Listen to the full episode here!
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 – 03:08)
Trevor Casey: Beau, I am really excited about today’s interview because I feel like this podcast has really taken a life of its own and some of the people that are wanting to be a part of our podcast is really exciting. Today we’re joined by Chad Hall from RT Specialty out of the Tampa office. If you’re in the insurance construction insurance game, it’s a name you know, it’s a name you’ve heard. We joke around about the word power broker all the time and when we throw that around, just joking. But Chad truly is the definition of a power broker. Chad Hall is a specialist wholesale insurance broker with a dedicated focus on the construction industry. As the practice leader for RT Specialty construction practice and president of RT Specialty in Tampa, Chad has developed a team that concentrates exclusively on construction related placements. He’s successfully structured casualty insurance spanning residential, infrastructure and energy sectors. Chad’s expertise extends beyond mere placement of insurance. He is also adept to creating new products, program design and feasibility pro forma analysis during the sales process. His approach emphasizes partnership over mere market access, ensuring top retail brokers across the country benefit from his innovative solutions and strategic insights.
Beau Lunceford: This conversation I am really excited for people to hear because I really think that Chad brings something special to the table. Like you’re saying he is a power broker. And just the insights that he brings and I hate to say, I hate to keep using all these buzzwords like expertise and insights, but like the reality is, is that Chad brings something special to the table. And like we say all the time, we’re bringing people in who are very passionate about their work. It’s one of the unifying factors of the people that we’re interviewing during this season. And Chad is no exception to that.
Trevor Casey: Absolutely. So without further ado, let’s jump into this exciting conversation with Chad Hall from RT Specialty.
Interview (03:10 – 26:46)
Trevor Casey: Alright. Welcome back to another episode of the Inside Insight podcast. We are joined today with “Integrity First” CEO Fletcher Wimbush. Fletcher, how are you today?
Fletcher Wimbush: I’m doing great. Thanks for having me, guys.
Trevor Casey: Absolutely.
Beau Lunceford: We’re excited to have you.
Trevor Casey: We really are. And one of the things that we like highlighting on this program is different products and innovative things. And one of the things that we had not even ever thought of is what you do. And I’m excited to really get in the weeds a little bit to say of what “Integrity First” does. So before we dive into that, do you want to give our listeners a little bit of background on yourself and what “Integrity First” does?
Fletcher Wimbush: I’d love to. I mean, I want to try to make this as short as possible, but it is kind of a long story. Look, I come from an entrepreneurial family. At the age of 16, my father was a business coach, talent assessment guy, and I found myself captain of the football team, student body president, falling these leadership roles, and I became enamored with the idea of getting the right people on the bus, the impact that they can have in an organization. So I really come from that perspective, I suppose. As my career grew, I built 25 delis early in my career. So I had some hands on construction. I was in there on the scissors lift, hanging wire, and plumbing and doing all sorts of crazy stuff as a young guy working for another family business. And then I ended up working for a commercial dish machine company called “Auto-Chlor Systems”. Anybody’s ever heard of them, but service techs out in the field. We’re doing plumbing. We’re setting up dish machines. We’re dealing with chemicals. We manufactured chemicals in a plant in Santa Ana, California. Super high risk in dangerous environments. And they were actually a user of “Integrity First”. And it was one of that and many of the other things that they did in order to make really high quality hiring decisions with these really young guys that would come into this business that knew nothing about it. They’re getting $50,000 or $60,000 or $70,000 a year, and they’re working a pretty dangerous job. They’re driving big company trucks. They’re working with equipment. They’re dealing with chemicals, or they’re in kitchens where they’re slippery and dangerous. And this is where I began. And the leadership there, it’s a family owned business. And we began to think about the connection with who you bring into your organization and the effect that has on your safety culture. And that never occurred to me. In fact, when we set this call up originally, you guys emailed me. You’re like, I don’t see the connection. Why are we talking?
Beau Lunceford: We were shocked to see after our first conversation how much this actually does interweave with the kind of things that we’re talking about on a monthly basis. I know we’re not there yet, but I really wait for people to hear, how all of this pulls together, how it all connects. It’s going to be so great.
Trevor Casey: Absolutely.
