California has some crazy fire regulations when Real Estate is concerned!?!?!?

I go live with the best in the insurance business Mariah Davis Owner of Oakview Insurance! I hope you enjoy and bring value from this Podcast! Please click on, or copy and paste this link to learn more!https://www.amazon.com/Path-Travel-Power-Behind-Trust/dp/B09ZCVNM8J/ref=sr_1_1?crid=UJPZMAHLGOGT&keywords=path+of+travel+the+power+behind+know+like+and+trust&qid=1695362419&sprefix=path+of+travel+%2Caps%2C142&sr=8-1e business!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey everybody, we are live today with the best in the business, Mariah Davis over at

(00:26):
Oakview Insurance. How you doing today, Mariah? I'm doing awesome. How are you, Matt? I'm good.
It's been a lot of weather lately, huh? I bet you guys have been swapped. Yeah, it's been a very
interesting couple of months with all the weather. We've been dealing with a lot of fallen trees,

(00:46):
roofleafs, all kinds of craziness. It does always pick up, claim wise, when we have crazy weather,
whether we think is crazy in California. I know other parts of the country don't really feel like
it's not nuts over here. We get a little bit of rain. We're like, oh my god, what's going on? And

(01:08):
meanwhile everybody in Midwest is like swamped out with snow and blizzards and all that. Yeah,
like they get massive hail, tornadoes, hurricanes. So I mean, we really can't complain even when we
tend to get all of our water at once. Yeah, for sure. Man, your business blew my mind recently.

(01:34):
Like we had a little problem at our house. I'm sure you heard about it. I did. Yeah. And I was
just blown away that you guys had clean right build right out to make it safe, like within four hours
of my dad, they were here and everything handled like didn't have to worry about it. We really

(01:57):
appreciate it. Oh, I mean, we were we were happy to help. I mean, you know, luckily, Janelle,
you're about to be able to call in right away. Yeah, we could just kind of get everything moving
forward. So it helps to have good partners that we can rely on to call as well. But hey, I'm sure

(02:20):
glad that that wasn't worse. It worse situation than it was. And this is like the second time we've
had to call you guys. We remember, I think it was a couple years ago, we had a huge windstorm
through here. And it was like 70 mile an hour winds. Yeah, on our fence. And the same situation
with that, man. It was just an easy process. Like if never I always dread calling any kind of

(02:45):
company. Right? Yeah, when you have to like, you know, Janelle takes care of most of that because,
you know, the second I get any like pushback on anything, I start, you know, just falling apart.
I can't handle these people, you know, so she she does really well getting on the phone and

(03:05):
talking with them. And, you know, I've been on the phone with your company so many times, just
through what I do for a living. And every single time is just the best experience, you know, the
best employees I've ever met.
Thank you. We know we really appreciate that. And we really work hard to be friendly, responsive

(03:30):
and empathetic, especially with a claim. A lot of it is confusing. I mean, most people don't go
through claims often. I mean, that's what you really hope for too, right? Like, you don't want to
be going through claims all the time. So we try to offer as much guidance as we can. And we're
really there also to step in. If something does kind of get Hey, why goes off track? You know,

(03:51):
what can we do to help get it back on track and, you know, get get a resolution?
How long have you been in this business? It's going to be 17 years this summer, which is just
shocking to me. I don't know where where that time has gone or how it's possibly been that long,
but but it has been so.

(04:13):
Yeah, you know, there's benefits to being in the business that long, right? Like, yeah, it, it
kind of sucks to look back on life and be like, Oh, man, I've been doing this a long time. But
the experience that that you have really shows in comparison to anybody else, you know, so
well, you know, there's there is just stuff that you you run into that you can't learn until you

(04:41):
you've gone through it. Like the textbook just can't teach you some of this. You have to run into
this experience. And especially with insurance, it's an ever changing marketplace. You know, our
companies are changing underwriting. Things are very difficult in California right now in general.
So, you know, you're always learning, you're pivoting, you're, you know, figuring out what,

(05:04):
what's the next best thing that we're going to be able to offer our clients. And so I, it's never
boring, which I know people are like, Oh, insurance, that's not exactly exciting. I'm like, trust me,
when you work with as many companies as we do, somebody is changing something uniquely. So

(05:24):
right. And I mean, here in California, you know, we talk spoke just a second ago about how
temperate our climate really is. But one thing that we do have more than I think anybody else's
fire. And like a ton of it. And from the real estate side, it is such a hurdle at this point,

(05:50):
because some people need to live in the mountains, Mariah, you know, like, right? That was some
clients that you don't want them coming into the city more than like, every couple of weeks, you
know, they, they love their privacy and they love living out in the, in the wilderness. And it
seems like it's becoming more and more difficult for them to sustain out there because of it,

(06:14):
it is because of the fire insurance premiums, you know,
it's, you know, it's, it's changed so much and really so rapidly. I think it was, I think it was
2016 or 2017. I think was Santa Rosa. And I get those days off now. But that really was our
first shift. And then Paradise and the campfire really just shattered our marketplace. Right.

(06:40):
And, you know, we hadn't had prior to these fires, you know, fires take out whole towns. Right.
So, you know, the underwriting completely changed. Sorry, I kind of got a hair there in my
face for a second. But I know all the underwriting changed and companies all of a sudden were very
concerned with their concentration, you know, that during the campfire in Paradise, we actually

(07:04):
lost an insurance company that was Merced Mutual. They had more claims than they could handle. And
they went out of business. So just the, the landscape changed on what these insurance companies
are going to be willing to take risk wise. And we've just seen that these fires are wind driven

(07:24):
now. So it's a totally different kind of event. That's why you're seeing these huge amount of
acres burn and they move really fast. So we lost property, but we lost lives too. So that, that
shift has made it very difficult. And I do really just feel awful for, for folks who are, you know,

(07:45):
already established and they've been in their home in the hills for years and they get non renewed
and their premium, you know, went from a thousand to six thousand for some folks that's really more
than, than they can afford. But we're starting to just get comfortable with, with those premiums.

