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LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Jenelle Ryan, Georgia State University and AmRisc

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Georgia State
Minneapolis St. Paul Studio
LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Jenelle Ryan, Georgia State University and AmRisc
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Georgia State

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Jenelle Ryan, Georgia State University and AmRisc

Jenelle Ryan, a graduate of Georgia State University and Underwriting Analyst for AmRisc, talked with host Jamie Gassmann at RISKWORLD 2022 as she prepared to graduate. She share that she interned with Amrisc and was set to join their team after graduation. In this conversation, she and Jamie talked about the risk management program at Georgia State, her new job, the learning opportunities she’s had, and more.

Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.

This show was originally broadcast from the RIMS 2022 RISKWORLD Conference held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

Georgia State Robinson College of Business, Department of Risk Management & Insurance

With one of the largest research faculties and risk management and insurance doctoral programs in the world, Georgia State is dedicated to understanding, quantifying and developing strategies for managing risks faced by individuals, organizations, and society. They owe their success to an outstanding student body, high-achieving graduates, innovative faculty who are leaders in their respective fields and the generosity of their financial supporters and friends.

U.S. News & World Report ranked Georgia State’s B.B.A. in Risk Management & Insurance #4 in the nation in 2022. Their department is highly respected, too. They have been a Center of Actuarial Excellence for more than a decade. Plus, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln ranks them #1 in North America for research productivity in actuarial science.

Website | LinkedIn

AmRisc, LLC

AmRisc, LLC, is the largest catastrophe-focused Managing General Agent (MGA) in the United States, with offices across the country in Texas (Houston HQ), Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. Established in 2000, AmRisc is a subsidiary of Truist Insurance Holdings, whose parent company, Truist, is one of the largest financial services companies in the nation.

As one of the first MGAs to develop a multi-model approach to risk underwriting, innovation is a core value at AmRisc. Founded by engineers and risk specialists, AmRisc is built to provide stability in a dynamic market and deliver unmatched solutions for producers, carriers, and their insureds.

Company website | LinkedIn

Jenelle Ryan, Underwriting Analyst, AmRisc, LLC

Jenelle Ryan, Underwriting Analyst, AmRisc, LLC

 

About Workplace MVP

Every day, around the world, organizations of all sizes face disruptive events and situations. Within those workplaces are everyday heroes in human resources, risk management, security, business continuity, and the C-suite. They don’t call themselves heroes though. On the contrary, they simply show up every day, laboring for the well-being of employees in their care, readying the workplace for and planning responses to disruption. This show, Workplace MVP, confers on these heroes the designation they deserve, Workplace MVP (Most Valuable Professionals), and gives them the forum to tell their story. As you hear their experiences, you will learn first-hand, real-life approaches to readying the workplace, responses to crisis situations, and overcoming challenges of disruption. Visit our show archive here.

Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann

Jamie Gassmann, Host, “Workplace MVP”

In addition to serving as the host to the Workplace MVP podcast, Jamie Gassmann is the Director of Marketing at R3 Continuum (R3c). Collectively, she has more than fourteen years of marketing experience. Across her tenure, she has experience working in and with various industries including banking, real estate, retail, crisis management, insurance, business continuity, and more. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with special interest in Advertising and Public Relations and a Master of Business Administration from Paseka School of Business, Minnesota State University.

R3 Continuum

R3 Continuum is a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. R3c helps ensure the psychological and physical safety of organizations and their people in today’s ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Through their continuum of tailored solutions, including evaluations, crisis response, executive optimization, protective services, and more, they help organizations maintain and cultivate a workplace of wellbeing so that their people can thrive. Learn more about R3c at www.r3c.com.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from Riskworld 2022 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in helping workplaces thrive during disruptive times. Now, here’s your host.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:22] Hi, everyone. Your host, Jamie Gassmann, here with Workplace MVP podcast. And with me is Jenelle Ryan. And you are currently a student graduating in May.

Jenelle Ryan: [00:00:34] Yes.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:34] So, this is your first time being here at the RIMS conference?

Jenelle Ryan: [00:00:38] Yes, my very first time. I’m having an absolute blast.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:41] So, what has been your favorite experience so far? I know the conference just started, but you’ve had some fun already since being here, right?

Jenelle Ryan: [00:00:49] Yes. The keynote speaker this morning was absolutely incredible, just the most inspirational talk I think I’ve ever heard. And then, I have adored coming around to all of these panels, seeing all of the wonderful professionals. Everybody is so friendly, inviting, and I’ve just really loved meeting brand new people.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:06] Yeah. And conferences are a great place for that and great networking. And I know you are graduating this May.

Jenelle Ryan: [00:01:12] Yes.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:13] And you attend Georgia State University. So, talk to me about that program. I know it’s one of the top four in the country, is what you shared with me.

Jenelle Ryan: [00:01:21] So, Georgia State University has the number four RMI program in the country so far. We’ve had that for a couple of years running now, so we’re very proud of it. And I’m a senior risk management and insurance student there, graduating in May 6th. I walk. I cannot believe how soon it is, but our program really gives us a great depth and breadth of information on the insurance industry.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:43] Great. And so, based on what you’ve learned about it and from what you’ve seen here at RIMS, right now, if you could kind of pinpoint where you’d like to take your career right off the gate coming off of graduation, what are you hopeful for?

Jenelle Ryan: [00:01:56] Yes, absolutely. So, I’m really interested in accessing surplus lines. I actually have a job lined up with AmRisc right now in Alpharetta, which is the largest catastrophe-focused managing general agency in the United States. I’m absolutely thrilled to be going back there after my internship this past summer. And I’m really just interested in learning more about as many aspects of the industry as I can. I feel like there are so many different facets, even just walking around, I’ve met so many people who are working in areas I’ve never even heard of, so I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to learn more.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:29] Wonderful. And now, you were part of one of the cases that—tell me a little bit about those cases that are made available to the students learning in similar programs that you’re a part of. Talk to me a little bit about what that program looks like.

Jenelle Ryan: [00:02:44] Absolutely. So, the cases are incredibly challenging, but they essentially gather up a bunch of students from your school, you usually pick teams of four, and you do a little bit of insight into identifying like risk exposures and solutions to problems based on different companies. So, this year, the case competition was based on Starbucks, and we were analyzing the emerging risks that they’re facing. Absolutely, incredibly challenging, and I’m thrilled that some of my friends from St. Mary’s have gone on to the final eight. I have friends from Florida State who participated. It’s wonderful that all of us get to participate in this, and then come together and have that experience as students, where we’re not only learning, but friendly competition.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:31] Yeah, absolutely. And it sounds like from what you’re describing, you get a little bit of hands on kind of some of the real world work that you’ll be doing after graduation.

Jenelle Ryan: [00:03:39] Absolutely. You have to go into very intense detail with some of these things, and consulting, and trying to see just how you can solve this, it’s a great learning opportunity.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:51] And a resume builder. That’s fantastic. You can speak to it in an interview. That’s fantastic. So, if you were going to leave anything for our listeners who might be considering students coming out of a program, what would be something you’d want to leave for them?

Jenelle Ryan: [00:04:05] Leave for them, as like a piece of information?

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:08] Yeah, like something to take into consideration as they’re interviewing a fresh out-of-college risk insurance student.

Jenelle Ryan: [00:04:15] I would say be open-minded. We’re all here. We never stop learning. We’re all not only with our designations, but just in diversity and inclusion, listening to other people. And I would say really keep an open mind. You don’t know everything. And as long as you’re learning, you’re doing something right.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:32] Fantastic. So, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If anybody want to get a hold of you for whatever reason, is there an email address or a way that they can contact you?

Jenelle Ryan: [00:04:40] Yes, absolutely. My email is jenellenryan@gmail.com, Jenellenryan@gmail.com. And you can add me on LinkedIn.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:52] Wonderful. It’s been such a pleasure to talk with you. Congrats on getting here with your case.

Jenelle Ryan: [00:04:52] Thank you so much.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:58] I know you indicated you didn’t make it to the final round, but just being a part of that I think is a win in and of itself.

Jenelle Ryan: [00:05:02] Absolutely.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:02] So, congratulations to you and thank you again for being on our show.

Jenelle Ryan: [00:05:06] Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure.

Outro: [00:05:12] Thank you for joining us on Workplace MVP. R3 Continuum is a proud sponsor of this show and is delighted to celebrate most valuable professionals who work diligently to secure safe workplaces where employees can thrive.

 

 

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Gui Orliac, SpeedGauge

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Speedgauge
Minneapolis St. Paul Studio
LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Gui Orliac, SpeedGauge
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Speedgauge

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Gui Orliac, SpeedGauge

Gui Orliac with SpeedGauge was Jamie Gassmann’s guest on this live episode from RISKWORLD 2022. Gui explained that SpeedGauge is a product that creates risk models for commercial fleet drivers to reduce the risk for the companies that use them. He and Jamie talked about how the score is created, the variables involved such as locations and types of roads, the ways companies use the data, and much more.

Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.

This show was originally broadcast from the RIMS 2022 RISKWORLD Conference held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

SpeedGauge

SpeedGauge is a driving analytics and performance company. Their focused, effective solutions help fleets manage and improve driving behaviors to transform a company’s approach to driving, reduce risk, strengthen business operations and enhance financial results.

SpeedGauge is devoted to helping customers protect their businesses, their drivers, and the motoring public.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook

Gui Orliac, Director of Revenue Development, SpeedGauge

Gui Orliac, Director of Revenue Development, SpeedGauge

About Workplace MVP

Every day, around the world, organizations of all sizes face disruptive events and situations. Within those workplaces are everyday heroes in human resources, risk management, security, business continuity, and the C-suite. They don’t call themselves heroes though. On the contrary, they simply show up every day, laboring for the well-being of employees in their care, readying the workplace for and planning responses to disruption. This show, Workplace MVP, confers on these heroes the designation they deserve, Workplace MVP (Most Valuable Professionals), and gives them the forum to tell their story. As you hear their experiences, you will learn first-hand, real-life approaches to readying the workplace, responses to crisis situations, and overcoming challenges of disruption. Visit our show archive here.

Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann

Jamie Gassmann, Host, “Workplace MVP”

In addition to serving as the host to the Workplace MVP podcast, Jamie Gassmann is the Director of Marketing at R3 Continuum (R3c). Collectively, she has more than fourteen years of marketing experience. Across her tenure, she has experience working in and with various industries including banking, real estate, retail, crisis management, insurance, business continuity, and more. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with special interest in Advertising and Public Relations and a Master of Business Administration from Paseka School of Business, Minnesota State University.

R3 Continuum

R3 Continuum is a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. R3c helps ensure the psychological and physical safety of organizations and their people in today’s ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Through their continuum of tailored solutions, including evaluations, crisis response, executive optimization, protective services, and more, they help organizations maintain and cultivate a workplace of wellbeing so that their people can thrive. Learn more about R3c at www.r3c.com.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from Riskworld 2022 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in helping workplaces thrive during disruptive times. Now, here’s your host.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:23] Hi, everyone. Your host, Jamie Gassmann here at the Riskworld 2022 live from the R3 Continuum booth in our Expo Hall. And with me is Gui Orliac. And Gui, which company are you with?

Gui Orliac: [00:00:38] Hi, Jamie. Thank you for having me.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:39] You’re welcome.

Gui Orliac: [00:00:40] And I’m with a company called Speed Gauge. And what we do, we do risk analytic for commercial fleet or commercial auto. We look at driving behavior and helping the whole commercial world, looking at evaluating risk on the road.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:02] Yeah. And talking to you before we jumped on the mics, you were talking about that these are the commercial vehicles that an organization would own. And looking at the risk that’s involved in the drivers driving those vehicles and how somebody should be evaluating their risk level, correct?

Gui Orliac: [00:01:18] That’s right. And thank you for asking. I mean, clearly, you pay some attention to some things that I’m not sure, is that sexy? But thank you for looking into that. What’s happening in the commercial auto or basically truck world is that everybody drive differently, and how do you evaluate and know which driver is and what the risk of the driver is per driver, rather than just creating a blanket statement. And this is accentuated even more as we go toward miles-driven insurance.

Gui Orliac: [00:02:00] So then, you need to evaluate risk based on mileage, not just based on overall, if you have 10 trucks, or 20 trucks, or 100 trucks. And another aspect of that, you want to evaluate risk based on where the company is driving. So, are they driving in a city or are they driving on the highway? And so, once you evaluate the risk, you want to be able to provide insights to the drivers and their manager to help them get better at doing their job.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:31] So, in looking at that risk, and I know we were kind of talking a little bit about those drivers, how does your data help you in identifying, because not all of us drive the same?

Gui Orliac: [00:02:42] That’s right.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:43] But a lot of the times, I hear, it’s like, oh, well, there’s 16, so they got to pay more, because they’re 16, but you may have a more responsible 16-year-old driver than a 30-year-old driver, so tell me a little bit about how you analyze that.

Gui Orliac: [00:02:55] Exactly. I mean, I think that’s just really the fundamental of it, and I think we are going to see that more in point as you continue to have a shortage of commercial drivers. In the trucking industry, there had always been a shortage of commercial driver, but with the disruption in supply chain, and the disruption, which is linked to COVID and the retirement, you have less and less drivers. So then, you need to bring new drivers working for you. And in general, the world of risk look at a driver based on the amount of time they have been driving rather than on the driver behavior.

Gui Orliac: [00:03:38] And so, what we do, because of our relationship with over 100 telematic providers, because the commercial industry, the commercial auto industry is very fragmented, and because of the work we do with the GPS providers, the telematic providers, we have been able to have access to the data in a broad basis. Okay. And so, we have created a risk model that is very broad and that can provide each individual fleet, each individual insurance company insight on each individual truck and driver, and how they actually behave, not based on historical data, but based on what we call driven data.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:26] Yeah. And I’m guessing that that helps them from a policy perspective and identifying how much insurance they need to purchase, but they might be able to use some of that data, too, from a behavioral perspective in terms of how do they coach their employee, right?

Gui Orliac: [00:04:38] Both. And I think that’s what’s really important, and I think as a company, we started to help company provide insight on how they engage with their employees, and as our solution evolve, we started to offer solution to the insurance industry and develop an insurance way to like a credit score, but for driving risk. And so, now, we have been validating that score for a number of years and a number of large commercial insurance companies are using this scoring to understand and to really target appropriate premium and underwriting based on actual driven data. And I think we are going to see that more as we are going to go, as I was saying, toward miles-driven. So then ,you need to be really accurate on understanding where you drive, how you drive, and how many miles.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:41] Yeah. And every city is going to be different too, I’ve noticed, from my own driving in other cities. So, does it take into account location by the city and geographic regions?

Gui Orliac: [00:05:51] It goes even closer than that. It goes to the type of road, primary road, secondary road, toll road, things like that. So, we look at—but not only the type of road, also the time of the day. And do you drive the same way at night? Do you drive the same way at day? Another one is when there’s traffic or no traffic. One thing we noticed, so as an organization, Speed Gauge, has worked in the trucking commercial fleet industry for over 12 years. Okay.

Gui Orliac: [00:06:30] So, we have relationship with many, if not all the telematic providers. It’s hard to have all, but at least many of the telematic providers in North America. And so, we were able to see that, for example, increased speeding happened at the beginning of the pandemic, because, in fact, there was less traffic jam. Isn’t that like really fascinating? In understanding that, so basically contextualizing the data, understanding how what’s happening help people like even the fleet, then they can intervene and say to their drivers, maybe you need to slow down, because a ticket is still a ticket.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:15] Yeah. Well, and that increases insurance rates when you get too many speeding tickets, right?.

Gui Orliac: [00:07:20] Exactly. So then, the question become, is it, should you—and I think we are actually making a very astute point, is it a good way to judge a risk having a speeding ticket or any ticket? Because like if you drive in Indiana, so we have data that show, in Indiana, if you get in Indiana, you get a ticket. So, no matter what. Then, the question is, you have other states where you drive, you don’t get tickets. But if you are driving in Indiana, you get a ticket. Okay. So then, the question is, is it relevant? Do you need to take into consideration that if you go to Indiana, you are going to ticket or not? That’s a really interesting second question. Does it mean that you are driving poorly just like in Indiana? That’s where the regular trucking.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:06] Yeah. Wow. Interesting.

Gui Orliac: [00:08:08] That’s right.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:09] Yeah. And I was going to ask you about during the pandemic, because I know being from the Minneapolis area, I know the roadways got a little bit more dicey with it, became a racetrack, and we weren’t used to that pre-pandemic as many vehicles driving that way. So, what were some of the trending that you’ve seen in the last two years that has made some of your data pulls really interesting?

Gui Orliac: [00:08:32] Well, so I don’t know, I don’t have all of them in mind, but I think like one thing we saw definitely at the beginning of the pandemic, because there was less traffic jam, we saw a significant increase in speeding activities, vehicle moving faster. Does that mean that there was more accident? Not really, because in fact, there was less vehicle on the road. Okay.

Gui Orliac: [00:08:57] So, that’s an interesting contradiction. Okay. Does that mean that you still need not to pay attention to road regulation? I think as an organization, it’s better to be consistent rather than to allow too many variations. And what we have seen is that since then, things have become a little bit more stable, so we are back to a more regular traffic patterns. So, overall, it’s pretty good.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:09:25] Yeah. Slow drivers like myself are now back on the road, they’ve got to watch out. So, quick question, and you may not have an answer to this yet, because I know it’s still pretty new, but with self-driving vehicles coming out from the carrier perspective, has your organization started to look into some of the data on that and plans for how companies can assess the risk of bringing those into their fleet?

Gui Orliac: [00:09:47] Okay. So, I’m not personally looking at self-driving vehicle, per se, but we are looking at data from any type of vehicle. Okay. So, that’s a really interesting differentiation. One, there’s not that many self-driving vehicles on the line today, so that’s really important to keep that in mind. Okay. I think that we are moving forward to what more and more automation of drivers. Okay. I think that’s a good thing because it helps driver to be less tired.

Gui Orliac: [00:10:21] So, assisted driving, I think, has a lot of benefit, and I think fleet and driver are going to benefit from it. I was talking to somebody else at the show today, and they said, well, hopefully, full driver automation vehicle is going to be coming soon, because we don’t have enough drivers. And in some ways, it’s true. We need some help, but I think we are like years away from seeing it actually happening. In small scale, we are going to see it, but like at large scale, I think we are a little bit away. And I think the other thing is that drivers are a great customer relationship person.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:11:04] Oh, completely, yeah.

Gui Orliac: [00:11:05] So, I think like in some ways, it’s—and the question is, are we going to get better services or what type of services with full automation? And I think we don’t know that yet.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:11:17] Yeah, lots to come ahead of us, I’m pretty sure.

Gui Orliac: [00:11:20] Exactly. And so, that’s what’s making this industry quite exciting.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:11:24] I bet.

Gui Orliac: [00:11:25] It’s like changing, evolution, or technology, but I think at the end of the day is what to do with the technology and what to do with the data. And so, from a Speed Gauge perspective, we came up with a way to provide insight to the whole industry. And we believe in transparency so that a fleet can improve, an insurance company can be more accurate, everybody can work together, and we make sure we do that based on permission management, because we do not provide data, and that has not been authorized by all the party involved. And that, I think, is crucial.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:12:02] Yeah, absolutely. Super interesting. Interesting topic and interesting work that you do. I’m so glad you joined us on the show.

Gui Orliac: [00:12:09] No, thank you very much, Jamie, for having me. And I think I could talk a lot about that, but I think most people will be bored very fast about the trucking data, so I will maybe keep it at that, but one thing really important is that it helps people once it’s being used. It has to be used. That’s the truth.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:12:29] Well, data is a very powerful tool, so it tells you a lot when you look at it close enough.

Gui Orliac: [00:12:33] Exactly.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:12:34] Yeah. Well, if anybody wanted to get a hold of you to learn a little bit more about what your company does and like what you do, how can they do that?

Gui Orliac: [00:12:41] Well, they can go to speedgauge.net and they will look for a Frenchman name on their people, and that will be me.

