September 10, 2023 • 47 mins
Ever pondered the true essence of insurance? Is it simply a protective shield or could there be more to it? We took a deep dive into this question with our guest, Ryan Hanley, the brains behind Rogue Risk. Ryan, who has worked extensively with small and medium-sized businesses, shared some hard truths about how these businesses are often shortchanged by insurance professionals. We confronted these challenges head-on as he guided us through the intricacies of an often misunderstood industry.
Insurance, as Ryan explained, isn't just about shielding your business; it's about ensuring its longevity. He highlighted how going direct could be a slippery slope leading to potential liabilities. But fear not, as he illuminated the crucial role of insurance brokers, who can be your guiding light in this complex maze. A profound discourse on understanding the value proposition of insurance providers followed, making it easier for you to make an informed decision and select a provider who truly meets your needs.
As we wrapped up, Ryan stressed on the importance of looking beyond the superficial ‘nice’ factor when choosing an insurance provider. He urged listeners to focus on reliability and trustworthiness, virtues that can make or break your business in its hour of need. Remember, insurance isn’t just about protection, but sustainability. So tune in, join us on this enlightening journey, and discover how to make smart insurance choices that will not just protect but also propel your business forward.
Ryan Hanley's Information:
www.roguerisk.com
www.ryanhanley.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dustin Steffey (00:00):
Chopping with fire is back.
I am so sorry.
I have missed you guys so verymuch.
It has been a hectic summerwith some unforeseen events that
have happened, but I am glad tobe back and excited To give you
guys some good content andepisodes.
(00:22):
So, without further ado, let'schop it up.
More content to come.
(00:49):
Thanks for watching.
I hope you enjoyed it.
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Over 100,000 downloads andcounting support from four major
(01:13):
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Also accolade that includes the2022 nomination for the
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You are listening to yournumber one podcast that
(01:36):
discusses relevant topics thatinclude entrepreneurship, self
development, smart investing andbusiness and current events
hosted by creator, influencerand founder Dustin Steffi.
You are tuned into choppingwith fire.
Let's chop it up.
(01:59):
I have Ryan Hanley on right now.
Ryan, how are you?
Ryan Hanley (02:19):
Dustin, it's great to be here.
Man Appreciate being on theshow and happy to share with the
audience.
Dustin Steffey (02:24):
I appreciate you coming on.
We have an important topictoday, huh.
Ryan Hanley (02:28):
Well, it depends how you define important, but
yes, I'd like to think so.
Dustin Steffey (02:34):
I mean I'd like to think so too.
I mean, younger me wouldn'thave thought so.
It would have.
It would have not been asimportant.
But as I start to learn alittle bit more and understand,
I think it's super relevant forbusiness owners.
I think today will be funbecause education is key for
success, especially in this dayand age, so I'm excited.
Ryan Hanley (02:56):
Yeah, well, that makes one of us.
Even though I've done insurancefor 20 years, it doesn't
necessarily bring excitement tomy life, but I do think it's
incredibly important and happyto answer any and all the
questions you have about it.
And we can, you know, we candig into the, into the kind of
real deal behind it.
I know a lot of my peers andother people who go on shows and
(03:16):
talk about insurance.
They tend to I don't know,they're very dry and they tend
to be very corporate andprofessional, and I'm happy to
any of the, any of the dirtylittle secrets that you want to
know.
I'm happy to answer thembecause I have to buy this stuff
too and I have to look mycustomers in the face.
So I try to be very honest withthem.
(03:40):
So you fire away and we'll getdown into the nitty gritty.
Dustin Steffey (03:43):
Well, you're far from dry, that's for sure.
And to reinforce that, let'sjust dive into you.
Let's get to know you a littlebit.
We obviously don't know you aswell as we want to, so let's,
let's fix that right now.
Ryan Hanley (03:58):
Yeah, so the 15 cent tour here is.
I'm the founder and CEO ofRogue risk.
We are a national commercialinsurance agency so we do
business, for we are.
Basically the mantra of ourbusiness was to take the level
of service, the access tocarriers, markets, products that
are available to enterpriselevel businesses think the
fortune 500 to fortune 1000 andbring them down to small
(04:22):
businesses and middle marketbusinesses, which are often
treated like garbage byinsurance professionals.
And we can get into the what,the economics of that and why
that happens.
And while they'll tell you youknow a lot of my peers will tell
you all day that they careabout you, they are trying to
touch your account once andnever speak to you again because
the economics are very poor inour industry when it comes to
small business.
We'll get into that.
(04:43):
So that was kind of the corewas.
I saw this.
I saw some businesses, theselarge enterprise businesses,
getting this white glovestreatment, this access to
products that were allowing themto sustain their business
through tough times.
And that's really the key,dustin, that so many people you
know.
People talk about protection.
Right, everyone says insuranceis about protection.
Look, I'm not standing out infront of your business and
(05:03):
stopping a tree from hitting it,or you know a flood, or you
know protecting your businessfrom a riot.
Like none of that stuff ishappening, Like I'm not standing
out there.
I'm not protecting yourbusiness.
What I am providing and theproduct and the way that I think
insurance is misunderstood andmisclassified as the idea of
sustainability.
Do you want your business tocontinue through its worst day?
Right, we have people, we havethese entrepreneurs, we have
(05:26):
small business owners and they,they give their heart and soul
and they clear out their bankaccount and they start these
businesses.
And it's amazing, and they, andthen they want to act like
Billy badass or Bonnie badass ifwe're being politically correct
and and and then they, they actlike they're not going to
purchase the product that'llallow them to sustain their
worst day.
That tree does hit yourbuilding.
(05:48):
You do have a fire.
Someone walks in and slips andfalls in your business and sues
you for a million dollars.
And you own a bookstore.
How are you going to pay thatclaim?
How are you going to pay thatclaim?
You know what they're going todo.
They're going to come at yourhouse.
They're like oh, I have an LLC.
Yeah, look into the legal codein your state and understand
what really happens when thesethings.
Your business is gone, all themoney you put into it, all the
blood, sweat and tears it's gone.
(06:10):
One day Someone comes in, dropsa coffee, slips and breaks a
hip and they sue you becausethey can't work.
Your business is toast.
I don't care what you think, oh, I'll file for bankruptcy.
That does not work.
That is all the nonsense stuffthat people talk about it at
whatever little function they'reat or when they're sitting
around a campfire at the bar.
(06:30):
That is nonsense.
Here's what really happensSomeone slips and falls and sues
you.
Your business is toast unlessyou have insurance.
Now you don't need to have everyinsurance product that exists
in the world.
You need to have a proper, wellset up portfolio that doesn't
have to be expensive.
Right, it doesn't have to beexpensive.
There are incredibly costeffective options in the market.
(06:51):
You just need access to them,and that's what I wanted to do.
So that was the brainchild ofwhere this all came from.
Now, just quickly going back tohow I got there.
I started in the business 20years ago.
I started as a boots on theground producer, which I was
literally walking strip plazas,putting 50,000 miles on my car
like a door to door salesmanjust for businesses.
That's how I cut my teeth andhow I got into the business was
(07:12):
I wanted to marry this woman andher dad owned an insurance
agency and me becoming aproducer for him was kind of
like the dowry for her hand inmarriage, I guess you could say.
I think he just didn't want hisfuture son in law to be a bum.
Unfortunately she's not myex-wife, but it was great at the
time and for eight years Iworked for her family agency and
I got to know the traditionalside of the business really,
(07:34):
really well, like the, the, thecarrying the community, the
compassion, the.
Really you know you have tolook your people in the face.
You walk into their businessesevery day.
That side of the business.
I got to know that very well,unfortunately because I was a.
You know, even though I was ason in law, I wasn't really part
of the family.
There wasn't really a place forme there long term.
So I became a chief marketingofficer for a national insurance
(07:58):
technology company.
I've been an executive and nowfour different national
insurance organizations and I,you know, had wins and losses
and all those essentially fired.
From all of them, I've come tofind out I'm not a great
employee, and that reallyspurred me to start rogue.
I started rogue on March 9th of2020, seven days before the
(08:22):
zombie apocalypse hit the world.
Not a great day to launch acommercial insurance agency,
since every business and everycustomer I had shut down, but
what it forced us to do waslearn how to deliver value at
scale in an efficient and costeffective way, and and and.
While it was painful and itstill is to a certain extent
today because we're really justa three and a half year old
(08:43):
business we now have 25 people,we write business in 44 states,
we have thousands of clients andwe are continuing to grow, and
that's that's really the journeythat I'm on.
In that time, I've done over350 paid speaking engagements
and workshops around the country, teaching sales and digital
scalability and leadership.
(09:04):
You know more of it.
More tends today to be moreleadership oriented.
You know that kind of stuff.
But I wrote a book 2015.
Good, not great, and that'skind of me.
In a nutshell, my man.
Dustin Steffey (09:20):
So that's a lot to unpackage, considering you've
had a pretty, pretty crazyjourney.
So I know you didn't wake upone day and say I want to be an
insurance.
We already kind of learned thesecret of what happened there.
Ryan Hanley (09:33):
You followed a girl , kind of like some of us do,
and yeah, yeah, it just happensright, Like most of the
decisions that guys make intheir twenties.
We are following a female.
Yeah.
Dustin Steffey (09:43):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
I mean hell.
They're guys that are in theirthirties, forties that are still
following a female.
So, uh, enough said there.
Uh, there was a lot of goodthings there that I heard, and
one.
One of the positives is roguesurvived the zombie apocalypse,
right.
So rogue survived, survivedCOVID.
(10:04):
Yes, and probably not ideal toopen a business seven days
before COVID uh hit, but yousurvived.
You learned a few things.
You probably had some time, Iwould imagine, to learn how to
perfect your product to andperfect how you deliver.
And here we are.
So that that's some positiveright there.
(10:25):
I, I think anyway, um, Istarted chopping in the middle
of COVID, so I, I understand howeverything works with that.
