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What's going on everyone? Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the Bronx

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Attorney broadcast. I'm your host, Will Forero. On today's episode, we have Matt Patterson.

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Matt is a wholesale insurance broker at CRC Group, and insurance isn't always the most

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fun thing to do on the weekends, update your policy, but it's certainly something that

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you're always going to need, whether it's homeowner's insurance or car insurance, or

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in the instances that we talk about when you're going to open your own business or open your

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own law firm. Matt gives us a nice overview of what you should be on the lookout for when

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you're seeking that insurance policy. What's going on, buddy?

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What's up, man? How are you? Good to see you.

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How are you doing?

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How are you doing?

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How are you doing?

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How are you doing?

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Matt, we're trying out here. We used to do them on Zoom. Now we're going to have a nice

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little background, maybe make the YouTube videos look a little bit more fancy. We'll

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see how that goes.

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Cool. Happy to be the guinea pig.

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We were talking a little bit a couple of weeks ago about what you do and how you could provide

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some good information to people who are some listeners about the insurance industry. Just

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to get started, can you just introduce yourself, tell me a little bit about where you're working

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and what you do there?

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Sure. Yeah. My name is Matt Patterson. I'm the vice president of professional management,

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cyber liability at the Jenkins Town office of CRC Group. CRC is actually, after 2022,

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we are the nation's largest specialty wholesale broker for commercial insurance in the country.

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We are now number one. That's pretty cool. What we do is we are a wholesale brokerage

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for commercial insurance mainly. There is people that do personal insurance too, but

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that's much smaller part of what we do. 99% of what we do is commercial insurance. We

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work in between insurance agents, customer-facing people, consumer-facing people, such as your

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law firm, you go to an insurance agent to find your insurance. Our customer is actually

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that insurance agent. When they can't find specific coverages or maybe they don't have

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the right appointments or contacts at certain underwriting shops, they will come to somebody

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like me. I'm basically a gatekeeper to a much broader scope of insurance markets. They

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send me the submission. I go out and talk to my underwriters, negotiate a quote for

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them, and then bring it back to my client and then advise them on the benefits, maybe

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some exclusions or some issues that might be on the quote and coach a lot of people

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on coverages and how to sell some of the policies that we offer.

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There's a bunch of different types of ways you can work in insurance. You mentioned there's

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like the broker or the wholesaler. What are the other... And then there's actually the

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insurance companies themselves that are offering the policies, right?

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Yeah. There is so much to do in insurance. It's a much bigger industry than people really

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think. A lot of people, they'll just see their state farm agent driving around town and think

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that guy works for a state farm or whatever. All the insurance commercials on TV are really

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all that's out there. You could work in many different facets all the way up the chain

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from an insurance agency and like a captive agent working for state farm, or you could

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be an independent agent and work for an independent agency that has specific contracts that they

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negotiated with other carriers. You could work in many facets in those companies. You

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could work as a wholesaler like us and we have different positions that we work into.

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We have some people that are actual underwriters that have appointments with certain carriers

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to underwrite on their behalf. You have obviously carriers with underwriters and marketing people

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and actuaries and just everybody that's involved in the development of an insurance policy and

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the rates and controlling a loss ratio and selling that product.

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You also have to know that there's even insurance for insurance companies which we call reinsurance

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and they have to abide by those reinsurance treaties that they negotiate on their end.

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Then there's even reinsurance underwriters. There's reinsurance brokers. There's reinsurance

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wholesalers. There's a whole new environment and different landscapes of insurance all over

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the country. It's quite a bit more complex than people might think it is sometimes.

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A lot of the people that I've been talking with are either they're a small business owner

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or they're somebody who has to, within where they're working, they have to build their

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own book of business. Is that a similar type of situation that you're in?

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Me personally, yeah. I'm an independent broker. I've built my own book of business, 100%

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commission type of position where I go out and I market myself. I market what I can

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do. People give me opportunities on pieces of business that they're looking to write

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and I help them write them and we basically share in the wealth essentially. I market

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myself with the backing of obviously the largest independent wholesale broker in the country,

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which helps obviously when you knock on somebody's door or give them a call or shoot them an

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email and say, I work for CRC. It helps with the brand recognition, but realistically,

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I am my own little business essentially. I am the product.

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How have you gone about building your book of business?

