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PODCAST OPENER
Welcome to the Inside Insight podcast presented by CR Solutions. At Consolidated Risk Solutions, we are taking our expert knowledge of the insurance world and using it to innovate the industry using technology, groundbreaking thinking and a personal touch. Join us as we talk to masterminds both inside and outside of CR Solutions about how the world of insurance is changing, and how we can be sure to grow along with it. If you have to manage insurance in your work, then you can benefit from the interviews, conversations and insights we’ll be exploring to elevate your business’s success.
INTRO (00:42 – 03:11)
Trevor Casey: Beau, we’re back again with another episode.
Beau Lunceford: We are here. And this is going to be the first, I guess, double episode of the Inside Insight podcast. So we had another episode that was earlier this month. And this is our first second release, I guess is what we’ll call it. And so people are hungry for this stuff. And so we have had to up our game and we are cranking it out.
Trevor Casey: Absolutely. And you know what’s super cool is that I think that some of these people that we’re starting off with this year are so innovative and the ideas that they have, the way that they look at the industry is just so unique. And it’s really exciting to see where this space is going. And we’re kicking off this episode with Drew Meadows from Higginbotham and Higginbotham is a huge broker. And so having him on this, I think is a really great insight to see kind of what that side of the industry looks like.
Beau Lunceford: And Drew talks even a little bit about how he has this massive history, coming back before Higginbotham and then talks about what it looks like to join a company that is already so established and already doing all these incredible things. And the way that those two things his previous work and Higginbotham previous work have come together to continue to do amazing things in the space.
Trevor Casey: Absolutely. Drew Meadows is an executive vice president of Higginbotham one of the largest privately held brokers in the country. Higginbotham is a producer led firm so everyone wears a lot of hats. At his core, he’s a trusted adviser to his clients in all four corners of the country. He also strives for deeper carrier relationships, and searches to find exceptional talent through acquisitions. His largest specialties include construction, Wraps, Shirley’s sub default, multifamily, and group captives. After working with two regional brokers, he and his brother successfully built their own agency and sold it. Production has been one of his largest roles, but he has also held executive leadership positions of Chief Operating Officer, Head of Operations, Regional Sales Manager, and M&A integration. So I’m super excited for everybody to listen to this episode. I think it’s incredibly insightful.
Beau Lunceford: Oh yeah. And even just that description, they’re just the tip of the iceberg of the kinds of things that we get to hear from drew in this conversation. So let’s not waste any more time. Let’s jump into this conversation with Drew Meadows from Higginbotham.
Trevor Casey: Kick back! Let’s go.
Interview (03:15 – 35:08)
Trevor Casey: All right, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Inside Insight podcast. We are honored to be with Drew Meadows today of Higginbotham. He is the Executive Vice President over there handling consulting, business development, acquisitions, and overall operations. Drew, how are you?
Drew Meadows: Trevor, Beau, I’m doing great. Thanks for having me.
Trevor Casey: Absolutely.
Beau Lunceford: We’re really excited to have you. I think this is going to be a really great conversation that people are going to eat up. Before we started recording, we were talking a little bit about all the kinds of things that you kind of want to cover and we want to talk about during this conversation. And I’m already so excited for us to dig into it so people can hear just this wealth of knowledge and experience that you have to share. So to kick us off, Drew, tell us a little bit about your background and kind of where you’re coming from.
