ADJUSTED
ADJUSTED
Season 9 Wrap Up
What makes workers' compensation work better? Our Season 9 wrap-up brings together key voices from across the industry to reflect on the episodes that shaped our understanding of what truly matters in claims management.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Matt Yehling shares how going beyond minimum requirements created life-changing results for an injured worker needing a prosthetic limb. Rather than settling for local options, the team flew him to a specialized facility in Atlanta, resulting not just in a better prosthetic, but in full return to work and renewed quality of life. This powerful story exemplifies how investing more upfront often creates better long-term outcomes for everyone involved.
Responsiveness emerges as a critical theme throughout the discussion. As Luella Alcorn points out, every phone call represents an opportunity to build trust, while Chris Drake highlights how accessibility prevents unnecessary litigation. When comparing frustrating automated systems to speaking with an actual person who addresses concerns immediately, the panel agrees that human connection remains irreplaceable in claims management.
The conversation shifts to the importance of education, with Jeremy Morrison explaining how demystifying complex concepts like experience modification factors helps businesses make better decisions about safety. Meanwhile, Luella's experience with the RISE Professional Group demonstrates how mentorship and professional development are addressing the industry's concerning 70% turnover rate in some claims organizations.
After five years and over 29,000 downloads, the Adjusted podcast continues to showcase the human side of workers' compensation. The team's commitment to empathy, education, and responsiveness proves that the most successful outcomes happen when we treat claims not just as files, but as people with stories that matter.
Help us reach more people by sharing, subscribing, and leaving a five-star review wherever you get your podcasts.
Season 9 is brought to you by Berkley Industrial Comp. This episode is hosted by Greg Hamlin and guest co-host from Episodes in Season 9. If you want to reach out to anyone at Berkley Industrial Comp, call 1-800-448-5621.
Visit the Berkley Industrial Comp blog for more!
Got questions? Send them to marketing@berkleyindustrial.com
For music inquiries, contact Cameron Runyan at camrunyan9@gmail.com
Hello everybody and welcome to Adjusted. I'm your host, greg Hamlin, coming at you from sweet home, Alabama, where we are in the throes of summer and we have 115% heat index probably, which for someone who grew up in Michigan and Indiana, is about as miserable as it could possibly be. So I'm just living indoors these days and only go outside to drive to and from work, and then I'm trying to convince my kids to mow the grass, so I don't have to go out there during that time either. So good thing about big families, I guess, excited about this episode. This is our wrap-up episode. So we, believe it or not, are wrapping up our season nine, where we have recorded well over 100 episodes and hours and hours of content. With me I have several guests, so we'll start first. We'll kind of do a roll call. We'll start first with Lue, kind of do a roll call. We'll start first with Luella Alcorn. For each of you, if you could just introduce yourself what your role is and where you're at, that would be awesome.
Luella Alcorn:You got it. Luella Alcorn, Senior Business Operations Manager, and I sit in our Lexington, Kentucky office.
Greg Hamlin:And that's God's country Favorite place I've ever lived. I do love Alabama, but I have a sweet spot for those rolling hills in Kentucky, so I didn't grow up here, but I love it as well, yeah. So many friends there too for me. Next up, Matt Yaling.
Matthew Yehling:Hello everyone. This is Matthew Yaling. I'm in St Louis, missouri, along the banks of the mighty Mississippi. I'm with Midwest Employers Casualty and I'm the vice president of claims for claims operations. So excited to talk about the wrap up and we're also in the throes of summer, but a little bit of a cool spell coming through right now. We're only in the 80s today.
Greg Hamlin:So look forward to this. Glad to have you, matt, as always. And for those listeners who didn't catch it, his title changed so I got to embarrass him for a minute. Congratulations. He is now the head honcho over there for claims at MEC, so well-deserved and certainly glad to continue to collaborate with you. All right, thanks, matt. Next up we have Jeremy Morrison, or as I call him, j-mo Jeremy, if you want to introduce yourself to everybody.
Jeremy Morrison:Yes, hi. Thanks, greg Jeremy Morrison. I'm in underwriting and happy to be on again with this great panel and guests and celebrities, so thank you for having me.
Greg Hamlin:So most people don't know this and I'm going to embarrass him here again, but Jeremy is a high school state championship winner for high school baseball and I think you could argue, if you were to look at the people who report to him, that he does a dang good job coaching up our underwriting associates. So we're really lucky to have somebody who not only is an amazing underwriter but also knows how to coach it up. So start calling you coach.
Jeremy Morrison:Thank you.
Luella Alcorn:Yeah, he has a good team on and off the field.
Greg Hamlin:That's exactly right. Glad to have you, jeremy, next up. Chris Drake, hailing from Hoosier land, I'll let you introduce yourself, chris.
