Home, Fire, Flood and Smart Device Insurance with Ryan Aduddell from Liberty Insurance

This is episode number 145 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hacken, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're glad that you could join us for another episode live from The Homeowner Show studios. How you doing, Kev?

Oh man, fantastic.

Fantastic.

It has been a long week and a half.

Uh-huh.

But I leave soon and I'm out of here.

You're leaving?

Yes.

On a jet plane?

Yep, I'm out of here. Vacation time with the family and I am super excited about it. How you doing? Dude, I'm doing really good.

I mean, other than I can't work.

No, man, dude, this, this rain has been absolutely insane.

Texas has decided to Louisiana. Yeah. Which is not cool.

No, no, they should never do that.

I mean, it's fine for Louisiana, but I want Texas back.

Yeah, we don't want any of that at all. But I will tell you something that's fun.

Okay. I like fun things.

Yeah. So you and I received an email last week.

Okay.

You know what you want to talk about?

No.

We got an email last week that said, um, I can't believe I'm even having to say this, but a sink is an appliance. Yeah, it is not—

Well, he said it's a plumbing fixture.

Yeah, he said it's a plumbing fixture. Yeah, it's not an appliance, basically, is what he said. So anyway, uh, shout out to dude that sent us the, uh, The validating email, right?

It just goes to show that we cater to the educated and the uneducated.

So yeah, I guess that's true. Because the other thing that is really interesting is a buddy of mine that is a regular listener to the show. He sent me a message the other day and he said, hey, Have you done any episodes on an electric zero-turn mower?

Right.

And so I told him, I was like, look, we've, we've kind of done something on Clubhouse a little bit with our friend Eric G. But really, we've really only kind of done a little bit with, with the, with the battery type stuff. And we've talked about the EGO trimmer, that kind of stuff. We've really not gotten into The zero turn. He said he's about to buy like 14 acres, and, um, he's pretty excited about that. But the cool thing is, is that he said that the last few episodes that we've done have been super helpful. They've just been right up his alley since he's about to buy land.

Oh, he said he's about to buy— okay.

He's about to buy land. He's about to build a house for the first time. So that episode that we did with Eric, uh, Thornton on, you know, first time, you know, home buying and and all of those types of things was super helpful. The appliance episode was super helpful for him 'cause he's gonna be doing that.

You talking about like the really old appliance episode that we did?

No, no, no, no, we did one just a couple of days, a couple of weeks ago with Megan Anderson.

Oh, about buying new appliances.

Yeah, buying new appliances.

Gotcha.

And so anyway, and he, I think he named another one, but he was saying they're really helpful. So here's the deal, guys, if you're unaware, We've done a lot of episodes at this point. We've probably done something on something that you need. Go find it. I'll tell you that.

Well, 145 as of right now.

145 as of right now. Yeah. I will tell you this though, it made me think we've still not done a septic episode.

No.

We need to do one on septics.

Absolutely need to do one then because I have one.

Yeah, you have one and a lot of people around here do have them. And I'll tell you right now, I'm probably gonna wind up with one.

Oh, when you get your new place?

Yeah. And I have— I know nothing about septic systems. So all I know is that there's a really hilarious sign advertising Anderson Septic Solutions over here on Fish Creek. On Fish Creek.

That's right.

Which is hilarious.

You guys can figure out why that's funny on your own. Exactly. I'm not telling you.

I'm not either.

So anyway, that's what's going on with me. But we do have another really cool episode tonight. You want to introduce our guest?

Yeah, I mean, you've been bringing in so many friends, I decided to bring in one of my oldest friends.

Yeah.

So it's—

it was—

and you'll have to correct me, Ryan. I think we've known each other since 6th grade.

Yeah.

Yeah, 6th grade.

So he's, he's a good buddy of mine. Known each other a long time. He's also my insurance agent. Uh, so we got Ryan Aydahl in the house from Liberty Mutual. And how you doing, man?

Doing great, doing great. Just working hard, taking care of the family, just like, you know, all everybody else, you know. Yeah, making it through.

We were, we were getting ready for the show and I was saying something about my watch and he reminded me that I have that insured as well. I was like, oh yeah, I'm really happy I have that policy.

You have, you have an insurance Just for your watch?

Oh yeah.

Doesn't like AppleCare do that?

No, they're terrible.

Oh.

So Ryan takes care of it for me.

Okay, I trust you.

But like, okay, like you sold me— wait, you sold my wife on this and then she just has me pay the bill. Explain to us how this works because it was, it was like a really easy add-on for us.

Yeah, well, I mean, insurance is just a transfer of risk, right?

Right.