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You just got to be persistent. I guess the best word would be persistent, that how I

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went about building a book because you don't get an opportunity on the first time you talk

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to everybody. If you talk to one person and they gave you their best piece of business

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the first time you ever spoke with them, this would be really easy and everybody would be

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pretty rich. It's approaching it with a positive mindset and just being more and more persistent

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about it. There's an old sales saying, not that my position is really sales based, it's

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really more of an advisory position to be honest, but it takes six to 11 touches on a

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perspective sale for them to agree to it. I would have to potentially contact somebody

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six to 11 times before they send me one piece of business, which is somewhat accurate. Obviously,

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a lot of the times when I first started doing it, CRC has agency partners that we partner

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with, certain agency clusters that we partner with. You approach those clusters first and

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you try and take your easiest shots and find some of the easier business you can find.

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Then it's just being persistent and staying on top of it and doing it constantly. What

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I've learned is when you get lazy on your marketing, your business tends to suffer on

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the back end. You could be super busy for two months and you're like, oh man, I'm killing

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it. I'm having a great first quarter and then March comes around and the birds are chirping

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and you're like, oh man, how am I going to hit my numbers this month? That's because

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you didn't spend enough time in January, February marketing and getting the message

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out there. Just being persistent, being consistent and not letting it wear you down. Having that

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positive attitude. When you're marketing, are you more so maintaining relationships

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or you're trying to make new sales so that eventually you'll be able to be doing that

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business in the next quarter or what? It's a mix. It depends on the client. This is

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something that we're actually trying to in our office especially trying to focus a lot

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more on 2023 is figuring out what our clients need. There's some clients that want to see

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us all the time and they want to hit the lunches and do the dinners and grab a drink at a happy

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hour after work and talk shop and get to know you. Then there's other clients that don't

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ever want to see you. They'd rather you answer the email they sent you or pick up the phone

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when they call you right away than they don't care about the dinners. They just want to

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write business. They want to be there for their clients. It's identifying who needs

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what and then spending the time on the clients that need the attention and like to do that

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type of stuff and then also mixing in meetings on the new business side. It's finding a

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balance really of who needs the the attention in the dinners who doesn't and then getting

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in new opportunities as much as you can really. Apparently you're pretty good at that right

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because didn't you just win an award or something like that? I saw you post something.

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In our industry when you hit a million dollars in revenue which I eclipsed in 2022 for the

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first time it's kind of a big deal for an individual broker which basically means a million dollars

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in revenue typically equates around ten million dollars in premium. So I wrote about ten million

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dollars in premium last year and I grew my independent book 53% over my previous years

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revenue. So they did recognize me. It was a good accomplishment great accomplishment

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for my team and myself. So you could say I'm decent at it. I got a lot to learn and a lot

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to grow and hopefully 2023 I can grow it even further and keep attacking the business.

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And you have people that are working like for you on your on your team or how does like

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the you know are you hiring people to work for you or you know what is that like?

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I do you know I do I have two assistants right now. One we she just started in January so

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she's fresh out of school and still learning you know what a wholesaler does how we operate.

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My other assistant's been with me for a little over a year so he's starting to dig into a

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little bit more of the account management stuff really digging into policy forms and

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how marketing and negotiating a deal goes into play for our job. But yeah you know they

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do assist me. They send out a lot of the quotes they send out the binders they you know set

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up renewals just a lot of the administrative work that would simply bog me down and not

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allow me to be in front of my clients and market their deals and negotiate their deals

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efficiently. So you know CRC does give us the ability to build teams and you know at

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least our idea in our office is to build you know the new hires up into potential brokers

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in however long it takes right. So we have a long term focus on building producers and

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that's what we like to do. Sure other offices might have different approaches but anybody

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that we hire we have a long term goal of hopefully if they want to they don't have to but being

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a broker themselves.

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This episode of the Bronx attorney broadcast was brought to you by me will Ferro. I'm an

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attorney at prior law in the Bronx. We primarily practice personal injury law but we can help

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you with just about any legal issue that you may have and if it's not something that we

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can personally help you with we can connect you with an expert in that area of law. You

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can find me online on Twitter Instagram LinkedIn Facebook YouTube my handle is typically at

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Bronx attorney and if you can't find me on one of those social media pages you can email

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me ferro at prior law dot com or call me at the office 718-829-0222 and now back to the

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show.

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You know a lot of the people that I've been talking with for the purposes of the podcast

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they have either a small business or a small law firm and you know they might just pick

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up the phone and call the first you know person that pops up about insurance and they say

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hey I need insurance for my business and they just get whatever. So if you want to be a

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little bit more diligent about you know getting the right insurance for your small business

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or for your law firm what should people be looking for when they're trying to find insurance?