Uh, one of the big questions Ihave and we've had, we've had
one insurance person on before,that is, in a world where you
(10:47):
have so many options becauseeverybody likes options,
everybody likes instantgratification why would a
business pick you guys?
Ryan Hanley (10:58):
Yeah.
So I'm going to break down thatin a couple of different ways.
First, I'm going to break downgoing direct versus working with
an agent, cause that is oftenthe first question that I get
from people who think thatthey're smarter than they really
are.
So you know a lot of people whogo direct.
I find them to be Uh, theythink they're being smart by
going direct, they think they'resaving money.
So going direct would meanyou're going straight to the
(11:19):
insurance company, so you're notworking with an agent, you're
going to someone uh progressive.
Next good example Hiscox.
If anyone's heard of any ofthese companies, these are
companies that you can log on totheir website.
You can fill out a bunch ofquestions, get a quote and buy a
policy for them direct.
That's great.
Uh, I'm I'm glad that optionexists.
(11:40):
Um, unfortunately, what peopledon't understand is they're
taking all the liability on themthemselves.
So I have to carry errors andomissions coverage because I'm a
professional.
I'm a licensed professional in50 States.
So what that means is, if youhave let's say you have a
question about the insurancearound this podcast, right, you
come in here and you saysomething to fam, uh deflamatory
(12:00):
, and one of your competitorssay, a competitive podcast or a
competitor in another aspect ofyour life or another company
hears you say that and they sueyou for defamation.
Okay, if you've purchased thatpolicy and that policy does not
have defamation coverage, theinsurance, it's not the
insurance company's fault, it'syour fault, right?
(12:21):
Everyone wants to blame theinsurance companies.
Insurance companies are verystraightforward and what they'll
cover and what they won't.
Again, there is a lot ofnonsense talk because people
don't like to takeresponsibility for their actions
, right?
So they purchase something.
They don't read into it at all,they just go, I have insurance
and they pound the table andthey walk away.
They don't look at the policy,they don't ask any questions and
then, um, they think they'recovered and that's just simply
(12:44):
not how it works.
This is a contract Like you'rebuying a house.
This is a contract Like you'redoing a business deal.
This is a contract likeanything else.
No one wants to think about itthat way.
They want to think like they'rebuying a t-shirt, but you're
not.
You are entering into an, acontract in which the other side
spells out exactly what iscovered and what is not.
Now, it's weird language.
(13:05):
I'm not going to say that.
They write them in the most,the most intriguing way or in
the most straightforward way.
But if you go direct, whatyou're saying is me, the
business owner, the purchaser ofthis policy, is wholly
responsible for the decision onwhat I purchased.
You don't realize it becausemost people don't look into it,
but that's what you're saying.
Now, when you work with an agentor a broker one, there is only
(13:28):
a few small scenarios whereyou're actually paying less and
oftentimes, um, you are actuallypaying more when you go direct
because you know how companieslike progressive and some of
these others get you to comedirect.
They spend bazillions ofdollars on marketing.
I mean bazillions.
It's crazy.
Like the amount of money theyspend is insane and even the
(13:50):
reported amounts sometimes areunder reported because they're
trying to, you know, make theirfinancial sheets.
So they package it intoco-opting dollars and all these
other buckets of expense to getyou to come in.
So you're not actually payingless.
But the bigger problem again, ifwe're going back to
sustainability of your business,if you care about your business
(14:11):
surviving its worst day, andyou go direct, what you're doing
is taking all thatresponsibility on yourself.
So when you work with an agentor broker, that agent or broker
is basically taking on theliability between the decision,
between what is purchased andthe customer.
Now there are some scenarioswhere if the customer does
certain things or misrepresentthings themselves, et cetera,
(14:34):
where the customer can still getin trouble.
But if you're being honest withyour agent or broker and that
agent or broker then choosesfrom a portfolio of carriers and
comes back and says, hey, look,if you're a podcast, media
liability coverage is probablythe most important coverage you
could possibly have because itcovers defamation, it covers
copyright infringements, ipinfringements, et cetera.
(14:55):
If you don't have this coverage, then the most important risk
you have is actually not covered.
Then you might not know thatright, and let's say I don't
offer that coverage to you.
You can come back to me and say, hey, the most important
coverage across the board forevery podcast in the world is
media liability coverage, andyou, mr Agent, did not offer it
to me or even educate me thatthat existed.
(15:17):
It's your fault.
And then that comes back on myerrors and omissions coverage
because I didn't do my job as alicensed professional.
Again, think sustainability.
You're not smart for goingdirect unless you are perfectly
willing and make the mentaltradeoff in your head that
you're okay taking on all theresponsibility for the decision.
Everybody wants to blame theinsurance company.
(15:38):
It's not their fault, guys.
I would love to blame them, andI'm not saying they're the
easiest people to deal with, butit's not their fault.
They have a very specificcontract that they hand to you
that you can read through andsays exactly what is covered and
what is not.
If you choose not to read that,that's your fault.
That's not their fault, right?
If I chose not to read it, as alicensed professional, that
(15:58):
would be my fault.
And that's where thatintermediary plays a big role.
Okay, so you can obviously dowhatever you want.
It's America.
But I highly advocate that youat least understand the decision
to go direct or not.
You can still go direct, that'sperfectly fine.
Plenty of people do, but mostpeople do it naively, and I
(16:19):
would just like those of you wholisten to this show to make
that decision as a cost benefitanalysis, for whatever reason,
okay, okay, so how do you choosean agency Number one and this
is going to sound cliche, Idon't mean it to be, but it's
absolutely the truth.
You have to trust the personthat you're doing business with.
You have to trust the personthat you're doing business with.
(16:41):
If you don't trust them, findsomeone else.
There are 35 to, depending onhow you report, 41,000 insurance
agencies in the United States.
There are over 300,000insurance professionals that you
could choose from, and thoseare kind of rough and
conservative numbers.
There are tons of options,right?
Rogue is one of those options,but we're one of, like I said,
(17:03):
we'll call it, 40,000 options.
So you have to trust the personyou're working with.
How do you trust them?
Ask them questions, right.
Have you ever insured abusiness like mine before?
What are the most common causesof loss that you see in a
business like mine?
What's the most common coveragethat my peers don't purchase
(17:25):
that you think I should purchase?
How do you ensure that, overtime, my insurance premiums
don't just go up consistentlyevery year without ever being
rechecked or re-quoted?
These are some questions thatyou can ask that person and
listen to their answers.
If their answers sound like BS,find someone else.
(17:46):
If they're just trying to blowthrough the transaction, find
someone else.
Maybe ask a friend for areferral.
Read some online reviews.
But you got to trust the personbecause there is, at a certain
point, despite the fact that Ihave errors in omissions
coverage.
If I make a major mistake.
Your business could still bedecimated If I make a mistake.
(18:09):
You still don't want that tohappen.
You want me to be able to do agood job.
I think how long you've been inthe business is a good question
, although I will say, with theright support structure and we
do tend to be a business thathires new people because we have
a training process we have someproducers that have started
that are unlicensed and they'vegone through our six-month
(18:31):
training process and then theydo six months of shadowing and
now they're producers out on thefloor doing incredible job for
people.
We listen to phone calls and wereview their coverage stuff.
I don't necessarily know thatnew in the business would be
number one for me.
Some people are like, well,he's been in the business for 20
years or she's been in thebusiness for 20 years, so
they're better.
That's not necessarily the case.
(18:51):
Sometimes that young hungryproducer, young hungry insurance
salesperson is going to do abetter job for you because
they're going to be able to giveyou more time.
There's no hard and fast rulesthere and I've been around.
Like I've said, I've been inthe business for 20 years, so
I've seen all different shapesand sizes.
(19:12):
Ask them some of thosequestions that I gave you,
listen to their answers and thensee how you feel about their
responses.
If you don't like the way theyrespond, find someone else,
because there's plenty.
Dustin Steffey (19:27):
We learn quite a bit here.
We learn, first and foremost,that if you're an insurance
agent, you guys have your owninsurance that you're carrying.
If you're not direct, thathelps to protect you, obviously,
if you make a mistake, but alsoit's good to know for
(19:49):
businesses that are trying toget insurance.
So there's a protection there,there's a layer there.
Ryan Hanley (19:57):
Dustin, everyone's heard of malpractice insurance
that doctors have.
It's the exact same thing.
Accountants have accountants,e&o accountants, errors and
omissions insurance Lawyers havelawyers, legal We've heard of
some of these things.
Insurance agents have the sameexact thing.
Dustin Steffey (20:16):
So that might be a question that asked you in
the steps to picking aninsurance agent.
Do you have errors andomissions insurance as well?
Ryan Hanley (20:25):
Yeah, I will say you can ask that question.
That's perfectly fine.
You cannot hold an insurancelicense in the United States
without errors and omissionscovered.
So if they're a licensedprofessional, they can't not
have it.
They think every year you haveto show an updated policy to
every state that you do businessin, so you can ask that
(20:47):
question.
It's not a bad question to ask,but all you're going to get
99.999% of the time is yes, wedo.
Dustin Steffey (20:54):
Yeah, well, in a world where we have all these
calls that are fraudulent onyour phone, I mean it's a good
thing to ask for these peoplethat don't understand.
Ryan Hanley (21:06):
Yeah, it also shows a level.
It also could show a level ofsophistication in your business
that would allow have theinsurance agent taking more
seriously.
So I think questioning allquestions, all the questions are
good.
I don't mean to knock thatquestion down.
I just wanted people to know,like there's no like subset of
insurance agents that don'tcarry insurance, they would,
(21:27):
literally they would be finedvery heavily.
They do not mess around withthis stuff.
Dustin Steffey (21:34):
I also.
I also learned somethingdifferent too, because I mean
for me, like taking carinsurance, right, I've Geico and
I just went through and calledGeico direct and got my
insurance policy and that's it.