Gui Orliac: [00:12:52] Wonderful.

Gui Orliac: [00:12:53] Thank you very much, Jamie.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:12:54] Yeah, thank you.

Gui Orliac: [00:12:55] And have a good afternoon.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:12:57] You, too.

Gui Orliac: [00:12:58] Bye.

Outro: [00:13:02] Thank you for joining us on Workplace MVP. R3 Continuum is a proud sponsor of this show and is delighted to celebrate most valuable professionals who work diligently to secure safe workplaces where employees can thrive.

 

 

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Zoe Freeman, Signal Restoration Services

by

Signal Restoration
Minneapolis St. Paul Studio
LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Zoe Freeman, Signal Restoration Services
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Signal Restoration

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Zoe Freeman, Signal Restoration Services

Zoe Freeman, a Regional Account Manager for Signal Restoration Services, was the guest on this episode of Workplace MVP LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022. Signal was not an exhibitor but a sponsor of this year’s event. Zoe discussed Signal’s 50th anniversary, the work they do, highlighted the need for pre-loss planning, and more.

Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.

This show was originally broadcast from the RIMS 2022 RISKWORLD Conference held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

Signal Restoration Services

Signal Restoration Services is a leading disaster restoration contractor. They specialize in fire, water, storm, mold, hurricane, earthquake, emergency, and reconstruction services as well as full-service roofing and Cap Ex work. Their success has been achieved through high-quality standards, solid business ethics, and prompt response to their customers’ needs.

Their most significant advantage is their people. Thoroughly screened, trained, and certified, Signal’s employees comply with OSHA standards. They also regularly receive re-certification training on safe work procedures and hazardous materials handling.

The highly trained Signal representatives have been instrumental in the success of Signal’s customer service record. Their licensed personnel have the experience, expertise, and resources to complete your project in a timely and professional manner.

Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

Zoe Freeman, Regional Account Manager, Signal Restoration Services

Zoe Freeman, Regional Account Manager, Signal Restoration Services

 

 

About Workplace MVP

Every day, around the world, organizations of all sizes face disruptive events and situations. Within those workplaces are everyday heroes in human resources, risk management, security, business continuity, and the C-suite. They don’t call themselves heroes though. On the contrary, they simply show up every day, laboring for the well-being of employees in their care, readying the workplace for and planning responses to disruption. This show, Workplace MVP, confers on these heroes the designation they deserve, Workplace MVP (Most Valuable Professionals), and gives them the forum to tell their story. As you hear their experiences, you will learn first-hand, real-life approaches to readying the workplace, responses to crisis situations, and overcoming challenges of disruption. Visit our show archive here.

Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann

Jamie Gassmann, Host, “Workplace MVP”

In addition to serving as the host to the Workplace MVP podcast, Jamie Gassmann is the Director of Marketing at R3 Continuum (R3c). Collectively, she has more than fourteen years of marketing experience. Across her tenure, she has experience working in and with various industries including banking, real estate, retail, crisis management, insurance, business continuity, and more. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with special interest in Advertising and Public Relations and a Master of Business Administration from Paseka School of Business, Minnesota State University.

R3 Continuum

R3 Continuum is a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. R3c helps ensure the psychological and physical safety of organizations and their people in today’s ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Through their continuum of tailored solutions, including evaluations, crisis response, executive optimization, protective services, and more, they help organizations maintain and cultivate a workplace of wellbeing so that their people can thrive. Learn more about R3c at www.r3c.com.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter</a

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from Riskworld 2022 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in helping workplaces thrive during disruptive times. Now, here’s your host.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:22] Hi, everyone. Your host, Jamie Gassman, here coming to you again from the Riskworld 2022 Expo Hall, and I’m in our sponsor, R3 Continuum’s, Booth. And with me is Zoe Freeman from Signal Restoration. Welcome to the show, Zoe.

Zoe Freeman: [00:00:38] Thanks, Jamie. Thanks for having me.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:41] Yeah. And so, tell us a little bit about what Signal Restoration does.

Zoe Freeman: [00:00:45] So, Signal Restoration is a national catastrophe and large loss company celebrating our 50th year anniversary. There’s a banner when you walk in from the front entrance, it’s right there. We’re very proud of that. We have been around since ’72, and in 2009, restoration was introduced, too. It started out as a general contractor company, and then it was purchased in 2009 from the current owners, and they soon added restoration services, and made it into a commercial large loss and catastrophe company.

Zoe Freeman: [00:01:29] And in 2015, we added to that network by adding on a franchise corporation called PuroClean, which, in itself, is very successful, but they add to the huge Signal network as additional resources for the more routine losses that our clients so often see. And then, additionally on that, about a year-and-a-half ago, the purchase of US Roofing came. So, it’s a three-part synergy, and we handle restoration projects of flood fire, any natural disaster, as well as remediation services. So, for mold, and asbestos, and lead, and just about anything else in Hazmat, we try to support if we can.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:21] Wow. So, typically, with your client, if somebody is coming to you for support, what does that experience look like for them?

Zoe Freeman: [00:02:33] Well, typically, if it comes—so it’s always nice to have a relation—usually, there’s a relationship already built before any type of loss or something comes through to us. Sometimes, there’s not. And maybe the insurance company may know us well, and they ask us to step in to help out one of their clients or something like that. And so, the relationship, there is always some type of relationship there. If it’s a catastrophe situation, it’s pretty intense. There’s a lot of mobilization. There’s a lot of things working behind the scenes.

Zoe Freeman: [00:03:17] So, it’s actually pretty intense when we have to step in to any situation. And then, we also have our very friendly we’re here to help the community situations as well that are not so intense. And that’s if a client has like a small flood, or a large pipe break, or something, which you don’t think it does, but it actually ends up causing quite a bit of damage, so the sooner and the faster, more efficient we can get in there makes things much easier on everyone, saves time, gets the business back going, and it really ends up being a great thing. So, there’s good and bad with our company, but it’s all good in the outcome, right? But when you ask the question, I think of disaster first, right?

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:14] Right.

Zoe Freeman: [00:04:14] So, a lot of times, that’s when we get called in. But a lot of times, it’s not. A lot of timea, we get called in on the more routine losses, and those are fun, too.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:21] Yeah. So, it’s almost like you kind of have a mix of like it’s hurricane season, you’re going to be called in probably quite a bit in terms of any flooding that might be occurring in that type of a situation.

Zoe Freeman: [00:04:31] Yeah. So, hurricane season definitely is a big season for folks like us in this industry, and we’re on standby, we’re on watch. We’ve got folks ready to deploy, manpower, equipment. It’s just a constant rotation or constant monitoring of events. And to know where our clients are and strategize where we need to be, ready for those efforts. And it’s a lot of fun, but we got a lot of experience at it, so I’d like to think we’re pretty good at what we do.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:06] Yeah. So, is there any trending or anything that you’re seeing that’s popping up more and more that workplaces or organizations, maybe not just the workplace, but that organizations need to be aware of that if they’re not thinking about it, they probably should be thinking about it.

Zoe Freeman: [00:05:19] Absolutely. That’s going to be pre-loss planning. So, one of the events over the last couple of years have just really got the risk world, as well as other parts within the company, but specifically risk, in that pre-loss planning mode, because if you’re able to, upfront, make those contract, get those contracts in place, and build those relationships, and make those introductions between your broker, and your insurance, and your risk manager, and your contractors at the event of when the actual time happens, there’s so much that goes into it.

Zoe Freeman: [00:06:02] There’s so much time saved, so much money saved. The barrier of communication is better. It made things go so much faster. Pre-loss planning is something that we can’t share enough, and that’s what we are seeing in Signal and I’m sure other restoration companies as well, is that want and that need to start a pre-loss planning dialogue and put a plan in place.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:30] Yeah. It’s like you don’t want to be making decisions of who you should be calling when something happens. You want to know who you’re calling.

Zoe Freeman: [00:06:35] Absolutely. You absolutely don’t want that to be one of those, we’ll pick it up when it happens. This is one of the things that you definitely want to plan ahead for. And yeah, there are so many wonderful things that come out of having a plan in place. And one of the other things is because of that also and because of the pre-loss planning, you’ve got folks that are starting to—restoration companies were able to say, you’ve got the housing community, you’ve got these folks, everybody’s on board. We’ve got to get these business continuity plans in place, so a lot of good stuff out there.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:24] Yeah. And I know you’re an exhibitor here at RIMS.

Zoe Freeman: [00:07:26] We are a sponsor this year.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:28] Oh, you’re a sponsor on top of that. Okay. Great.

Zoe Freeman: [00:07:31] Yeah, we’re excited about that. So, we’ve been a RIMS member for years, but again, being our 50th, we were really excited, and we wanted to come in and be a sponsor as well. You will see us out here next year exhibiting. So, Signal is kind of like, I’d like to say a small, little kept secret. We haven’t done a whole lot of marketing in the past. We’ve been very word of mouth over the last couple of years. We’ve started into the marketing scene, so you’ll definitely see more of us.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:05] Wonderful.

Zoe Freeman: [00:08:05] Yeah.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:05] And if somebody wanted to get a hold of you after listening to this show, how would they do that?

Zoe Freeman: [00:08:11] You could just give me a call. I’m very transparent. I love phone calls. Call me, please. We could spend forever emailing back and forth. Just call me. 817-504-7748. zoe@signal. Call me with anything, questions about anything, meetings. If you know somebody in the company and you want to ask me about them, just give me a call.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:39] Wonderful. Well, I appreciate you being on the show, Zoe.

Zoe Freeman: [00:08:42] Thank you, Jamie.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:42] It’s been great chatting with you.

Zoe Freeman: [00:08:43] Great chatting with you, too. It’s been fun.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:46] Great.

Outro: [00:08:50] Thank you for joining us on Workplace MVP. R3 Continuum is a proud sponsor of this show and is delighted to celebrate most valuable professionals who work diligently to secure safe workplaces where employees can thrive.