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You know that's really on a client per client basis and you know insurance is one of those

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things where it can either be required by a contract or you know it's really what you're

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able and willing to pay for because you really do get what you pay for in insurance. So you

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know if you were starting a business you know I would highly recommend consulting with you

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know an experienced insurance agent to do a risk management review of what you really

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need but most people are going to tell you that you obviously need a general liability

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policy if you have people that are coming into your office or even employees in your

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office or just an office in general you definitely need general liability and most likely some

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property coverage. And then on top of that again it depends on what you're doing you

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know like a law firm obviously with a law firm you need errors and emissions coverage

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that's basically requirement for that type of service if you're rendering a professional

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service. Right and that's like if I commit malpractice

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and a client sues me saying that I messed up their case my errors and emissions policy

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will cover that. Potentially yes so you know there's obviously

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language within each individual policy form that would respond to an allegation. Now depending

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on which policy you buy there could be different terminology within that policy that you know

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the insured obviously needs to read and understand so when they are submitting a claim to their

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carrier they can be confident whether or not there would be a coverage trigger within the

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allegation. So you know highly recommend reading your insurance policies and if you don't understand

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them I would highly recommend consulting with your chosen agent to explain it to you to

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a point where you understand because it's very important to understand what you are

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and what you are not covered for and what can and could not potentially trigger a policy.

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Interesting so how do you go about reading an insurance policy is there anything that

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you you know recommend people like specifically look for or you know that people need to be

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looking out for. Well you know if you're looking to take a nap that is definitely one thing

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to do. No you know you can you can find certain interests in insurance policies for sure.

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Now it depends again on what we're looking at now if you wanted to speak specifically

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to you know a law firm and an E&O policy there is some specific areas where they should pay

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attention to and just make sure again they speak with their agent and they understand

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what their policy is saying because in the professional E&O realm a lot of these policies

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have different wording and terminology so it can be confusing. It's not your standard

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general liability policies which are generally the same. A lot of these E&O policies will

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vary depending on who the carrier is and what their appetite is and what their intent coverage

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is but one thing that they really should look at and make sure that they fully understand

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is whether or not the policy is occurrence based or if it's claims made based. So those

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two things are very different and they're very important for your notice to your carrier

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for a claim so if it's an occurrence based policy that would mean that the trigger is

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when the occurrence happens. So if something happened today you know you slipped and fell

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today right on a geo policy and you submit that to an insurance carrier the policy that

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was in effect at the time of the occurrence is the one that would potentially pay out

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that claim. Okay. When it claims made policy the policy that's an effect at the time the

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claim is made is the policy that would potentially trigger to any allegation made in the lawsuit.

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So if you render a service to one of your clients and two years later they say that

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you caused them a financial loss due to an error in the mission and you're rendering

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of a professional service as an attorney. The policy that is in effect at the time the

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claim is made against you is the policy that would then potentially trigger for the allegation.

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So that's very important especially if you do have an E&O policy and it is claims made

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you need to keep that policy in effect year over year because you can't just buy it for

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one year and then expect all your services that you rendered in that year to be covered

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forever because once you let that expire there's no more coverage unless there's a policy in

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effect at the time the claim is made. So that's extremely important for people to understand

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and when they're speaking to their agent and reading their policy they should really look

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into that and make sure they are fully in understanding of whether it's an occurrence

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based or if it's a claims made policy. So if it's like a claims made policy and you

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retire you got to keep your policy going right so that if somebody makes a claim you're covered.

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No you don't. There's an option in an E&O policy it's called an extended reporting period.

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Now depending on if you were to retire or just non renew you wanted to shut down the

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law firm you know we're going out of business. Maybe you get purchased by a larger firm that

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then would give you insurance through their policy. You have the option if you were to

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non renew your policy to extend your reporting period for a certain amount of time depending

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on the policy some carriers only offer 12 months of extended reporting period some carriers

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with underwriter approval will offer up to six years and I've even heard of certain carriers

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offering unlimited ERPs. I'm not super familiar with that but I've certainly heard some of

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my agents say that they were able to acquire them from some of their carriers but if you

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were to end an E&O policy at any point in time non renew it for whatever reason I would

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highly recommend you consider an extended reporting period just to make sure if a claim

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were to be made against you after the end of that policy there's still potential that

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you would have some coverage and at least you know you get it into the carrier and see

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if there's any option there for you to get some coverage.

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Got it and so your clients are like the insurance brokers right?

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Yeah so broker is basically a very a term insurance broker yeah it's broad so I'm a

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broker you know all the insurance agents are brokers okay so the more like consumer facing

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agents or brokers are the people who become your clients essentially.