Drew Meadows: So I was raised in Atlanta. I went to the University of Georgia Go Dawgs. Actually chose insurance as a major, which sounds like the ultimate nerd thing to do. I like to say it was because risk management was voted as the number one job in America in the late 80s. But really, it was because my brother at Marsh was making a lot of money. So that’s what motivated me. I fell in love at UGA with my wife, Anita of 30 years now. We’re blessed with five kids, four sons and a daughter ranging from 28 down to 14. And what I love about insurance is that it gives you the ability to have make great money if you work hard, but also to have the lifestyle to enjoy the money. I found a lot of my, whether it’s fraternity brothers or friends at church or something that they might be killing it, whatever killing it looks like to you, but they just don’t have the time to enjoy the money. And they’re so stressed out, they die early. And I didn’t want that to be me. And I wanted to be, I’ve got just amazing kids and very talented and once an actress and was a D1 all American baseball player. I just wanted to be able to enjoy their games, I want to do enjoy their dance recitals, and their theater play and all those things. And so insurance has given me just an amazing lifestyle. And so I love that. But before I talk about my career, I have to go back. There’s a couple of fun facts that you must know about me. And that is, even though I’m 54 years old, I peeked. When I was 12 years old, it’s all been downhill. When I was 12, I sang for and was blessed by Pope John Paul the second in the valley.
Trevor Casey: Oh wow, all right.
Beau Lunceford: Well, I think that’s all we need to know. Thank you for coming on.
Drew Meadows: This Baptist getting blessed by Pope John Paul, then it’s a long backstory. I won’t bore you with that. Then Martin Luther King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, bless her. So she hugged me and told me how handsome I was. So I’ve got that going for me, no matter how great or bad the insurance business is.
Trevor Casey: That’s awesome.
Drew Meadows: That’s my whole career has been insurance. I’ve been quite the journeyman have bounced around more than I wanted, but it has served me very well. I’ll always knew I wanted to be a producer, broker consultant, but we don’t train very well. So right out of school at UGA, I was trained by the best at the time, which was Chubb and in commercial underwriting. That’s where I learned about a lot of different industries, learn about business. And then I shifted to the surety bond side, where I learned financial analysis and really how to run a construction company. I worked at large regional firms as a producer, really focusing on construction insurance and surety bonds. Really what were the predecessor agencies to USI and then McGriff. But unfortunately, they kept getting acquired by banks, and I did not want to work for a bank. I had an entrepreneurial bent, and I did not want to own bank stock. And so I wanted to be an entrepreneur within an organization. And I just kept seeking stock and equity. And I knew, and as I mentor our next generation, I often tell them, “Look, you can have great lifestyle with salary and with commission. But you will never produce true wealth until you have equity and build something.” And so I was in search of equity. And so that caused me to bounce around a little bit more. My brother who was at Willis at the time, he and I got together. He was frustrated too. And we decided to start our own agency in Atlanta and Nashville where he was. And our investor, we’re one of the largest food franchisees in the country. And so we just started ensuring all his buddies. These guys would own hundreds of Taco Bells or Pizza Huts or KFC is and so we quickly became restaurant professionals and we even founded an MGA for quick serve restaurants. And the cool thing about that was we listened to our client, and we built instead of just taking cookie cutter stuff off the shelf, we built a machine for them. We built back office insurance stuff where we built an MGA that really was tailored catered to their needs. And it was very successful. In four years, we sold it and that was great. The sad part is that through a series of unfortunate events that probably cost me about a million bucks that began my years, what I call the years in the wilderness, where I really had to kind of pivot at 40 something years old. I had to pivot to kind of a more of myself into a new career within insurance. And so I went from being a producer to a principal owner, then to a Chief Operating Officer, to a regional sales manager of producers to doing M&A work, and assimilating those firms that we were acquiring and all that. Although that was frustrating. It really built me into being somewhat of a unicorn that could wear all hats within a high performing agency. So in our world, you’re either a commission, consultant producer, or your ops, and you’re on a salary. And so the industry doesn’t, it didn’t know what to do with me where I kind of did both, and could do both at a high level. And so it’s been a great run. But I tell you all that led me to Higginbotham and I’ve never been happier. I’ve been doing this a long time. But I have found my home. I hope to retire here. I want to stay here as long as they’ll let me.
Beau Lunceford: We love to hear that.