And I too thought that if Iwent direct and cut out like the
agent or the middleman, if wesay it like that I would be
(21:56):
paying a little less right tosave some dollars In the long
run.
I really don't.
I don't see the savings right.
My parents, they have had thesame insurance agent for 20
years or whatever the case maybe, and so they like that.
I didn't do that, but I learnedthe difference between direct,
(22:19):
dealing direct versus dealingwith an agent.
That was.
That was nice to learn and Ithink that's nice for the
listeners as well too.
It's nice to understand thatwith direct, they don't, they
don't really have, they don'ttake the liability the business
does if they get their ownpolicy through direct.
Ryan Hanley (22:36):
I mean that's on, that's on the business, and same
thing with personal insurance.
You know a lot of people go toGeico.
Geico is a tremendous amount ofmarketing.
The issue Geico has specialexclusions that other insurance
policies do not Like.
If you have a roommate and thatroommate drives the car and
crashes it on every I'm notgoing to say every on almost
(22:59):
every other carrier in theentire country, you would have
coverage with Geico.
They can deny that claim.
So you have.
You have a friend who says hey,dustin, I want to take this car
for a ride, right?
Hey, can I just bomb down tothe store?
My car's in the shop.
You're like no problem, man,here's the keys, take it Whack,
get to an accident, geico,you're in trouble.
Almost every other carrier inthe country covered, no question
(23:21):
.
So it's like little things likethat that, um, you know there's
no way for you to know and theydo great marketing.
They're certainly not going totell you.
But these are the types ofthings that, while you know, we
see the marketing and we feellike we're being smart and look,
insurance is is not inexpensive, right, and we all have, we all
have lives and we all haverealities on how much we can
(23:43):
spend and how much we can'tspend, um, but in my and I don't
think there's anything wrongwith going to Geico.
My only issue is what youstarted this podcast with with
education, is understand whatthe risks are.
Right, if you understand thatyou giving your keys to someone
else to taking for a ride, youhave no insurance coverage, when
that happens, when you haveGeico, you just don't do that.
Right, you just say, hey, man,sorry, can't my insurance I save
(24:07):
, I save 50 bucks a month, butthat's the trade off is I can't,
I can't let anyone start my car.
Then, hey, now that's a reallyclear value proposition that you
have made to save, you know,whatever the money is, versus
some things that maybe you can'tdo, that you could if you had
other, which you know no onereally wants anyone to borrow
the car anyways.
So, like you know, these arethe kind of things, that kind of
why I do shows like this, why Itry to share so much.
(24:30):
If you go to our YouTubechannel, we have like over 400
videos breaking down insurancecoverage and very clear, very
real like human terms, like I'mtrying to do with you now,
because I think I think theinsurance industry is really a
wonderful industry.
It's a very bad rap.
There have been a lot of thingsthat have happened that you
(24:52):
know are unfortunate, but italmost always comes back to the
fact that people did not readtheir policies and insurance
companies.
Unfortunately, they don't lie,but they're not always.
It's not like they pulled akimono all the way back right,
so like you got to dig in tounderstand.
So that's why I try to sharethese things, because it's like
(25:14):
you make the decisions that workbest for you always, but do it
with full understanding of whatthose decisions are, and that's
what kind of bugs me about myindustry is, I feel.
For so long we were like thegatekeepers of information, so
when we try, education is a hugepart of our business.
You can go to our website.
We have our 500 articles and wehave over 400 videos on our
(25:36):
YouTube channel and we createall that content.
We're creating content almostevery day, every week, just to
give you little pieces ofinformation, like I shared,
about the reason why you maywant to use an agent or a broker
versus going direct.
Dustin Steffey (25:51):
We will be right back after a quick break.
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Again, if you want to impressthe ladies and you want to smell
and look your best, I would gohead on over to Dermdudecom
that's D-E-R-M-D-U-D-Ecom todayand take a look at the packages
(26:56):
that Drew has to offer overthere at Dermdude.
Again, dermdude is a proudsponsor of Chopping my Fire and
they have supported us from thevery beginning.
So please head on over toDermdude today and get your
product, and I think that'simportant too when sifting
(27:17):
through and picking what's rightfor your business and I'm not
saying that rogue would be rightfor everyone, but what I am
saying is it's important tounderstand, like the value
proposition that a company adds,or an insurance agent or
whatever adds to your business.
So the value proposition that Isee for rogue is you guys are
(27:40):
pretty forthcoming oninformation.
You're trying to educate andgive people a little more
education on what insurancereally does truly offer and what
you guys can offer.
So there's some value addedthere which adds to the steps in
picking an appropriateinsurance policy and agent.
Right, and you said it best, thenumber one thing is to trust
(28:03):
who you're going into businesswith and who's supporting your
business.
Trust is a really big thing.
Trust is easily lost but hardto gain.
So how do you gain trust?
You build credibility by askingquestions, and you gave some
good questions, I think, to askhonestly to anyone that you're
trying to filter out to give youthat policy.
(28:26):
I also think it's superimportant in picking to see the
value added.
Like I brought up a coupleminutes ago, what value is this
person adding to your business?
That's super important.
I think that that's great.
I think another step in thatprocess of picking is
(28:48):
likeability factors as well too.
Is this person relating withyou?
Is this person likable?
Because when you have an agent,you're going to have to build
that relationship and actuallyhave that person.
Ryan Hanley (29:03):
Yeah, I think there's a couple of things there
.
I would caution people ongregarious agents or just
anybody right when we're makingdecisions.
I think, unfortunately, a signof our times is nice.
Everyone has to be nice, nice,nice, nice.
(29:23):
Is this person nice?
Are they politically correct?
Are they this or that?
And I don't think we shouldpurposely do things, I don't
think we should personally notbe nice or whatever, but my dad
said something to me a long timeago and it was a different era.
I'm in my mid-40s and it was youdon't have to like somebody,
(29:46):
but they need to do a good job.
Do they do a good job?
Are they going to get the jobdone?
I think that there are peoplethat I do business with.
I don't agree with theirpolitics, I don't love the way
they dress, I don't love theirlifestyle, but, man, do they do
a good job?
And that's what matters.
And again, I'm not saying as asalesperson do you want to be
(30:09):
likable?
Do you want to be relatable?
Yes, you definitely do.
But I also think that in thisage that we live in today, where
marketing is so put on, there'sa best practice book, there's
10 million best practices booksfor every marketing thing, and
there's a lot of people that arereally good at presenting
(30:31):
themselves in a certain way butdon't actually get the job done.
So why I tend to and again,this is maybe just a very
personal thing, take this forwhat it is I tend to.
If I'm ranking, likability forme tends to be a low determining
factor in who I do businesswith the vendors I use.
(30:52):
I have, like I said, aparticular viewpoint on the
world.
I have a particular set ofpolitics, but that doesn't
impact who I do business with,because one it's America and
everyone gets to have their ownviewpoints on everything.
They get to dress the way theywant, they get to act the way
they want.
It's the way it is.
(31:13):
But do they get the job donefor you?
If you need someone who's goingto show up, who's going to pick
up the phone at 9 PM, would yourather they picked up the phone
at 9 PM and maybe were a littledisagreeable but got the job
done for you?
Or they said hey, man, I'm outdoing the things I do, I stopped
(31:35):
working at five, I'll have toget back to you tomorrow and we
just need to.
And this is just generalleadership advice I feel like as
we mature, it tends to be, Ithink, younger leaders or
younger decision makers,business owners, that tend to
over skew on likeability andthat I would skew more towards
who gets the job done and who doyou know you can count on,
(31:56):
regardless if they perfectlyalign with you, regardless if
they.
Maybe they hate golf and youlove golf, or you know they're
from a different town, orwhatever.
Find someone who's going to dothe job for you in the way that
you need it, right.
If you're a bar, you needsomeone who's going to pick up
the phone late.
There's a fight or a brawl or afire or the cops get caught or
(32:20):
something happens Right.
You're a late night joint, youneed someone who's going to be
there.
It's going to pick up the phonelate at night.
You don't need someone whoworks nine to five Right, you
need someone who's going to bethere for you.
If you are, you know, workingin an accounting firm, maybe
that nine to five person isperfectly fine.
So there's not a lot of thingsthat are going to happen after
hours.
So I would always skew I wouldnot over index on likeability.
(32:42):
To me, that is marketingtactics and it's a sign of our
times where we feel like we needto perfectly align with the
people we do business with, andI think that can be a factor.
I just wouldn't overemphasizeon it personally.
Again, that's me as a leader.
That's not necessarily a corevalue to rogue, but you know, I
don't.
I just tend to find people Areyou good at what you do?
(33:05):
Are you going to help me?
Do you care about me as apartner, vendor, et cetera, and
if those things are in the caseand I just simply don't love all
the things about you, I don'tcare.
Dustin Steffey (33:19):
I think I think that's good and I think you
brought up a good point that inthis day and age we tend to err
on do we like the person?
And that's probably more so theyounger generation I tend to
err on does this person respectthe needs of my business?
And does this person respect me?
It's a respect factor, respectthing for me as a leader.
(33:43):
So I'm not saying that people.
Ryan Hanley (33:47):
I think that's well said.
I think that's very well said.
I think that that's.
That's probably in a nutshell.
What I was trying to say isthat you can get get past
differences if they respect andare going to do what you need
them to do for you.
Dustin Steffey (33:58):
Yeah, absolutely .
Um, I think like ability wasprobably the wrong term when I
brought it up.
Ryan Hanley (34:04):
That's OK.
No, it's fine, we're justhaving a discussion.
Dustin Steffey (34:07):
I, I.
I do agree, though, that itshould have been brought up, so
that that's good there.
I mean because we do tend toerr on.
Well, do I like this person?
Yes, all right, and they maynot be the right fit, so I think
I think that was.
That was good play right there.