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Yes my clients are insurance agents yes.

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And so like how do you knowing that how do you tailor your services to make sure that

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you're serving your ideal client in the best possible way?

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Well in insurance and what we do probably the number one most important thing is responsiveness

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and accuracy.

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Being responsive for somebody and making sure that their questions get answered in a timely

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manner is extremely important in anything you do and especially insurance because sometimes

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there can be things that take a long time and you know just having that response to

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say listen I've received this I'm on it I'm figuring it out for you and that's really

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the number one thing that people are looking for a lot of the times in addition to some

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expertise in certain areas but responsiveness and just being able to trust you know your

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broker or your underwriter or whoever it may be that you know they're doing the right thing

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for you and they're working hard that's really what people are looking for.

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Are there a lot of wholesalers out there do you have a lot of competition with you know

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trying to pick up clients?

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Yeah I mean there is a lot of competition in the space I mean insurance has to be one

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of the most competitive marketplaces and industries out there.

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There's 5100 employees in CRC alone so there's tons of brokers in CRC.

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The big top 3 commercial wholesale brokers really in the United States are CRC, ANWIMS

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and RT, RT Specialty.

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Those are the biggest ones and now there's a ton, a ton of smaller shops.

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Under there's big corporations but yeah there's just and there's tens of thousands of retail

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agencies out there and there is just so much competition in insurance and so much opportunity

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really I should say because there's just a lot of availability and opportunity and you

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know that's why you got to stay in front and be consistent and persistent with your clients

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to get opportunities.

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So like when you say persistent like what are you doing to be persistent with trying

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to get the business?

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I guess just you know like I said before taking that 6 to 11 opportunities to try and get

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some business out of somebody before you give up.

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I mean again you never know when somebody has a change in I'm trying to think of the

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right word not like change of heart but maybe a redirection in their business strategy on

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the retail side to give you an opportunity.

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So your best ability is availability and insurance to be honest so being there and available

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and just kind of you know even if you don't get a lot of business right off the bat just

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keeping persistent and not giving up on a prospective client right away is really what

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I mean you know it's a marathon it's not a sprint so you're really trying to build a

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long term relationship over the course of many years instead of expecting a lot right

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away.

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It's just building that relationship and that trust over a very long period of time.

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Are most of the policies yearly policies or do they fluctuate in length?

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So yeah I mean 99% of the time we're writing an annual policy for 12 months you know we

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can short term certain things or long term certain things if they need to.

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You know a lot of the times you'll write something in the middle you know in June when somebody

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already has all their GL and their workers comp and their property and their employee

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benefits it's all 1-1 so you might extend that long term for you know an 18 month policy

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so it renews on 1-1 with the rest of their deals.

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It makes it easier for budgeting and just so you know the insurance agent doesn't have

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to go back to them and do another presentation in the middle of the year after they did 1-1

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just keeping out of the client's care and just making things easier for everybody but

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yeah 99% of the time it's annualized premiums.

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Do the consumer facing agents shop the insurance policies on like a yearly basis?

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That's up to them and their marketing strategy.

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We typically look at the market and what we expect on the wholesale side now you know

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can I say do I know if my clients are shopping my policies every term?

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I have no idea.

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You know I don't lose a lot of them so even if they are shopping them you know it seems

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to go.

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You're doing pretty well.

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Right sure but that's totally up to them.

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They have the right and you know the ability to do that with their direct markets if they

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so pleased but again that all goes back to the relationship you might have built with

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them and the trust that they have in you as a broker.

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Yeah a lot of it has to do with the market too.

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Yeah I really don't know much about and not too much about insurance policies and writing

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them.

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I typically get involved when somebody tells me they're not going to give my client the

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money that we think that they deserve so this has been an informative discussion about

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how it gets started.

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Yeah it is a for profit business in the end of the day so they got a perfect order.

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You know what if they rolled over all the time maybe I wouldn't have a job so you know.

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If they rolled over all the time there wouldn't be insurance companies out there to take claims

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they'd probably all just close the doors.

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That's true too.

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So you did a million dollars in revenue last year.

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Do you have any goals for this year or the upcoming five or ten years that you're thinking

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about?

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No just right now focusing on 2023.

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Backwards isn't in my DNA so we're looking to grow.

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We're looking to attack the market in specific areas that we think we can be of assistance

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to our clients.

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Looking to get out back in front of my clients and do the lunch tours and start helping people

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out again.

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We do have lofty goals again this year.

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Double digit growth goals.