Drew Meadows: My clients love it. My family loves it. And while searching for equity, I found that culture was actually more important to me. And I know this next generation, typically is more motivated by culture and lifestyle than just about money. And it’s really how can I have impact? How can I global impact and I’ve been able to use insurance to serve others and it’s fun. I think insurance is boring, but I love my clients, I love taking care of my clients. And so being client centric has been critical to my success and just helping others. I mean, I use insurance as just a tool to help people to certainly provide for my family and to flex my competitive juices because I do love to win, but culture has been critical. And it’s one of helping and observing and that’s what Higginbotham is all about. Through that, and I think through helping and serving, that’s how you grow wealthy in relationships and that’s how you grow wealthy, financially, as well. We’re really a new name to the national scene. Higginbotham is a funny word. It sounds like a village south of London, but we are a 75 year old firm that has been the biggest in Texas for years. But through organic and acquisition or growth, we will probably be the 15th largest broker in the country this year. And I think what I’m most thrilled about is that we are employee owned. We’re not owned by private equity. We’re not puppets to private equity. We’re not at the whim of Wall Street. Our KPIs blow away or competition. I mean, I could just go on and on listing how we are as a multiple exceeding our competition. And we now have 3000 employees throughout the southern rim of the US from Beverly Hills to South Florida to up through into Ohio. Now we’re setting up Atlanta, the cool thing is you only had nobody in Atlanta four years ago. We’re setting up Atlanta to be our largest field office in the country. We have roughly 150 employees in Atlanta in about 200 throughout the state. And then my book is, I really am a generalist. I think over the years, my niches have always been typically towards technology, construction and restaurants, which is a bipolar, array of groups, but I’ve always had to pivot and I’ve always said to be ready to pivot. And I think that’s my advice to other producers in this business or just business people in general. The IPO, I was kind of the technology insurance broker in Atlanta, and then the IPO bubble took out my tech clients. And then did so much construction, and then 2008 took out my construction clients and then built up this Restaurant Group and pivoted to that, and then we sold that agency and it had to start over. And so now mostly construction and multifamily. There’s a lot of insurance pain in multifamily right now. And we are proud to serve and at Higginbotham we serve over a half million units of multifamily units and our office is the national hub for that practice group. And so naturally, I’m with all the resources we have in Atlanta for multifamily are really focusing a lot on that as well.
Trevor Casey: So you said that.
Beau Lunceford: That’s fantastic.
Trevor Casey: That’s awesome. One thing I’m curious about is you said that you’re feeling some strain in the multifamily area. What makes you feel that strain or what do you think’s affecting that right now?
Drew Meadows: Well, it’s brutal and it’s the perfect storm of property and general liability just nailing these multifamily owners. You often times will have one or the other that are a challenge for them but right now we have the perfect storm of both of them just being awful and it’s two pronged. The property is typically, these properties are under insured, it costs a whole lot more to for sticks and bricks to be built these days than it did 5, 10 years ago. So what used to be able to be insured for 120 bucks a foot now underwriters are requiring maybe 150 bucks a foot? Well, that’s a big Delta when you’re talking about 10s of millions of dollars’ worth of insurance. And so their margins are already thin. And now that’s a straight abstraction from the bottom line. And so it just makes their margins even leaner. And so investors are concerned about that. Then you have rates per property because of all of the claim activity we’ve had for years now. Insurance companies believe it or not losing money. I mean, everybody thinks they’re going to stick it to the insurance company. But the reality is, the big bad insurance company, the reality is everybody loves insurance when it does what it’s supposed to. And they surely love that check, it helps them rebuild the building. And so insurance companies are losing money. And so they’re jacking up rates, because they’re not to geek out on insurance too much, but their cost of insurance is also greater, because they’re having to pay a whole lot themselves to their reinsures. People don’t realize that there’s a million dollars for the coverage, typically, there’s not just one carrier that is eating all of that. They share the risk. Even going back to London days when insurance started, and they were sharing the risk of insuring ships or going to the Caribbean full of gold and that sort of thing. So with that their reinsurance costs are more expensive, they have to pass that on. So not only our rates are going up as well as the devaluation hit. The second thing, though, is that general liability is going through the roof. And we’re really in a hard market for both property and general liability where the crime scores, and the awful assault and battery claims. And a crime score going up on a particular community can drive their general liability rates, much higher than a community even a mile away from there just depends on what part of town you’re in. And so all of those things coming together are just creating this perfect storm. And then in particular in Georgia, I’ll touch on tort reform in a minute. But Georgia is really rough spot. We got to, like a lot of states, we’ve got to do something legislatively to put a cap on some damages or whatnot, take care of people, but don’t give them excessive amounts when someone deserves a million dollars, let’s not give them 40 million. Let’s not act like it’s just Monopoly money that the US government does. But I’m sorry, I digress.
