Covering construction risk for small, fast-moving teams with Susan Tieh

Zach Wojtowicz:

Welcome to “The Building Code.” Zach Wojtowicz.

Charley Burtwistle:

I’m Charley Burtwistle.

Zach Wojtowicz:

As always, thank you for joining us here today where we get a little bit of a different episode. Sometimes episodes span the gamut. We have people in the construction industry, but sometimes we get to be involved in an exciting announcement, which is partnerships.

Charley Burtwistle:

Let’s go.

Zach Wojtowicz:

And so we have our newest partner here to talk to us about what they’re here to offer, and that is Next Insurance.

Charley Burtwistle:

Man, you didn’t want to say we have our next partner, you had a really good opportunity for a pun there.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Low key, I’m actually not a big pun guy.

Charley Burtwistle:

Really?

Zach Wojtowicz:

I know. If you make a next pun while we’re in the interview-

Charley Burtwistle:

Will that ruin it?

Zach Wojtowicz:

My reaction might be worth checking out on YouTube. Let’s just put it that way.

Charley Burtwistle:

Okay. Enough about Zach and I’s issues here. Next Insurance, super, super exciting. As Zach mentioned, the newest partner of Buildertrend. Something that we have already gone live with, with a few customers has gone extremely well, getting a ton of good feedback, is something that historically, insurance, you don’t think, “Wow, I want to go listen to a podcast on this issue. It sounds super exciting.” But I will say Next is changing the game, they’re streamlining the entire process, they’re taking things that used to take days or weeks in a matter of seconds. They have a new mobile app, they’re really kind of leading the charge in the tech industry or getting the insurance industry onto the tech platform. That’s obviously why we wanted to choose them as a partner, they’re a great partner.

Charley Burtwistle:

Zach, tell them about who we have on today.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. I just wanted to say, as far as partnership goes, we try to align with the interest of our customers. And I think this serves a huge need. When you talk to customers about the insurance area, it’s a necessary aspect of their business. And Next is revolutionizing how convenient it is and we’re going to get into kind of how you can get into their portal very quickly and produce what you need in order to get your jobs moving, ultimately. And I think that’s huge value. And so we want you to check them out. We have Susan Tieh here, she’s a product manager at Next, so she kind of helps shape what it looks like and what Next is all about. Let’s get her on here and get into it. Susan, welcome to “The Building Code, great to have you here. We always like to ask our guests before we kind of dive deep into why you’re here today, tell us a little bit about yourself and Next Insurance.

Susan Tieh:

Yeah. Thanks Zach. Thanks for having me, it’s awesome to be here. I’m a product manager at Next, and a little bit about Next Insurance. Next is an insurance company dedicated to the self-employed and small businesses. We provide simple, affordable and tailored insurance for a range of different businesses. We really see ourselves as a one-stop shop for all of the insurance needs a company might have. You can come to Next and basically get whatever insurance your particular business needs, and we’re 100% digital, so you can buy your insurance online and you can also manage your insurance all online. I’ve been at Next for three and a half years. As I said, I’m a product manager and I focus on the customer experience. I basically work with our engineering and design teams to use technology to deliver what we call phenomenal service.

Susan Tieh:

That’s the goal, to deliver phenomenal service to our customers. We really feel our job is helping our customers thrive. I know nobody really likes insurance, but it’s really important for your business. And we feel by taking care of the insurance part of things, our customers can focus on running their business and growing their business, which is what they really want to do. In particular, I’ve worked on our claims experience. And that’s everything from building out the claims system that our claims adjusters use, to the customer experience, we can submit and track your claim online.

Charley Burtwistle:

Awesome.