Christ Drake:Yeah, I was going to say Luella said Lexington's God's country and we say that here in Indiana too. So I'm guessing everybody probably says that. But Chris Drake, I do set in the Indianapolis area. I am a claims manager with Berkeley Industrial Comp and look forward to talking to everybody.
Greg Hamlin:You know, I'm an IU grad, so I've got a sweet spot for Indiana, that's for sure. So a little flat, a little flat, a lot of cornfields, a lot of soybeans, but some really good people, Absolutely. There's a reason why they call it Hoosier Hospitality. So you show up in Indiana, you're going to get taken care of so glad to have you, Chris. And then I think I caught everybody on this round. You know what I'm going to add one other person that doesn't always get the credit he deserves actually two and make sure we get them in here on the roll call. So we have our marketing, our head of marketing, which never ends up on these episodes because he's behind the scenes making us look amazing. Great, Gabriel Santos. Gabriel, if you could say hello to everybody, Hello everybody.
Greg Hamlin:Good to be in front of the cameras here. So I'm now in New York. Originally from Brazil, so it's a little bit colder up here, but really good to join you guys today. We miss having Gabriel in our office down here in Birmingham, but still glad to have him as part of the team and he's in the big NYC now working out of one of the Berkeley offices there, but he's still on our team doing marketing, so we're pretty fortunate.
Greg Hamlin:Last person I wanna make sure I catch Cindy Housel. A lot of people don't know she is behind the scenes making all of this work and without her I don't know where we would be. I can't tell you how many times she shows up in my office and says hey, greg, we're running out of content, you need to get on it. So I appreciate, cindy. Cindy, if you could introduce yourself.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I'm Cindy Housel and I'm here in Birmingham with Greg and, as a matter of fact, right before this call, gabriel and I were working together and I asked him if he was prepared to speak and he said no. So you just walked right into it, greg, and we appreciate you.
Greg Hamlin:You just never know. With me I'm a wild card, so I definitely want to take the time to acknowledge them, because this podcast doesn't happen with the people behind the scenes who are doing a lot of the work, whether that's posting on LinkedIn or getting the files edited or keeping us on schedule. So when we do these wrap-up episodes, I do like to take a minute just to acknowledge the hard work of the people who sometimes don't get recognized and you don't get to hear them. So Cindy, I felt like, is amazing. I always think of her as our office's resident cheerleader, always positive, always there to support, so definitely glad to have her involvement. So I wanted to start by just now that we've kind of introduced everybody talking about the experience, hosting, what was hard, what was fun, what did the audience miss, and so we got a lot of new faces. I'm going to start with Matt, because Matt's the old pro now, having done this with me for several years.
Matthew Yehling:Anything stand out to you, this go-around or anything over time that you've seen, you have more that we didn't catch on the podcast. But comparing yourself to Oprah and to other famous podcasters is comical. So the things that are often said or maybe hit the cutting floor before we start recording or even after we start recording. There's a lot of great content that makes a lighter mood and a more natural conversation. So I think that makes for a good listening experience and Greg does a really good job of ensuring that's happening before and then sometimes after, and there's been several podcasts that I've experienced with you that it's like man, I wish we would have had that discussion or caught that on the actual podcast, but really great interview that we had and I know we're going to talk about it later.
Matthew Yehling:So one of the things that we've had a couple of times happen is you do this podcast or you record it and the audio or something happens, I don't know it gets deleted, it doesn't record properly.
Matthew Yehling:You do it again and usually the second time is not as good, but the experience we had this year, like the second time, was even better than the first, and then we'll talk about in a minute about what happened later.
Matthew Yehling:But those interactions and meeting other people and hearing these stories is always interesting and I always pick up a nugget from each one of these experiences. So I just encourage whoever's listening like we're trying to have insights that improve workers comp for everybody and like hopefully you're picking up some little nugget of wisdom or some little nugget of empathy or whatever the subject is. And that's really what I come out of each one of these like kind of refreshed and like rejuvenated that we are doing something, we're adding good to the atmosphere, like you always close with and doing something to better the process, better the people and make workers comp a better fit for everybody. So making everyone's experience hopefully better. So that's kind of one of my insights. And so two things I guess the jokes and making it a lively experience for everyone, and then the impact and grabbing a little insight out of each one of these discussions.
Greg Hamlin:Yeah, I would agree I'm far better leader than I was five years ago when we started this journey. Just things I've learned from all of the amazing guests we've had and Matt points out, you know a lot of the really good interviewers. You don't realize how good they are at what they're doing, to be able to ask the questions and then ask the follow up questions and be completely present and also be able to help somebody relax so that they can be themselves. It's hard and I have so much respect for, like the big podcasters that are out there and what they're able to accomplish.