So we're just saying you give us a little bit of premium and if something happens to your watch, we take care of it. So AppleCare takes care of certain things. It's a very limited list, but it doesn't take care of losing it. Most of the damages that can happen from physical activity, it doesn't really cover. So $25 a year, you have, you know, 2 Apple Watches on that policy. If something happens, we just replace them.

What?

Yeah.

Okay, so this is— this— see, because AppleCare is like $4 a month per device, right?

This is $25 a year.

That's, that's a third of the cost.

Exactly.

Less than a third.

Right.

But it's 28%.

So you would want to have both because we don't really cover the, the, the hardware malfunctions or the software malfunctions. So you would want to have both.

Nah.

But you know, this is kind of like, uh, you know, I'm a doofus insurance, right? I broke my watch, I lost it, whatever. So if we have thousands of people that give $25 a year, And only a few of them are going to have an incident once a year. So it works out really well.

The math works.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, and we all know how good at math we all are.

Yeah.

I mean, I just pulled 28%, right?

Yeah.

Right.

Right out there. Yeah. Just right there.

Yeah, exactly. So, okay, we'll do this. Tell us a little bit about you, how you got into the insurance business.

All right.

And all those sorts of things.

Well, um, You know, I'm just a regular guy. Grew up here, uh, in the area, grew up in Klein School District, went off to Abilene Christian for bachelor's degree with my wife Laura. We moved over to Waco for her to complete her master's at Baylor in music, and then I started working for Cintas Corporation, which is the uniform people. So I was negotiating contracts for them, and when we moved to Houston, I kind of was transplanted to The Woodlands, Conroe area as a rep. and, uh, saw that it wasn't what I wanted to do anymore. I wanted something that was more consumer-oriented, uh, had more longevity. And so I moved over into insurance. I, you know, was on the way home actually from quitting that

job because I was not very happy, uh, there. And, um, I actually just walked into an office and they said, it's amazing, we just had an opening. And I said, well, you don't anymore, I'm here. And they laughed and then they hired me. So, so I've been there for, uh, 12 years now. I'm an executive sales rep, which is the highest ranking rep they have. Just means you've done, you know, a really good job, top 10%, uh, in the country for 10 years.

Wow.

So, um, you know, it's not a super exciting job. It's a lot of fun. The people are fun. Uh, the best part though is, you know, uh, you get to work hard and play hard, take care of your family. Um, so It's been great. It's a great career.

Okay, cool.

And, and so you— I mean, like, for us, you have our home policy, right? And I think you actually have our vehicle policies and then our smart device and all that kind of stuff, right? I know one of the things that most people are going to want to be interested in hearing about, like, our homeowner's insurance.

Yeah.

And I know, I know that's kind of like a, uh, tricky landscape these days, especially in this area. And one of the things I know that has come up quite a bit for you is flood insurance.

Right. Yeah, flood insurance right now is very tricky in this area. So a lot of people that live between Lake Houston and Lake Livingston, Lake Conroe don't really understand how the reservoirs work. So they just assume the water goes somewhere and everything's fine. They don't know that if the northern reservoir lets all their water out and the lower one doesn't, that they could be flooded at any time. And we've had people that have said, you know, my house has never flooded, I've never had a problem. And then next thing you know, tax day flood comes and, you know, their million-dollar home has 2 feet of water in it. So it, it's interesting. We just don't

know with all the building going on. Highway 99 was a big change for people in this area. And there were neighborhoods there that had been established for 10, 20 years, never had a flood problem at all. And next thing you know, there's, you know, vehicles driving in their front yards in 3 feet of water.

So I mean, that was a problem, big problem right after Harvey, or during Harvey, because of the San Jacinto. The San Jacinto had crested, right? And they had to do something with the water. And it wound up going places that it had never gone before, just because of the way that system just kind of set over Houston. And Lake Conroe didn't release their water in time. And so there's been lawsuits that have come up on Lake Conroe going, look, you should have released your water earlier. We told you this storm was coming.

Right.

And then because you didn't, you eventually had to release the water. And when you did, that's why the San Jacinto crested. Like, there's all these things that I knew nothing about Right. But since I live on Lake Conroe, I'm getting all this feed, you know, on Facebook, right?

And it's crazy when FEMA comes in, there's a lot of things that just go out the window. So the state all of a sudden doesn't have a lot of control of things. The Corps of Engineers can come in and they can just demand that a waterway is released. And then you have people saying, well, this area is already damaged, we might as well not damage other areas. So you have people that have a foot of water in their house, now they have 3 feet of water, and they're saying, well, why are we getting all the water? Well, a lot of times they say, well, let's minimize the damage geographically, because these homes are already gonna, you know, suffer quite a bit.

Right.