Susan Tieh:

I just want to mention the online thing again. Yeah. Because we really are big on online because we feel small businesses, one, they don’t have time. They’re super busy, so we don’t want you to be waiting on hold on the phone to get something done. You can log in to your account and do everything yourself. And the second thing is that businesses, they’re small, they go through a lot of change, right? They’re growing, they’re hiring employees, new offices, new buildings, maybe new vehicles. You can always update your insurance. The last thing I’ll say too for this podcast is we know with the infrastructure package, there’s a ton of money going into construction right now. And there’s a lot more jobs and opportunities. Just making a pitch that it’s really important to have insurance before you start bidding on these jobs and opportunities to make sure you’re covered. And a lot of times you have to show proof of insurance anyway, when you’re bidding. Just shout out to your listeners are thinking about the opportunities from this infrastructure package. Make sure you’ve got the insurance as you go out there.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. I mean, you said nobody likes insurance, but until they need it, right, then they absolutely love insurance.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I have the exact same. I was going to make the same joke. Nobody was like, I’m all pro insurance and then something happens and you’re like, I wish had better insurance.

Susan Tieh:

Yeah, exactly.

Charley Burtwistle:

Always appreciate a chance to beat Zach to a joke. That was huge for me, I can call this episode a win from here on out. But no, Next is awesome. Obviously we can relate at Buildertrend with kind of the online first mentality. That’s kind of the hypothesis we base the whole business around and is encouraging to hear Next kind of have this same philosophy because you’re right. That’s the industry we live in, that’s the world that we live in and if it’s not online first you’re kind of going to get left behind. And Next is huge, right. You guys have 300,000 some small businesses that you guys serve and provide that phenomenal service to. Do you see a lot of those 300,000, a lot of people in the construction industry? If so, what do those kind of builders look like?

Susan Tieh:

Yeah, definitely construction’s a significant part of our business. When the company first started, they realized they should really focus in on certain types of businesses because every type of business has different insurance needs, right? There’s different kinds of risks based on what you do. And construction was one of the first professions that they looked at. Even doing it basically as long as our company’s been around. We really feel we do understand construction customers well, what they need and what they care about. And in terms of the builders, it really runs a huge range. We have general contractors obviously, but also carpenters, handy people, painters, electricians, landscapers, HVAC, concrete folks that do tile and stone flooring, kind of the whole range.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. I mean the rules are pretty set. If you’re running a business operation, you’re doing construction. Regardless of the trade or what you’re doing, you have to follow the same compliance, right?

Susan Tieh:

Yeah. There are definitely things that are required by law. For workers compensation, for example, if you have employees, almost every state requires you to get that kind of insurance to protect them in case of an injury or illness on the job. Definitely there are a lot of legal requirements.

Zach Wojtowicz:

What kinds of insurance, just kind of the spectrum for any of our listeners who are like, well, I get my workman’s comp here and I get my builders risk insurance here. What are the service that you guys actually provide through your platform?

Susan Tieh:

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think fundamentally, all of our customers are looking to protect their businesses, employees and their property, right. And there’s a whole bunch of different insurance so I’ll talk through some of them. I will say at Next, our philosophy is you shouldn’t have to be an insurance expert to get the insurance you need so we’ll recommend what kind of insurance you should have. But it is good for able to learn the names because you do see that everywhere. I’ll start general liability. This is one where it covers damage that you might cause to someone else. If you damage someone else’s property or you cause injury to someone else. The kind of classic example that I got from our claims team is that let’s say our customer’s a plumber, right, and he’s tightening the compression fitting on a water line. And he does a little too tight so there’s cracks in the plastic line.

Susan Tieh:

Over time, the water can start leaking out, maybe damage the floor. That water damage would be covered under general liability. It’s for stuff like that. Workers compensation, we just talked about that, that covers if your employees get sick or injured on the job. And again, that’s required by the states a lot of the times. Then there’s commercial property. If you have a building, it covers the damage to the building from stuff like fire, flood, hurricanes, but also covers what’s inside the building. If you’ve got inventory or computers, that can also usually be covered under your commercial property policy. Then there’s tools and equipment. This is really important for our folks in construction. This covers if your tools and equipment are stolen or damaged. And the last one I’ll mention is commercial auto.