 

 

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Laura Casey, SafeCon Solutions

by

Laura Casey
Minneapolis St. Paul Studio
LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Laura Casey, SafeCon Solutions
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Laura Casey

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Laura Casey, SafeCon Solutions

Laura Casey, a safety professional and owner of SafeCon Solutions, identified risk as correlated to safety in this live conversation with host Jamie Gassmann at RISKWORLD 2022. Laura and Jamie discussed the trends Laura sees in safety services, services offered by SafeCon Solutions, her experience at the conference, and more.

Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.

This show was originally broadcast from the RIMS 2022 RISKWORLD Conference held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

SafeCon Solutions

SafeCon Solutions is a full-service safety consulting company with a national and international client base. They provide a vast array of occupational safety services for all industries as well as training, presentations, workshops, and expert witness testimony.

Workplace safety goes beyond mere compliance. Workplace safety is about preventing injuries, illnesses, and incidents by developing strong systems to guide and protect your workforce.

Facebook | LinkedIn

Laura Casey, CSP, CHST, Principal Consultant and Owner, SafeCon Solutions

Laura Casey, CSP, CHST, Principal, SafeCon Solutions

About Workplace MVP

Every day, around the world, organizations of all sizes face disruptive events and situations. Within those workplaces are everyday heroes in human resources, risk management, security, business continuity, and the C-suite. They don’t call themselves heroes though. On the contrary, they simply show up every day, laboring for the well-being of employees in their care, readying the workplace for and planning responses to disruption. This show, Workplace MVP, confers on these heroes the designation they deserve, Workplace MVP (Most Valuable Professionals), and gives them the forum to tell their story. As you hear their experiences, you will learn first-hand, real-life approaches to readying the workplace, responses to crisis situations, and overcoming challenges of disruption. Visit our show archive here.

Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann

Jamie Gassmann, Host, “Workplace MVP”

In addition to serving as the host to the Workplace MVP podcast, Jamie Gassmann is the Director of Marketing at R3 Continuum (R3c). Collectively, she has more than fourteen years of marketing experience. Across her tenure, she has experience working in and with various industries including banking, real estate, retail, crisis management, insurance, business continuity, and more. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with special interest in Advertising and Public Relations and a Master of Business Administration from Paseka School of Business, Minnesota State University.

R3 Continuum

R3 Continuum is a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. R3c helps ensure the psychological and physical safety of organizations and their people in today’s ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Through their continuum of tailored solutions, including evaluations, crisis response, executive optimization, protective services, and more, they help organizations maintain and cultivate a workplace of wellbeing so that their people can thrive. Learn more about R3c at www.r3c.com.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from Riskworld 2022 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in helping workplaces thrive during disruptive times. Now, here’s your host.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:20] Hi, everyone. Jamie Gassmann here with Workplace MVP. And with me live at the RIMS Riskworld 2022 is Laura Casey. Welcome to the show, Laura.

Laura Casey: [00:00:31] Good morning. Thank you for having me.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:33] Yes. So, Laura, share with us what company you are with and your role there.

Laura Casey: [00:00:38] So, I’m the Principal Consultant and Owner of SafeCon Solutions. It is a consulting firm, firm, there’s one of me, that does both occupational safety and risk matters for a variety of types of businesses within the industry.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:55] Wonderful. And so, you’re at the RIMS conference this year. Talk to me about, what are you looking forward to getting out of this show? What’s exciting you about being here in person and at the Moscone Center?

Laura Casey: [00:01:06] So, it’s really kind of interesting that I happen to be your first person, because this is my first RIMS event. So, I’ve been a certified safety professional for a long time, 20-plus years, tenured, and it became really apparent that people in my mind were seeing risk as separate from safety. And other than in the financial world, when we talk about investing and those types of things, I find that risk and safety really are correlated, and should go hand in hand, and risk helps the C-suite members of an organization better understand safety, because safety is not tangible. So, I went ahead, and I sat for and passed the RIMS CRMP exam, Certified Risk Management Professional, and I need continuing ed credits, and so these are my new peeps. So, usually, I go to the safety conference, and now is my first time at the RIMS Riskworld, so just trying to take it all in.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:02] Oh, I bet, and it sounds like they have a really good lineup of great sessions. And so, what are some of the things that you’re seeing in the work that you’re doing within the risk and kind of safety environment that as a consultant, you want to make sure that workplaces are aware of, because it’s either trending or just becoming more common?

Laura Casey: [00:02:20] Sure. So, like I said, I unfortunately find that there are a lot of businesses out there that don’t understand safety, because it’s not tangible. You can’t touch it. When someone is seriously injured, or God forbid, there’s a fatality, everyone’s, oh, we need safety, we need safety. So, when I’m doing the background work, trying to be more predictive for my clients, I try to—well, I don’t try to, I do. I take a quantitative risk matrix and I apply it to whatever safety findings I have in an effort to try and get them to understand the risk of ignoring this, so that we never get to the point of a serious injury or a fatality. In addition, I try and help the businesses understand the different lines of insurance, how they can improve their position when it comes time for renewal. How do they save those dollars? How do they change their program to be more effective to, next year, change those background pieces?

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:16] Sure, that sounds fascinating. And so, here at RIMS, is there one session that you’re most excited to attend when you were looking at the agenda or something that just stood out to you as, I definitely have to make sure that I make it over there?

Laura Casey: [00:03:32] So, maybe not just one. I think there were several. For me, it’s not so much about the enterprise risk. That’s a huge piece of risk management. But for me, I have a tendency to focus a little bit more on specifics about insurance or specifics about claims management, trying to understand the new cannabis landscape when it comes to businesses and their drug policies, and enforcing those. So, trying to pick out the sessions for me that aren’t so much about enterprise risk as much as it is the more specifics that can overlap for me.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:14] Got it. Very cool. Well, it was so great having you on our show, and having this opportunity to connect with you, and I hope you really have a great time here in meeting people and also in the learning. So, appreciate you being on.

Laura Casey: [00:04:29] Well, thanks for having me. Thanks for your hospitality. You guys have been great. I appreciate it. Enjoy the show.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:33] Yeah, thank you.

Laura Casey: [00:04:34] Thank you.

Outro: [00:04:39] Thank you for joining us on Workplace MVP. R3 Continuum is a proud sponsor of this show and is delighted to celebrate most valuable professionals who work diligently to secure safe workplaces where employees can thrive.

 

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Ashish Saboo, Tech Synergy

by

Tech Synergy
Minneapolis St. Paul Studio
LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Ashish Saboo, Tech Synergy
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Tech Synergy

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Ashish Saboo, Tech Synergy

Tech Synergy provides transcription and knowledge processing services that support doctors performing claims evaluations and worker’s comp defense lawyers. Asish Saboo, Founder and CEO of Tech Synergy, described to host Jamie Gassmann all the services they provide, the labor and cost they can save their clients as well as streamline their work, who their ideal clients are, and more.

Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.

This show was originally broadcast from the RIMS 2022 RISKWORLD Conference held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

Tech Synergy

Tech-Synergy is a leading provider of KPO services, including audio transcription and business support solutions to customers around the world.

Tech Synergy is known for transcription services, knowledge processing, call center solutions, and med-legal services helping you enhance your business productivity and effectiveness.

24/7 business support solution services from US, Philippines, and India.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook

Ashish Saboo, Founder and CEO, Tech Synergy

Ashish Saboo, Founder and CEO, Tech Synergy

LinkedIn

About Workplace MVP

Every day, around the world, organizations of all sizes face disruptive events and situations. Within those workplaces are everyday heroes in human resources, risk management, security, business continuity, and the C-suite. They don’t call themselves heroes though. On the contrary, they simply show up every day, laboring for the well-being of employees in their care, readying the workplace for and planning responses to disruption. This show, Workplace MVP, confers on these heroes the designation they deserve, Workplace MVP (Most Valuable Professionals), and gives them the forum to tell their story. As you hear their experiences, you will learn first-hand, real-life approaches to readying the workplace, responses to crisis situations, and overcoming challenges of disruption. Visit our show archive here.

Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann

Jamie Gassmann, Host, “Workplace MVP”

In addition to serving as the host to the Workplace MVP podcast, Jamie Gassmann is the Director of Marketing at R3 Continuum (R3c). Collectively, she has more than fourteen years of marketing experience. Across her tenure, she has experience working in and with various industries including banking, real estate, retail, crisis management, insurance, business continuity, and more. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with special interest in Advertising and Public Relations and a Master of Business Administration from Paseka School of Business, Minnesota State University.

R3 Continuum

R3 Continuum is a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. R3c helps ensure the psychological and physical safety of organizations and their people in today’s ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Through their continuum of tailored solutions, including evaluations, crisis response, executive optimization, protective services, and more, they help organizations maintain and cultivate a workplace of wellbeing so that their people can thrive. Learn more about R3c at www.r3c.com.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from Riskworld 2022 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in helping workplaces thrive during disruptive times. Now, here’s your host.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:22] Hi, everyone. Your host, Jamie Gassmann here, and I am coming to you from Riskworld 2022’s Expo Hall in R3 Continuum’s Booth. And with mem I have Ashish Saboo from Tech Synergy. Welcome to the show.

Ashish Saboo: [00:00:36] Jamie, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:38] So, talk to me, Ashish, tell me a little bit about what Tech Synergy does.

Ashish Saboo: [00:00:42] Thank you for that. So, Tech Synergy is basically a back office service provider. What that means is we provide all kinds of support services to med legal evaluation companies, workers comp evaluation companies, law offices, and medical providers. So, with our three offices back in Philippines and in India, we are able to offer a variety of customized service to these kinds of service providers, services like scheduling through our call centers, doing record review through qualified nurses, then also doing transcription of evaluations and medical transcription work for various evaluating doctors, as well as being a virtual secretary for a lot of workers comp evaluation lawyers.

Ashish Saboo: [00:01:31] So, they can carry around just a cellphone with our dictation app in there. They tab, press, start speaking their correspondence or any kind of case report, and then within a couple of hours, they have the report back, and it works 24/7. So, we are able to offer a lot of cost savings and efficiencies to these firms and taking out those unnecessary additional costs from the whole evaluation process.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:56] Interesting. And so, how does—like from a customer perspective, tell me a little bit about that experience. Like if they’ve got this claim that they have, can you walk me through like how would that process look?