Greg Hamlin:Having done this now for five years and hopefully I'm better than when I first started I was telling Chris Drake I picked out an episode which I won't tell the audience, which it is that I was like go listen to this one and you'll see how bad I used to be. So there really are some challenges and you do get better with it and I've definitely learned a lot. So love that insight, Matt. Chris, this was your first time doing this, so talk to me about it for you Talk to me about it.
Christ Drake:For you, yeah, I think you go in with probably unrealistic expectations. Some people are so dang smooth at it that you think that you can do that. And you listen to yourself and you realize, wow, I got a lot of work to do. I'm not necessarily the greatest podcaster. Now, to set the bar, I listen to a lot of hunting podcasts which most people are like, okay, I don't care about that.
Christ Drake:But also, how captivating is insurance too, right? So I made a joke the other day about the webinar, just making a comment about the murder mysteries and all this and how that's such a rave, and just wanted to try to compare how adjusted was so much more captivating than that. In reality, us insurance nerds, we love insurance, but for everybody else, you're trying to give them a little bit of a lens into what we do every day and what people can take away and learn from it Not just an injured worker from an employer, from an agent, you name it. So I think just being able to tie all that in into having a conversation with someone which is not the most captivating at times is pretty difficult, but it's honestly been a good experience and I think the more that you do it, the more you become comfortable. But I've also realized it's not as smooth as people are. It's more the active listeners and those that have the investigative knowledge and the ability to do that make the great podcasters. So I'm glad to be part of this. I've learned a lot.
Greg Hamlin:I've realized I still have a long way to go. I am definitely not smooth, but I love talking to people. So it's pretty awesome thinking about the next question and where you want to go next. And when you're co-hosting you're also thinking about I need to back off here and give the other person a chance to ask some questions too. So there's some timing that you just figure out as you get better at it, but it's a lot, because if you're not listening and you're only thinking about the question, you're going to miss out on half of what's going on. So those are great points for your first round getting involved. Luella, you've done a number of different podcasts, I don't think as a host, but as a guest. So what's been your experience, having been a guest multiple times?
Luella Alcorn:The first podcast I did. I was so excited about it and I thought it went fairly well. And then it comes and is posted, and so, family members, you know we're watching. I forced my husband to watch it and I did not know that I said the word right, like at the end of every sentence or the beginning of every sentence. So he's listening to it as I'm there and he's counting on his fingers one, two and it was like a bazillion times and I was like I didn't even know I did that.
Luella Alcorn:So it's interesting to hear your voice. Right, you sound different than you think you do. Okay, that is bizarre, but I sound like my sister. That's the other thing. I sound exactly like one of my sisters. But the other thing is that we have a rough draft, right, we kind of know what it is, the topic is, and then, all of a sudden, here comes Greg with some question you didn't even know and you weren't prepared for. So you definitely have to be on your toes, okay. And then the other interesting thing for me is how one topic makes me really, really nervous and I don't know why, and the other one it's like no problem, let's do it. So I don't know why. There's no rhyme or reason to it, but it does get a little bit easier each time. It does.
Greg Hamlin:I was telling, chris I have the fortunate, I guess, background that when I was about three years old my neighbors were high schoolers and they needed somebody who was like three to be in their high school theater program. I can't even remember the performance, I think it was a Christmas Carol. Anyway, I was in it for maybe five seconds, but then from then on I was always in theater and so somehow for me that part is easier. Now, if you go golfing with me, my anxiety is going to go to 10 because that is not my skill set. So you are seeing probably the worst qualities on display as I try to swing. So you know everybody's got their, their areas, that they got to get, yeah, more comfortable got their thing, yeah, I get it.
Greg Hamlin:and then last up, jeremy, you've done several of these with me as a guest, I don't think as a host, but what's your experience been?
Jeremy Morrison:It's been a lot of fun to talk about experience mods or workers' compensation underwriting, and a few months ago we had the opportunity to do that again. So, yeah, just grateful for the opportunity to talk about something that policyholders have to think about and deal with and answer some questions about experience modifications. It's a lot of fun.
Greg Hamlin:Good job of demystifying the underwriting process, because I think people just don't understand how experience mods work. Before I was here at Berkeley, I don't think I had a fundamental understanding working at the state fund but and I think a lot of incorrect decisions are made because in a correct understanding of how emods work causes that. So I just appreciate your ability to explain something that's incredibly complicated in a way that I can understand, a way that I can understand from a clay's perspective, which means means you've dumbed it down, so thank you for that.
Jeremy Morrison:Well, I don't know about that, but it is an important thing because there is premium incentive tied to this component of the policy and it's something that insureds have an active role in their safety program and safety culture and hopefully they're rewarded financially for their investment in having a strong program for their employees. So it does get a lot of scrutiny and a lot of questions because there's dollars associated with it. But no, as you said, it's a little bit mysterious sometimes, and sometimes insureds don't work in the workers' compensation realm to really fully understand the mechanics behind the calculation. They hear about it from their agent or from their broker, but that might be the extent of it.