So, you know, we try to help people solve that problem with the FEMA flood insurance, National Flood Insurance Program, and there's also private carriers out there that will write flood insurance. So each one has its benefits. So you just kind of have to weigh the options depending on where you're located.

Yeah.

So when it comes to other— so flood, what would you say is another pretty big one right now that you're dealing with?

Well, the biggest thing that we're dealing with right now is after the winter storm. A lot of people didn't know the details of their policy when it came to water damage. So, you have people that are like, well, you know, if my pipe bursts, is that covered? Well, a lot of times it is. Now, if it creates a slow leak, most policies, that's not covered.

Right.

So, you want to make sure you check all the details of the policy. And we have a lot of people that are buying insurance online, and that's a big problem.

Yeah.

Because, you know, you wouldn't go to— anytime you have a symptom and you're sick, you go online and, You know, you have the sniffles, but all of a sudden you have cancer. You know, you're going to run out, and, you know, you Google, what's wrong with me? And you're trying to figure out if you need chemo or not. Well, it's the same thing with insurance. You know, you go online, you just buy this policy, not realizing, you know, the devil's in the details, right? So, I do a lot of just repair of people's policies and letting them know, you know, like, look, this doesn't cover water backup at all. This doesn't cover slow leaks. It doesn't cover mold.

And, um, so that, that has created quite a bit of, of issue for people.

Yeah, I was actually in a home today and they were in the process of gutting it and they were explaining to me that they had an above garage, uh, AUD. And, and they were, I, they were telling me that like during the freeze a pipe had burst under the floor and basically the second story was caving in. And I was like, did insurance cover that? And they were like, well, we had insurance on the house, but we never listed the AUD in the policy. And so the only thing it covered was the pipe, right? And then everything else was just on us. And so we were out $20 grand.

Yeah, it happens all the time. You know, we— I tell people, you know, I can save you money. Sometimes I can save you money, um, on the front side. You know, most of the time we can. But really where you want to make sure you're protecting yourself and you're saving money on a policy is when you have a claim.

Right.

Because people will say, well, this policy's $100 less. Well, yeah, it's $100 less, but let me tell you why. You're going to pay 30% depreciation on your roof, your deductible's 2%. So on a $20,000 roof, they're going to pay $3,000 and you're going to pay $1,700. So you saved $100, and when you, you know, have that claim, you're going to end up paying a whole lot more.

Yeah.

Um, so it, it really is, you know, you got to watch the details, and having an advisor that really knows, you know, what to do makes a huge difference.

Well, like, and if someone doesn't have access to you, right, like, how could they look at their policy and go like— well, and let's explain what an AUD is real quick.

Right, go ahead.

I mean, it's, it's basically just another dwelling on the property. It's usually like considered like a mother-in-law's place or something like that, right? Above garage apartments, different things like that. And, and people assume that because they have a home policy that everything's just roped in.

That's right.

And when that thing is not—

I, I—

well, you can probably explain this better than I can. When it's not attached to the main dwelling, it's not part of that policy, right?

That's right. So, um, other structures are typically included on a policy. But that's meant for like the garage, shed, and a typical garage doesn't have a mother-in-law suite on it or an apartment or a bathroom.

Yeah.

So that's why, you know, it's really important to, to cover those things with your insurance agent when you're talking to them. You know, let them know what's going on because, you know, we don't ask for everything about a policy or everything about your property, but there are certain things that, that agent should be asking about.

Okay, so I got a question.

Okay.

Related to something you just said about, um, the garage. Is there a reason that you know? I've asked too many people this question, they don't know. So maybe you're my guy. Do you know why so many homes in Houston have detached garages? Does it have anything to do with like homeowner's insurance or It's because it's detached, it's something different in your policy or something? Because I've never lived in an area that I've seen more detached garages than in the Houston area. Do you have any insight that you could give me?

It doesn't have anything to do with insurance. I mean, I could see where maybe builders found that, found some benefits in it. You know, if you don't have machinery or vehicles that could catch fire and then, you know, light up your house, I suspect that it was easier to build. There was more land for a lot of the homes around here. We have bigger lots. So, you know, that may be one of the reasons why it gets your cars further off the street. But, you know, other than that, I'm, you know, really not sure.

It doesn't—

you're looking for logic in— right.

And that's the problem is that it's stupid. Because now I gotta walk outside. I literally just put my car inside. And now I gotta walk outside before I can get back inside. This is the dumbest idea ever.

Well, and here's, here's where I will on the rarest of occasions agree with you. Is the biggest problem for me with a detached garage is that they usually ended up connecting it to the main structure. Yeah, with a walkway.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

And now you're putting more concrete down than you probably would have had to do otherwise.

Well, maybe. But my issue with a breezeway is like, that is the easiest access for critters to get inside your house.

