The AI advantage: Simplifying insurance compliance for contractors

Charley (00:05):

What is up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of “The Building Code.” I’m Charley Birtwistle, and today I have Jana Brost, COO at myCOI, lots of C alliterations there, joining us to talk about how AI is revolutionizing compliance and risk management in the construction industry. So, I love interviews like this. I love talking to people in industries that are running in parallel with the construction industry, tackling problems that are definitely not the passion of general contractors and making it easier and more streamlined for them to get back to what their passion is, which is building homes.

(00:44):

So, we’re going to talk about compliance and risk management. Again, their company is myCOI. We’re going to talk about how they are utilizing AI to streamline these processes, make sure that it is fast, make sure that it’s accurate, and make sure the tool can do as much of this as you can for you, so that you can get back to building homes. So, super excited to talk to Jana. Jana like banana is what she reminded me. Super excited to talk to Jana. So, without further ado, let’s get her in here. Hey Jana, welcome to The Building Code, really appreciate you making the time to join me today. How’s it going?

Jana (01:17):

Pretty good, Charley, how are you doing?

Charley (01:19):

Doing fantastic. Thank you for asking. I always like to say my favorite part of my day is when I’m down in the podcast studio. So, super excited for our conversation today. I was doing some research on you and your company beforehand just to prep, but we always like to start, for our listeners, if you could just give quick background kind of who you are, where you came from, how you ended up at myCOI.

Jana (01:43):

Absolutely. Well first of all, we’ve already bonded. We’re both Midwesterners.

Charley (01:46):

Yep, there you go.

Jana (01:47):

So, I’m sitting in Indianapolis, Indiana and I know you guys are in Nebraska. So, my name is Jana Brost. My background, I’ve been a software entrepreneur for most of my career. I did everything from starting a BPO type services organization, to a data analytics business. And Charley, I know that you are fellow data nerd …

Charley (02:10):

Absolutely.

Jana (02:12):

… in that. And so, my career’s kind of been focused on finding where customers have pain, where there could be a better way, where we can take emerging technologies and apply them to a really big business problem and then starting, growing and then in some cases, exiting and integrating those businesses. So, I’ve been a CEO and a founder a handful of times in the past, and so that’s actually how I got to know Kristen Nunnery, who’s the CEO of myCOI. So, it’s one of those funny things. We were in a CEO peer group a while ago, just really got to know her, understood the business, admire the work that they do and joined. So, it’s been a really fun opportunity to kind of join forces.

(02:59):

And for those of your listeners that maybe aren’t aware of myCOI, we really focus on compliance management. So, specifically in the certificate of insurance space. So, think about not only just streamlining that whole process, I mean imagine the back and forth of subcontractors and contractors trying to get information and pull all that together, but also manage the compliance to confirm that everyone is actually meeting the insurance requirements. So, it’s definitely not the reason why construction companies started, but it’s definitely a big part of their work to make sure that they’re doing things in a compliant way. So, that’s what we do at myCOI.

Charley (03:43):

Love that. Great intro. I think that this is one of those topics that people don’t typically think of like you alluded to when they think of construction, they think of framing and siding and roofs and things like that. They don’t completely think of compliance and insurance and all that good jazz, but it’s a super crucial part of the business and one that if someone’s just getting started in the business or potentially are overwhelmed with their current processes, I think will be really informative. So, super excited.

(04:14):

And the other plus side is something I know close to nothing about, which I love going into a podcast interview because then I get to ask organic questions that I actually want to know the answer to and I’m not just asking you leading questions. So, I’m excited for you to teach me and our listeners today. So, maybe just to start, does myCOI, what vertical do you serve? Is it just construction? Do you help any business that needs assistance with streamlining these processes or what’s your bread and butter?

Jana (04:45):

Yeah, great question. I mean, at the end of the day, when you think about … It’s funny that you mentioned when people start a construction business, they don’t think about, “Well, I’m going to need to become a compliance expert.” So, maybe it’s not the passion reason, but then it’s all the other business functions that you need to set up, whether it’s sales or marketing or HR, compliance is such a huge piece. So, when you think about anybody that is kind of attesting to the level of insurance and the level of compliance that their vendors have, myCOI handles that. But by default, as you could imagine, construction is a huge focus of ours. But we do work in real estate and healthcare. I mean you kind of name the vertical or industry, and we probably have our toe dipped into it, but construction and especially real estate are two the big areas that we see the most. But gosh, it feels like everybody has a greater focus on compliance and maybe a greater desire for it to take a little bit less time and to make that process easier.