Luella Alcorn:Thank goodness Jeremy does understand it, because that is a podcast. Because that is a podcast, I've had multiple times that. I've then gotten a call from someone and then I have the podcast link to be able to send to them and say this is the information that you need to know. Don't take it from me because I'm not the expert, but here it is and you can listen to this and they explain it better. I've used it multiple times.
Christ Drake:That's awesome I have to start calling him the professor.
Greg Hamlin:Yeah, right absolutely, and professor, he's got two times. Yeah. So let's talk about the episode we did with empathy and claims. Hope was involved in that. She couldn't make it today, but I know Chris is passionate about this topic as well, so I'm going to kind of kick this one over to you, chris. And what are your thoughts on empathy and claims? I know like 20 years ago, when we came up in the industry, this was not on the topic of things to do as a claims adjuster. So how have you seen that change and where does that fit according to what you see now?
Christ Drake:I think the theory has always been there. Right, you talk the talk, but do you walk the walk in there? Right, you talk the talk, but do you walk the walk? Everybody wants to create a good experience for the injured worker. It's set there to indemnify people for their losses, but it's not going to be this wealth-driving vehicle.
Christ Drake:I think with our empathetic resolution model, that speaks really, really highly to me just making it personal, taking yourself and putting yourself in the injured worker's shoes.
Christ Drake:Like I've said before, you guys probably get burned out of me saying this, but they don't get up that day expecting to get hurt.
Christ Drake:They don't go into work thinking you know what, I'm going to get hurt today, Can't wait for that. It's a disruption to their lives. So just being able there to meet them where they are, to walk them through the process and to make it to where they can get back to their normal way of living there's a lot to be said in that and I think in the insurance industry we talk about that all the time. But how many people really live that and Hope made a really good point in one of our meetings a few days ago just seeing the increasing trend now of not just talking about it. People are walking the walk and you're seeing, if you look at a lot of the initiatives that are out there now really advocating for injured workers and just trying to break down that stigma in the insurance industry that we're not there to fight you, we're here to help you and walk the process, and I think they did a really good job in that episode just driving that home.
Greg Hamlin:Excellent points and I couldn't agree more. This is on my one of my passion projects. When we had a lot of downtime during COVID, I used to go on walks a lot, since there was nothing else to do and nowhere else to go and I just kept spinning my wheels on this thought like what might we do different? That would create a different experience and, even if it costs us a little more on the front end, would drive an outcome that would be better for everybody involved. And if I think, if you can take that holistic approach of looking at it through the lens of an outcome and then putting yourself in their shoes, it's huge.
Greg Hamlin:My daughter just three days ago got sideswiped in Tuscaloosa and the guy gave her the finger and drove away. And so I'm having to go through the policy and do I have uninsured motors coverage and helping her file the police report and getting the van figured out. She's driving our van for whatever reason. So that's a lot and they actually I won't say who, the carriers, but they did a nice job. But I think it goes a long way because you're already feeling frustrated in that moment of my life just got disrupted.
Greg Hamlin:This is a nine o'clock at night that this happened. She's driving back home because she's in between leases and now I have to deal with this, and so I think that goes a long way if we can show empathy and try to understand where the other person's coming from. Matt, you actually had an episode with me that really stood out, where we had the opportunity to talk about an individual that went through a catastrophic event and how they leveraged that event towards the future. So I want to hear you kind of mentioned this some already but your thoughts after that episode and then in even sense, yeah.
Matthew Yehling:So I mean we got to speak with Julie Greer, one of your senior CAD analysts, and then Steve with Shamrock Prosthetics and we you know, steve, between the time we recorded this, we actually, like I alluded to earlier, we recorded this twice. Between the time we recorded this, we actually, like I alluded to earlier, we recorded this twice. Like learning about Steve's story is is impactful enough, but then between our recording and and this airing, you know, steve ended up passing away and so we made it a tribute to him. But when we were recording with him, like Steve was an amputee himself and that story was about not about him, but it's hard not to make it about you as well but he wanted he didn't want to make it about himself. You know we were talking about another injured employee actually that Julie and Steve worked together on, and the experience of you know how to bring somebody past that initial injury and and really finding a better solution for that injured employee than what was being offered locally for him. And sometimes, you know, to the earlier point of doing what's right for the injured employee or what's right for the person that has this life-changing event more complicated than, and cost us more money than, doing the minimal and doing what would have been easier, but in the long run for that injured employee the result was better, right. So this was an example and I don't remember the exact state I think it was Illinois. We might not even have said it because we were trying to prove that PPI and all that but we took this injured employee outside of Illinois, flew him down to Steve's prosthetic shop down Shamrock, down in Atlanta, georgia area and, you know, got him fitted. Steve found out he was in a high industrial environment and drove different equipment and suited him up for doing that kind of work down the road from you know Steve's shop.