Trevor Casey: I mean, that’s awesome. And all of that, I think is really interesting and super important here.
Drew Meadows: So I mentioned earlier that insurance is boring. But I’d like to share a couple of really cool things that I’ve been able to do in my career that I really think set it apart is something kind of fun, unique situations, I would say, I was a surety underwriter and that’s doing construction bonds. And in that I had to analyze contractor’s financials, and then advise the GC on what to do in order to maximize their bonding program. So at 24, you can picture this, I was at a fancy Italian dinner. And I’m sitting next to one of the most successful GC’s in the country. I mean, a name that if I mentioned, you would know him. He’s probably 70 years old. I’m 24 and I’m sitting there telling him how to run his business, telling him like, “Hey, you need to improve your gross profit margins, or you need to retain some more earnings.” And I just looking back on it, what a puck but that was my job. And he took it really well. And we ended up having a good relationship with the goal of this 24 year old to act like I knew how to run his business. And when I was 29, WebMD, which is a household name you they chose me to be their broker. And so you’re never too young. I’d only been in the business as a producer for three years. And I was proud of that. But it started off as a service that allowed you to transmit your heartbeat over the phone. So you get to, again, insurance may not be cool, but my clients are cool and taking care of my clients is cool. And it was fascinating to learn at now this global medical health care publishing company, it really had these humble beginnings of the small firm that we translate your heartbeat over the phone. And what sounds, we take that for granted now. But 25 years ago, this was cutting edge stuff. And then the CEO takes me to lunch. And he’s telling me, he’s going to put a computer in every doctor’s office in the country, and link them all to share data. And again, this is when email was barely a thing. And the internet was just taken off. And so again, it was the Wild-Wild West, it’s one thing to do all of that, but then how do you ensure that? What do cyber insurance was not really a thing, breach of security insurance was not really a thing. It was the Wild West, the beginning of it. And it was just so cool to be on the front lines of that. It was a fun time to literally create coverage to kind of change with the times. And then finally, I think that creating master programs for large contractors, that’s where you guys come in. I was able to look at insurance differently, truly as a tool, using it as a risk financing product. And I’ve always done construction and always typically more insured and advised large trade contractors where everybody had their own insurance. But as I started working with these larger GC’s and really putting together Wraps, it just made so much more sense because it put control where it needed to be, which was in my clients hands, it streamlined, claims, it eliminated gaps, it really eliminated redundancies. And then with all of that it produces typically a significant cost savings. And it just made insurance simpler. So instead of everybody bring in insurance to the project, you just have the project being covered. And it just makes them so much more simpler, and no more finger pointing during the claims process, and no more gaps in coverage. And no more just makes risk management a beautiful thing. And so I’d always done raps more for like individual projects, and really, typically GL only. But I had a client that was just experiencing exploding growth. And he approached me and just wanted to build this master program for both the CCIP as well as their sub default SDI program. And I came for more of a surety bond program, which goes to typically kind of buttheads. And so it was really cool just to even this far into my career, just learn something new, and to see how powerful it is, and I really attribute a lot of my education in that process to CR Solutions. You guys are incredible. I mean, Josh and Jennifer, have helped me build this machine, and it is working so well. And we’re duplicating that around and people are coming to us saying, “Hey, we’ve heard the story and the success and how profitable this is, and how it’s actually going to be this amazing tool for your client and take care of the projects as well as you become a profit center when it’s done correctly”. Because there’s such a safety culture, when you blend all this with a true safety culture. It’s amazing how the bottom line becomes just grossly successful and profitable and worth it. So I’m telling all my clients to do this when it makes sense. And it’s been just been fantastic. And then finally, I just want to kind of talk about the future of insurance if that’s good.