Into your house.

Because, because it's not built quite the same way. It's a giant tube.

Yep.

That just goes through.

That's what it is. That's what it is in my house.

Yeah.

I mean, and I've got I've got a weird situation.

Yours is attached, technically.

You would think so. No, it's not.

It's not.

I mean, it looks attached.

Doesn't it have a shared wall with your master?

It does.

Okay.

And so it is attached, but there is no access from the garage into the house.

Right.

So I think technically—

So it's attached. She just had a stupid architect.

It's so dumb.

Like, if nothing else, put a doorway into Into my closet if you have to.

That would actually be cool.

It would be.

I actually thought about it.

Dude, we could do that.

It would be so easy.

Let's do it. Let's get the right power tools.

Tomorrow. Well, tomorrow— I'm on a jet plane tomorrow.

That's right.

I'm doing nothing at my house tomorrow.

I'll put you in a door and put you a jar of mustard in there.

Maybe it's a conspiracy by soap providers because every time you walk outside in Houston, you have to take a shower.

That's true.

It could just be extra sweat, extra soap sales.

I'm gonna just go with stupidity. That's what I'm going with because it just makes no sense.

So talking, talking about weird stuff in homes, I ran into one I had not seen before. I actually had to call Jehu about it to like see what was going on. Jehu's the— he's been on the show a few times. He does air conditioning here in the area, Affordable Air. And I was at, I was at a client's house and I had to go up in the attic. They were having some issues, wanted me to check it out. And the access to the attic was in the garage, like a pull-down door, right? And so I go up the stairs and there's like, you know, a typical attic above the garage. But then behind that was just a door, like a closet door and,

and a wall. And I was like, this is weird. And so I opened it up and it opens up into the main cavity of the attic. And when I do that, I get hit with air conditioning.

Oh no.

And I was like, what is going on? Like, one, thank you, right?

Don't suspect that.

This is quite lovely. Um, and so I, I go in and I'm checking stuff out, and like, in, in the attic is a return and a send. And I'm like, well, this is bizarre. And it's, it's probably like 73 degrees in there.

I mean, is it, is it just like Is it just like joists and insulation, or is it floored?

What's going on? So there's no insulation on the floor.

Okay.

On the ceiling.

Okay.

But they have foamed the entire bottom deck of the roof.

What?

And so when I called Jehu, I was like, what the heck is going on? Like, if you guys hear noise, that's the horses. Sorry, we have unruly neighbors.

That's right.

And I was like, what is this? And he goes, well, is there foam on the ceiling? And I said, yeah. And he goes, yeah, they have to do that when they foam the ceiling. And I said, why? And he goes, well, it's basically now a giant cooler, right? And if you don't circulate the air, it's— you're gonna get a lot of mold and mildew because it's— there's no way to get that moisture out of there.

Okay.

And I was like, oh, well, okay.

Well, that part makes sense.

Yeah, that makes total sense.

But The fact that there is air conditioning in the attic still makes no sense.

He— the way he said it, he said it actually makes the rest of the house more efficient.

How?

Ask him. I don't know.

So what's up, dude? Jehu, we have that system in my home.

Do you really?

Yeah. So we have— we left the insulation down, but we had the underside of the decking of the roof sprayed with foam, right?

Yeah.

But we do have a ridge vent. So the ridge vent wasn't sprayed. And so we don't have to do anything in the attic.

Nice.

But the temperature in the attic is so much cooler, I would imagine. Yeah, than normal. But basically, it makes the attic into an igloo cooler.

Yes.

And it keeps positive air pressure in the attic. So you don't have transfer between the ceiling of the top floor and the attic.

Interesting.

Okay, so well, so that does work.

Actually makes your attic Really viable for storage though.

It does.

Yeah.

Because at that point, you've— I mean, I've got an attic fan, which is great because it really— I mean, imagine the attic basically being the same temperature as your garage. Okay, so it really significantly brings down the temperature of your attic. But in my attic, it's not air conditioned. No, and air conditioning, you can put whatever you want to up there.

I don't know what you guys are complaining. I've evolved beyond attics.

No, you just turned yours into a floor.

You—

I was talking to my wife about your house the other night because, uh, we, we, we found a piece of property that I need to show you, and I was like, this makes Craig's house look cool because And I was telling my wife, I was like, look, we always refer to Craig's house as first floor, second floor, second and a half floor.

Okay.

And then the third floor.

Right.

Which is completely accurate.

It's—

yeah, yeah.

It's a multi-tiered system.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a chalet.

Well, it's, it's unique. But yeah, you don't have attics.

Nope.

Not at all.

In fact, the attic that you did have, you turned into a, a basically a suite.