I think there were some goodknowledge bombs dropped in that
anyway, so I liked it.
(34:28):
With that being said, I want tokind of round everything off on
your personal opinion.
You've already brought it up toa couple of times, but just to
solidify it, why is insurance soimportant?
There are businesses and I'mnot going to call out the
(34:50):
businesses, but there arebusinesses that probably rank
insurance on the lower echelonof the totem pole, if at all.
So why is insurance soimportant, aside from well being
sued, losing your business andgoing after your personal assets
?
I think you brought it up in thepeople have a stigma of an LLC
(35:12):
is protecting your personalassets, but really is it?
Ryan Hanley (35:17):
So let's take Katrina in New Orleans.
There were a lot of negativestories written about insurance
with Katrina in New Orleans andthere was one particular company
that, for some homes, didn't doall it could do, that's for
sure.
That city would not exist if itwere not for insurance and most
of the businesses in NewOrleans are owned by small
business owners right?
(35:37):
The restaurants, bars, taverns,clubs, shops, you know, the
voodoo shops and all these kindsof things.
None of that would existwithout insurance.
It would all be gone.
It would never have come back.
It would be toast.
That city would not exist andno one would go there.
We wouldn't be able to eat theamazing food and the baneze and
all the great stuff that theyhave down there.
(35:58):
This amazing cultural epicenterfor our country would not exist
if it weren't for insurance andnot because of the big
companies.
The big companies would havebeen fine.
The big companies who haveheadquarters and other places
and assets and other placeswould have built back up.
The small business owners wouldhave never come back.
Without insurance it wouldn'texist.
(36:19):
So insurance is not aboutprotection.
You're not protecting anything.
It's about sustainability.
If you love your business andyou're going to have a bad day.
Anyone who's been in thebusiness owner game for any
period of time knows what it'slike to have a bad day.
Right, a fire, you lose a bigclient because of something.
You make a huge mistake.
All these things some of themare covered by insurance, some
(36:44):
of them are, but the ones thatare right fires, flooding, slips
, trips and falls, majormistakes in your business.
You get attacked by a cyberattack.
Right, I just had a client theother day get fished furniture
store.
Single location furniture store.
One of his clients got fished,using his name for $50,000.
You think he wanted to come outof his pocket for 50 grand.
You know how much it actuallycost him?
(37:06):
1500 bucks Because theinsurance company paid the other
48,500 dollars.
This deductible was 1500 bucks.
So instead of a $50,000 loss,he had a $1,500 loss.
$50,000 loss might crush hismonth, might set him back who
knows where he was financially.
That could, potentially hecould lose an employee.
Who knows what happens.
Right, he could, he could, hecould get.
(37:29):
He could get septic, he couldget, he could get set back on
making loan payments.
$50,000.
A lot of money to a singlelocation furniture store Instead
of costing 1500 bucks.
It's for the bad days thatyou're going to have.
And if you don't believe you'regoing to have bad days, you
will not be in business law.
I mean, that's the truth.
If you are operating yourbusiness from a place that it's
just always going to be greatand everything's going to work,
(37:50):
you are you.
You are in big, big trouble.
So for those of you arestanding out there going, I
fully understand that bad daysare going to happen and I want
to make sure that my businesscarries through.
That's what insurance is for.
Again, it doesn't have to.
You don't have to get the mostexpensive insurance.
You don't have to get everypolicy that exists in the world
right.
You need to work with somebodyand this is the way we train our
(38:13):
producers at Rogue but, likeyou have to work with someone
who's going to walk you throughand cost benefit analysis all
the policies that you couldpotentially need and then let
you, as the business owner, makethe proper decisions as to what
you feel you're making a tradeoff.
You're either ensuring orself-insuring everything.
So if you say, hey, ryan, youknow I own a bakery in upstate
(38:33):
New York.
You know what do I need cyberinsurance for?
You don't need it.
You don't need it.
But understand, you areself-insuring it.
If you don't have it, you'rebasically saying I'm willing to
insure it myself if someonehacks me.
Right, you could not havegeneral liability.
You don't have generalliability that slips, strips and
falls, third party bodilyinjury or property damage, right
(38:55):
?
Someone walks in your store,slips on you know you're in an
icy environment, slips, goeshead over heels, cracks their
head.
They were a doctor.
They now can't perform surgeryfor a month and you owe them
$250,000.
You don't have to have generalliability.
There's no law in the UnitedStates that says you have to
have general liability.
If you wanted to work with somecompanies, they'll force you to
(39:15):
, but but there's no law thatsays you have to have general
liability.
How are you going to pay the$250,000 bill?
That person's either going toown your business, which they're
probably not going to want todo, so it's going to be shut
down.
That's it.
You are self-insuring that.
Everything you don't insurewith insurance, you are
self-insuring and just makethose trade-offs through
(39:35):
education and throughunderstanding.
It is perfectly fine to say Idon't want cyber insurance.
Perfectly fine to say that.
Just understand.
That doesn't take away the factthat if a cyber attack happens,
or a phishing attack happens ora money laundering transfer
happens, that you're notresponsible for it.
You're still responsible for it.
You still have to pay for it.
(39:56):
Just, you know insurance isn'tgoing to help you.
So those are the things.
It's.
It's.
You know you get these peoplepounding the table going you
have to have this and you needto have this and you need no, no
, no, no.
The only thing you really needto have in the United States is
commercial auto insurance If youhave a vehicle registered to
your business, and you need tohave workers comp in every state
(40:16):
, except for one, if you, two,maybe one or two.
So if you, if you haveemployees, those are the only
two policies mandated by law.
So all of those two things, allthe others you could say, nope,
I'm good, just understand, youare still insuring them, You're
just self-insuring them, you'reensuring them through your own
(40:38):
assets, your own resources.
The liability doesn't go away,the responsibility doesn't go
away.
So so that's, you know, I think,just a more pragmatic and real
way to think through it.
It allows you to make true kindof cost benefit analysis.
You can make a lot of decisionsand then you just walk through
that process and then you beat,then you're now you're super
comfortable with it.
I've decided to go with thispolicy, this one and this one.
This one I'm going to selfinsure for now.
(41:00):
Maybe when I get some more lootor money or my business grows,
we'll think about this.
No problem, these ones overhere seem extraneous and really
I'm okay self-insuring thoseBoom Done.
Now you've made very educated,very well rounded decisions that
you can feel comfortable aboutwhat a business owner does.
Dustin Steffey (41:18):
I think that's it in a nutshell.
Business Center has a lot ofdecisions on their plate In my
mind.
Why add more to your plate,make it a little easier on
yourself, get things that yourbusiness needs to be successful
and set you up for success.
Less is more.
Ryan Hanley (41:35):
Yeah, I agree.
Dustin Steffey (41:37):
With that being said, Ryan, how do people get a
hold of you or your business ifthey're so inclined to get more
information, want to haveinsurance, enjoyed kind of how
we discussed and broughteverything up.
How do they get a hold of you?
Ryan Hanley (41:52):
Yeah, so if you like the kind of way that I've
talked about this, you can go toroguerisk R-O-G-U-E-R-S-K dot
com roguerisk.
A lot of people ask me aboutthe name Rogue because it's very
different from a lot ofinsurance agencies.
I'd like to believe that overthe last 40 minutes or so,
you've heard a differentphilosophy on approaching and
that's why we call ourselvesRogue.
We do things differently.
(42:12):
We're national and remote, sowe don't have any physical
locations in any geographicregions.
We have people spreadthroughout the country in every
time zone and every quadrant ofthe country, so you'll find
someone who lives in your regionof the country, but our brokers
are licensed in multiple statesand on all that, that's great.
So you can go to rogueriskcomIf you like.
(42:34):
Kind of the stuff I talk about,besides my work as CEO and
founder, I also do a lot ofkeynote speaking.
I have my own podcast onleadership and I do a lot of
stuff on Instagram.
So you can find me at ryanunderscore Hanley on Instagram
or you just go to ryanhanleycomand check out that stuff.
Any questions, anything youhave, insurance or otherwise
(42:57):
related I love answeringquestions, I love helping people
and happy to do so.
Dustin Steffey (43:02):
And for my listeners, I'm going to have all
those links.
I just wrote them down.
I'll have all those links inthe episode description for you
to make things easier.
I know that insurance isn't themost fun topic to talk about,
but I try to bring relevance toit by having guests that make it
make more sense and provide themost important thing to my
(43:25):
listeners, which is education.
So, ryan, I think you did agood job of that.
I really do appreciate youcoming on and just having a
discussion centered around that.
I think it is important topic,I think it's important to
understand and, most importantly, it's important to educate
yourself.
Ryan Hanley (43:43):
I agree, man.
Hey, I appreciate it.
I think it's amazing.
A lot of people don't like tohave insurance people on or me,
you know because they think it'sgoing to be boring.
I hope that it wasn't for youraudience.
But I appreciate you justgetting this stuff out here.
And, guys, if you never use, ifyou never use Rogue risk, I'm
completely cool with that.
But take some of the questions,take some of the ideas, bring
(44:03):
them.
Hopefully they help yourbusiness.
And I just want to see smallbusiness thrive.
I mean, that's, that's I've.
You know I come from a town of900 people at.
You know we're small businesscommunity and I just want to see
small business continue tothrive in this country and you
know, trying to do my part.
Dustin Steffey (44:20):
So yeah, I think .
I think, again, it's importantand, honestly, I challenge my
listeners to go to one of thelinks that we're going to
provide for Ryan's information.
Take a look at the informationthat he provides.
I think it's important, I thinkit'll help out and, as you all
know, I am a proponent ofeducating yourself.
(44:42):
So this is another example ofyou upscaling yourself and
creating success.
So, ryan, again, thank you forcoming on.
I really do appreciate you.
Ryan Hanley (44:53):
Thanks, Dustin.
Dustin Steffey (44:54):
Thank you for listening to chopping with fire.