Matthew Yehling:And just a great story of how doing an alternative, doing something above and beyond what as a carrier you're obligated to do, but for the injured employee, a better result for him, a better prosthetic device for the injured employee and ultimately a better success where the injured employee was able to return to full employment and just an overall success story. And probably in the long run I mean we'll know in years but a better result for Berkeley Industrial Comp, because now, instead of paying somebody to be off work for the next who knows how long and having to deal with suboptimal treatment and prosthetics and wound issues and all these other complications that can happen with an amputee. You have a great result, the injured employee is happy, they get a great device, they're able to work and have a meaningful return to life and all of that. And it really highlighted what Steve was trying to do with Shamrock prosthetics down in the Atlanta area and it's not a commercial for Shamrock, but they did a great job and that's kind of the above and beyond experience. And what we're trying to do is insurance carriers and raise the bar and show a better outcome for those injured employees. And sometimes it's, you know, it feels like, oh, you're going to send me to this place because that doctor or that person is going to, you know, say no or suggest something that is going to be easier for you. But this was an example where Julie really went above and beyond, connected with Steve and connected with that injured employee, to get a better result for everybody and, in the long run, a home run really.
Matthew Yehling:And then, like I said, we alluded to already, you know Steve's passing and I got kind of caught up in like Steve's own story when we were interviewing him the first time and then the second time and he could have been a, we could have made it all about him and he was trying to reverse. He said, no, this is not my story, this is how we help this injured employee. But I think it goes back to that how do you create a solution for the injured employee, how do you connect with them, how do you listen, like we said earlier, how are you empathetic? And then like, what's the result? Like we're all trying to aim for the best result and for most cases that best result is we're turning that injured employee back to a functional position.
Matthew Yehling:We want to get you back to where you were before this happened you know you alluded to earlier like you didn't come to work expecting to lose a limb or expecting whatever the injury would have been. So like we want to have a mindset of how do we bring this person whole again, or as whole as they can be. So really an impactful experience, you know, speaking with Steve and Julie and hearing that from their perspective and and it's just a great success story overall. So probably one of my favorite interviews. And then sadly learning afterwards that Steve's no longer with us. It kind of made it impactful from like hey, tomorrow's not guaranteed. What do you do today? To be the best version of yourself, to be the best for other people and to put good things out into the world and just make an impact and make a difference for others.
Greg Hamlin:Love that. Matt and I had the same feeling. He was a credible human being. The good news is Shamrock is living on, so that vision remains, which is impactful, and will be his legacy, along with the people he helped.
Greg Hamlin:And I think sometimes and I say this a lot I think sometimes we get caught up in following the statute, which is important because the statute tells us what we have to do, but then sometimes we don't think about well, the statute doesn't say you can't do more. And if doing more results in a better outcome for everybody involved, why wouldn't we do it? And sometimes we're so focused on the guardrails that we forget that. Okay, we don't have to fly him and his spouse to Atlanta and pay for a hotel room for a week while they go through this process. But if he can return to work, if we can get a better outcome, if he can use a prosthesis that's going to help him live day to day and he has someone who understands what he's going through, then we're winning, everybody's winning. And in that particular state in Illinois, we don't direct care, so he had to agree to all those things, and so gaining cooperation is another really important element that sometimes gets forgotten about that. If we can gain cooperation, we can get a better result, and it's not because we're trying to nickel and dime the injured worker. Our best interest, especially when we're talking about these large losses, is the best treatment up front. I'd rather pay for the best treatment up front and get the best outcome than the next 20 years be stuck with the problems that came because we didn't do it right to start with. I know you see that in your excess line at MEC, so definitely one that I hope people go back and listen to and I'm sure we'll rebroadcast in the future.
Greg Hamlin:From there we went to responsiveness matters, and this has been a passion of mine.
Greg Hamlin:Chris and Luella were on this call or on this episode, and there's nothing that drives me crazier. This is one of my own personal pet peeves is when I have a service issue and I can't get hold of anybody. Sometimes they don't even put a number anymore on the website, so you can't even figure out how do I reach this company to have my service resolved. And then, if you're lucky enough to have a number, you're passed around like a Sunday plate and an hour and a half goes by and you still don't have your problem resolved. So this is something we pushed for extremely hard on the claims side, because I just believe in the fact that your first experience with your carrier is going to determine a lot that happens after that, and if we're irresponsive, that's going to lead to litigation, that's going to lead to all kinds of other horrible things. So Luella leads up the business engagement team we have and Chris leads up our claims team. So I'd love to hear Luella's perspective and Chris's perspective on this episode.