Fletcher Wimbush: And that’s like the aha moment, the epiphany in this journey. So four years ago, the previous owners of the “Integrity First” product, they were retiring. They’re getting out of the business. Me being in the assessment and the hiring business, it fell on my lap. This amazing product that’s been around for 40 years has got millions of data points behind it, has this amazing scientific journal article with 550,000 data points. So I’m a big science guy. Like, there’s got to be facts and evidence behind whatever it is that we’re doing in the hiring process. And I looked at this product and had firsthand. I had five years using it myself. I was like, I got to have this. I got to add this to our arsenal of tools. I inherited a relationship with a guy named Gary Peterson, and he should come on your podcast. I highly recommend him. He’s really, really smart dude. But we’ll talk about that later. But he gave me the whole crash course and this connection here. And it makes a lot of sense. So you guys probably talk about safety programs and there’s a lot of great technology out there, and I’m a big fan of them, by the way. I might talk about drug testing and background checks and DMV rack. You might talk about nurse or doctor triage programs or mobile clinics. You might talk about high tech. I got a buddy who does specialty high tech scaffolding. Like, it’s fancy scaffolding, I guess, but super, super safe.
Trevor Casey: That’s all care about ultimately at the end of the day.
Fletcher Wimbush: You need it. It’s part of the recipe. But a lot of these things, they take an enormous amount of human mental energy and cash to implement, and they take time. Now, again, you need to be doing these things. How do we make our workers safe? How do we educate them better on best practices? Again, not things that you shouldn’t be doing, but some of them are very prone to human error. Frankly, do I get all of my workers through the safety training every day like I’m supposed to? But you ask most organizations, they’re like, “Well, we try.” And the integrity tool, it is one of the simplest, lowest cost things that you can do to prevent these problematic hires from coming into your organization and these are the people. So Gary said this or actually, one of the clients said this. He was the owner of a drywall company, “Problematic employees sure become problematic claims.”
Trevor Casey: Absolutely.
Beau Lunceford: And it sounds like one of the things that we say a lot on this podcast is the goal of risk management is to get everybody home safely. We want to get everybody home in one piece. We want to get the job done. And just the little bit that you’ve already said, it sounds like a lot of that can be prevented in terms of getting people home safe by making sure that you have the right people on the job site to begin with.
Fletcher Wimbush: Don’t hire your next claim.
Trevor Casey: It’s funny. One of the things that we do in prevention is, especially in New York, you see people are putting up turnstiles, they’re putting cameras in place, they’re putting all of these other safety, or those cocoon systems and scaffolding, like you said. But at the end of the day, if you have somebody who is a drug addict or they’re drinking on the job or they’re just a historically unsafe person using any of these things, they are going to result in a claim. And all of those other safety programs that you put in place, as you mentioned, which cost a very nice premium, are not necessarily worth anything if the person just shows up and decided, “Hey, I’m going to drink a couple beers at lunch and take some mystery pill I got at the gas station.”
Fletcher Wimbush: I mean, marijuana pot is the number one culprit these days, too, to top it off. I mean, alcohol, it’s always a problem, is a big problem. But with the changes across so many states at this point where marijuana is now legal, and I live in a state where they’ve changed the laws where you can’t even drug test for that because it stays in the system for so long, and you don’t really know if they’re high right then and there. It’s like alcohol by all means. If you want to go out for some drinks on Friday night and take an Uber home, please take an Uber home. Then that’s up to you. I think most of us aren’t here to judge your lifestyle choices in that sense. And same thing goes with, you want to smoke some pot on the weekends? Like, as long as you do it safely and you’re not driving or operating heavy equipment, who am I to say what you do on the weekends? I think about this from my past. Like, I remember when I was in high school, I had friends who they couldn’t function in college, and they were just high all the time. And they actually justified it. They’re like, I operate better. How crazy does that sound?
Trevor Casey: Oh, man.
Beau Lunceford: You hear that more and more now, especially with kind of you mentioned that it’s becoming legal in so many states. And so the idea of having to figure out how do we regulate this? How do we keep people safe? When these laws come into place, that kind of change up the way that we used to experience things and we used to regulate them, how are we doing that? So it’s terribly interesting.
Fletcher Wimbush: And that’s what integrity testing is all about is these people, they call it cognitive dissidents. So my favorite analogy is, you guys ever drive above the speed limit?
Trevor Casey: I plead the fifth.
Beau Lunceford: No, I’m a very safe driver. I’m very good at driving. I’m always going the speed limit.
