just partnered with my favorite network in the world,

Indium that announcement came out today as a recording. uh i always love to see uh uh it's like watching friends get married you know you see so uh well it's fun because it's a small you know just as well as i do it's a small little network and we've all kind of met each other at different conferences we've all kind of talked to each other and, it's a blast to like get to work together.
Um, and, and kind of, and Chad, Eddie's the man. He is.
I mean, other than a Clemson fan, I don't know. I mean, that's the only negative I think I can think of, but, uh, you know, but, but that's it, man.
No, he's solid and that's a great network and we couldn't be more excited to, to be partnering with them. Awesome.
So if into this and they're like, heard of Coterie, I'm convinced I want to reach out and see if they're a good fit for me. What's the best way to do that? Easiest way, Coterieinsurance.com.
From there, you can look at our producer resources. All of our forms are out there, different endorsements.
It's very transparent. We have a digital appetite guide powered by our buds at Ask Kodiak.
So you can kind of get a sense of where we're writing. You know, we're admitted, we're in 48 states.
We're filed in New York. I know people want us there.
We want to be there more than ever. We're working through, you know, the 60 plus things we have to respond to in the filing to get, you know, a standard ISOBOP filed and ready to go in New York.
But yeah, there you can even sign up to be a producer. You put a couple of pieces of information in and we'll get in touch with you in a matter of hours.
You know, you'll have somebody on our team getting your contract, giving you a quick overview, letting you know you can join one of our demos feel free to hit me up I'm on LinkedIn Raymond Lynch you know Raymond at Coder Insurance.com you know I'm diving deep into the agent space not having been you know I was heavily in the digital for a while and it's it's fun and and kind of fun and interesting to circle back and see all the changes, even in those three, four years from when I was an underwriting manager to now, and how far agents are pushing the needle, those that are engaged and really wanting to. yeah well hey man i appreciate you spending the time obviously enjoy our partnership looking forward to more and and just as a observer of the industry looking forward to seeing uh what kind of

trouble Yeah. Well, hey, man, I appreciate you spending the time.
Obviously, enjoy our partnership. Looking forward to more.
And just as an observer of the industry, looking forward to seeing what kind of trouble you guys get into as you continue to push into the space. I think it's trouble, obviously, in a good sense.
Give them comfort. We do have some insurance people.
Yeah, no, they do. We're not just a bunch of tech.
We got a great underwriting team that's behind the scenes.

It may not be the traditional underwriting relationship that you're used to,

but know that we have we got great underwriting team that's behind the scenes. It may not be the

traditional underwriting relationship that you're used to, but know that we have some really strong underwriting minds that are kind of keeping, keeping the guardrails in place and making sure that we're, we're writing the right business and that, you know, we're, we're, we are underwriting. Yeah.
So definitely want to give that. And I'll say this too.
Like, you know, I told everyone this when we had Dax Craig on from

Pi. I think of

in my mind, I put you guys in the same exact bucket. You are new carriers doing things a different way from a data and ease of business perspective.
But I think both of you guys have the insurance expertise and experience on the back backend that any agent can lay their hat on

what's happening. So yeah, no, I, I a hundred percent agree with you.
I mean, there are other

insured tech players in the space that I don't use for that same reason, but I just think you

guys are doing a lot of good stuff. So I, I appreciate it, man.
As always, enjoy your talks

and we'll get out of here. All right, man.
Let's go write some business together.

Cheers.

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