If you guys like what you heard, please head on over to your
favorite social media platformand subscribe to our pages.
If you can, please drop us acomment like subscribe and,
furthermore, head on over toyour favorite podcast platform
(45:14):
and leave us a five star review.
Again, thank you for that.
We enjoy our listeners and wedefinitely enjoy communicating
with them.
Lastly, we're in a specialmonth right now where we are up
for getting nominations for bestbusiness podcast.
If you can head on over to theepisode description, we have a
(45:35):
link there where you can go andvote for your favorite podcasts
under categories such asbusiness, comedy, shorts, etc.
We are going for the bestbusiness podcast.
So head on over to the businesssection and vote for chopping
with fire.
Again, thank you for listeningto chopping with fire.
We thoroughly appreciate you.
(45:57):
Thank you, thank you.
Chopping with fire is back.
I am so sorry.
I have missed you guys so verymuch.
It has been a hectic summerwith some unforeseen events that
have happened, but I am glad tobe back and excited To give you
guys some good content andepisodes.
(00:22):
So, without further ado, let'schop it up.
More content to come.
(00:49):
Thanks for watching.
I hope you enjoyed it.
If you did, please like andsubscribe, and don't forget to
subscribe.
Thanks for watching.
Over 100,000 downloads andcounting support from four major
(01:13):
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Also accolade that includes the2022 nomination for the
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You are listening to yournumber one podcast that
(01:36):
discusses relevant topics thatinclude entrepreneurship, self
development, smart investing andbusiness and current events
hosted by creator, influencerand founder Dustin Steffi.
You are tuned into choppingwith fire.
Let's chop it up.
(01:59):
I have Ryan Hanley on right now.
Ryan, how are you?
Ryan Hanley (02:19):
Dustin, it's great to be here.
Man Appreciate being on theshow and happy to share with the
audience.
Dustin Steffey (02:24):
I appreciate you coming on.
We have an important topictoday, huh.
Ryan Hanley (02:28):
Well, it depends how you define important, but
yes, I'd like to think so.
Dustin Steffey (02:34):
I mean I'd like to think so too.
I mean, younger me wouldn'thave thought so.
It would have.
It would have not been asimportant.
But as I start to learn alittle bit more and understand,
I think it's super relevant forbusiness owners.
I think today will be funbecause education is key for
success, especially in this dayand age, so I'm excited.
Ryan Hanley (02:56):
Yeah, well, that makes one of us.
Even though I've done insurancefor 20 years, it doesn't
necessarily bring excitement tomy life, but I do think it's
incredibly important and happyto answer any and all the
questions you have about it.
And we can, you know, we candig into the, into the kind of
real deal behind it.
I know a lot of my peers andother people who go on shows and
(03:16):
talk about insurance.
They tend to I don't know,they're very dry and they tend
to be very corporate andprofessional, and I'm happy to
any of the, any of the dirtylittle secrets that you want to
know.
I'm happy to answer thembecause I have to buy this stuff
too and I have to look mycustomers in the face.
So I try to be very honest withthem.
(03:40):
So you fire away and we'll getdown into the nitty gritty.
Dustin Steffey (03:43):
Well, you're far from dry, that's for sure.
And to reinforce that, let'sjust dive into you.
Let's get to know you a littlebit.
We obviously don't know you aswell as we want to, so let's,
let's fix that right now.
Ryan Hanley (03:58):
Yeah, so the 15 cent tour here is.
I'm the founder and CEO ofRogue risk.
We are a national commercialinsurance agency so we do
business, for we are.
Basically the mantra of ourbusiness was to take the level
of service, the access tocarriers, markets, products that
are available to enterpriselevel businesses think the
fortune 500 to fortune 1000 andbring them down to small
(04:22):
businesses and middle marketbusinesses, which are often
treated like garbage byinsurance professionals.
And we can get into the what,the economics of that and why
that happens.
And while they'll tell you youknow a lot of my peers will tell
you all day that they careabout you, they are trying to
touch your account once andnever speak to you again because
the economics are very poor inour industry when it comes to
small business.
We'll get into that.
(04:43):
So that was kind of the corewas.
I saw this.
I saw some businesses, theselarge enterprise businesses,
getting this white glovestreatment, this access to
products that were allowing themto sustain their business
through tough times.
And that's really the key,dustin, that so many people you
know.
People talk about protection.
Right, everyone says insuranceis about protection.
Look, I'm not standing out infront of your business and
(05:03):
stopping a tree from hitting it,or you know a flood, or you
know protecting your businessfrom a riot.
Like none of that stuff ishappening, Like I'm not standing
out there.
I'm not protecting yourbusiness.
What I am providing and theproduct and the way that I think
insurance is misunderstood andmisclassified as the idea of
sustainability.
Do you want your business tocontinue through its worst day?
Right, we have people, we havethese entrepreneurs, we have
(05:26):
small business owners and they,they give their heart and soul
and they clear out their bankaccount and they start these
businesses.
And it's amazing, and they, andthen they want to act like
Billy badass or Bonnie badass ifwe're being politically correct
and and and then they, they actlike they're not going to
purchase the product that'llallow them to sustain their
worst day.
That tree does hit yourbuilding.
(05:48):
You do have a fire.
Someone walks in and slips andfalls in your business and sues
you for a million dollars.
And you own a bookstore.
How are you going to pay thatclaim?
How are you going to pay thatclaim?
You know what they're going todo.
They're going to come at yourhouse.
They're like oh, I have an LLC.
Yeah, look into the legal codein your state and understand
what really happens when thesethings.
Your business is gone, all themoney you put into it, all the
blood, sweat and tears it's gone.
(06:10):
One day Someone comes in, dropsa coffee, slips and breaks a
hip and they sue you becausethey can't work.
Your business is toast.
I don't care what you think, oh, I'll file for bankruptcy.
That does not work.
That is all the nonsense stuffthat people talk about it at
whatever little function they'reat or when they're sitting
around a campfire at the bar.
(06:30):
That is nonsense.
Here's what really happensSomeone slips and falls and sues
you.
Your business is toast unlessyou have insurance.
Now you don't need to have everyinsurance product that exists
in the world.
You need to have a proper, wellset up portfolio that doesn't
have to be expensive.
Right, it doesn't have to beexpensive.
There are incredibly costeffective options in the market.
(06:51):
You just need access to them,and that's what I wanted to do.
So that was the brainchild ofwhere this all came from.
Now, just quickly going back tohow I got there.
I started in the business 20years ago.
I started as a boots on theground producer, which I was
literally walking strip plazas,putting 50,000 miles on my car
like a door to door salesmanjust for businesses.
That's how I cut my teeth andhow I got into the business was
(07:12):
I wanted to marry this woman andher dad owned an insurance
agency and me becoming aproducer for him was kind of
like the dowry for her hand inmarriage, I guess you could say.
I think he just didn't want hisfuture son in law to be a bum.
Unfortunately she's not myex-wife, but it was great at the
time and for eight years Iworked for her family agency and
I got to know the traditionalside of the business really,
(07:34):
really well, like the, the, thecarrying the community, the
compassion, the.
Really you know you have tolook your people in the face.
You walk into their businessesevery day.
That side of the business.
I got to know that very well,unfortunately because I was a.
You know, even though I was ason in law, I wasn't really part
of the family.
There wasn't really a place forme there long term.
So I became a chief marketingofficer for a national insurance
(07:58):
technology company.
I've been an executive and nowfour different national
insurance organizations and I,you know, had wins and losses
and all those essentially fired.
From all of them, I've come tofind out I'm not a great
employee, and that reallyspurred me to start rogue.
I started rogue on March 9th of2020, seven days before the
(08:22):
zombie apocalypse hit the world.
Not a great day to launch acommercial insurance agency,
since every business and everycustomer I had shut down, but
what it forced us to do waslearn how to deliver value at
scale in an efficient and costeffective way, and and and.
While it was painful and itstill is to a certain extent
today because we're really justa three and a half year old
(08:43):
business we now have 25 people,we write business in 44 states,
we have thousands of clients andwe are continuing to grow, and
that's that's really the journeythat I'm on.
In that time, I've done over350 paid speaking engagements
and workshops around the country, teaching sales and digital
scalability and leadership.
(09:04):
You know more of it.
More tends today to be moreleadership oriented.
You know that kind of stuff.
But I wrote a book 2015.
Good, not great, and that'skind of me.
In a nutshell, my man.
Dustin Steffey (09:20):
So that's a lot to unpackage, considering you've
had a pretty, pretty crazyjourney.
So I know you didn't wake upone day and say I want to be an
insurance.
We already kind of learned thesecret of what happened there.
Ryan Hanley (09:33):
You followed a girl , kind of like some of us do,
and yeah, yeah, it just happensright, Like most of the
decisions that guys make intheir twenties.
We are following a female.
Yeah.
Dustin Steffey (09:43):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
I mean hell.
They're guys that are in theirthirties, forties that are still
following a female.
So, uh, enough said there.
Uh, there was a lot of goodthings there that I heard, and
one.
One of the positives is roguesurvived the zombie apocalypse,
right.
So rogue survived, survivedCOVID.
(10:04):
Yes, and probably not ideal toopen a business seven days
before COVID uh hit, but yousurvived.
You learned a few things.
You probably had some time, Iwould imagine, to learn how to
perfect your product to andperfect how you deliver.
And here we are.
So that that's some positiveright there.
(10:25):
I, I think anyway, um, Istarted chopping in the middle
of COVID, so I, I understand howeverything works with that.
Uh, one of the big questions Ihave and we've had, we've had
one insurance person on before,that is, in a world where you
(10:47):
have so many options becauseeverybody likes options,
everybody likes instantgratification why would a
business pick you guys?
Ryan Hanley (10:58):
Yeah.
So I'm going to break down thatin a couple of different ways.