Ashish Saboo: [00:02:08] So, we work on certain aspects of the claim, so our process generally starts when the applicant is assigned to, say, a Q&A panel or something. So, there are two aspects to it. One is the workers comp defense firm who is on that case and the other is the evaluation company. So, the evaluation company, if we are working with them, then we basically get hold of the cover letter, the face sheet of the applicant, and then we will call the applicant on their behalf and create a schedule for actual history call.

Ashish Saboo: [00:02:42] And on that date, then we actually call the applicant, talk to them, sometimes, for 30 minutes, sometimes, maybe for an hour, sometimes, in English, sometimes, in Spanish, and get down their history of injury, their claim, what happened with them? Are they working? Their social history, their ideal activity of daily living, and create a comprehensive history report, which the evaluating doctor can use on the date of evaluation, which makes the evaluation go much faster.

Ashish Saboo: [00:03:09] So, a doctor, which might take like an hour for evaluation, and now, they can do it in 30, 45 minutes, so that’s a huge time saving. With that also comes a lot of medical records, so we are able to take 1,000, 1,500 pages of those medical records, take out the duplicates, sort them chronologically, create a hyperlink index, so it, again, becomes very easy for the doctor to go ahead and evaluate. Once the doctor does the evaluation, they use our smartphone app on their iPhone or Android, dictate the whole report, and then we put everything together, put it in their billing, maybe it’s a DC bill, maybe it’s a custom software, and that way, the end-to-end process, we are able to handle much more efficiently for them.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:55] Yeah, it’s like you’re streamlining the green spots.

Ashish Saboo: [00:03:57] Yeah, we are streamlining and also saving a lot of cost, because with about 10 to $12 an hour, we are pretty cost effective, and by being able to work 24/7, so we might be shutting shop here at 4:00 or 5:00 in the evening, but then the work continues in our offshore centers, and by the time you come back in the morning, your work is already done and ready to go.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:20] Yeah, interesting. So, do you have a panel of doctors, or are you outsourcing that from somewhere else, or is it the client’s doctors?

Ashish Saboo: [00:04:26] It’s the client’s doctor, so we are not doing anything which is actually medical in nature in the sense of actually evaluating or prescribing to the patient. All we are doing is actually just talking to them, getting their current status, and putting it in a form where it becomes easier for the doctor to use.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:46] Yeah. So, you’re almost like organizing the claim upfront for the company so that it makes that process, it’s like you’re giving a package to the doctor to move that process a little bit.

Ashish Saboo: [00:04:56] That is correct. That is as succinctly put. And on the other hand, with the worker’s comp defense lawyers, we are then able to also do the same for them. So, when they have long cases and they are dictating on it instead of using their secretaries who are only working 8:00 to 5:00, again, and worker’s comp lawyers, we have seen they work almost 18 hours a day.

Ashish Saboo: [00:05:19] So, they are dictating at 11:00 at night and they got the dictation back in one or two hours, so they are surprised. So, they are working and we are working with them. They can just pick up, again, our app, start dictating, hey, this is on Case So-and-so, this is a letter to applicant attorney, it comes back, formatted on their letterhead, ready to go. So, again, they can get a lot more value added work done out of secretary instead of just typing.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:44] Yeah. So, who is like the ideal client for that, that you typically are working with?

Ashish Saboo: [00:05:51] So, our ideal clients are workers comp evaluation law firms, and we have a lot of them. I think a few firms are right here. I saw D’Andre Law. They are our client, for example. Then, a lot of workers comp evaluation companies would be our ideal client. And we have majority of firms in Southern California as our clients right now.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:13] Wonderful. Well, it has been so great to chat with you. So, if somebody wanted to get more information from you about how your services could benefit their processes, how would they get a hold of you?

Ashish Saboo: [00:06:23] Oh, very easy. They can go to our website tech-synergy.com. Tech-synergy.com. Just look us up and we’d be glad to help out.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:34] Wonderful. Again, thank you for being on the show. It’s been great chatting.

Ashish Saboo: [00:06:38] Thank you, Jamie. Have a good one.

Outro: [00:06:44] Thank you for joining us on workplace MVP. R3 Continuum is a proud sponsor of this show and is delighted to celebrate most valuable professionals who work diligently to secure safe workplaces where employees can thrive.

 

 

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Michael Zalle, YellowBird

by

YellowBIrd
Minneapolis St. Paul Studio
LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Michael Zalle, YellowBird
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YellowBIrd

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Michael Zalle, YellowBird

YellowBird fills a unique role in connecting companies with pros in risk & environmental, health, and safety. Founder and CEO Michael Zalle joined the show to discuss how it works, his thoughts on the valuable expertise of professionals, his experience at RISKWORLD 2022, and much more.

Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.

This show was originally broadcast from the RIMS 2022 RISKWORLD Conference held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

YellowBird

Get matched with the best Risk & Environmental, Health, and Safety Pros on-demand! YellowBird connects Companies with Professionals in hours, not days or weeks.

Companies & Professionals register on YellowBird, Pros list their skills, certifications and experience, then complete The 4-step onboarding process. Companies post jobs on-demand! YellowBird handles everything else, including accounting and insurance.YellowBird matches the right Pro to the Job, then manages the process to completion.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook

Michael Zalle, Founder and CEO, YellowBird

Michael Zalle, Founder and CEO, YellowBird

LinkedIn

About Workplace MVP

Every day, around the world, organizations of all sizes face disruptive events and situations. Within those workplaces are everyday heroes in human resources, risk management, security, business continuity, and the C-suite. They don’t call themselves heroes though. On the contrary, they simply show up every day, laboring for the well-being of employees in their care, readying the workplace for and planning responses to disruption. This show, Workplace MVP, confers on these heroes the designation they deserve, Workplace MVP (Most Valuable Professionals), and gives them the forum to tell their story. As you hear their experiences, you will learn first-hand, real-life approaches to readying the workplace, responses to crisis situations, and overcoming challenges of disruption. Visit our show archive here.

Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann

Jamie Gassmann, Host, “Workplace MVP”

In addition to serving as the host to the Workplace MVP podcast, Jamie Gassmann is the Director of Marketing at R3 Continuum (R3c). Collectively, she has more than fourteen years of marketing experience. Across her tenure, she has experience working in and with various industries including banking, real estate, retail, crisis management, insurance, business continuity, and more. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with special interest in Advertising and Public Relations and a Master of Business Administration from Paseka School of Business, Minnesota State University.

R3 Continuum

R3 Continuum is a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. R3c helps ensure the psychological and physical safety of organizations and their people in today’s ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Through their continuum of tailored solutions, including evaluations, crisis response, executive optimization, protective services, and more, they help organizations maintain and cultivate a workplace of wellbeing so that their people can thrive. Learn more about R3c at www.r3c.com.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from Riskworld 2022 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in helping workplaces thrive during disruptive times. Now, here’s your host.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:23] Hey, everyone. Jamie Gassmann, your host of workplace MVP, here again at Riskworld 2022 with my guest, Michael Zalle.

Michael Zalle: [00:00:32] Hello. Good morning.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:33] Yes. And I’m going to rhyme with your name, my new pal.

Michael Zalle: [00:00:38] Good trick. Good trick.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:40] Yeah. You actually told me that’s what it rhymed with so I had to leverage that in the interview. So, you are with YellowBird.

Michael Zalle: [00:00:46] I am.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:47] So, tell me a little bit about what YellowBird is, your role at YellowBird, and just kind of give us a background on you.

Michael Zalle: [00:00:53] All right. Wow. I’m the founder. So, I started the company about three years ago. We are an on-demand people business and we focus on matching professionals in environmental, health, safety, and risk. And so, what that means is we have a platform for loss control and safety organizations to bring in the right people with the right skills on demand, and we do all the work, essentially.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:22] Interesting. So, give me a little kind of like scenario of how your platform would work.

Michael Zalle: [00:01:29] Okay. I was actually just talking to a group over here who’s a consultant firm. And so, everybody goes, “Oh, you’re competing with the consulting firms.” We’re really not. So if you have a big consulting practice or you have a large organization and you’re running your own loss control practices and you have 30 sites you need to do an environmental assessment on, and 25 of those sites are perfect for your staff and five of those sites you don’t know what the heck you’re going to do, so you say, okay, who do we know in these five states? And the answer is, well, we probably have people who could fly around and get there. And so, this went from a profitable deal to an unprofitable deal in those locations.

Michael Zalle: [00:02:10] We can help basically facilitate that type of work. Or in the case of loss control, like in an insurance organization, they’re constantly doing assessments. And so, we can help them bring the loss control process down to mid-market where realistically they go deeper dive when you get upmarket because they can afford to do it so they can send people out rather than just doing self-assessments.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:37] Yeah. So like for those in a sense, it’s almost like you’re tapping into the pool of people you have within your platform and finding an expert in that location that can help support that need, correct?

Michael Zalle: [00:02:48] Yeah. Absolutely.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:49] Awesome.

Michael Zalle: [00:02:50] And, what we try to do is we go well beyond their certs. So for us, the certifications are important but the background and experience and history. So I’ll give you an example. You have a client that’s at a chemical organization and they need somebody to come in and do a chemical assessment. And you have somebody on the platform that was 30 years at DuPont who’s retired who says, “I want to stay in the game.” Well, I can send that person out and they would be able to, assuming legally they’re allowed and all the other things. But assuming that they’re allowed and they’re not under a non-circumvention or non-compete or anything like that, they could go out and they could do the assessment. So, you could get somebody with 30 years of DuPont experience going to a regional chemical place where otherwise they wouldn’t have access to that world of knowledge.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:37] Interesting. So, you’re here at RIMS.

Michael Zalle: [00:03:42] Yes.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:42] Are you an exhibitor this year or are you just kind of moseying around and kind of looking at it for future? You know what – yeah.

Michael Zalle: [00:03:47] So, well, we’re throwing a big party, so I’m excited about that.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:52] Yeah.