You talking about right up here?

Right above us.

Yeah, I mean, there's still some attic space up there, but like, yeah, there's like a 2-bedroom thing now, which is awesome. Yeah. Shit, Ryan, we're not talking about that.

No, you don't know what— hey Ryan, what else? Um, what else?

He's gonna go home and be like, I gotta rewrite Craig's bio. That's definitely an endorsement on your policy.

That's it right there.

All right, cool. So you do, at this point, I know you do flood insurance. I know you do, uh, what did we just get through talking about? I already forgot.

We were talking about flooding, but—

Flooding. Well, we talked about flooding, and then we also talked about something else.

Homeowners insurance.

Homeowners insurance.

Yep.

Okay.

Um, let's, let's talk about something a little more obscure.

Before we do that, I want to, I want to go through some extreme cases on the homeowners insurance side.

Okay, let's do it.

Oh, nice. Okay. You ready?

Yeah.

All right, let's— maybe we can do this like a fire round.

Okay, let's do it.

No pun intended, y'all. That's right.

So, well, let's, let's go with current hurricanes.

Yes.

Okay, so what, how does that work?

So a hurricane is a named storm by NOAA, right? So in this area, most of the, most of the damage that you see from a hurricane is going to be flooding, because our homes are really built to withstand hurricanes.

So You know, most of the time from wind and—

Yeah, from wind. And then we also, we have a lot of roughage, which is a term in insurance.

It's not a salad. Stuff that— I was gonna say stuff that rabbits eat. What are we talking about here?

Have a salad. Right. You'll feel better.

Exactly.

No, trees, buildings, things that will break up the wind, basically.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

So Hurricane Harvey is a perfect example. We didn't really have a lot of wind damage here. But we had lots of flooding.

Yeah.

So, you know, it just dumps on tons of rain. But typically, a hurricane deductible in this area is 2% of your home dwelling. So if you have a $100,000 home, that's a $2,000 deductible. Cool. So, all right.

Fires.

Fires are just a regular peril. So you could have a deductible as low as $500 on that. But, you know, fire is really devastating because of the smoke as well. So our fire departments are really good. So they can usually get to a home where it only damages maybe a quarter of the home. And then they're able to save it. So really, the main damage that you have is smoke, and then the actual water from the fire department putting the fire out.

Yeah. So a lot of, a lot of what, what the insurance ends up paying for is the smoke remediation.

And then yeah, yeah. So most of the homes, you know, it really comes down to gutting the homes. Unfortunately.

Taking it down to the studs.

Taking them down to the studs. Um, some— sometimes we have to scrape the whole lot.

Oh, wow.

Um, so it really just depends on how hot the fire was.

Okay.

Yeah.

Uh, tornadoes.

Tornadoes, that's wind and hail. Okay, so your wind and hail deductible that you see on your policy, um, you know, usually 1, 2, 3%, it just depends on your policy. But, um, you know, again, that's, that's a crazy one. So tornadoes, You can't build a house to withstand a tornado, right? You have wind going.

And I guess you could go like subterranean, but—

Well, there are some of those around.

Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes we see wind-driven rain with tornadoes. So you'll have a tornado real close to your house and wind is going like through the windows, up into the attic. It's pretty crazy. But, you know, that's another thing, you know, the devil's in the details. A lot of policies don't cover wind-driven rain. So you got to make sure that's in there.

So would that, would that be the same coverage for a haboob?

A haboob?

Yeah.

What's a haboob?

Oh yeah, I'm so glad you asked.

I was set up.

So, so, um, I grew up in West Texas.

Okay.

And in West Texas, and there are other places like a lot of like, uh, like Saudi Arabia, desert areas, um, they have these things called haboobs. And a haboob is basically a cloud, a wall cloud of dust, of dirt. And so you can see this thing coming for miles because it's just a wall of dirt and it hits you just like, you know, just like driving rain would, right?

Right.

You see it coming and all of a sudden you can see it in your front yard, but it's not the backyard type of thing, right? It's a very same thing. But it's just dirt. Oh, wow. And it is. Yeah, it's disgusting.

Yeah. So I mean, it would be under wind. Wind is causing all that dust to come in and whatever damage it does.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, cool. All right.

Trees. Trees.

Yeah.

Dead or alive?

Well, yeah. Yeah. See, there you go.

The question.

Yeah, that's actually a really good song. Yeah.

Let's Let's, let's start with the live ones and work our way to the dead ones.

Okay.

All right. So, uh, the main concern people have with live ones, um, is— well, either way, the main concern people have is from wind blowing them over.

Okay.