Fletcher Wimbush: I know you’re both lying now. I’m sure there are some people who are religious about, like never going about. But the reality is the moat the vast majority of us drive. And I’m a perfect example. My wife is a maniac on the road. I hope she doesn’t listen to this, but we have a fights about this all the time. But I’m driving on the freeway, and I’m going speed limit here and going up the I-5 in California 70 miles an hour, it’s pretty good. So I like to peg it out 75. I put the cruise control on. I’m like, I’m going safe. I’m not going to get a ticket. I don’t like to tailgate anybody. I’m like this old man driver. And she’s like, speed up, pass that truck. Literally, she justifies this, “Well, that’s how everybody else does it, you’re driving too slow. It’s dangerous to drive too slow.” And that’s a weird psychological justification, if you really think about it. If you tear a lot of those arguments apart, it’s like, “No, that’s false.” Speeding kills more people than anything, by the way, more than alcohol or drugs on the road like these things. It is the most dangerous thing you can do as a driver. And it is illegal, flat out, we all know that. Yet so many of us justify driving, 5, 10, 15, and 20. My wife 20 miles speed limit. And that’s a cognitive dissidence. Well, the people who do drugs or steal from their employer, I can give some free stuff away to my friends, or I can take this old equipment home with me or filing an employment EEOC or a work comp claim because my boss is a jerk. That’s okay. That’s called “Cognitive Dissidents”. They’ve justified it to a point where they believe that’s a normal way to operate.
Trevor Casey: Which is disgusting. And unfortunately, the way I feel, a lot of people may or may not think.
Fletcher Wimbush: Well, 23% of them do. That’s the fact.
Beau Lunceford: That feels so high.
Trevor Casey: It does. Scary high, honestly, because it’s almost a fourth of the population.
Beau Lunceford: So “Integrity First” is basically coming in and helping to prevent people who, I guess have a high cognitive dissonance from basically working in your workplace.
Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah. And people have beliefs that are sort of, I don’t want to be too harsh about this, but they’re delusional.
Trevor Casey: So how do you kind of track something like that? Is it based off of here’s a test that’s based around that of scenarios or is it a credit report? I guess you could say of their history of what they have done in their life. How did they come up with that 23%?
Fletcher Wimbush: Because to me, if I’m going to answer something anonymously, maybe I’ll say, “Yes, I actually think that way when I might.” But if you’re just going to ask me straight up and I’m an honest person or an un-honest person, I’m just going to say, “Oh no, I don’t think that way whatsoever.” So I’m really curious how you’ve come to get some of that data if you can share it. I don’t want to like step on time.
Fletcher Wimbush: I’m happy to share it. I mean it sounds ridiculous, but I put this challenge to anybody who is interested in ever trying the tool is try it. It typically is used and has the biggest impact in organizations that do significant volume. I mean thousand plus employees are doing hundreds of hires, frontline hires. This is particularly a product that’s used with anybody who has some sort of frontline hire who’s in the trades or blue collar driver’s healthcare. It’s huge in. But anywhere where you have that kind of a population, I mean maybe you give it to your executive hire but that’s not really who it’s for necessarily. There’s other tools for those populations, but typically it’s used at the point of application. So the person clicks easy apply on Indeed. They get an auto response saying thank you for your application. We’re very eager to take the next step with you. Can you complete the seven minute survey? It takes seven minutes on average to complete. It’s in 27 different languages, so there’s no excuse. They didn’t misunderstand any of the questions. And then we proceed to ask them some pretty straightforward questions like how often do you smoke pot while you’re at work? Sometimes? Never? Occasionally? Always? I mean the answer is point blank and that’s where the numbers come from. So the 23% is probably actually low. That’s just what I can prove from millions and millions of people who have completed this assessment who have admitted to one or more of these behaviors. But the reality is there’s probably a few of those. It doesn’t catch everybody. Like, there’s no one for one perfect solution to safety or risk management or people problems. Because we’re dealing with people. But one day maybe, I don’t know, we’ll get closer.
Beau Lunceford: I’m sorry, go ahead, Trevor.
Trevor Casey: So I was just going to say, so if an employer implements this program and they set this out and they have a pre applicant screening process using this software or this program, how is that information translated to them? Is it a yes, no? Or they have, we’re looking for a 70% response on this. Or, if they just answer ‘X’, ‘Y’, and ‘Z’, we’re not interested in moving to the next round? Or is it kind of like an a la carte they pick and choose? Or is it just, you failed it. You’re out of the pool. I’m just out of curiosity.