Charley (05:48):

Yeah. So, just to help me get a better understanding of myCOI exactly or specifically, where exactly do you guys insert yourself into that process? Are you streamlining potential compliance processes that are already in place? Are you helping them stand those up for the first time or where does myCOI kind of come into play?

Jana (06:08):

Yeah, great question. So, when you think about a construction company signing a contract and then they have all of the subcontractors and vendors that are doing work on their behalf, those subcontractors and vendors need to prove that they have specific insurance, they’ve hit all the various limits, they have all the right policies, etc. I started starting businesses 12 years ago, and it’s insane the new types of insurance that you have to have that many times your vendors expect. And so, what myCOI does is we work directly with a customer, so like a construction company, and we can directly interface with their vendors or subcontractors and many times the agents of their vendors and subcontractors, to get the certificates of insurance that basically prove that they have the type of insurance that they need, so that they can start the project and in many cases, even more importantly, get paid.

(07:09):

So there’s this whole process of, if you don’t have the right compliance in place, we’re slowing down the project, we’re slowing down the build, and then ultimately, vendors and groups, there’s this huge financial cycle that’s also part of it. So, not only do we streamline the process, but we actually do the compliance tracking and confirmation. And that’s a big area where I know the topic of this conversation is AI, and that’s a big area where this industry is set to get disrupted.

Charley (07:41):

Absolutely, and I’m super excited to jump into the AI side of things as well. But before we move on, I just love hearing businesses such as yourself that kind have a similar mission statement of Buildertrend is like, let us take care of all the things you aren’t potentially passionate about as experts in that space and let you focus on what you are passionate about, which is building homes, leaving a lasting legacy, employing your employees, whatever that may be. It has to get done, so let us make it as easy for you as we can and let us tackle as much as that as we can.

Jana (08:13):

Yeah, and it really goes with the theme of the podcast. So, I think a big passion of mine is how could you match people’s work to things that inspire them and drive meaning and give them energy and propels your day forward. We all sit and look at our calendar, and there’s those meetings that we’re like, there are get to’s and have to’s. And so, yeah, I think that’s one of the reasons that the myCOI team members wake up every single morning is we know that we’re helping our customers kind of get back to the reason that they started their businesses.

Charley (08:47):

Love that. So, you alluded to this earlier, you guys are doing some kind of groundbreaking stuff on the AI front, which I’m always, it’s such a fun time in the industry right now to see all the cool new applications of AI and maybe traditionally very standard industries are now being, like you said, disrupted with AI. So, how does myCOI take advantage of AI and how does that help streamline some of these processes for you?

Jana (09:17):

Yeah, so I really have to tip my hat to our founder and our CEO because Kristen is one of those people that can really understand. I mean, we’ve been at this for 15 years. We deal with, I think we’re up to over a million contracts managed for clients reasons, like 200,000. It’s just some crazy numbers. And so, I think that there’s some just really great insight that our organization has on where consumer trends are going. And specifically, Kristen, you just get one of those founders that just has this knack for being able to see around corners. And so, we’re really thinking about, if we take a step back, we’re really thinking about three consumer trends that are, I don’t want to say that they’re specific to the construction industry, but they’re amplified because of the complexity and volume and just frenetic pace that this world exists in. And the themes are the fact that consumers, they just expect speed.

(10:23):

And I’ll give you just a super basic example of this. 20 years ago, if my daughter needed a Halloween costume, it would be like, get in the minivan and drive to Target. But today, I can expect it to get here by four, as a consumer. I just expect a faster pace of delivery back to me. And then, when we think about that faster pace, precision comes up. So, again, back to consumer themes, I’m kind of a consumer nerd, but you just expect perfection, you expect precision, you expect accuracy. For instance, if I’m picking up groceries, let’s say, and my bananas aren’t perfectly ripe, well, I expect a way to make that right.

(11:09):

And then I think this really becomes specific to our conversation today. I think we’re in an age where it used to be that software was built so I could DIY, I could do it myself. So, if you think about some of the early accounting tools or even payroll software, they were built, so I could basically take a process that was going to be really manual, but I could streamline and do it myself. Not anymore. Consumers more and more are really focused on, can I find a software that does it for me?