So when you have a live tree, it's, um, and it's blown over, we consider that an act of God or nature. So if your tree falls on your neighbor's house, it's not your fault. Their homeowner's insurance pays for that. Now, if you let the tree die, and you just left it there, that would be neglect. And even if wind blows it over because it was dead, then that would be on you and on your liability of your, your insurance. If it falls on your neighbor, if it falls on your own, then, you know, you've got to go through the insurance and try to figure out, you know, was this dead? Was this negligence?

Right.

So, you know, it really depends on your adjuster that comes in. comes out to look at things.

All right, so on that, so if my tree falls on my neighbor's house, their insurance is going to cover it, not mine?

If the tree was alive.

If it— yeah, okay, if the tree was alive, right, right, right, right. But is it a zero deductible at that point?

No, they, they pay their wind and hail deductible. Whatever that is.

Yeah, so they're out their deductible even though it's my tree that falls on their—

your house. That's right.

That's crappy.

Well, for them. For them, you know, it could happen to you as well. Yeah. So yeah, you know, one thing about insurance is it's like the lottery that everyone cashes out on at some point, you know, because if you play the lottery all the time, you're probably never going to win. If you pay your insurance all the time, chances are you're gonna get a payout at some point. So, it really is one of those things where you're like, okay, do I have $80,000 to repair my home? No? Okay, well, I'm pretty happy to pay this 3 grand to get everything replaced and taken care of.

Well, yeah, Craig and I have a friend who, going back to the storm, their house—

The freeze.

the freeze, their house completely flooded because of a burst pipe in their attic.

Yep.

And insurance is paying 100% of everything.

Good.

You know, they're— yeah, and they're, they're very, very blessed. And the really, really cool thing is they were planning on moving out of that house within the next couple of years anyway. So now they're basically getting a brand new home, right? I mean, almost. I mean, they, they took tile out. Yeah. Okay, so Everything had to come out and, uh, took, you know, down to the studs and, um, basically getting a brand new home. And they're gonna get to sell it for stupid top dollar, right?

Right.

Yeah, in a hot market. So exactly. Yeah, it's a pretty great deal. Now it stinks because that was back in February, right?

Right.

And here we are in June and they're still I mean, they're just now getting back in it. Yeah, they're probably 2 months out still, I'm guessing.

I know there's a lot of labor shortages, material shortages. Um, so, you know, that's one thing that people are dealing with right now is inflation. So inflation protection on your homeowner's policy is a huge deal because it keeps you from having to pay extra when the cost of lumber triples. The insurance policy will help absorb that change.

Wow.

Well, I'm glad you brought that up because this is something I've been, I've been walking around with the, the idea with a lot of different people on this right now is the idea that like, okay, so 5 years ago I set up my homeowner's policy, right?

Right.

And when I bought the home, I paid $150,000 for it. Well, now it's 2021 and everyone's gone insane.

Right.

And now my home is worth $250,000.

At least.

And like, that may not even cover the, you know, the material cost of the home if I have to go buy materials to do any sort of repairs.

Right.

How does, how does that work? Because I know like your premiums are based off of the value of your home. Well, if my premium is only valued at $150,000 when I bought the house 5 years ago, but now it's worth $250,000, Or 20 years ago even. Yeah. Well, I mean, like, and I would assume over 20 years your, your policy's been adjusted, things like that. Um, I don't know how often you guys readjust those things.

I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't though.

So what, what happens in that scenario where someone, you know, has something catastrophic that happens to their home, like say like right now, and 5 years ago their policy was, you know, set up at $100,000 value, which is not unheard of.

Right.

You know, where their home has increased in value that much. How does that work now?

Well, I think that's one thing that you have to kind of educate people on. So when I talk to people, they'll say, well, I'm paying $300,000 for this house. You know, hey, I understand. 30% of that value is builder profit. 40% of that value is your lot. You know, then it's in the Heights, so it's worth, X because of that. What we look at is the rebuild cost. So the value of that has nothing to do with it. So that if when I go to— if I go to Lowe's to buy a 2x4 to fix your house, they're not going to say, well, is your house in Conroe or is it in River Oaks? They don't care, right?

Yeah.

When we hire a contractor, we tell them, this is what you're going to build. He doesn't raise his price because it's in River Oaks or lower it because he only has to go 5 miles to the location. So you— this is when your insurance professional really comes in. What they should be doing is a replacement cost estimate, and then that estimate should be updated at least every 2 years.

Oh, wow.

The best companies, um, like Liberty Mutual, A-rated companies like that, are going to update that every year. And then on top of that, they're going to have an inflation protection piece in their policy. So that says, you know, if because of inflation your rebuild cost goes up, we'll cover up to an extra 10%, 20%, 30%, um, to, to cover all that.

Okay.