(08:06):
When all this started, if I gave somebody a $6,000 homeowner's premium, like my job would have
dropped, it probably was a high value home, you know, 10,000 square feet, you know, insured for a
lot. And now that's just, it's not the case. I can give those out all, all day long, if you're

(08:26):
in a high enough virus location. So I remember I had a client. I'm sure you remember Berry Creek
when that. Yeah, we were lost several. We were in escrow with a client that, yeah, we're like
three days from closing. And like this huge gorilla of an escrow, you know, with, with just a

(08:51):
bunch of hair stuck in it. And three days before closing, I was like, sit, we're actually going
to close this one. This is amazing. And then, and then the whole town burned down. And I was like,
oh, having to deal with the client. You know, they were wondering about why they were paying such,
they were quoted as such a high premium, premium. And they found out the hard way. Luckily, we

(09:16):
weren't closed. So they didn't write back and we went back to looking, but I mean, it was just
insane. Like I never thought I would deal with that. And that's, I mean, it's, it's just normal for
our office to lose, you know, 10 homes a year plus to wildfire. And that's, that's abnormal prior to,

(09:42):
you know, the last five to 60 years. I mean, you just, you would lose maybe one every couple of years.
And so, yeah, things are changed. I mean, there, there's still companies out there that are available
that are writing. It's just folks have to, or buyers are just going to have to be aware of the
fact that premiums are, are up, especially in the hills, but premiums are going to be up throughout

(10:06):
the whole state. Right. Just due to losses, inflation, kind of the whole kit and caboodle on
that. So what other kind of insurance do you guys do other than homeowners? I mean, we do a lot in
the personal space. So that's gonna be like your auto motorcycles, toys. We do a lot of private

(10:29):
flood insurance. And then on the commercial side, we do a lot of habitational. So like apartments,
commercial buildings. And then we also have a farm and ag department. So handle, you know,
everything from your, your small, what we call it, hobby or gentleman farm up to like
the whole corporate farms. That's awesome. Yeah. You know, we've, we've only dealt with you guys

(10:54):
for like homeowners insurance we have. Yeah. For our personal, but then clients and stuff. And I've
always wondered like, what else do they do over there? Yeah, we, we do a lot. We, what we don't
do is anything with health insurance. We, right now, we, we work with several partners that we
feel comfortable sending our clients to. Right. It's, it's hard to be everything to everyone.

(11:20):
And yeah, yeah. It's just an arena we have currently stayed, stayed out of and maybe at one
point we'll open a whole health department. But for right now that those get referred out.
Seems like here in Yuba city, at least it would be beneficial. I mean, we have a lot of medical

(11:43):
stuff going in all over town. Seems like, you know, we do. We are lucky to have several
agents who really specialize in health and like health only. So that's, it's, it's worked out to
be a really great partnership. They take great care of our clients and then they send some folks
over to us as well. So referral business is wonderful. I mean, from real estate, man, you know, I'm like,

(12:10):
yeah, it is. And it's just great to build up your referral network to, you know, I'm talking about
that I can't be everything to all people. Sometimes I don't have the right fit for somebody. And so
it's great to know that, Hey, I've got some great partners in insurance who do similar things to

(12:30):
what I do. But we can help folks out and pass clients back and forth, depending on the products and,
you know, who can best meet the need. Right. And then as far as like
areas, areas that you cover, right, like geographical, how far do you take clients? Like,

(12:52):
are you able to do insurance in different states? Or is it? We are, depending on California. Yeah,
where we're licensed currently in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Nevada. Okay. So we,
we kind of write, I have both the West Coast and a little bit over, we had to pick up that Idaho

(13:16):
license because we had so many of our clients moving to the state of Idaho. So we wanted to,
you know, continue to be their agent. So we were able to get a license and then work with the companies
to offer insurance there as well. But yeah, we're able to write in all of those states.

(13:37):
So yeah, I mean, we have clients all over, you know, and all over California. California is
our largest client base. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, we, we've expanded quite a bit. So.
It only took 17 years. Look at that. Right. And two businesses and yeah.

(14:01):
So what's this other business I see you guys promoting all the time with the wine?
Yeah. So my husband and I are partners in a, a wine, boutique winery. It's called Byloring
Sellers. And we basically get all of our source, all of our grapes from Sonoma County. We do a
little bit in Mendocino County. And we have a tasting room on K street in downtown Sacramento.

(14:26):
It's right, right over by the Golden One. That's awesome. And it's, it's been just a fun project.
My husband and I both really enjoy wine and so being able to be with friends
in a business project has just been great. And we've been lucky.
It's been something different, right? Like.

(14:46):
It is, you're completely different from, from the insurance side. And it's, it's just, it's fun.
We love being able to go down to the tasting room. And we've been lucky enough with a wonderful
winemaker. And we've had several wines highly rated through wine enthusiasts. So it's been a,

(15:07):
a fun project. And we're, we're interested to see where it takes us next.
That's awesome. So if people want to get insurance, how do they get a hold of Oakview?
Yeah, I mean, you can visit our website. It's oakviewinf.com. We have our airfo numbers there.
You can reach out us through the, the contact us. You can also Facebook us and we respond on that or

(15:31):
right on Google. You can send a message that way. So I, we're, we're fairly accessible. You can even
text our main number and we can reply back that way as well. So.
Hey, I really appreciate you coming on with me today.
Yeah. Thanks for having me Matt. It was really great to catch up.
Yeah, you too. Stick around for a second.
All right. Great. Thanks.