Beau Lunceford: Oh yeah, that was totally me one of my question. It seem like you’re so future minded, Like, you talk about the way that you’re investing in and mentoring the next generation of insurance professionals and looking forward to , how the industry is changing and how it’s growing. So please tell us what you kind of see.
Drew Meadows: So we are going to fail miserably if we don’t handle three things well, and it’s the 3T’s. And how are we going to handle talent, technology, and tort reform? Talent, with baby boomers, we all know this no matter what the service industry is, ours is insurance. But the sucking sound of the black hole of talent in the next 10 years is probably going to lose half of our talent. And so it really is up to the next generation or whether we’re even going to be successful as an industry. So really investing in that talent. Typically, carriers are great at training, but insurance brokers are not. Well, we have to fix that. We really have to have a path where insurance brokers we have to be better at recruiting, we have to be better at promoting our business to the 19 year old at universities or to the kid that has a great way with people, we just need to make this a more attractive place that people could really see a future and show them how you can do so many things. Whether you’re the biggest nerd, it wants to go actuary, or you’re the most gregarious salesperson that wants to go into production, there’s a place for you in insurance. And I’ve seen every personality type be successful in this business. I’ve seen people that are very introverted be successful producers and consultants. Because you know what they’re going to be able to speak to a CFO that may not like me, but they’ll love them. And so we just need to do a better job with our talent. So we’re at Higginbotham, we’re invested in an internship program. We’re spending 100s of 1000s of dollars, having interns all over the country, and really putting a formal program together, everybody’s always said they do. But that typically means just giving them up a chair and saying, “Hey, these guys are gonna take you to lunch, and may the odds be forever in your favor.” But we really have a formal program where we walk them through and show them every facet of our agency, and hopefully make it attractive, where they want to come work with us when they graduate.
Trevor Casey: I think that’s so incredibly important. Because when I started my career in the insurance industry, it was that here’s a chair, here’s a pad, and paper and a phone, start calling people and let’s build some clients. So I spent a lot of time with older guys who worked within the company, just kind of learning techniques. It wasn’t like any formal training. And then when I moved on from there, it was really the same thing over and over again, until I got CRS, where they had some kind of “Formal Training”. So I think the fact that you guys are actually taking those steps is so incredibly important. And also to comment on what you’d said earlier, as there are so many great aspects and career avenues in the insurance industry. I mean, you talked about tons of things. You wouldn’t think that WebMD as an app would need insurance, you know they do. You wouldn’t think that necessarily like the fry cook at Burger King or whatever may need insurance, in some capacity they do. It’s just incredible, all of the different facets of insurance that are out there. And it’s just incredible to see a company like Higginbotham taking the time to really grab people and elevate them in that space.
Beau Lunceford: And not to mention, not only are you guys investing in being intentional about making sure that an Internship Program is educational and stuff. But you’re investing in the people themselves, you’re making sure that they feel cared for and that they feel, I don’t know, provided for. I mean, like Trevor’s experience is that there’s probably a company out there that thinks, “Man, Trevor Casey, he was a great intern. We did some great stuff with him. He feels really educated.” But like, by the time that he got to see our solutions, he had already been just kind of like shuffled through the motions. But you guys are being intentional about making sure that not only are your people getting the training that they need, but they’re also being invested in like, this is the opportunity that you have, these are the things that you can do. And I think that this generation, we’ve kind of mentioned it before, I think that they care so much about what kind of impact they can have, and making sure that the company that they’re working with, and the people that they’re working for care about them as well, that they’re not interested in being just paper pushers, they want to make sure that what they’re doing has an impact, and that the people that we’re working with are interested in that as well.