So it should be automatically updated. And a lot of people will come and say, you know, well, I haven't had any claims, why is my rate going up? Well, the cost of labor is going up, the cost of materials is going up, just like your friends. If they paid $200,000 for their house and they just rebuilt it, and it was, you know, $200,000 to completely rebuild the home. They had to use all new materials, right? They had to use new labor. You can't buy old labor, right? Right. So you'll have people that say, well, my house was built in 1970, why is it $300,000? Well, because it's 2,800 square feet, right?

Right.

So we have to build you a new house exactly how it was You know, there's some wiggle room here.

Sure.

But today's cost.

Today's cost, right? So, um, you'll, you'll, you'll see that a lot. Um, I have people that will call from The Heights, River Oaks, you know, all those areas, and they'll say, well, you know, I paid $1 million for the home. And I, you know, I have to kind of educate them and say, well, you know, let's look at HCAD, you know, the county appraisal district, and say, okay, well, your lot is worth $500,000, and the improvements, which is your house, is worth $500,000. So that's what we need to insure for, what we rebuild, that part. Um, we can't rebuild your land. We don't insure the land or the location. So there's a lot that goes into it. And a lot of people will just say, well, I paid $300,000, I'm gonna go and I,

I need $300,000 in insurance. And it may be way too much. And in that case, you're paying for a higher deductible than you need to be. Um, or, you know, it could be way too little. Just, it really depends on the property.

I was going to say, what you're talking about right there is actually, it gives you the ability to lower their premiums, from what I'm gathering.

Right, if it makes sense. Yeah, you want to make sure that you have the right amount of coverage. So a lot of people don't know that there are penalties in insurance if you are underinsured. So if your home is 80% or more or less insured, so If you're at 79% of what it should be, well, then every claim you make can be penalized by 21%.

Geez.

And, and more. So, if you're underinsured, they can come in and say, well, you know, we found that your home was 30% underinsured on your $10,000 claim. So, now we're only paying $7,000 less your deductible of $3,000. So, now we're paying $3,000 on a $10,000 claim. And all you had to do was pay an extra $50 a year to have the right amount of coverage.

Right.

Um, and really that comes down to your agent. You know, your agent should be watching out for you. That's why they call us fiduciaries, because we're supposed to be helping you protect yourself financially. So that's why you have to have a quality agent that really pays attention to all those things.

Yeah. Well, before we get too much further, then let me ask you this. How do you find a quality agent?

Well, you know, I think referrals are one of the best ways to do that. You also want to look at the quality of the company they work for. So, you know, if you look at State Farm, Farmers, Allstate, Liberty Mutual, you're going to find highly educated people that have— that are doing continuous education. They have a lot of training through the company that's continuous as well. And they don't just hire anybody. So when you call into, you know, these online companies, the person you're talking to could be there for a week or 5 years. You don't know.

Yeah.

You don't know. So really, the, the best thing to do is find somebody, you know, a friend, family member that has had a great experience with their agent. Find out who that is and talk to them. Call that agent and even interview them. How long have you been doing this? You know, what company do you work for? Why are you better? And the ones that, you know, really are, they'll be able to tell you, like, this is why I'm better.

Sure.

You know, just like Excalibur, you know, if you— if somebody said, well, why shouldn't I use Terminix? And you just kind of want to giggle, right? You want to laugh like, oh, let me tell you. But it's very easy to lay that out and say, here are the reasons why. And that's, that's a huge thing. You don't want to trust your financial stability on getting the wrong policy because the person just doesn't know what they're doing.

Yeah.

Is Lemonade one of those? Is that, is that one of those new online ones?

It is a new online one.

Is that, is that homeowners insurance?

They are dabbling in homeowners. They did a lot of renters. Now they're kind of moving towards homeowners. And they do have a commercial that they're like, well, we thought we were going to rent it. And then we just said, change it to homeowner, we're going to buy it. And I was like, man, if it was only that easy. Right.

Well, because how many— okay, sidebar for a minute. How many renters, that home, let's say it's a home, how many of those are up for sale? There's a reason that that place is for rent, right?

Right.

Some investor has gone in and said, look, this is making me a ton of money. I'm not turning around and selling that thing to you.

No, no way.

No way. It's not that easy.

No, they're letting you pay for it.

That's exactly right. End sidebar.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and usually that happens after like a renter's been there more than like 10 or 15 years.

It's possible that it could happen, but I mean, the reality of it is most of the time the renter's going, you're paying my rent. You're paying my mortgage.

That's right.

And I want that asset. Yeah, you know, unless you're gonna pay me top dollar for that, I'm just gonna keep on letting you pay my mortgage or let somebody else do it.