First, I'm going to break downgoing direct versus working with
an agent, cause that is oftenthe first question that I get
from people who think thatthey're smarter than they really
are.
So you know a lot of people whogo direct.
I find them to be Uh, theythink they're being smart by
going direct, they think they'resaving money.
So going direct would meanyou're going straight to the
(11:19):
insurance company, so you're notworking with an agent, you're
going to someone uh progressive.
Next good example Hiscox.
If anyone's heard of any ofthese companies, these are
companies that you can log on totheir website.
You can fill out a bunch ofquestions, get a quote and buy a
policy for them direct.
That's great.
Uh, I'm I'm glad that optionexists.
(11:40):
Um, unfortunately, what peopledon't understand is they're
taking all the liability on themthemselves.
So I have to carry errors andomissions coverage because I'm a
professional.
I'm a licensed professional in50 States.
So what that means is, if youhave let's say you have a
question about the insurancearound this podcast, right, you
come in here and you saysomething to fam, uh deflamatory
(12:00):
, and one of your competitorssay, a competitive podcast or a
competitor in another aspect ofyour life or another company
hears you say that and they sueyou for defamation.
Okay, if you've purchased thatpolicy and that policy does not
have defamation coverage, theinsurance, it's not the
insurance company's fault, it'syour fault, right?
(12:21):
Everyone wants to blame theinsurance companies.
Insurance companies are verystraightforward and what they'll
cover and what they won't.
Again, there is a lot ofnonsense talk because people
don't like to takeresponsibility for their actions
, right?
So they purchase something.
They don't read into it at all,they just go, I have insurance
and they pound the table andthey walk away.
They don't look at the policy,they don't ask any questions and
then, um, they think they'recovered and that's just simply
(12:44):
not how it works.
This is a contract Like you'rebuying a house.
This is a contract Like you'redoing a business deal.
This is a contract likeanything else.
No one wants to think about itthat way.
They want to think like they'rebuying a t-shirt, but you're
not.
You are entering into an, acontract in which the other side
spells out exactly what iscovered and what is not.
Now, it's weird language.
(13:05):
I'm not going to say that.
They write them in the most,the most intriguing way or in
the most straightforward way.
But if you go direct, whatyou're saying is me, the
business owner, the purchaser ofthis policy, is wholly
responsible for the decision onwhat I purchased.
You don't realize it becausemost people don't look into it,
but that's what you're saying.
Now, when you work with an agentor a broker one, there is only
(13:28):
a few small scenarios whereyou're actually paying less and
oftentimes, um, you are actuallypaying more when you go direct
because you know how companieslike progressive and some of
these others get you to comedirect.
They spend bazillions ofdollars on marketing.
I mean bazillions.
It's crazy.
Like the amount of money theyspend is insane and even the
(13:50):
reported amounts sometimes areunder reported because they're
trying to, you know, make theirfinancial sheets.
So they package it intoco-opting dollars and all these
other buckets of expense to getyou to come in.
So you're not actually payingless.
But the bigger problem again, ifwe're going back to
sustainability of your business,if you care about your business
(14:11):
surviving its worst day, andyou go direct, what you're doing
is taking all thatresponsibility on yourself.
So when you work with an agentor broker, that agent or broker
is basically taking on theliability between the decision,
between what is purchased andthe customer.
Now there are some scenarioswhere if the customer does
certain things or misrepresentthings themselves, et cetera,
(14:34):
where the customer can still getin trouble.
But if you're being honest withyour agent or broker and that
agent or broker then choosesfrom a portfolio of carriers and
comes back and says, hey, look,if you're a podcast, media
liability coverage is probablythe most important coverage you
could possibly have because itcovers defamation, it covers
copyright infringements, ipinfringements, et cetera.
(14:55):
If you don't have this coverage, then the most important risk
you have is actually not covered.
Then you might not know thatright, and let's say I don't
offer that coverage to you.
You can come back to me and say, hey, the most important
coverage across the board forevery podcast in the world is
media liability coverage, andyou, mr Agent, did not offer it
to me or even educate me thatthat existed.
(15:17):
It's your fault.
And then that comes back on myerrors and omissions coverage
because I didn't do my job as alicensed professional.
Again, think sustainability.
You're not smart for goingdirect unless you are perfectly
willing and make the mentaltradeoff in your head that
you're okay taking on all theresponsibility for the decision.
Everybody wants to blame theinsurance company.
(15:38):
It's not their fault, guys.
I would love to blame them, andI'm not saying they're the
easiest people to deal with, butit's not their fault.
They have a very specificcontract that they hand to you
that you can read through andsays exactly what is covered and
what is not.
If you choose not to read that,that's your fault.
That's not their fault, right?
If I chose not to read it, as alicensed professional, that
(15:58):
would be my fault.
And that's where thatintermediary plays a big role.
Okay, so you can obviously dowhatever you want.
It's America.
But I highly advocate that youat least understand the decision
to go direct or not.
You can still go direct, that'sperfectly fine.
Plenty of people do, but mostpeople do it naively, and I
(16:19):
would just like those of you wholisten to this show to make
that decision as a cost benefitanalysis, for whatever reason,
okay, okay, so how do you choosean agency Number one and this
is going to sound cliche, Idon't mean it to be, but it's
absolutely the truth.
You have to trust the personthat you're doing business with.
You have to trust the personthat you're doing business with.
(16:41):
If you don't trust them, findsomeone else.
There are 35 to, depending onhow you report, 41,000 insurance
agencies in the United States.
There are over 300,000insurance professionals that you
could choose from, and thoseare kind of rough and
conservative numbers.
There are tons of options,right?
Rogue is one of those options,but we're one of, like I said,
(17:03):
we'll call it, 40,000 options.
So you have to trust the personyou're working with.
How do you trust them?
Ask them questions, right.
Have you ever insured abusiness like mine before?
What are the most common causesof loss that you see in a
business like mine?
What's the most common coveragethat my peers don't purchase
(17:25):
that you think I should purchase?
How do you ensure that, overtime, my insurance premiums
don't just go up consistentlyevery year without ever being
rechecked or re-quoted?
These are some questions thatyou can ask that person and
listen to their answers.
If their answers sound like BS,find someone else.
(17:46):
If they're just trying to blowthrough the transaction, find
someone else.
Maybe ask a friend for areferral.
Read some online reviews.
But you got to trust the personbecause there is, at a certain
point, despite the fact that Ihave errors in omissions
coverage.
If I make a major mistake.
Your business could still bedecimated If I make a mistake.
(18:09):
You still don't want that tohappen.
You want me to be able to do agood job.
I think how long you've been inthe business is a good question
, although I will say, with theright support structure and we
do tend to be a business thathires new people because we have
a training process we have someproducers that have started
that are unlicensed and they'vegone through our six-month
(18:31):
training process and then theydo six months of shadowing and
now they're producers out on thefloor doing incredible job for
people.
We listen to phone calls and wereview their coverage stuff.
I don't necessarily know thatnew in the business would be
number one for me.
Some people are like, well,he's been in the business for 20
years or she's been in thebusiness for 20 years, so
they're better.
That's not necessarily the case.
(18:51):
Sometimes that young hungryproducer, young hungry insurance
salesperson is going to do abetter job for you because
they're going to be able to giveyou more time.
There's no hard and fast rulesthere and I've been around.
Like I've said, I've been inthe business for 20 years, so
I've seen all different shapesand sizes.
(19:12):
Ask them some of thosequestions that I gave you,
listen to their answers and thensee how you feel about their
responses.
If you don't like the way theyrespond, find someone else,
because there's plenty.
Dustin Steffey (19:27):
We learn quite a bit here.
We learn, first and foremost,that if you're an insurance
agent, you guys have your owninsurance that you're carrying.
If you're not direct, thathelps to protect you, obviously,
if you make a mistake, but alsoit's good to know for
(19:49):
businesses that are trying toget insurance.
So there's a protection there,there's a layer there.
Ryan Hanley (19:57):
Dustin, everyone's heard of malpractice insurance
that doctors have.
It's the exact same thing.
Accountants have accountants,e&o accountants, errors and
omissions insurance Lawyers havelawyers, legal We've heard of
some of these things.
Insurance agents have the sameexact thing.
Dustin Steffey (20:16):
So that might be a question that asked you in
the steps to picking aninsurance agent.
Do you have errors andomissions insurance as well?
Ryan Hanley (20:25):
Yeah, I will say you can ask that question.
That's perfectly fine.
You cannot hold an insurancelicense in the United States
without errors and omissionscovered.
So if they're a licensedprofessional, they can't not
have it.
They think every year you haveto show an updated policy to
every state that you do businessin, so you can ask that
(20:47):
question.
It's not a bad question to ask,but all you're going to get
99.999% of the time is yes, wedo.
Dustin Steffey (20:54):
Yeah, well, in a world where we have all these
calls that are fraudulent onyour phone, I mean it's a good
thing to ask for these peoplethat don't understand.
Ryan Hanley (21:06):
Yeah, it also shows a level.
It also could show a level ofsophistication in your business
that would allow have theinsurance agent taking more
seriously.
So I think questioning allquestions, all the questions are
good.
I don't mean to knock thatquestion down.
I just wanted people to know,like there's no like subset of
insurance agents that don'tcarry insurance, they would,
(21:27):
literally they would be finedvery heavily.
They do not mess around withthis stuff.
Dustin Steffey (21:34):
I also.
I also learned somethingdifferent too, because I mean
for me, like taking carinsurance, right, I've Geico and
I just went through and calledGeico direct and got my
insurance policy and that's it.
And I too thought that if Iwent direct and cut out like the
agent or the middleman, if wesay it like that I would be
(21:56):
paying a little less right tosave some dollars In the long
run.
I really don't.
I don't see the savings right.
My parents, they have had thesame insurance agent for 20
years or whatever the case maybe, and so they like that.
I didn't do that, but I learnedthe difference between direct,
(22:19):
dealing direct versus dealingwith an agent.