Fletcher Wimbush: Well, again, typically this product is most often used with large employers, but there’s definitely smaller, mid-sized, 50 to 500 types that use it as well. But typically it’s a straight up pass fail. Again, if I say I occasionally smoke pot at work, there is nothing. If you hire me and I do something terrible at work because I’m stoned, you’re liable for that decision. I told you I was going to do this.
Trevor Casey: That’s true.
Fletcher Wimbush: It would be like hiring somebody who fails a drug test. This came up in a restaurant in Colorado. Like the Ted chef wanted to hire this guy. Like, hit a love affair with this person was like, I gotta hire this person. He fails the integrity test for cocaine. Like admitting to doing narcotics, and then he’s like, “No, he’s amazing. I gotta hire this guy.” They sent him for the drug test, he fails for cocaine, and the guy still wants to hire him. So the problem when you get to these organizations that are got layers of leadership here is that’s not a decision he gets to make. It’s a pass or fail. Now, if you want to know why? It tells you. The test will tell you, and it’ll tell you how they scored and what they answered, and it’ll point blank tell you what they said. And if you want to hire the stoner, then go ahead. But again, that’s negligent.
Beau Lunceford: So you can make that decision on your own, but you have the data that’s going to show you this is how they scored. This is what their intentions most likely are. And then taking that information and then using it, and whether they want to use it correctly or not, that’s up to them. But they’ve got all the data in front of them.
Fletcher Wimbush: That’s exactly it. I mean, a large pest control company did a blind study on this. They did it for a year. They just followed their normal practice. So whether the person passed or failed or whatever. And 98% of the people who passed were rated ‘A’ or ‘B’ by their supervisor in terms of overall just performance. Like, they were more reliable. The people who none of them became work comp claims, and only the ones who did were people who failed the assessment or the tests.
Beau Lunceford: Interesting. Not surprising.
Fletcher Wimbush: Not surprisingly. Now, that’s pretty extreme. Look, that’s almost a perfect record in terms of this ‘A’, ‘B’ test. I’m not here to sell you that this is like your silver bullet. It is here to make a measurable impact in terms of your culture, the quality of individual that enters your organization, first and foremost. But secondarily, the side effect is that, “Oh boy, the number of claims that we have, the number of claims that go beyond sort of the easy, get them back to work, return to work, the ones that get preventing the litigated ones, the most severe claims.” We haven’t even talked about the fraudulent claims, which are ripe in places like New York and Massachusetts and California and Nevada. I mean, some of these states. That’s just the way of life is that we take small claims and we litigate them and get big paydays.
Trevor Casey: One of the things I’m really interested on is, so you guys have a lot of relationships with large insurance carriers and some brokerages out there. And so I’m interested, historically, what those individuals are seeing and looking at and seeing. If you’re implementing this program, we may give you a discount of premium or whatever they may be, because you’re showing that, I already have safer employees. Is that something the way they’re using it or they using it for internal hiring or both?
Fletcher Wimbush: They don’t typically use it for internal hiring that I’m aware of, but typically it’s part of their risk management programs. So a lot of these carriers are broker’s individual salespeople basically. Who they got to go into highly competitive environments where it’s a commodity that you’re selling. So how do you differentiate yourself? And then there’s also just a flat out, like how do we improve your business? Like I want to be a trusted advisor for your organization if I’m going to be your risk management provider, your carrier of all your insurance needs. So they’ll come into a program and say, your emod is one four or something like that. That’s pretty damn high and you need to get it down. Well not only am I going to cover you, but I’m going to bring in and wrap around a set of risk management best practices and tools. And they’re oftentimes recommending a lot of the things that we talked about earlier. But then also “Integrity First” is one of those tools that they like to have in their tool belt because again, it’s so the kiss method. So simple, stupid, like literally you could begin implementing this tomorrow. It just, boom, done. Like implemented. You just send this link to every single applicant. They complete it, they either pass or they fail. If they fail, you move on. If they pass, you continue your normal vetting process and best practices. Again, get them through drug testing, which by the way, we’ve seen 75% reduction in fails on drug tests. When you implement this before and when do you do a drug test? After you make the offer and while you’re waiting for them to start. Fletcher beating the cup and he failed. So he’s not going to be showing up on Monday to work. What kind of impact does that have on your business?