(11:46):

So, as we think about defining the next generation of COI management, we’re really leaning in on those three things. How can we be even faster in making compliance decisions? How can we increase the precision and communication that has to go into those compliance decisions? And most importantly, back to our conversation about, people didn’t really start construction companies to manage compliance, how can we infuse these 15 years of experience that we have into the platform, so it guides people through the process, kind of doing it for them versus having to become some insurance guru.

Charley (12:26):

Yeah, I love that. And just I was taking some notes down to the side as you were talking there. I think that the consumer expectations, regardless of what they’re a consumer of, translate across industries and across platforms, and if you’re not meeting them where they’re at and not giving them what they expect, whether it be a compliance software, a construction management software or banana at the grocery store, you’re going to ultimately lose out on that business and cause pain and frustration from the expectations they had going into that. So, I love your frame of reference there to kind of level set. Our software should act like every other thing that they encounter on a day-to-day basis. And if we’re not, we’re behind the curve.

Jana (13:08):

Yeah, I think it used to be when we walked into our workplaces, our expectation for software decreased, the UIs, the experience, how we navigated through it, and maybe it’s because now my workplace could more and more likely be my home office. I think those barriers have been dropped, and we’ll probably get to this, but the amount of compliance regulations have just, they’re just huge. They’re constantly changing. So, how do you keep up with the speed and then the expectations that we all have? I mean, heck, last night I was cooking dinner and I couldn’t use mayonnaise, so I was like, “Well, what can I sub?” And I’m using ChatGPT to help me out with that. So it’s just everywhere these days.

Charley (13:55):

Absolutely. So, of those three key areas that you alluded to, the speed, precision and the fact that they expect you to do it for them, are you layering AI into all three of those? Is it really the do it for me part that myCOI is taking advantage of?

Jana (14:14):

Yeah, I think this is core. So, given my background in software, I get asked a lot of questions by colleagues or people evaluating software systems now that AI is so prolific. And so, a lot of times, people are wondering, I have this business, how can I play? How can I apply artificial intelligence to me? And the number one piece of feedback and guidance that I give is consider the source. So, if we lean in on speed precision in this concept of do it for me, guide me through it.

(14:57):

One of the reasons that myCOI is really well positioned to do that is because well we’ve been doing this for 15 years. So, I’ve listened to some earlier podcasts and there was an AI platform focused on HR and speeding up some of the Q&A that supervisors can get for HR reasons. And I listened, and they had a great background in human resources consulting. And so, when we think about myCOI, this is kind of the capstone of the work that we’ve been doing for the last 15 years. We’re just trying to skate where the puck is for where our customers are going to be.

Charley (15:39):

I love that, as you alluded to and our listeners, that they’ve listened to any episodes, I love bringing it up all the time. My background is in data science, and one of my favorite analogies I used to give people is we’re not trying to, with machine learning or data insights or AI, replace what you’re doing. We want to take what you’ve built in your head over the course of 15 years and apply it in an automated manner to speed up your job or to speed up the customer experience. And some of the original data products that I built, I absolutely loved working on because I would go down and talk to a customer success rep that had onboarded 3000 customers over the course of their 10-year career. And I’d be like, “What do you look for? What are your steps that you’re currently doing today, because you’re the best that we have? And how do we help everyone else operate on your level? How do we get what’s outside of your brain onto a machine and allow you to streamline your processes?”

(16:34):

So, I think that if you don’t have that first part, if you don’t have the organic knowledge that you’ve built up over the course of 15 years, you and your founder and everyone else at your company, then you’re going to miss the mark. And the AI is not going to be able to replicate what you’ve done because it doesn’t have the source knowledge that you guys do.

Jana (16:52):

And it’s all about using your customer support rep. It’s all about helping people find meaning in their work. So, AI is a tool, it’s an aid, it’s part of what we do, but it’s all about going back to the theme, construction companies did not start their businesses to deal with COIs and compliance. So, how can we make that as simple and as fast as possible?

Charley (17:19):

Do you guys ever get any, I’m just thinking of potential parallels that we probably have, do you guys ever get any pushback from your customers about using AI or are there any misconceptions about using AI in risk management?