Susan Tieh:

This protects your vehicles that you use for business. It’s just like your personal auto, but a lot of times personal auto doesn’t cover the stuff you do for your business, right? This is the same thing, but for business. And I’ll also just mention, we talked about just generally insurance needs, it’s protecting your stuff, but it’s also winning business. I’m sure for most of your customers, if you bid on a job or if you get a job, you have to show that certificate of insurance, whether that’s to homeowner or a landlord or even a city if you’re doing a city building. And so at Next, we have the ability for our customers to make custom certificates for free on their online portal. And we also have this thing that’s pretty cool, it’s called a live certificate. It’s an online proof of insurance, because in the past, I mean insurance is old school. In the past, you had this paper printout and this really-

Zach Wojtowicz:

Got to call your guy.

Susan Tieh:

Yeah, exactly.

Zach Wojtowicz:

And have him mail it over.

Susan Tieh:

You got to call your insurance person. They fill out a form, they print it out, maybe they mail it to you and then you go and show it to someone. But that form is only good for that day. Then your customers having to call the insurance company in a year being like, is this insurance still good? That kind of stuff. And with the live certificate, you just go online, it always says if it’s valid, it has a type of insurance and it’s an easier way for you to work with your customers so they know that you’re protected. If you work on their stuff, they know everything’s going to be okay.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, that overview of the different kinds of insurance was, I’m sure, beneficial to our listeners, but also very beneficial to me. Charley Burtwistle was taking notes.

Susan Tieh:

You’re like, what kind do I need to buy?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Do I need any of this?

Charley Burtwistle:

Well, yeah. Yeah, that too. But the example that wasn’t quite as humiliating for me is so I’m a data scientist here at Buildertrend, and I’m in our Buildertrend data lot. And so I see these kind of words and phrases repeated over and over again. And I have my own definition in my mind of what workers comp and general liability are and things like that. That was actually really useful information to me because Buildertrend has places in our subcontractor portal and things like that for you to actually attach those things right there, or any other types of insurance, you can add it as an attachment on your subcontractor. Kind of what you were talking about, you never have to keep track of a paper copy anymore, you just have everything all in one shop. You can also set the expiration date so you know when it’s about to expire. And really just try to make that whole process as seamless as possible. I think Next and BT are pretty aligned in the mission.

Susan Tieh:

Yeah. Bring technology to something that’s old school, right?

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, absolutely. A better way of doing things as we always like to say. And as a data scientist, I’m kind of curious on just some general trends that you’ve seen in the industry. Obviously this question is fun to ask anybody over the past two years in the construction industry and I’m sure in the insurance industry as well has been pretty insane and a lot of moving parts, a lot of moving dynamics. Just kind of curious, what are some of those kind of emerging trends that you’ve seen over the past couple years?

Susan Tieh:

Yeah, definitely. In terms of trends for claims for the last couple of years, one thing I’ll say is that with the more severe weather that we’ve seen in the last couple years, we actually have seen more claims for property damage due to weather. That could be wind, hail, freezing temperatures. That’s been something we’ve just been noticing more of. And I think the other trend I’ll mention is people talked about this during the pandemic, especially, but a lot of homeowners were doing more home renovations. It’s this big demand for construction.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Right.

Susan Tieh:

I think, kind of like what I said earlier, insurance is really important as you take on more projects because really the more work you do, actually the more risks there is, because something can go wrong, there’s more chances for that. We’ve seen claims from customers in construction have kind of been going up, but we think that’s really just because they’re taking on a bigger volume of work. But just as a good reminder for people, again, as you take on more work, definitely be careful and also make sure you have the right coverage as you do that.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Absolutely. It makes a ton of sense. As far as the experience side and what separates Next from the other field, I mean, I actually interact with our customers quite a bit and that was the first thing that stuck out to me was the fact that you’re having to produce these certificates all the time and it’s annoying just to have to constantly be handling the logistics of are you insured, are you not? Do you have the proof? So on and so forth. Is there anything else that separates Next compared to other solutions on the market?