That was.
That was nice to learn and Ithink that's nice for the
listeners as well too.
It's nice to understand thatwith direct, they don't, they
don't really have, they don'ttake the liability the business
does if they get their ownpolicy through direct.
Ryan Hanley (22:36):
I mean that's on, that's on the business, and same
thing with personal insurance.
You know a lot of people go toGeico.
Geico is a tremendous amount ofmarketing.
The issue Geico has specialexclusions that other insurance
policies do not Like.
If you have a roommate and thatroommate drives the car and
crashes it on every I'm notgoing to say every on almost
(22:59):
every other carrier in theentire country, you would have
coverage with Geico.
They can deny that claim.
So you have.
You have a friend who says hey,dustin, I want to take this car
for a ride, right?
Hey, can I just bomb down tothe store?
My car's in the shop.
You're like no problem, man,here's the keys, take it Whack,
get to an accident, geico,you're in trouble.
Almost every other carrier inthe country covered, no question
(23:21):
.
So it's like little things likethat that, um, you know there's
no way for you to know and theydo great marketing.
They're certainly not going totell you.
But these are the types ofthings that, while you know, we
see the marketing and we feellike we're being smart and look,
insurance is is not inexpensive, right, and we all have, we all
have lives and we all haverealities on how much we can
(23:43):
spend and how much we can'tspend, um, but in my and I don't
think there's anything wrongwith going to Geico.
My only issue is what youstarted this podcast with with
education, is understand whatthe risks are.
Right, if you understand thatyou giving your keys to someone
else to taking for a ride, youhave no insurance coverage, when
that happens, when you haveGeico, you just don't do that.
Right, you just say, hey, man,sorry, can't my insurance I save
(24:07):
, I save 50 bucks a month, butthat's the trade off is I can't,
I can't let anyone start my car.
Then, hey, now that's a reallyclear value proposition that you
have made to save, you know,whatever the money is, versus
some things that maybe you can'tdo, that you could if you had
other, which you know no onereally wants anyone to borrow
the car anyways.
So, like you know, these arethe kind of things, that kind of
why I do shows like this, why Itry to share so much.
(24:30):
If you go to our YouTubechannel, we have like over 400
videos breaking down insurancecoverage and very clear, very
real like human terms, like I'mtrying to do with you now,
because I think I think theinsurance industry is really a
wonderful industry.
It's a very bad rap.
There have been a lot of thingsthat have happened that you
(24:52):
know are unfortunate, but italmost always comes back to the
fact that people did not readtheir policies and insurance
companies.
Unfortunately, they don't lie,but they're not always.
It's not like they pulled akimono all the way back right,
so like you got to dig in tounderstand.
So that's why I try to sharethese things, because it's like
(25:14):
you make the decisions that workbest for you always, but do it
with full understanding of whatthose decisions are, and that's
what kind of bugs me about myindustry is, I feel.
For so long we were like thegatekeepers of information, so
when we try, education is a hugepart of our business.
You can go to our website.
We have our 500 articles and wehave over 400 videos on our
(25:36):
YouTube channel and we createall that content.
We're creating content almostevery day, every week, just to
give you little pieces ofinformation, like I shared,
about the reason why you maywant to use an agent or a broker
versus going direct.
Dustin Steffey (25:51):
We will be right back after a quick break.
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product, and I think that'simportant too when sifting
(27:17):
through and picking what's rightfor your business and I'm not
saying that rogue would be rightfor everyone, but what I am
saying is it's important tounderstand, like the value
proposition that a company adds,or an insurance agent or
whatever adds to your business.
So the value proposition that Isee for rogue is you guys are
(27:40):
pretty forthcoming oninformation.
You're trying to educate andgive people a little more
education on what insurancereally does truly offer and what
you guys can offer.
So there's some value addedthere which adds to the steps in
picking an appropriateinsurance policy and agent.
Right, and you said it best, thenumber one thing is to trust
(28:03):
who you're going into businesswith and who's supporting your
business.
Trust is a really big thing.
Trust is easily lost but hardto gain.
So how do you gain trust?
You build credibility by askingquestions, and you gave some
good questions, I think, to askhonestly to anyone that you're
trying to filter out to give youthat policy.
(28:26):
I also think it's superimportant in picking to see the
value added.
Like I brought up a coupleminutes ago, what value is this
person adding to your business?
That's super important.
I think that that's great.
I think another step in thatprocess of picking is
(28:48):
likeability factors as well too.
Is this person relating withyou?
Is this person likable?
Because when you have an agent,you're going to have to build
that relationship and actuallyhave that person.
Ryan Hanley (29:03):
Yeah, I think there's a couple of things there
.
I would caution people ongregarious agents or just
anybody right when we're makingdecisions.
I think, unfortunately, a signof our times is nice.
Everyone has to be nice, nice,nice, nice.
(29:23):
Is this person nice?
Are they politically correct?
Are they this or that?
And I don't think we shouldpurposely do things, I don't
think we should personally notbe nice or whatever, but my dad
said something to me a long timeago and it was a different era.
I'm in my mid-40s and it was youdon't have to like somebody,
(29:46):
but they need to do a good job.
Do they do a good job?
Are they going to get the jobdone?
I think that there are peoplethat I do business with.
I don't agree with theirpolitics, I don't love the way
they dress, I don't love theirlifestyle, but, man, do they do
a good job?
And that's what matters.
And again, I'm not saying as asalesperson do you want to be
(30:09):
likable?
Do you want to be relatable?
Yes, you definitely do.
But I also think that in thisage that we live in today, where
marketing is so put on, there'sa best practice book, there's
10 million best practices booksfor every marketing thing, and
there's a lot of people that arereally good at presenting
(30:31):
themselves in a certain way butdon't actually get the job done.
So why I tend to and again,this is maybe just a very
personal thing, take this forwhat it is I tend to.
If I'm ranking, likability forme tends to be a low determining
factor in who I do businesswith the vendors I use.
(30:52):
I have, like I said, aparticular viewpoint on the
world.
I have a particular set ofpolitics, but that doesn't
impact who I do business with,because one it's America and
everyone gets to have their ownviewpoints on everything.
They get to dress the way theywant, they get to act the way
they want.
It's the way it is.
(31:13):
But do they get the job donefor you?
If you need someone who's goingto show up, who's going to pick
up the phone at 9 PM, would yourather they picked up the phone
at 9 PM and maybe were a littledisagreeable but got the job
done for you?
Or they said hey, man, I'm outdoing the things I do, I stopped
(31:35):
working at five, I'll have toget back to you tomorrow and we
just need to.
And this is just generalleadership advice I feel like as
we mature, it tends to be, Ithink, younger leaders or
younger decision makers,business owners, that tend to
over skew on likeability andthat I would skew more towards
who gets the job done and who doyou know you can count on,
(31:56):
regardless if they perfectlyalign with you, regardless if
they.
Maybe they hate golf and youlove golf, or you know they're
from a different town, orwhatever.
Find someone who's going to dothe job for you in the way that
you need it, right.
If you're a bar, you needsomeone who's going to pick up
the phone late.
There's a fight or a brawl or afire or the cops get caught or
(32:20):
something happens Right.
You're a late night joint, youneed someone who's going to be
there.
It's going to pick up the phonelate at night.
You don't need someone whoworks nine to five Right, you
need someone who's going to bethere for you.
If you are, you know, workingin an accounting firm, maybe
that nine to five person isperfectly fine.
So there's not a lot of thingsthat are going to happen after
hours.
So I would always skew I wouldnot over index on likeability.
(32:42):
To me, that is marketingtactics and it's a sign of our
times where we feel like we needto perfectly align with the
people we do business with, andI think that can be a factor.
I just wouldn't overemphasizeon it personally.
Again, that's me as a leader.
That's not necessarily a corevalue to rogue, but you know, I
don't.
I just tend to find people Areyou good at what you do?
(33:05):
Are you going to help me?
Do you care about me as apartner, vendor, et cetera, and
if those things are in the caseand I just simply don't love all
the things about you, I don'tcare.
Dustin Steffey (33:19):
I think I think that's good and I think you
brought up a good point that inthis day and age we tend to err
on do we like the person?
And that's probably more so theyounger generation I tend to
err on does this person respectthe needs of my business?
And does this person respect me?
It's a respect factor, respectthing for me as a leader.
(33:43):
So I'm not saying that people.
Ryan Hanley (33:47):
I think that's well said.
I think that's very well said.
I think that that's.
That's probably in a nutshell.
What I was trying to say isthat you can get get past
differences if they respect andare going to do what you need
them to do for you.
Dustin Steffey (33:58):
Yeah, absolutely .
Um, I think like ability wasprobably the wrong term when I
brought it up.
Ryan Hanley (34:04):
That's OK.
No, it's fine, we're justhaving a discussion.
Dustin Steffey (34:07):
I, I.
I do agree, though, that itshould have been brought up, so
that that's good there.
I mean because we do tend toerr on.
Well, do I like this person?
Yes, all right, and they maynot be the right fit, so I think
I think that was.
That was good play right there.
I think there were some goodknowledge bombs dropped in that
anyway, so I liked it.
(34:28):
With that being said, I want tokind of round everything off on
your personal opinion.
You've already brought it up toa couple of times, but just to
solidify it, why is insurance soimportant?
There are businesses and I'mnot going to call out the
(34:50):
businesses, but there arebusinesses that probably rank
insurance on the lower echelonof the totem pole, if at all.
So why is insurance soimportant, aside from well being
sued, losing your business andgoing after your personal assets
?
I think you brought it up in thepeople have a stigma of an LLC
(35:12):
is protecting your personalassets, but really is it?
Ryan Hanley (35:17):
So let's take Katrina in New Orleans.
There were a lot of negativestories written about insurance
with Katrina in New Orleans andthere was one particular company
that, for some homes, didn't doall it could do, that's for
sure.