Luella Alcorn:You're so right that more and more you go to a website, you can't find a telephone number. You scroll up, you scroll down, you look to the bottom, you look to the right, you know, and you just cannot find the way. So we don't want that experience for our customers. We want you to know how to reach out to us. Some of that is involved in communication, even before you need that information to try to educate you. But what stood out to me in this episode is that responsiveness matters, and we talked about the different reasons and who that matters to.
Luella Alcorn:We have injured workers, we have policyholders, we have agents, and sometimes that can't wait, and so it's really important that we're answering our phones and giving them, you know, the information that they need. I just had a call this morning. It was a policyholder that wanted to add a state to their policy and they needed to know had it been completed. Yet they need to know that because they were going to then do a job in that state. They can't wait, they need that. So it is very important.
Luella Alcorn:It's always changing for us Another thing where we learn something new as to what we can do to help them in being quick in that responsiveness. But it's also every single time we're building that trust again. It's an opportunity every single time they make that phone call because they could have called a month ago and it was great, but now today needs to be great too, and next month needs to be great. It's every single time that they're reaching out to us we've got to knock it out of the park, and in that episode we did talk about if let's say something does go wrong, let us know. We're going to review what happened, we're going to apologize and we're going to be better the next time for it.
Greg Hamlin:I love that and that accountability really is important Accepting it, owning it, learning from it, getting better from it and I think we've come a tremendous way in five years. We have A distance from where we were. Chris, your thoughts from a claims perspective.
Christ Drake:I think it ties in real nicely with what Luella said. I mean you think consistency, accountability, accessibility, right, and I think if you look at every aspect of the claim, you may not think about this. But you have claims, you have business engagement, you have marketing, you have underwriting. If you have consistency across the board, which we do with every single department, you're building those relationships, you're building that trust. We can start to build programs and work with insureds as we continue to progress. I thought of this the other day. I was going through a phone prompt. Right, it's a novel idea. You pick up the phone, you get somebody on the phone. It's like, how hard is that? But I was going through phone prompts and I had to check myself at the door. My voice was elevating every single time I was going through one of the prompts to where my wife could hear me upstairs.
Luella Alcorn:Representative Right yeah Representative.
Christ Drake:And then I'm trying to think, like, do I put this in chat, gpt, to figure out a different way to say it so they're going to understand it? You don't get that. I mean, it goes a long way. People want to hear another person's voice. You can check tone and I think that goes a long way, especially for it doesn't matter if it's an angel worker, an agent, a policyholder, a physician, an attorney. People just want to be able to relate to somebody and to get their issue resolved, and I think that that definitely resonated with me.
Greg Hamlin:I agree. You know I shared this. I don't know that I've ever shared on a podcast, but when I first moved to Birmingham I needed a new primary care physician because I'm not from here, I don't know anybody, and so I got a reference for a primary care physician who, by the way, was fantastic, absolutely loved the guy. He did an amazing job, but he was part of this enormous practice. It was very difficult to park. I could never get them on the phone to schedule. I'd have to leave a message. They'd call me back. Inevitably.
Greg Hamlin:I'd be on a work call when they would call back and then their billing unit like sometimes the bills didn't get to me and then they wouldn't let me schedule an appointment until I paid my bill. But I had no way to talk to anybody to pay the bill. And I'm like this is ridiculous. And I found a different physician that is near my home that literally every time I've called, someone picks up the phone and every time I've showed up I've been like five to 10 minutes early for my doctor's appointment. I'm seen before my appointment and all my needs are addressed and everything is done in 15 minutes and I'm back and I'm like this is just amazing and she remembers me, she remembers my kids, she remembers my wife and that stood out.
Greg Hamlin:And while that other provider was amazing, the system support system around him made it very challenging for me to have a positive experience and I think we need to think about that from what we do as a business is we can have that fantastic adjuster or that amazing underwriter, but if the support system around them creates negative experiences, it won't matter and we'll lose out on opportunities and on the claim side, we'll drive things to litigation that never needed to go there. Huge props to both of you on that. Chris. We did an episode on mediations and you know, on the claims world we don't see these as much as probably some other lines, but I think there were some valuable takeaways from this, just in negotiation in general. So I know you'd listen to the episode. What stood out to you?
Christ Drake:First and foremost that you took the time to acknowledge King Cake and wanting King Cake and not trying to pull out the baby. So that was one, but no like two things that definitely stuck out to me and I think Alan did a fantastic job. What an amazing podcast. That was one, but no like two things that definitely stuck out to me and I think Alan did a fantastic job. What an amazing podcast. That was Just early intervention and getting in and getting a file mediated has a higher resolution and it does not cost that much.
Christ Drake:That claim is going to continue bleeding out. It's probably a good opportunity to try to go through a mediation to see if we can assess the value and really move that far forward and then also just taking the time to break down the actual potential pitfalls with the mediation and then the overall emotional aspect from an injured worker. They may come in with unrealistic expectations. Their attorney's probably done a really good job just setting the stage with them and just letting them know the actual value. But maybe they don't believe that You're seeing a lot of these nuclear verdicts and social inflation in the GL space and then your personal lines where they may transfer that over to work comp thinking okay, I have a friend that had somewhat of a similar injury.