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So again we're looking to be aggressive in five years.

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Man I'm probably going to be a lot grayer for sure.

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I don't know if that's a goal though Matt.

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Well you know if I'm a lot grayer that means I wrote a lot of business.

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That certainly could be a goal for me.

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But you know in five years just still sticking around still being able to produce that same

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high quality service to my clients and still have a good solid strong reputation in the

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industry and just keep helping people.

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It's really what the goal is.

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Is there any like any secret weapons that you have for making a sale?

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Is there any like special lunch spots or anything like that that you whip out when you really

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got to make the sale?

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Yeah you know I'm not really like I'm not making a sale to be totally honest with you.

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You know my clients are the ones that are the customer facing individuals and I just

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provide the tools and the ammunition to assist them in providing the service that they need

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to provide.

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But you know it's not a secret.

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This industry is not a secret.

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It's just being consistent in providing a high quality service to your clients and that's

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really all you need to do.

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Now that gets more and more difficult the longer you do this and you know the more business

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you write it gets more and more difficult the more volume you have.

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But building a team that has that same similar mindset of providing the absolute best service

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and response time and accuracy you can is really the best advice I could give anybody.

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If that's a secret you know then that's the secret.

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I don't think it's much of a secret but that's really what the whole goal is in our whole

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industry.

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Yeah.

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You have any plans on growing your team at all?

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Well that just depends on how big we can build the book.

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So you know as you need additional people as the book gets bigger you need some more

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help.

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And you know we look at that as the years go on.

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So you know you look back at what you did and what you're projecting for the next year

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and you kind of take that one step at a time.

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We're always looking for new talent in the insurance industry.

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I would highly recommend any younger people out there that might catch this that might

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still be in college to look into you know if your school is offering a risk management

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program to look into it.

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It's a lot more interesting than what it seems you know it seems dry and dusty and what old

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people do but I can tell you right now that the average age for an insurance agent in

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the country is 65 years old.

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No way.

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And the average age yeah it's a very old industry and the average age for an insurance

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broker for what I do is 55.

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So within the next decade there's going to be a serious turnover in the insurance industry

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to the younger generation and we're certainly looking for young hungry talent that wants

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to get involved and there's a lot of really smart kids out there that are spending way

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too much time on TikTok.

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You know I did take an insurance law class in law school but those cases were about like

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like the surgeon that had the policy and then he you know chops his thumb off on purpose

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with the hatchet in the state house you know.

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I think we call that fraud.

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It's certainly fraud yeah that's what the case law said.

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He did not get covered by the insurance.

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There you go that's funny that's funny.

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So you got any more nuggets of insurance wisdom before we wrap up today?

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Not off the top of my head.

356
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I mean again the most important thing for somebody in a buying position is to make sure

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you fully understand the language.

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These policies are written by lawyers so if you're a business owner and you're going to

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spend a lot of money on insurance policy it might not even be a bad idea to contact your

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local attorney to just make sure that you understand what it's saying because you know

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you don't have to be an attorney to sell insurance and sometimes it's better to get a second

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opinion before you purchase something to again make sure that you're fully fully aware of

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what you're buying.

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Got it got it yeah and then you know for in my opinion what I think people should do is

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when they when they ask their agency to get something make sure you specifically put in

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writing what you want that way you know if there's any mistakes you got your you got

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your butt covered a little bit.

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Yeah you know you're going to find it hard pressed to get a lot of insurance people to

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put you know claims and everything in writing because you know every claim is very different

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and it's subject to the review of a claims professional at the insurance carrier.

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You know best we can do is provide the intent and at least our opinion on what the language

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intends to mean so that's about as far as you're going to get an insurance person to

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tell you.

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Alright so you know do you if an agent's trying to shop some policies and they want to reach

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out to somebody on the wholesaler side how do they find you.

376
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Yeah so if you're an insurance agent and you're looking to do business with CRC Group specifically

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00:31:53,280 --> 00:32:01,280
me you can you can get me at my email it's just matt Patterson at CRCgroup.com and you

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can find my LinkedIn too you know my name on there is Matthew Patterson there's probably

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a lot of them but I'm in the Philadelphia area so you can find me that way as well.

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Got it nice talking you buddy till next time.

381
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Yeah you too man.

382
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Yeah good luck with everything.

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Later.

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Thank you for listening to this episode of the Bronx Attorney Broadcast please like,

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00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:27,680
review and subscribe so we can help the channel continue to grow and if you're interested in

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00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:31,880
connecting with any of the guests please let me know and I'd be happy to make the introduction.