That city would not exist if itwere not for insurance and most
of the businesses in NewOrleans are owned by small
business owners right?
(35:37):
The restaurants, bars, taverns,clubs, shops, you know, the
voodoo shops and all these kindsof things.
None of that would existwithout insurance.
It would all be gone.
It would never have come back.
It would be toast.
That city would not exist andno one would go there.
We wouldn't be able to eat theamazing food and the baneze and
all the great stuff that theyhave down there.
(35:58):
This amazing cultural epicenterfor our country would not exist
if it weren't for insurance andnot because of the big
companies.
The big companies would havebeen fine.
The big companies who haveheadquarters and other places
and assets and other placeswould have built back up.
The small business owners wouldhave never come back.
Without insurance it wouldn'texist.
(36:19):
So insurance is not aboutprotection.
You're not protecting anything.
It's about sustainability.
If you love your business andyou're going to have a bad day.
Anyone who's been in thebusiness owner game for any
period of time knows what it'slike to have a bad day.
Right, a fire, you lose a bigclient because of something.
You make a huge mistake.
All these things some of themare covered by insurance, some
(36:44):
of them are, but the ones thatare right fires, flooding, slips
, trips and falls, majormistakes in your business.
You get attacked by a cyberattack.
Right, I just had a client theother day get fished furniture
store.
Single location furniture store.
One of his clients got fished,using his name for $50,000.
You think he wanted to come outof his pocket for 50 grand.
You know how much it actuallycost him?
(37:06):
1500 bucks Because theinsurance company paid the other
48,500 dollars.
This deductible was 1500 bucks.
So instead of a $50,000 loss,he had a $1,500 loss.
$50,000 loss might crush hismonth, might set him back who
knows where he was financially.
That could, potentially hecould lose an employee.
Who knows what happens.
Right, he could, he could, hecould get.
(37:29):
He could get septic, he couldget, he could get set back on
making loan payments.
$50,000.
A lot of money to a singlelocation furniture store Instead
of costing 1500 bucks.
It's for the bad days thatyou're going to have.
And if you don't believe you'regoing to have bad days, you
will not be in business law.
I mean, that's the truth.
If you are operating yourbusiness from a place that it's
just always going to be greatand everything's going to work,
(37:50):
you are you.
You are in big, big trouble.
So for those of you arestanding out there going, I
fully understand that bad daysare going to happen and I want
to make sure that my businesscarries through.
That's what insurance is for.
Again, it doesn't have to.
You don't have to get the mostexpensive insurance.
You don't have to get everypolicy that exists in the world
right.
You need to work with somebodyand this is the way we train our
(38:13):
producers at Rogue but, likeyou have to work with someone
who's going to walk you throughand cost benefit analysis all
the policies that you couldpotentially need and then let
you, as the business owner, makethe proper decisions as to what
you feel you're making a tradeoff.
You're either ensuring orself-insuring everything.
So if you say, hey, ryan, youknow I own a bakery in upstate
(38:33):
New York.
You know what do I need cyberinsurance for?
You don't need it.
You don't need it.
But understand, you areself-insuring it.
If you don't have it, you'rebasically saying I'm willing to
insure it myself if someonehacks me.
Right, you could not havegeneral liability.
You don't have generalliability that slips, strips and
falls, third party bodilyinjury or property damage, right
(38:55):
?
Someone walks in your store,slips on you know you're in an
icy environment, slips, goeshead over heels, cracks their
head.
They were a doctor.
They now can't perform surgeryfor a month and you owe them
$250,000.
You don't have to have generalliability.
There's no law in the UnitedStates that says you have to
have general liability.
If you wanted to work with somecompanies, they'll force you to
(39:15):
, but but there's no law thatsays you have to have general
liability.
How are you going to pay the$250,000 bill?
That person's either going toown your business, which they're
probably not going to want todo, so it's going to be shut
down.
That's it.
You are self-insuring that.
Everything you don't insurewith insurance, you are
self-insuring and just makethose trade-offs through
(39:35):
education and throughunderstanding.
It is perfectly fine to say Idon't want cyber insurance.
Perfectly fine to say that.
Just understand.
That doesn't take away the factthat if a cyber attack happens,
or a phishing attack happens ora money laundering transfer
happens, that you're notresponsible for it.
You're still responsible for it.
You still have to pay for it.
(39:56):
Just, you know insurance isn'tgoing to help you.
So those are the things.
It's.
It's.
You know you get these peoplepounding the table going you
have to have this and you needto have this and you need no, no
, no, no.
The only thing you really needto have in the United States is
commercial auto insurance If youhave a vehicle registered to
your business, and you need tohave workers comp in every state
(40:16):
, except for one, if you, two,maybe one or two.
So if you, if you haveemployees, those are the only
two policies mandated by law.
So all of those two things, allthe others you could say, nope,
I'm good, just understand, youare still insuring them, You're
just self-insuring them, you'reensuring them through your own
(40:38):
assets, your own resources.
The liability doesn't go away,the responsibility doesn't go
away.
So so that's, you know, I think,just a more pragmatic and real
way to think through it.
It allows you to make true kindof cost benefit analysis.
You can make a lot of decisionsand then you just walk through
that process and then you beat,then you're now you're super
comfortable with it.
I've decided to go with thispolicy, this one and this one.
This one I'm going to selfinsure for now.
(41:00):
Maybe when I get some more lootor money or my business grows,
we'll think about this.
No problem, these ones overhere seem extraneous and really
I'm okay self-insuring thoseBoom Done.
Now you've made very educated,very well rounded decisions that
you can feel comfortable aboutwhat a business owner does.
Dustin Steffey (41:18):
I think that's it in a nutshell.
Business Center has a lot ofdecisions on their plate In my
mind.
Why add more to your plate,make it a little easier on
yourself, get things that yourbusiness needs to be successful
and set you up for success.
Less is more.
Ryan Hanley (41:35):
Yeah, I agree.
Dustin Steffey (41:37):
With that being said, Ryan, how do people get a
hold of you or your business ifthey're so inclined to get more
information, want to haveinsurance, enjoyed kind of how
we discussed and broughteverything up.
How do they get a hold of you?
Ryan Hanley (41:52):
Yeah, so if you like the kind of way that I've
talked about this, you can go toroguerisk R-O-G-U-E-R-S-K dot
com roguerisk.
A lot of people ask me aboutthe name Rogue because it's very
different from a lot ofinsurance agencies.
I'd like to believe that overthe last 40 minutes or so,
you've heard a differentphilosophy on approaching and
that's why we call ourselvesRogue.
We do things differently.
(42:12):
We're national and remote, sowe don't have any physical
locations in any geographicregions.
We have people spreadthroughout the country in every
time zone and every quadrant ofthe country, so you'll find
someone who lives in your regionof the country, but our brokers
are licensed in multiple statesand on all that, that's great.
So you can go to rogueriskcomIf you like.
(42:34):
Kind of the stuff I talk about,besides my work as CEO and
founder, I also do a lot ofkeynote speaking.
I have my own podcast onleadership and I do a lot of
stuff on Instagram.
So you can find me at ryanunderscore Hanley on Instagram
or you just go to ryanhanleycomand check out that stuff.
Any questions, anything youhave, insurance or otherwise
(42:57):
related I love answeringquestions, I love helping people
and happy to do so.
Dustin Steffey (43:02):
And for my listeners, I'm going to have all
those links.
I just wrote them down.
I'll have all those links inthe episode description for you
to make things easier.
I know that insurance isn't themost fun topic to talk about,
but I try to bring relevance toit by having guests that make it
make more sense and provide themost important thing to my
(43:25):
listeners, which is education.
So, ryan, I think you did agood job of that.
I really do appreciate youcoming on and just having a
discussion centered around that.
I think it is important topic,I think it's important to
understand and, most importantly, it's important to educate
yourself.
Ryan Hanley (43:43):
I agree, man.
Hey, I appreciate it.
I think it's amazing.
A lot of people don't like tohave insurance people on or me,
you know because they think it'sgoing to be boring.
I hope that it wasn't for youraudience.
But I appreciate you justgetting this stuff out here.
And, guys, if you never use, ifyou never use Rogue risk, I'm
completely cool with that.
But take some of the questions,take some of the ideas, bring
(44:03):
them.
Hopefully they help yourbusiness.
And I just want to see smallbusiness thrive.
I mean, that's, that's I've.
You know I come from a town of900 people at.
You know we're small businesscommunity and I just want to see
small business continue tothrive in this country and you
know, trying to do my part.
Dustin Steffey (44:20):
So yeah, I think .
I think, again, it's importantand, honestly, I challenge my
listeners to go to one of thelinks that we're going to
provide for Ryan's information.
Take a look at the informationthat he provides.
I think it's important, I thinkit'll help out and, as you all
know, I am a proponent ofeducating yourself.
(44:42):
So this is another example ofyou upscaling yourself and
creating success.
So, ryan, again, thank you forcoming on.
I really do appreciate you.
Ryan Hanley (44:53):
Thanks, Dustin.
Dustin Steffey (44:54):
Thank you for listening to chopping with fire.
If you guys like what you heard, please head on over to your
favorite social media platformand subscribe to our pages.
If you can, please drop us acomment like subscribe and,
furthermore, head on over toyour favorite podcast platform
(45:14):
and leave us a five star review.
Again, thank you for that.
We enjoy our listeners and wedefinitely enjoy communicating
with them.
Lastly, we're in a specialmonth right now where we are up
for getting nominations for bestbusiness podcast.
If you can head on over to theepisode description, we have a
(45:35):
link there where you can go andvote for your favorite podcasts
under categories such asbusiness, comedy, shorts, etc.
We are going for the bestbusiness podcast.
So head on over to the businesssection and vote for chopping
with fire.
Again, thank you for listeningto chopping with fire.
We thoroughly appreciate you.
(45:57):
Thank you, thank you.
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