Christ Drake:They got this much money, I'm going to get the same thing, if not a little more. Inflation's up, so hey, I'm going to get a little more than them. And in reality they don't understand the merits of their claim and they don't understand what they really need. They're just assessing a dollar value to what they think it's worth, but they're not thinking big picture at the end. And then you're breaking down that barrier, that stigma, with insurance, where you see a lot of the commercials, where insurance carriers are there to get the lowest possible settlement and to cheat you out of your money and in reality that's not what happens. We're set to indemnify people. We're looking at their future needs, taking that into account when we're pricing these files and giving a fair and equitable settlement.
Christ Drake:So using these mediators helps them to just also break down the barrier, help them to think through the process, what they actually need, remove the emotions and I think you see really, really good outcomes with that. I wish that we would actually do more mediations across the board because again, you do see a lot of claims go two, three, four years into litigation. It's like we could have stopped all of that, we could have been able to come up with an equitable settlement that would have benefited all parties, that that injured worker could have went on with their life and been financially taken care of for that event. And you had actually called it out in that podcast about the whiteboard. I thought that was interesting, how Allen would have a whiteboard in each one of the mediation rooms to be able to paint the picture so they could see the visual graphic of the process. So I thought that was a tremendous call out.
Greg Hamlin:Yeah, he's a neat guy, he was actually in the area recently and stopped by the office just to say hello, we don't do a ton of business in Louisiana. But he just said why can't more carriers be like you guys? And so that was a nice compliment. But he was trying to understand why some of the other carriers do what they do, because it's frustrating to him when he's trying to mediate it, and so that was an interesting side discussion, but certainly something we can use more of in our industry in particular. From there we went to talking about the RISE professional group. So actually I thought this would be kind of fun.
Greg Hamlin:After the episode we got invited to participate and my calendar just did not work. There was no way for me to get to this Rise thing. I had some personal things going on that filled up my time, and I reached out to Luella and said hey, do you have any interest in doing this? Does it work with your calendar? Because if it does, I would love to actually not only do a podcast about them, but let's go see what they do. And so we sent Luella actually to RISE. So what was your experience? Going to the RISE event, the gala and the training sessions and the whole thing in Florida?
Luella Alcorn:Yeah, it wasn't too hard of a sell because it was in Fort Lauderdale, other than it being in June. Of course it's super hot there, a beautiful setting, beautiful setting for their events there. But in the podcast, amy tells everyone how, if you want to get involved, how to do that, just go to riseprofessionalscom. They have a lot of information there. You can then sign in. But it was a wonderful event.
Luella Alcorn:I didn't know anything about it before the podcast Greg, so I listened to it, learned a lot. Amy Cooper is an amazing person and what she's built is impressive. So what it is is it helps young rising insurance professionals with building their careers. So there's networking opportunities that are there. They want to make sure you're meeting the right people to grow your career. They help you with public speaking and emotional intelligence and they offer mentorship information a mentor and mentee, what it is to be a mentee and what your responsibility is in that right. Some young professionals don't understand what that is and you just think, well, someone's going to come set up the meetings for me and I'm just going to attend and they're going to tell me what to do. No, they have a responsibility in that and they're having them be accountable for their own careers and what that's going to look like. You talk about being humble, vulnerable, resilient, building confidence, etc.
Luella Alcorn:Super impressed with the speakers there. They had someone that was talking about career missteps, because sometimes we do have missteps, right, so you would think that that'd be a taboo topic. She laid it all out there and was telling her experience and basically saying don't do what I did, but what if that is helping them prepare for something that they do experience later on and they know what they can do to pivot from that misstep and take accountability and make progress in the future. I was equally impressed with the level of tenured insurance professionals that showed up. There were sponsorships from insurance organizations, agencies etc. As well as they were giving of their time to come back and say this is what I've learned in my career 20, 25, 30 plus years that may help you on your first steps in the insurance industry. They had an award ceremony and highlighted those that have made huge strides in their early careers and I just think it's fabulous what they built over at Rise.
Greg Hamlin:I would just encourage any of our listeners if you're not involved, if it's the beginning of your career, there's an opportunity to get involved in learning and participating. They do do some virtual trainings. It's not all in person. I know I've taught one on KPIs key performance indicators multiple times and I also know that there are a lot of experienced professionals who are volunteering and doing the mentoring. So if that's you and you have interest in getting involved, this is not an organization that's tied to a carrier.