Susan Tieh:

Yeah. It’s like you knew what we wanted to talk about. Yes, I definitely think so. For us, again, because we’re fully online, everything is much easier. I also want to mention that we launched a mobile app recently, so that is a really easy way to kind of have your certificate of insurance, your proof of insurance in your pocket. And it’s really easy to generate these certificates that we’re talking about. One thing, like we’re saying, traditional insurance company, you would call someone, they would make certificate for you. And so every new customer you get that needs the certificate of insurance, you’re having to call your agent, they’re making it for you, they’re emailing it to you. With our online customer account, you can do it yourself. You can do it anytime of day it’s convenient for you. And it’s very straightforward and you can immediately email it or share a link. Whoever you need to give it to can get it right there. It’s something where we find people might think like, oh, it’s really fast if I can get my certificate in a couple of days. For us, it’s seconds.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Wow. I mean, that sounds incredible. I mean they’re busy. And so, having to have easy access to things is going to be a huge priority for a lot of your customers. What is the typical profile of the customers that you tend to work? You have construction companies, are there any characteristics that you kind of see in your customer base, number of employees, number of jobs? I mean, what does your profile look like of customers who are kind of these are Next or do you have everybody that you’re hoping to attract? I’m just curious.

Susan Tieh:

Yeah. I don’t have all the details with me and I think Charley’s a data scientist, I shouldn’t just make up data. I’ll say in general, we do work with smaller business, maybe under 10 people, under 10 employees. But definitely our goal is to be able to serve more and more of the market.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. I appreciate you referencing the quality of the data. I want to circle back real quick to the comment you made around people have this misconception that this process should take days or weeks and you’re able to do it in seconds. That has to be mind-blowing. Are there other common and misconceptions you see where people are transitioning over to Next that you’re able to blow their minds with a unique solution that you guys have developed?

Susan Tieh:

Yeah. I think one thing in general, in terms of where we can exceed expectations is kind of like what I said about certificates. I think a lot of people are trained from working with traditional insurance carriers that you have to pick up the phone and talk to someone to get anything done. If you want to buy more coverage, if you want to change your coverage, change your limits, even change your credit card. They think they have to call. And so, our customer support team is amazing. They’re happy to take all these calls, but they also will tell people like, “Hey, did you know you could do this in your online account and you don’t have to wait for our business hours, don’t have to wait for when we’re working, you can do it anytime yourself.” I actually think that most of the things that customers typically think they have to get on the phone for, you can do yourself with Next insurance.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, I love that mentality and it’s actually really funny, Zach and I always joke that we do have actual jobs at Buildertrend outside of just the podcast. And literally an hour before we started recording, Zach was messaging me about how we can come up with other solutions to our typical Buildertrend training, which historically has just been a phone call and now it’s like, “Hey, we have learning academy videos you watch, we have webinars that you can watch. There’s online trainings, tutorials that you can click through in our product.” And so hearing you talk about that definitely resonated with us as well of those are typical problems that I think everyone in the industry is trying to solve right now is how do we streamline this process and make it as easy as possible?

Susan Tieh:

Totally. I think it’s so about being almost on demand. You’re saying your customers and our customers are really busy. They should still do things on their schedule, it shouldn’t be when it’s convenient for us.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Thanks, Netflix.

Susan Tieh:

I think that’s definitely a trend.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Everybody’s like, ah, I got to have it. No, I’m just joking. When it comes to the insurance space and talking about the evolution of the way you guys are offering this product at the client level, what are the misperceptions that, when talking to clients in construction, when it comes to protecting their interests or their equipment, I mean, is there any sort of perceived barriers to that or what’s your perspective on sort of what they encounter with their actual operations?