Beau Lunceford: So by taking these preventative measures by filtering people through this system beforehand saves the company time and money by keeping them from wasting it on people who aren’t going to end up being able to do the job and start anyways.
Fletcher Wimbush: Yeah.
Trevor Casey: This tool is really unique because a lot of the things that we had spoken about on this podcast are all safety compliance, insurance related programs, products, solutions. But most of those are very time consuming and do have a hefty price tag to them and some lead time to get them started. So the fact that a company could plug this in, get started, throw resumes in there today and really implement a much safer workplace I think is an invaluable tool. And I really hope that some of our listeners take that and implement it because a lot of the brokers that may be listening are writing some of these smaller trades that have the drywallers, the guys that are swinging the hammer and seeing, hey, implementing this program, decreasing some of those silly claims, keeps everybody out of court, saves everybody money in the long run. And I think is really, really unique. And I’m really glad that you reached out to us and, and fought us on where it actually fit within our podcast because it really does. And I think our listeners are really going to resonate with this. And so we really do appreciate you taking the time and explaining it to us. And we hope people reach out, take the test on your website. There were all kinds of different resources which we’ll link down in the description for everyone, and I’m hoping that it really creates a money saving solution for somebody to get rid of some of those claims. So thank you so much.
Beau Lunceford: Absolutely.
Fletcher Wimbush: Thank you, guys. I appreciate the opportunity to share some of these ideas and just leave you guys with. I mean, regardless whether you use this tool or again, think about how the hiring and who you hire, the effect that it has on the culture and the safety of your organization. There’s a lot of other things that you can do and we can talk about as well. We could talk for hours and hours about. But I think that, to me, is the message I ultimately want to get across. I’d love for people to try and enjoy using “Integrity First”, but I think there’s lots of free things or just cultural changes that you can make and how you hire that will have these types of impacts as well. So I just want to be an evangelist for that and remind folks that there is light at the tunnel. You don’t just have to turn and burn people in the trades.
Beau Lunceford: And I think there’s so many people who want to hear that exact thing is that they want to stop turning and burning and they want to figure out how it is that they can start strong and they can build a great team which keeps them profitable, keeps them safe, and keeps them moving forward. That’s fantastic. It’s just great. This has been an awesome conversation, Fletcher, thank you again so much.
Fletcher Wimbush: Thanks, guys.
Trevor Casey: Thank you.
Fletcher Wimbush: Have a good one.
OUTRO (26:52 – 28:36)
Beau Lunceford: I really hope people recognize what an incredible tool this is, because like I said in the beginning, I was really hesitant about how this was going to relate back to us, how people were going to resonate with this. But the reality of the foresight that this has the opportunity to give anybody as a whole that’s running an organization that’s hiring people, this makes a huge difference in retention, in culture, all of those different things. And one of the things that we even talked about was how this is something that you can implement today. This is not something that’s going to take, it’s going to be a process that we put into place and eventually we’ll get there. No, this is something that you can get in on the ground floor right now and start making a difference in the way that you hire, in the way that you onboard making sure that you have the best people on your team from the beginning. This conversation was amazing. Thank you so much, Fletcher. I’m sorry that I doubted you and I am so glad that this conversation came to light and the people get to hear it.
Trevor Casey: I have nothing else to add. That was exactly my thoughts. It is cool to see. You know, with this podcast we do speak to a lot of individuals with innovative solutions for the construction and insurance space. And like you said, a lot of those are time consuming and very costly to get them started. Whereas Fletcher’s product is a quick implementation and cost effective for people to actually start a program if you have nothing or you want to add something else to your tool belt, per se. So, Fletcher, thank you again so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Anybody who has any questions, as always, Fletcher’s information will be in the show notes and until next time, stay covered.
PODCAST CLOSER
Thanks for tuning in to Inside Insight presented by CR Solutions. If you like anything that you heard today, subscribe, follow and rate the show so that other industry pioneers like yourself can find it. Maybe even share it with someone you think might benefit from this episode. Do you have a question that you want answered or a concept that you need explain, you can email us at info@c-r-solutions.com with the subject line “Podcast Question”, and maybe your question, we’ll make it onto one of our episodes. You can also submit a question via our website at c-r-solutions.com/podcast. There are no dumb questions, only opportunities to learn something new. Now that’s a wrap on this episode. Join us next time on Inside Insight presented by CR Solutions. Stay covered.
Listen to the full episode here!