Michael Zalle: [00:03:52] I am not an exhibitor this year and we chose not to be for a couple of reasons. One, we’re a small organization. We have 27 people now on staff. We’re raising venture capital a couple of years back and we are growing rapidly, but we can’t do as many shows as I want to do. So, I always try to walk through and see, you know, what’s it all about. This is a great show. This is a great event. So, we will be exhibiting in the future. I was hopeful that I was going to be speaking this year and I was not selected to speak this year because it was just such a tight sketch.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:26] Absolutely. Yeah.

Michael Zalle: [00:04:27] But hopefully, I will speak next year because I’m somewhat of a subject matter expert on the changing nature of work in general, which is a big hot button in today’s world.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:37] Yeah.

Michael Zalle: [00:04:38] So that’s my hope. But, yeah, I’m just exhibiting and eating and drinking and being Michael.

Michael Zalle: [00:04:44] Social. Yeah. I was going to ask if you had been presenting, what would your topic be that you would present on?

Michael Zalle: [00:04:51] The complexities of running a consulting practice. Because I think most people, most professionals have this mindset of when I stop working, I want to consult and they should. That is a natural inclination. And, I’ve got all this work. There’s an old quote, and I don’t know where it comes from and I should know because I use it a fair amount, that when an elder dies it’s like burning a library. And I look at it like when a knowledge holder retires, it’s like burning a library, where there’s only so many times that you can go back to these people and there’s only so much information that you would’ve been able to glean from them. And so, you will either consult and be one-client consultation or you will start your own consulting practice and then you have to hustle. And most knowledge workers are not hustlers. They’re, you know, they haven’t had to be.

Michael Zalle: [00:05:44] And so, the most the biggest challenges with starting your own consulting practice are obviously getting the insurance and getting the business set up. And then, of course, it’s billing and receiving and then it’s customer service, all the things that as a risk and safety executive you don’t want to do.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:02] Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Michael Zalle: [00:06:03] It’s the worst part of anybody’s business, but we do it for them. And so, I wouldn’t really focus it on YellowBird per se. But really, the inclination and the wishes of becoming a consultant combined with the, is it really worth my effort?

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:19] Yeah.

Michael Zalle: [00:06:19] And so, we try to make it worth their effort to keep them in the game.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:22] Yeah, I love that. It’s almost like it’s okay to ask for help, right?

Michael Zalle: [00:06:26] Totally.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:26] And sometimes, you know, when you’re an expert, you don’t think about that. But it is, you know, as a leader, I’ve heard more and more about that. It’s okay to ask for that help. So, that’s fantastic.

Michael Zalle: [00:06:36] Oh, absolutely. Well, thank you.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:38] If our listeners wanted to get a hold of you, how would they go about doing that?

Michael Zalle: [00:06:41] So, our website is goyellowbird.com. Just like it sounds, G-O, yellowbird.com. We’re on all the socials, @goyellowbird. And if you are in San Francisco, you can come to one of our parties because we’re having a party on Tuesday night. So, hopefully, actually, this is not going to be heard before then, so. Too bad you missed our party on Tuesday night. It was fantastic.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:05] Yeah. You just showed off your ping pong skills, I hear.

Michael Zalle: [00:07:08] Yes. We’re going to a ping pong bar.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:11] I love that idea. Yes. Well, it has been an absolute pleasure.

Michael Zalle: [00:07:15] Thank you.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:15] And, it was so great to meet you and talk with you on our episode here. So, thank you for joining me.

Michael Zalle: [00:07:19] My pleasure. I’m glad you’re here.

Outro: [00:07:26] Thank you for joining us on Workplace MVP. R3 Continuum is a proud sponsor of this show and is delighted to celebrate most valuable professionals who work diligently to secure safe workplaces where employees can thrive.

 

 

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Theresa Everett, QBE North America

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QBE North America
Minneapolis St. Paul Studio
LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Theresa Everett, QBE North America
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QBE North America

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Theresa Everett, QBE North America

Theresa Everett, AVP of Strategic Client Management for QBE North America, shared some points from her presentation at RISKWORLD 2022, “The Five Best Practices on How to Conduct a Claim Review.” She and host Jamie Gassmann talked about some of those practices, the value of taking a macro perspective to better serve the needs of their clients, and much more.

Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.

This show was originally broadcast from the RIMS 2022 RISKWORLD Conference held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

Theresa Everett, AVP, Strategic Client Management, QBE North America

Theresa Everett, AVP, Strategic Client Management, QBE North America
As an AVP of Strategic Client Management with QBE N.A., Theresa Everett is the one point of contact for all QBE customers, coordinating all the relationships, services, and solutions that their customers have access to.
She also specializes in pre and post-loss injury management consultation which is customized for each customer.  Theresa focuses on the various components of their overall Safety and Workers’ Compensation injury and medical management programs, including but not limited to: human resource and employment practice challenges and the overlap with workers’ compensation and other leave of absence programs, formalized transitional duty programs design and all pre-loss program development and management.

Company website | Theresa Everett LinkedIn

About Workplace MVP

Every day, around the world, organizations of all sizes face disruptive events and situations. Within those workplaces are everyday heroes in human resources, risk management, security, business continuity, and the C-suite. They don’t call themselves heroes though. On the contrary, they simply show up every day, laboring for the well-being of employees in their care, readying the workplace for and planning responses to disruption. This show, Workplace MVP, confers on these heroes the designation they deserve, Workplace MVP (Most Valuable Professionals), and gives them the forum to tell their story. As you hear their experiences, you will learn first-hand, real-life approaches to readying the workplace, responses to crisis situations, and overcoming challenges of disruption. Visit our show archive here.

Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann

Jamie Gassmann, Host, “Workplace MVP”

In addition to serving as the host to the Workplace MVP podcast, Jamie Gassmann is the Director of Marketing at R3 Continuum (R3c). Collectively, she has more than fourteen years of marketing experience. Across her tenure, she has experience working in and with various industries including banking, real estate, retail, crisis management, insurance, business continuity, and more. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with special interest in Advertising and Public Relations and a Master of Business Administration from Paseka School of Business, Minnesota State University.

R3 Continuum

R3 Continuum is a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. R3c helps ensure the psychological and physical safety of organizations and their people in today’s ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Through their continuum of tailored solutions, including evaluations, crisis response, executive optimization, protective services, and more, they help organizations maintain and cultivate a workplace of wellbeing so that their people can thrive. Learn more about R3c at www.r3c.com.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from Riskworld 2022 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in helping workplaces thrive during disruptive times. Now, here’s your host.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:21] Hi, everyone. Jamie Gassmann here again, your host for Workplace MVP, live at the RIMS Riskworld 2022. And with me is Theresa Everett. Theresa, give us a little background about who you are, where you work, what you do.

Theresa Everett: [00:00:38] Sure. Thank you. Thank you for having me. My name is Theresa Everett. I am with QBE Corporation here in North America and I am a claim relationship manager, and I manage coming from the claims background but I also manage national and multinational insurance programs.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:59] And, you are presenting at this year’s conference. Talk to me about the title and what your presentation is about.

Theresa Everett: [00:01:05] Sure. Yes, I am presenting and I’m very excited for that. And I am presenting the five best practices on how to conduct a claim review.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:16] So, tell me a little bit about – I know you want to probably save all the juicy stuff for the presentation, but what kind of things are you sharing with the audience?

Theresa Everett: [00:01:25] Sure. Well, the presentation really focuses on how best to take advantage of your claims data and then what is it that you look at in order to pick those claims. So, you know, it’s starting with the understanding of our customer and then, you know, what their pain points are, how much risk are they willing to retain. And just understanding that and just not picking claims just for the sake of doing a claims review, but really picking those claims strategically so that you can have an impact on their total cost of risk.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:06] So looking at your audience, what are you hoping that they take away from that presentation? What are like – if you could pick, like, the top three things that you want that audience to be left with after sitting through the presentation, what would you like that to be?

Theresa Everett: [00:02:23] I think that having a claim review, just for having the sake of a claim review, so many people are just used to doing that in our industry. Okay, let’s just have a claim review. What I really want them to walk away with is to really think strategically on the claims that they are picking for that review, how is that going to impact, you know, the account.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:50] Yeah.

Theresa Everett: [00:02:51] So that’s really, you know, just for the sake of, okay, we need to do a claims review. So from the portion from the carrier perspective, just don’t, you know, go picking claim. Okay, we need to do this. Really be a lot more strategic with it.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:09] So would they be putting like a criteria together then? Is that kind of something that would be an approach that they could take and identifying like –

Theresa Everett: [00:03:16] Yes.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:16] Appropriate claim.

Theresa Everett: [00:03:17] Yeah. Yes, absolutely. And, the biggest thing really is to understand your customer, what industry they’re in, you know, how they do their business, you know, what are the things, how much risk have they retained or have they transferred that risk. You know, what do they want to do? Is it just normal business or are they trying to change their program? So, those are the things that really we need to understand before we pick that group of claims to be able to effectuate any change in their program.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:52] Yeah. And when we talk about claims management and choosing claims review, what types of claims are you kind of focusing your presentation on?

Theresa Everett: [00:04:00] Well, really it depends on the industry. So you need to know what industry when you’re ready to pick your claim review and you have your client and you’re insured. Okay. If they’re in the food and beverage industry, you pretty much know the types of claims that they’re going to have. And, you know, from a pre-lost perspective, a safety perspective, you can take all of that data, look at it, and then look at the efficacy of how their programs are working behind the scene. So, I mean, people don’t take advantage. They look at things from a micro perspective as opposed to a total macro perspective when they’re looking at a set of claims.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:41] Yeah. So, really, from your presentation, they can take those pointers, those five best practices and look at across industries and apply them.

Theresa Everett: [00:04:50] Yes.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:50] And, really, it sounds to me like what you’re getting, you know, trying to send the message to the audiences. You’ve got to look at all the industries. They’re all going to be a little different.

Theresa Everett: [00:05:00] Correct. Each one is unique.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:01] Yeah, absolutely. But you can use the same standard principles across all of them.

Theresa Everett: [00:05:05] Yes. Absolutely.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:05] Fascinating.

Theresa Everett: [00:05:06] Yes.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:06] Oh, well, it sounds very exciting. I’m sure the audience is going to really enjoy those tips.