Drew Meadows: Absolutely. But even once these interns or new employees come on board, we’ve got to partner them up with someone who knows what they’re doing, and someone who cares. And so we have to make it financially attractive for both parties. But we set them up with a mentor, and it’s a formal deal. And this person is going to lock arms with them. And they’re going to take them along and show them the ropes because I tell you, it’s a lonely place when you’re given back in the day, it was a chair and a phone and said, “Go at it”. And it’s just so different now, and I love the way our validation rate of people because the meanest thing we could do is waste three years of someone’s life where they just didn’t work out and you have to have the awful conversation. But if we can come alongside that person and really coach them and mentor them and help them learn from our mistakes that we made when we were their age and show them what to do what not to do and kind of help them grow. It is amazing how both parties win. And we don’t have the attrition that so many of our competitors have. We have success rate and hold rate and it’s just made it. It’s made it more like family. And the fact that we can not only compensate well, but then offer stock that is just through the roof. I mean, we’re also you’re gonna find a mature company that 75 years old that’s growing it organically at 15% a year, and then our stock price, or stock literally goes up on a low year, it’s like 29%, one year have been here three years. One year, we hit almost 50% stock growth that is insane for a mature company. So when you look at compensation, and the fact that even someone in their 20s can be getting stock and that’s crazy. That’s the equity piece that I mentioned that I was striving for. So the talents a key thing, technology is the next and I’ll wrap it up with. The carriers and agencies that got to operate more efficiently that even down to issuing certificates, processing claims, handling small business, I know that AI is going to solve a lot of those problems, but we have got to have human oversight over the machine. And so let’s not be scared of AI, let’s embrace it, let’s see how we can use it, let’s make mistakes to get better. But let’s use AI but always has to have the human element. And the third file T is the tort reform. And especially in Georgia with his nuclear verdicts. And we’ve got insurance companies that are leaving the state, because they can’t make money in Georgia. They’re getting kicked in the teeth, and they’re just like, “Hey, we’re gonna take our ball and go somewhere else.” And they’ll come back and they may regret it. But they’re leaving because they can’t make money in Georgia, because when there’s a million dollar auto claim, we’re giving somebody $30 million, and you just can’t do the math. The margins are too thin, and it’s just Monopoly money, and it’s got to stop. We need to take care of people, we need to provide them with justifiable damages. But we can’t do this just pull a billion dollars out of the air. And so finally, in closing, I just say, no matter what business people go into, especially when insurance, it’s a people business. Every business is a people business. I don’t care if it’s artificial intelligence, and X, Twitter or whatever, it’s all a people business. And the key to success in this business is really for any business is for people to like you and to trust you. And I tell young kids, young adults all the time, yes you have to bring value, yes you have to know your stuff. But if you’re likeable, and trustworthy, you can go as far as you want to go a long way. And it served me well, and is made just a beautiful career that I wouldn’t trade for the world. And I’m grateful for you guys to give me a platform to talk.
Trevor Casey: I mean, that was incredible. I feel like amazing.
Beau Lunceford: That was amazing. Oh, my gosh, people are going to eat this up. Oh, I’m so excited for people to hear this.
Trevor Casey: Yeah. I mean, most times I feel like we’re kind of trying to pull information out of people and you’re just throwing diamonds at us. So we really appreciate that. I mean, there’s so much in this interview for people to unpack, and we are just so thankful for your time, your expertise, and just thank you so much.
Drew Meadows: Yeah, thank you, Trevor. Thank you, Beau. I hope you guys get it.
Beau Lunceford: Yeah, absolutely.