Susan Tieh:

Yeah, definitely. There are some misperceptions, I think, for people who are buying insurance and that’s kind of across all types of businesses. One misperception I’ll talk about is your people who are newer to insurance, there’s a lot of confusion about general liability. I think because it has the word general in it, people think this covers everything.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Right.

Susan Tieh:

But like we said, it doesn’t, it only covers if you cause damage to someone else. It doesn’t cover your own stuff or if you get injured yourself. That’s like a big, common misperceptions. I think people just need to kind of learn about that and then they’ll know what they’re buying. And the second thing I think that’s more relevant for construction folks in particular is there’s also this perception that if you buy insurance and you’re covered, no matter what kind of work you do, I bought insurance, I should be good for anything. But it’s actually really important to accurately say what you do when you’re doing that insurance application.

Susan Tieh:

For example, our general contractors, they do a range of things and I kind of ask them what are the activities that you do? But for us, for example, and for most insurance companies, something like roofing, that’s considered pretty high risk, because something goes wrong, it’s usually a big claim. If you don’t tell us that you do roofing, we’re not going to cover you for roofing because roofing’s expensive in terms of the risk for insurance company. We would be charging you for roofing coverage, but you don’t do it. We’ll only cover you for it if you do it. And so it’s really important to kind of list out all the activities that you do, otherwise something goes wrong and there’s a claim, you might realize you’re not covered after all.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s a great point. Something popped in my head while you’re talking about the considerations too, is, I mean, if you come to Next Insurance, you can kind of pick what coverage you need as well. It’s flexible as far as what you’re covering and what your liability would be and all those things?

Susan Tieh:

Yeah. Yep. You tell us what kind of business you are and we try to tailor the coverage already based on the kind of business you are. You have different needs if you’re a restaurant versus a general contractor.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah.

Susan Tieh:

But then we also have different packages, so you can choose your limits. And like I said, if you tell us kind of what activities you do, then we’ll know what kind of specific coverages you should have within that policy.

Charley Burtwistle:

If I’m a GC or if I’m someone that’s in the construction business and I’m worried about protecting my liabilities and making sure that I’m covered, would the best first step, just go out to nextinsurance.com or what recommendations do you have for someone that is thinking about this right now and want to make sure that they’re protected?

Susan Tieh:

Definitely. Well I would say definitely you can go to nextinsurance.com and go through our application and get a quote. And if you like what you see, you can buy. If you want to do a little more research, we actually have a lot of great resources on our blog that are about insurance, but also some general about running a construction business and things to keep in mind. I think we have a really good article right now about the infrastructure bill and what it means for construction companies. You can also always call our support line as well. We have licensed insurance agents available to talk to you during business hours.

Charley Burtwistle:

Wow. Kind of the full gamut, you guys got it covered.

Susan Tieh:

We try to meet the customer where you are. We love it if you buy online because your whole experience really should be digital, but we know for some people buying insurance, it’s nerve wracking, right? What are all these words mean? And they might just want to talk to someone who’s knowledgeable. Yeah, we have the license insurance agents available to call. You can work with our partner agents again, we offer different channels for you to come to us.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s phenomenal. And I’m assuming though, no matter which route you take, ultimately you’re trying to get through the process as quick as possible, right? It’s still about convenience and speed and educating people on what’s best for you.

Susan Tieh:

Yeah. It’s definitely, I don’t know. I kind of think of it as doing taxes. You know it’s important, you know you need to spend time, but you want to spend the least amount of time you can to get the best result. Yeah, we try to make it a pretty simple application process. We ask the questions that we think are most important, we don’t want to make this a lot of work for you. And at the end you get the quote and you can decide if you’re, yeah, if you’re ready to buy. It just takes a few minutes, really, our application, I would say usually five minutes if you have the information handy.

Charley Burtwistle:

Wow. We’ll definitely make sure to link to all those sites in our show note. If anyone’s interested in checking those out. I think I’m going to go check out your blog right after this episode and do some little reading up on my own. But yeah, this is an awesome, obviously not… Awesome is the wrong word. It’s a necessary service that you guys are providing.