Theresa Everett: [00:05:10] Yes.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:11] And we so appreciate you being here on our episode here at Riskworld. If our guests or our audience, goodness gracious, a little tongue-tied this morning. If our audience wanted to learn more from you about that or to talk to you, how would they get ahold of you?

Theresa Everett: [00:05:29] So, they can contact me via email. And my email address is Theresa, that’s T-H-E-R-E-S-A, dot Everett, E, V as in victor, E-R-E-T-T, @us.qbe.com.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:45] Wonderful. Well, thank you again so much for being on the episode with us here, Theresa.

Theresa Everett: [00:05:50] Thank you for having me.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:50] Good luck in your presentation.

Theresa Everett: [00:05:52] Thank you very much.

Outro: [00:05:57] Thank you for joining us on Workplace MVP. R3 Continuum is a proud sponsor of this show and is delighted to celebrate most valuable professionals who work diligently to secure safe workplaces where employees can thrive.

 

 

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Stephen Weinstein, Business Development Agency Bermuda, and John Huff, Association of Bermuda Insurers & Reinsurers 

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Bermuda
Minneapolis St. Paul Studio
LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Stephen Weinstein, Business Development Agency Bermuda, and John Huff, Association of Bermuda Insurers & Reinsurers 
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Bermuda

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Stephen Weinstein, Business Development Agency Bermuda, and John Huff, Association of Bermuda Insurers & Reinsurers

Stephen Weinstein with Bermuda’s Business Development Agency, and John Huff, CEO of ABIR, shared with Jamie Gassmann the history and resiliency of Bermuda that has helped it become the world’s center of risk capital. They discussed the unique benefits Bermuda offers those who choose to do business there, including the new residency option, a Digital Nomad Certificate, and more.

Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.

This show was originally broadcast from the RIMS 2022 RISKWORLD Conference held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

Stephen Weinstein, Chairman of the Board, Business Development Agency Bermuda

Stephen Weinstein, Chairman of the Board, Business Development Agency Bermuda

Bermuda’s Business Development Agency (BDA) connects you to industry professionals, regulatory officials, and key contacts in Bermuda. Our history has created a highly respected and successful financial centre recognized for worldwide standards of compliance, regulation, transparency, and infrastructure.

Explore the five unique advantages of doing business in an international hub for industries, where lifestyle, stability and a business-friendly climate delivers growth.

Stephen Weinstein holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He has been Chairman of the Board for the Bermuda Business Development Agency since 2016.

Company website | Stephen Weinstein LinkedIn

John Huff, CEO, Association of Bermuda Insurers & Reinsurers (ABIR)

John Huff, CEO, Assoc of Bermuda Insurers & Reinsurers (ABIR)

The Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR) represents the public policy interests of Bermuda’s international insurers and reinsurers that protect consumers around the world. With headquarters and operations in Bermuda and with operating subsidiaries in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe, these carriers do business in more than 150 countries.

Since 1993, ABIR’s advocacy and achievements have helped raise the global profile of Bermuda as a whole, underscoring the jurisdiction’s reputation as a top-tier international financial center. Strategically deploying capital to underwrite and manage global risk for over 30 years, Bermuda insurers have built what can only be called the World’s Risk Capital – a reference to the innovation, entrepreneurialism and leadership of Bermuda re/insurers and the Bermuda government that has fostered the growth of this industry. Energized by innovation and fueled by grit and determination after Hurricane Andrew, risk pioneers in Bermuda planted the seeds for an insurance market that would ultimately be known globally for its reliable, responsible, highly-regulated and well-resourced approach to risk management. These pioneers joined forces as a collective voice by forming the ABIR.

Company website | John Huff LinkedIn

About Workplace MVP

Every day, around the world, organizations of all sizes face disruptive events and situations. Within those workplaces are everyday heroes in human resources, risk management, security, business continuity, and the C-suite. They don’t call themselves heroes though. On the contrary, they simply show up every day, laboring for the well-being of employees in their care, readying the workplace for and planning responses to disruption. This show, Workplace MVP, confers on these heroes the designation they deserve, Workplace MVP (Most Valuable Professionals), and gives them the forum to tell their story. As you hear their experiences, you will learn first-hand, real-life approaches to readying the workplace, responses to crisis situations, and overcoming challenges of disruption. Visit our show archive here.

Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann

Jamie Gassmann, Host, “Workplace MVP”

In addition to serving as the host to the Workplace MVP podcast, Jamie Gassmann is the Director of Marketing at R3 Continuum (R3c). Collectively, she has more than fourteen years of marketing experience. Across her tenure, she has experience working in and with various industries including banking, real estate, retail, crisis management, insurance, business continuity, and more. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with special interest in Advertising and Public Relations and a Master of Business Administration from Paseka School of Business, Minnesota State University.

R3 Continuum

R3 Continuum is a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. R3c helps ensure the psychological and physical safety of organizations and their people in today’s ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Through their continuum of tailored solutions, including evaluations, crisis response, executive optimization, protective services, and more, they help organizations maintain and cultivate a workplace of wellbeing so that their people can thrive. Learn more about R3c at www.r3c.com.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from Riskworld 2022 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in helping workplaces thrive during disruptive times. Now, here’s your host.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:22] Hi, everyone. You’re host, Jamie Gassmann, here, coming to you from our sponsor, R3 Continuum’s Booth at Riskworld 2022. And joining me are John Huff and Steve Weinstein from Bermuda Insurance or reinsurance.

Steve Weinstein: [00:00:37] It’s great to be here with you.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:38] Yeah. Thank you so much for being on the show. I’m excited to chat with you both. Yeah.

John Huff: [00:00:42] Our pleasure. I’m with the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers. Our acronym is ABIR.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:48] Great. Okay. So, you know, and I goofed that up at the intro. I could just assume I bucketed you both underneath the same topic, so, or titles. So, that’s awesome. So, tell me a little bit about what you both do. So, Steve, you’re with Bermuda, so share with us a little bit about what Bermuda does.

Steve Weinstein: [00:01:04] So, I am the chair of the Bermuda Business Development Agency, a joint venture, a not-for-profit between the government and Bermuda’s private sector to promote Bermuda’s sustainable and equitable prosperity. The principle why we do that is by recruiting jobs, companies and capitals to come to Bermuda, to invest in our platform and to invest in Bermuda and to take the Bermuda story on the road to come to venues like RIMS and reach out to our friends and partners and make new ones and explain what we can do together to help grow U.S. risk markets to alleviate problems and to have fun while we’re doing it.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:34] Wonderful. And so, you were sharing with me, and I think it’s kind of fun to capture. You were sharing with me a little bit of like history about Bermuda. You want to share that on our show because it’s very intriguing.

Steve Weinstein: [00:01:47] So, Bermuda, its history dates back to 1609 when a rescue mission from the United Kingdom on its way to save Jamestown crashed into Bermuda’s coral reef. And from that modest beginning, Bermuda has become a true paradise, a subtropical paradise, the world’s risk capital, a great place to live and to work, and a really unique ecosystem. There’s no fresh water in Bermuda to drink and do laundry. We capture rainwater off our roofs, store it in tanks and keep reusing it.

Steve Weinstein: [00:02:18] Bermuda is extremely storm-exposed. The first settlers landed and build houses based upon Midlands English architecture a hurricane rolled through and knocked them all down and they immediately got to work to build storm-resilient housing out of stone using simple techniques. That’s also something that Bermuda can bring to the world as we confront this rising climate-driven trend for a greater risk. Bermuda learned to build a resilient community with no power tools. And if we all work together, we can be safer from the inevitable rise whether it’s storms or floods and wildfire. We just have to be sensible.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:50] Yeah. No. I just thought that was such an interesting story and sharing that. And I love, you know, hearing kind of some background around the areas that people are from. And, I know you’re an exhibitor here at the conference. So, what are some of the things you’re sharing with your attendees that are coming by? John, do you want to speak to that?

John Huff: [00:03:07] Sure. So if you fast forward from 1609 to the last 35 or 40 years, Bermuda now represents about a third of the global property and casualty reinsurance. I like to say we were climate before it was cool. So, we’ve dealt with natural catastrophes all over the world and represent a large segment, but also captive insurance was started in Bermuda. So, really, any innovation in the insurance or reinsurance industry has happened in Bermuda in that last period of time.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:37] Great. So, here at the show, you’re hoping to bring more business to Bermuda, is that correct?

John Huff: [00:03:42] That’s right. And also to write more business globally. So, our companies in Bermuda do business in about 150 countries. So, we’re guests in those countries as we provide insurance and reinsurance protection.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:54] Awesome. And so, is there – if you were going to tell somebody, you know, kind of a selling point of something super special about what Bermuda brings and gives to either an organization or somebody looking to maybe relocate, what is that like? What would you share? The charm of Bermuda.

John Huff: [00:04:13] So in the insurance sector, it’s innovation and agility. So, being able to respond. So, because we responded to natural disasters, natural catastrophes, and that’s really been our bread and butter business, we’ve been very responsive in that market and that’s what we’ve been known for, is immediate response when there’s a crisis, whether you’re making a family or a community whole after a very disruptive event, and to have the capital behind it to make sure you can make good on your promises.

Steve Weinstein: [00:04:44] I’ll touch on two things. Bermuda really stands out uniquely in respect of its ecology and culture and architecture for innovation. And there are so many needs and they’re so complicated to be able to move quickly in an architecture that’s compliant and blue chip and respected worldwide. But also faster is getting new solutions to market quickly is really unique about Bermuda.

Steve Weinstein: [00:05:05] On a human level, it really is a subtropical paradise. There’s nearly no better place to live, work, and play. And whether you come to join one of the members of companies in John’s organization or want to come by yourself, Bermuda pioneered in the pandemic a new residency status, what we call the Digital Nomad Certificate. But if you can work remotely, consider working remotely from paradise for a year.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:26] Yeah. Amazing. So now, Steve, you mentioned you are doing a presentation of [inaudible] here at RIMS. You want to share a little bit about that?