Jana (17:33):

Yeah, sure. So, I think one of the things, and I mean gosh, AI has been around for such a long time, but doesn’t it feel like it just was born yesterday? But I mean, it really has been a technology that’s been here for a very long time. And I think one of the misconceptions that consumers can have is, “Wow, our business is so complex, we’re not sure that it can handle the complexity of our business.” And I think that also goes back to how informed are the people that are building the software that support that, and what’s their background, what’s their expertise, what’s their knowledge base, et cetera.

(18:15):

I think the other thing too is, and this is something that we’re addressing at myCOI, is you have to meet the consumer where they’re at in the adoption curve. I’m a marketing undergrad, so I’m kind of a nerd about product expansion theory. There’s those of us that go out and buy the brand new iPhone and adopt it right away and want to use it right away. And there’s those of us that take a little bit of time to maybe we’re more risk-averse and that’s good. We need people like that in the world. It helps balance. And so, at myCOI, we think about meeting the customer where they’re at with how comfortable they are. So, is it something where they’re comfortable managing the platform themselves? Do they still want our insurance professionals involved in the process? So, again, I think over the next couple of years as AI becomes more prolific and more in our day-to-day life, I’m definitely a technology laggard in some areas. So, we’ll figure it out, that’s for sure.

Charley (19:17):

Yeah. Well, I still have the iPhone 10 or something, so I’m in the same boat there.

Jana (19:23):

Here, I think, yeah, I just ordered a new case and I had to prove to my husband, my phone was really that old.

Charley (19:30):

So, you mentioned something there. So, does myCOI, you offer a platform of self-serve as well as some professional services to actual have a human help them with it as well?

Jana (19:42):

Yeah, that’s right. So, we started 15 years ago, so we have a legacy software that we continue to support and invest in, and we have a whole team … Many of our customers, I just wish I could hire all of your team and set them right next to me. So, yeah, again, we’re meeting the customer where they’re at, and this is where again, I have to tip my hat to Kristen, she really has expanded how we can support customers with some of the new offerings that we have.

Charley (20:15):

Yeah, definitely super relatable for us as well too. It’s meeting customers where they’re at and understanding that how you potentially would want to use a software is not how everyone would potentially want to use a software. I can’t even count to the number of meetings we’ve had of like, “Well, should this be a digital training or a product walkthrough or should we just have a rep call them?” All of them, depending on who you’re talking to. People are going to want to interact in different ways and you need to have solutions for all those interactions.

Jana (20:43):

Exactly. And I feel like both you and I could probably cite examples where you’re like, “No, I want to be completely autonomous with this. Don’t call me, don’t support me. I’m good.” And then there’s other areas of your life where you’re like, “No, I need a little bit more support, and I need a little bit more hand holding.”

Charley (20:59):

Yeah. And another cool thing, I always find it really inspiring how many parallels that there are between a construction tech company and a residential home builder. I think that’s something that we’re seeing a lot of our customers lean into as well, too, while they’re building out their different pre-sale processes or how they work with a new subcontractor or work with a new supplier of having these different methods of communication and understanding how they want their customer journey to be for their customers. There’s always a ton of parallels there. So, I think for our listeners, that’s a good advice to lean into and meet your customers where they’re at as well.

Jana (21:37):

Absolutely, yep.

Charley (21:40):

One of the questions that I always love to ask when talking to businesses that work kind of in parallel with Buildertrend is, just what some of your favorite customer success stories are and how myCOI has really helped integrate and streamline workflows of the customers that you’re working with?

Jana (21:58):

So, two come to mind, and we all know this. Let’s say you’re starting from a manual process, where you’re internally receiving all of the COIs, you’re kind of checking the boxes, you’re doing the best you can, understanding the compliance needs on a day-to-day basis, and then you turn on a solution like myCOI, where not only are we streamlining the process, but we’re also identifying potential compliance gaps because there’s so many nitty-gritty kind of gotchas in this process that if you don’t live and breathe it like we do, you might not know.

(22:39):

So, I think some of my favorite moments with clients are when they feel like one of those unknown blind spots goes away. I think we’re all a student of where we kind of know where our soft spots are. We know where we think we’re doing an okay job, but we really don’t know 1000%. And so when, you start seeing those compliance percentages, not just the process completions, but the compliance percentages go up, that’s just awesome. That’s why we wake up every single day. And then if someone’s transitioning from another solution to ours, just the embedded knowledge that exists in the platform and someone feeling more empowered and less reliant on a third party like us, those are other get to moments for us.