Greg Hamlin:This is supported by lots of different organizations, lots of different carriers. It's a professional insurance group to help people grow their career and I will say I'm going to share the statistic that you could do some Googling. You could probably find something similar if you search around, but there are some indicators that as many as 70% of claims organizations are seeing turnover in the last 12 months of their staff that 70% of their staff. So imagine trying to run an organization in my shoes. Thank heavens we don't have that problem. We have a pretty awesome culture. We've got the same team we had 12 months ago, which I'm really proud of. But there are so many people entering this industry who need these resources so that they can fill those roles that are open, and so, I think, definitely something for others to think about and maybe for some carriers to think about getting more involved.
Luella Alcorn:Absolutely. They have events all throughout the year, virtually, etc. But then they've already set their dates for the conference next year. So again go to their website and all of that is there.
Greg Hamlin:Awesome. Thank you, Luella. And again, I know both Amy and Katrina, who started it up amazing people, so shout outs to both of them. If you see them at a conference Amy Cooper and I think it's Katrina Gaviato I might have said that wrong but if you see them at a conference, say hello. They're going to welcome you, They'll probably hug you and they're just awesome people. So I'm sure there'll be at the big conferences like WCI and Nationals, so keep your eye open for them. Then, from there, we went to Experience Mods Jeremy and we talked a little bit about that, tried to demystify that. I know we've done a webinar on it. We've done a couple podcasts on it. What were some of your takeaways from that episode?
Jeremy Morrison:Well, I wanted to first say that when Luella talked about forwarding the episode to some folks that reach out asking questions about experience mods, I got a message in LinkedIn from somebody who listened. They said the episode was bussing. That's the first time I've ever heard that.
Luella Alcorn:Talk about young insurance professionals.
Jeremy Morrison:So I had to ask my button man, jacob Starmer, what exactly is that? But it's a good thing. It's a very good thing, I guess. So, anyway, I just wanted to thank you for forwarding that to the folks that are reaching out. So, Greg, as to your question. However, as to your question, yeah, it's good to talk about mods and kind of the mechanisms of the policy and how things are priced. You know the experience. Mod is one component of premium and how a policy gets to be underwritten and ultimately a premium derived. But it is maybe arguably, the aspect of the policy that the insured has the most control over. Usually it represents how strong their safety programs are, and so it does get a lot of attention. Their safety programs are, and so it does get a lot of attention. So that's always good to talk about and try to answer questions, and hopefully some listeners can take a few things away from those conversations.
Greg Hamlin:I love that, Jeremy, and again, we're going to keep using it when people have those questions try to demystify it, so yeah absolutely, and I would just say demystify it.
Jeremy Morrison:So yeah, absolutely, and I would just say I don't have to cut you off there, but I'm sure you'll have our information in the notes on the podcast episode and stuff. But I welcome that. Happy for anybody to call Agent a policyholder. Don't be afraid to ask the underwriters questions. It's totally fine and hopefully we can help answer questions or illuminate some things. So if anybody cares to, please, by all means you can reach out, email, call, linkedin, whatever. Happy to answer questions. I'm by no means an expert, but I've been doing this long enough to have a decent understanding of how the mods are calculated and what factors impact their swings.
Greg Hamlin:I love that, jeremy, and I think you'll find that throughout our entire organization, and same for our other leaders, we really want to have that connection with the people we service service I know that's putting myself out there to have that there, but I also feel like I would rather deal with problems and be available than to deal with the consequences, and I think you'd find that, with everybody on this call, that that's who we are, that's what we do. So I appreciate you, jeremy, especially your always willingness to educate others.
Jeremy Morrison:No problem, and I would agree with what you said there. Availability is the greatest of no problem, and I would agree with what you said there. You know, availability is the greatest of all abilities and I think our company and team is certainly available to all of our stakeholders, whether it's our agents, brokers or our insureds. We want to be as responsive and dynamic as possible and help provide solutions before things become problems.
Greg Hamlin:Thank you, jeremy. Well, I want to thank each of you for your contributions. A lot of people have gone into making Adjusted a successful podcast, and I'm really proud of what we created. It's been five years, nearly almost exactly since we came up with the idea and started outlining it, putting it together. Since we came up with the idea and started outlining it, putting it together, we now, as of today, have 29,126 downloads, which is insane when you think this is a very, very select group of people that we're marketing towards in the workers' comp insurance space.
Greg Hamlin:I'm incredibly proud of that, incredibly proud of the people who've contributed, whether that's the marketing team, the editing team, the guests that we've had, the employees that have supported me as we do this, and we're excited that we're going to continue it. We're kicking off season 10. It'll be this fall, so more to follow, and we hope you will continue to like, share, give us five-star reviews. We want this to get to other other people, so if you can get it out on your social media, it would be helpful. I'm proud of the 29 000, but I sure would love to for it to be 100, and I think that day will eventually come. So, with that, I remind our listeners to do right, think differently and don't forget to care and remember to follow us and, as episodes release every two weeks on Monday, thanks everybody.