Susan Tieh:

It can be awesome. I mean, we aim to surprise and delight people, but yeah. Insurance in general is not the most exciting.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. That’s what I was getting ready to say. I love the mindset that you guys have of taking a necessary, maybe historically not viewed as awesome service, and trying to just streamline it and completely revamp it in ways that other people haven’t even thought of before to make it as easy and as quick as possible. This has been super, super informative for me and really excited to see what things Next has coming up next, if anyone has ever made that pun before.

Susan Tieh:

Never.

Charley Burtwistle:

Sweet.

Zach Wojtowicz:

You’re so creative, Charley Burtwistle.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. Thank you. I know I should have stopped whatever joke I made earlier. That’s when I should have called it for the interview, but.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah, you were batting a thousand and-

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We can’t hit them all. Susan, thank you so much for coming on “The Building Code.” It was great having you.

Susan Tieh:

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It was fun.

Zach Wojtowicz:

See you. We just had Susan Tieh from Next Insurance talking about all the great things in the insurance world with Next. Charley Burtwistle, you know I like to ask, what did you think?

Charley Burtwistle:

I thought it was a very interesting conversation. I know we talked about it a little bit in the intro about how they’re kind of changing the game, but I thought it was really informative to listen to exactly how they’re doing that. Obviously, I’m not an insurance expert, something I’m not super familiar with, as you could tell, probably some of my questions I was asking, but. I never understood the problem. Understanding those and then hearing the solutions they had, I thought was really, really interesting. The mobile app part of it, the ability to who go to their website and get claims or quotes in a matter of minutes, just their kind of customer first mentality.

Charley Burtwistle:

I know she mentioned that-

Zach Wojtowicz:

I love that.

Charley Burtwistle:

A couple times.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s really unique to have multiple channels. They’re not just an online platform, but you can talk to someone. We can give you a more on-demand experience, but in calling into support, you can talk to a licensed insurer right there. I mean that’s really rare from a customer support standpoint of providing all these different areas. That really stuck with me.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. Especially in an area where you can’t really afford to mess up. You need insurance, so you need to have someone to talk to and somebody to walk you through that process if necessary. And Next, their ability to do that is why we chose them as a partner and one that we’re really, really excited about.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. I love our partner episodes. It’s exciting. I mean, we get to kind of be the front line of these new initiatives and talk to people who really made it happen. Shout out to Susan and Next Insurance for coming on and we’re hoping to continue to grow our relationship.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. Susan was great. I didn’t get a chance to bring it up in the interview, but she did have a whiteboard behind her. Whiteboards are my favorite thing in the world.

Zach Wojtowicz:

You should see Charley’s little office area. It looks like a madman scrambling equations.

Charley Burtwistle:

I don’t have an office, I have a conference room that has a whiteboard in it, but Susan, if you’re listening to this, I did appreciate that setup that you had. Yeah. I think that about does it for us, make sure to, whatever you’re doing right now, listening to it, pull out your phone or your laptop, give us five stars, leave a review. If you want to check out Susan’s whiteboard, go out to YouTube, you’ll see the video right there. If you want to start any conversations about Next Insurance or Buildertrend, go out to The Building Code Crew on Facebook. And that is all the shameless plugs I have for this episode.

Zach Wojtowicz:

And don’t forget about our next episode inside Buildertrend where we’re going to have Josh Swenson in to talk about Global Search.

Charley Burtwistle:

Global Search?

Zach Wojtowicz:

Pretty big deal.

Charley Burtwistle:

In Buildertrend.

Zach Wojtowicz:

In Buildertrend.

Charley Burtwistle:

The ability to search anything and find.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Anywhere, any time. I don’t want to vouch too much.

Charley Burtwistle:

You just got to tune in next week, but that’ll do it for this week. I’m Charley Burtwistle.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I’m Zach Wojtowicz.

Charley Burtwistle:

That’s The Building Code.