Charley (23:35):

I love that, that will be my take. I always have one saying that I take away from each podcast because everyone has their specific things. The get to, have to vernacular that you’re seeing is definitely something I’m going to take out of here.

Jana (23:47):

I mean, it’s one of the things that I’ve really … I had a mentor of mine introduce that to me, and he was like, “You know, if 20% of your work week is have to and 20% of your work week is gets to and everything else in between, the remaining 60% is, ‘Okay, I’m going to do this,’ then that really kind of marks a good job.” I think he was trying to set expectations because it was my first full-time job after college, and he’s like, “Hey, it’s not just fun and games anymore. We actually have to get some work done around here.” And so, yeah, the get to, have to balance is something that I think as a leader, but then also, gosh, for our customers, it’s super important. And I’m sure you guys experienced that as well.

Charley (24:35):

Oh, for sure. I mean, you heard my tone when I first got on when we were prepping for this. I was definitely in one of those have to meetings right before this, but then I had a get to of coming down to the podcast, so it balances out.

Jana (24:47):

We won’t say the date and time that we’re recording this, so this person can’t reverse engineer the have to meeting, right?

Charley (24:53):

Oh, I’m sure they’ll know. Jana, this has been awesome. I have two questions before we close out here. The first that I always want to make sure we get in here is, where can listeners learn more about myCOI and the solutions you offer?

Jana (25:09):

Oh, absolutely. So, easy place mycoitracking.com, our website, and then also follow us on LinkedIn. We’re really active there, so I would definitely recommend checking both out. So, those are easy places to find us.

Charley (25:25):

Love it. We’ll make sure we link both of those in the show notes so our listeners can go and click into those if they want. And then last question that I’d love if you could opine on to leave our listeners. What advice would you give to construction leaders hesitant about adopting AI driven compliance solutions?

Jana (25:45):

Yeah, because I mean, I think this is going to be for the busy business owner, they are going to have to continually decide, where do I apply this? And so, I always say, vet, test, evaluate and deploy. Vet meaning go out and figure out which business problem is big enough for me to invest this time in this evaluation, vet. Then think about which vendors have the right background and then is there a way to test it? So, I think again, gone are the days of these big enterprise implementations. Is there a way to test the use of the tool and then take a step back, evaluate with your team, how’d it go, what did we expect? And then that’s when you deploy. And so I think if we can vet, test, evaluate, and then deploy, I think they’ll be good. And then my overall take here is then get back to what you love doing and get out of COI tracking. Let us handle that.

Charley (26:56):

Love that. Jana, thank you so much for joining us today. A wealth of knowledge. Yeah, flew by, I can’t believe we’re already at time, but really appreciate it.

Jana (27:06):

Yeah, great.

Charley (27:07):

Okay, we’ll talk soon. Well, we just heard from Jana Brost, COO at myCOI, talking about compliance and risk management in the construction industry. I would say the interview definitely lived up to my expectations. I learned a ton. I always love talking to people in industries that are construction, running in parallel with the construction space and tackling problems that definitely aren’t the passion of builders and remodelers out there. I don’t know, maybe some of you guys are passionate about compliance and risk management, but if I was a home builder, that would definitely be something I would want to offload. So, I love that her analogy of the get to, have to with different situations in your life. This is definitely something you have to do, but you don’t have to do it yourself. You can partner with someone like myCOI to offload the compliance and risk management to someone that is passionate about it and is a get to for them and they’re best in class, world-class people with a best in class world-class platform, that can streamline a lot of these processes for you.

(28:10):

I also love talking about AI as a data nerd. I think the use cases continue to get more and more interesting to me. AI and compliance and risk management isn’t necessarily something that I’d think of off the cuff, but they’re utilizing it in a really streamlined way, and it’s super cool to see what they’re doing over there. So, like I said, we’ll have links in the show notes to their website and their LinkedIn page if you guys want to give them a follow to learn more. Otherwise, I appreciate you joining us today on “The Building Code.” I will see you next week. As always like, review, subscribe, join us on the Building Code Crew on Facebook, and I think that about does it. Peace.