Steve Weinstein: [00:05:34] The most important thing for us in some respects to be at RIMS is to see old friends, make new ones and share our story. So, we’re here at the Bermuda booth, which I encourage you to visit if you’re here, come by and see us, come by our event, but we’ll reach out. But we also want to be in a dialogue and hear from this community. What are your challenges, what are your issues and how can we collaborate together to make them better? So, we’re both presenting, but we’re also listening.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:57] Yeah. So, you’re presenting within your booth itself and kind of sharing that message. Got it. Okay. That’s fascinating. And, I’m definitely going to have to stop by and take a look at some of the architecture you’ve built. You have the only house in the Expo Hall, something very unique.

Steve Weinstein: [00:06:13] The traditional vernacular architecture, which is aesthetically pleasing but also storm-resilient, is modeled here by our booth. So, we’re the only two-story structure and you can pretend that you’re riding out a hurricane. By the way, another traditional aspect of riding out a hurricane in Bermuda is to have your supplies, your water, your edible snacks, but also the national drink, the dark and stormy. And if we see you socially across this week, we’ll treat you a dark and stormy or two.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:40] That’s fantastic. Well, thank you so much for sharing with us the charm and the lure of Bermuda and why an organization should consider that for a business opportunity.

Steve Weinstein: [00:06:49] Thank you for being here, and thank you for promoting workplace empathy and safety and forward-thinking. It’s so important to our members. The most important capital is human capital and we are pleased to make this connection to be here with you today.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:01] Wonderful. Thanks.

John Huff: [00:07:02] Thank you very much.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:03] Yeah. Thank you both for being on the show.

Outro: [00:07:09] Thank you for joining us on Workplace MVP. R3 Continuum is a proud sponsor of this show and is delighted to celebrate most valuable professionals who work diligently to secure safe workplaces where employees can thrive.

 

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Camille Graham, Floodproofing.com

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Floodproofing.com
Minneapolis St. Paul Studio
LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Camille Graham, Floodproofing.com
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Floodproofing.com

LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Camille Graham, Floodproofing.com

Attending the first RISKWORLD for herself and her company, Camille Graham, National Project Manager for Floodproofing.com shared with host Jamie Gassmann how rewarding the conference was for building new relationships. She talked about the comprehensive services provided by Floodproofing.com, the increase in flooding across the country, the need to consider flood mitigation services regardless of one’s location, and much more.

Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.

This show was originally broadcast from the RIMS 2022 RISKWORLD Conference held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

Camille Graham, National Project Manager, Floodproofing.com

Camille Graham, National Project Manager, Floodproofing.com

Since 2001, Floodproofing.com has been providing global floodproofing product options and education to design professionals, municipalities, and property owners. Their goal is to provide the best mitigation solutions through complementary project design analysis.

Floodproofing.com is built upon the legacy and expertise gained from the development of Smart Vent Products Inc., which has propelled the company into an industry leader. A team of Certified Floodplain Managers and Flood Mitigation Specialists provides the industry with a portfolio of innovative dry and wet floodproofing systems.

Camille Graham joined Floodproofing.com in 2019.

Company website | Camille Graham LinkedIn

About Workplace MVP

Every day, around the world, organizations of all sizes face disruptive events and situations. Within those workplaces are everyday heroes in human resources, risk management, security, business continuity, and the C-suite. They don’t call themselves heroes though. On the contrary, they simply show up every day, laboring for the well-being of employees in their care, readying the workplace for and planning responses to disruption. This show, Workplace MVP, confers on these heroes the designation they deserve, Workplace MVP (Most Valuable Professionals), and gives them the forum to tell their story. As you hear their experiences, you will learn first-hand, real-life approaches to readying the workplace, responses to crisis situations, and overcoming challenges of disruption. Visit our show archive here.

Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann

Jamie Gassmann, Host, “Workplace MVP”

In addition to serving as the host to the Workplace MVP podcast, Jamie Gassmann is the Director of Marketing at R3 Continuum (R3c). Collectively, she has more than fourteen years of marketing experience. Across her tenure, she has experience working in and with various industries including banking, real estate, retail, crisis management, insurance, business continuity, and more. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with special interest in Advertising and Public Relations and a Master of Business Administration from Paseka School of Business, Minnesota State University.

R3 Continuum

R3 Continuum is a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. R3c helps ensure the psychological and physical safety of organizations and their people in today’s ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Through their continuum of tailored solutions, including evaluations, crisis response, executive optimization, protective services, and more, they help organizations maintain and cultivate a workplace of wellbeing so that their people can thrive. Learn more about R3c at www.r3c.com.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from Riskworld 2022 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in helping workplaces thrive during disruptive times. Now, here’s your host.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:22] Hi, everyone. Jamie Gassmann here with Workplace MVP and we are broadcasting from Riskworld 2022 Expo Hall in R3 Continuum’s booth. And joining me is Camille Graham.

Camille Graham: [00:00:22] Hello.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:37] Hello. From Floodproofing. Talk to me about your company and tell me a little bit about your background.

Camille Graham: [00:00:42] Yes. Thanks for having me, Jamie. We are Floodproofing.com. We are all the way from New Jersey. It’s our first time out here in San Francisco, for me personally ever. And it’s our first time that our company is doing this conference. We do all things flood mitigation. So, we provide flood panels, flood events, and even flood glass, deployable systems and passive systems to prevent flood water from entering into a building. We also have flood vents that let water through to alleviate the pressure on a building. And we have an insurance agency risk reduction plus group that helps to pass on the insurance savings that you should see from having proper flood mitigation through to your insurance premium. We are a one-stop shop for all things flood mitigation.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:28] Very interesting. And so, you mentioned this is your first time expo-ing at RIMS.

Camille Graham: [00:01:33] Yes, it is.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:33] So, talk to me about, you know, what were some of the things that made you decide that this was where you needed to be for sharing your business and what you guys do.

Camille Graham: [00:01:42] So, we actually – one of our partners that we work really closely with, Tiger Dam, is also here and they told us that this is the most beneficial conference that they come to every year because they meet people that have an immediate need for what we do. They have an immediate problem that they need to solve with flooding and they’re looking for solutions. And so, it’s cool. We usually go to conferences where we work with a lot of architects and engineers, which is incredible because we get specced early on in the design phase. But there’s also a huge need for property managers, risk managers, people that have buildings now that need solutions, and we’re here to provide them.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:23] And so, I mean, we’re at the end of day one. And so, talk to me. How have your conversations been going so far with, you know, the traffic that’s been coming through?

Camille Graham: [00:02:32] It’s been awesome. We have had some of the most incredible conversations with people that have experienced flooding or they know that they’re in a flood zone. And with the changing climate and with the increased risk that’s posed by flooding all over the country, people know that this is an issue that they need to solve. They’re looking for solutions and it’s top of mind more today than ever before. So people are coming eager to find a solution to that problem. And it’s just been the most progressive conversations that we’ve had at a conference.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:06] That’s fantastic. And so, looking at flooding, just out of pure curiosity, are there areas within like the North, obviously, America, I think you’re kind of more in the U.S. for your services? Are there some areas that are more prone to flooding that doesn’t have this protection in place than others? Talk to us a little bit about that.

Camille Graham: [00:03:27] Yeah. So, I will say that a lot of people, when they think about flooding, they assume coastal. They think oceans, they think beach towns, they think Florida. But actually, all over the country, you know, this risk is present. A lot of flooding that happens is flash flooding from rainstorms. So, yes. Do we do a ton of work in coastal communities like Florida, like New Jersey, like New York City, and Hoboken? We do. But we also do a ton of work in places that probably would not be top of mind when you think about flooding because this issue is all over the country these days.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:04] Yeah, absolutely. And so what – so, you mentioned flash flooding, but what are some other natural or even none, like maybe manmade situations that are causing flooding within the country that businesses should be aware of?

Camille Graham: [00:04:17] Yeah. So, we have – sometimes in your drainage system so you might have an area where that sees a lot of rainfall and then the system is completely overwhelmed and it can’t handle the amount of rain that you saw so it can kind of backflow and cause flooding all through the streets, which causes a horrible issue that might not have been expected.

Camille Graham: [00:04:37] During Hurricane Ida in the northeast, you know, this storm was hitting Louisiana and we knew that it was going to cause a huge issue down there. And then, the next thing we knew, up north in Philadelphia and in New York City, there was, I mean, life loss because of flash flooding and flooding that happened that we did not expect. We didn’t expect it to come. It was actually considered to be like a 500-year flood event. Vine Street through Philadelphia was completely flooded to a point that nobody had ever seen before, nobody would ever expect. And one thing that I want to say is that when a storm like that happens, it might be considered a 100 or 500-year flood event but that doesn’t mean that if it happened yesterday, it can’t happen again tomorrow. These things can happen more than once within that 500-year frame, and they probably will as time goes on when we start to see these things happening more frequently.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:38] Yeah. And so if there’s a business out there that, let’s just say, they’re not in a prominent flood area, maybe they’re not in a floodplain, it’s not anything that’s really on their radar from a location perspective, what is some advice that you would give to them in terms of how they should be looking at this as part of their overall risk mitigation?

Camille Graham: [00:05:57] Yeah. I always say don’t just think about today and don’t just look at necessarily the history of flooding in an area but think about the future and really just consider the resiliency of your business or your building where you’re at. Whether it be flood insurance or a flood mitigation system in place, if there is an event, having something in place is just going to allow you to open your doors, you know, sooner than if, obviously, you had a flood event. So it’s something that we say, always consider, never think that you’re not vulnerable to something like this, and protect yourself, not just for today, but for the future.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:37] Yeah. Great advice. And thank you so much for joining us. If somebody wanted to reach out to you to get more information or to learn a little bit more, how would they go about doing that?

Camille Graham: [00:06:46] Yes. They can go to floodproofing.com. Our website is an awesome resource. You can find everything that we have to offer and you can reach out to us on that website.

Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:57] Yeah. Very interesting information. Thank you again. It’s been great to chat with you.

Outro: [00:07:06] Thank you for joining us on Workplace MVP. R3 Continuum is a proud sponsor of this show and is delighted to celebrate most valuable professionals who work diligently to secure safe workplaces where employees can thrive.

 

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