Drew Meadows: Great day. Tell my boy Josh and Jennifer hello. We think the world of all. I’m not just saying that because you’re the host pressing the record button or setting up the platform, but it really is, like refreshing to see a vendor that sounds kind of crass because you’re so much more than that. You’re truly a partner that has made me elevate my game and has educated me to where I knew a lot. But just kind of got me to that next level of being where I can really, truly be a value add to my client. And it’s changing the game in a lot of ways. I’ve worked with a couple of bad administrators and it’s been refreshing to work with you guys and from top to bottom. I mean, I can’t believe know the CEO is sitting here calling know and asking how things are going, it’s just crazy. It’s like getting a call from Warren Buffett to see how things are going on.
Trevor Casey: Now Josh’s head just got really big, Drew. We’ll cut that part.
Drew Meadows: We’ll cut that. We’ll delete that. Don’t include that.
Beau Lunceford: Well, thank you. That’s all very kind. And that’s all the kind of things that we’re striving to do and to create in the insurance space, know, be a resource for people to do what they do better. And that’s also what this podcast is about too. So, Drew, we just really appreciate this time that you’ve given and the just onslaught of information and insight that you’ve shared with us. This has been absolutely wonderful.
Drew Meadows: Great. Thank you, Trevor. Thank you, Beau. You all have a good weekend.
Beau Lunceford: You too.
Trevor Casey: Thanks, Drew. You as well.
Beau Lunceford: Bye, Drew.
OUTRO (35:13 – 38:32)
Trevor Casey: Drew is so smart.
Beau Lunceford: Oh, my gosh. Before the conversation started, he told us a little bit like, stop me and tell me if I need redirect or anything like that. And the man just starts and he does not stop. And the wisdom that just comes out of him is insane.
Trevor Casey: Yeah, it’s crazy, too. And with his answers are so well rounded. I would be writing down a question for a follow up, and before I would even get to ask it, he would answer it. So you can really see his love that he has for this industry and just how knowledgeable he is. It’s so refreshing to be able to speak with people like that and learn from them.
Beau Lunceford: And I think a lot of the guests that we have lined up for this year, for this season are, that’s the character trait that they all have together, is that they care and are very passionate about what they do, which is so funny to think about in the insurance world, people who are super passionate about insurance, but they’re not boring. All these people that we talk to are so fun, and they’re so invested, and they’ve got just this ability to share about what they’re doing in the space and how it is that it’s impacting both themselves and the industry itself.
Trevor Casey: Absolutely. Taking the box, the stereotypical box of what falls in insurance and breaking those walls out and saying, “Hey listen, there are young, there are older, there are middle aged, there are fun people.” There are boring people. There are well dressed. They are not well dressed. But it really, just the wide variety of people that are in this industry is just so unique. And I think speaking with people like Drew show that they’re really searching for those people to elevate them because he understands that, “Hey listen, I don’t have forever. I want to retire one day.” So I want somebody who thinks like me to replace me so that Higginbotham, for example, can grow for another hundred plus years. And I just loved speaking with people like that.
Beau Lunceford: And what’s great about what you just said there too, because it’s a dangerous mentality of like, I want someone who just thinks like me. Fortunately, all of these people who are looking, people who think like them, they’re innovative thinkers. They’re already people who are thinking outside the box and who are looking for bigger and better opportunities, that they’re not these closed minded people, that they’re not these in the box people. So when they’re looking for people who look like and think like them, it’s people who are open to new ideas and looking to innovate and change the way that we approach insurance. And I think you’re going to hear a lot of that throughout the season, is people who are recognizing that there has to be a change, there has to be a different approach to how we approach this really archaic industry that is just saturated with old school thinking that we’re looking to evolve out of that.
Trevor Casey: Absolutely. So if anybody wants to learn more about Higginbotham or you want to connect with Drew Meadows to learn more about him or the type of work that he does within Higginbotham, we’ll put links to both Higginbotham and Drew’s contacts in the show notes, so please feel free to reach out to him. He’s a wealth of knowledge and he’s happy to pour over to people who are interested and happy to learn. So thank you so much Drew, for your time. It was wonderful speaking with you. Excited to have spoken with you and hope to have you on another episode again soon.
Beau Lunceford: So until next time, stay covered.
PODCAST CLOSER
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