That's right. Most of the time those investors are buying that home, they know their total monthly payment is $1,600 or whatever. And they're thinking, okay, I need $300 a month for maintenance until this thing is paid off. And so they're charging you $2,000. Yep. And you're really only paying for a $1,600 piece of property.

That's exactly right.

Yep.

And something that, that you brought up right there, I think is important. There is a big difference between renters insurance and homeowners insurance.

Oh, yes.

Huge difference.

So could you explain that to us?

Yeah. I mean, so insurance is all about insurable interest. So the only way you can insure something is if you own it, you have to replace it. It all goes back to maritime law, which is crazy. We could talk all night about that. But that's why you see in insurance, you'll hear terms like inland marine. So if I own a vessel, then I can insure it because I have the chance of loss, right? So when you go into an apartment, the only thing that you have the chance of losing is liability losses. So somebody sues you for negligence or something like that, and whatever you take into it. your personal property. So anything that you take into a property that would easily be taken out— so a lot of times we say,

well, if you took your home and shook it and everything that falls out, that's your personal property. So if you take a TV in somewhere and you screw it into the wall, it's now part of the structure. Yeah, so it's pretty interesting. But with—

So if I nail down my couch—

You would just be kind of crazy.

Okay.

Yeah, it would still be personal property.

Okay, got it.

Things that are meant to be affixed to the building. Okay, got it. But so, renters insurance really just covers your things. So, you'll see a lot of policies that start off with $5,000 in coverage for personal property. But you'd also see a lot of apartment complexes and landlords require $100,000 in liability. The reason they're doing that is so if you damage that location, When you leave, because that does happen, people get evicted, then they can go back to the insurance company and make a claim for all of the repairs. So that's the main reason why they want that liability on that apartment.

Okay, so like in an apartment complex, sometimes they're making you get renters insurance.

Yeah, it's part of the lease agreement.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, so if you're a landlord, that's one thing that, you know, I, I tell people, you know, listen, make sure every single one of them Has— every single one of your renters has a renter's policy because you want to be able to protect your asset with that liability claim.

Interesting.

Yeah, it's good to know.

Yeah, make them, make them pay.

Yeah. Do you have any more, um, lightning round stuff for him?

I think I'm good. If I think of any more, I'll just throw them at him.

Yeah, we're good.

He's good. Yeah, cool.

All right, so flood insurance, homeowner's insurance, what about auto?

We take care of auto.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, I think that auto is interesting, and the reason it's interesting to me is because I have a vehicle that's virtually uninsurable because it's got a salvage title on it.

That's right.

So, um, it's an older vehicle, it's an '04.

Okay.

But it's freaking sweet because it's a Ford Excursion.

It's a beast.

It's a beast. It's kind of a unicorn. There's not a lot of them out there anymore. They actually didn't make very many of them to begin with. I think in— I think total they made like 205,000 of them.

Yeah.

Okay, so that, that's not very many. Um, but it, it was involved in a fronting, uh, fronting collision, right? And it really didn't do much damage. I mean, it didn't get into the frame, it didn't get into the engine, it— the airbags didn't even deploy, but insurances were like, we don't want to deal with that, right? There's only 205,000 of those. We can't find parts for it. We can't do this, you know, all that. So they just totaled it, right? And so somebody bought it at an auction, fixed it up. I bought it pretty cheap, but now it's got a salvage title to it. So, which is fine for me. I've decided it's okay to have that. Um,

but man, getting insurance for that thing was not easy. I had to, I had to be like, there was only a couple of places that I could find that would actually even insure it, right, at all.

Yeah.

So I, it's kind of interesting. There, there's, you know, you look at some of that kind of stuff and you're like, man, insurance can be kind of tricky.

It can be. So yeah, I mean, the— so with salvage titles, it's interesting because you have a, a vehicle that we cannot easily verify the safety of it, right? So in auto insurance, vehicles, replacing vehicles, that's easy, right? You just, you take it to the shop or you total it out. The most expensive part of your, um, your auto insurance is bodily injury. So we, you know, a hospital ride in an ambulance is $50 grand, right? You know, so what the reason why those salvaged vehicles are hard to insure is for for that very reason. We can't say necessarily that it is safe or that it's up to spec. So there are companies that will insure them fully, but you have to go through an inspection process. You

have to pay for that. It's usually between $500 and $600 for that inspection, which may be worth it. And then you have to find a company that will do— that will write full coverage on it. So—

Yeah, I wound up going with just liability only. Which, again, I mean, it's a 16-year-old vehicle at this point. A lot of people aren't carrying full insurance on that kind of vehicle to begin with.

Right.

But, I mean, I would if it was an option, but it's not an option. And the other thing is, my liability coverage on that vehicle is probably equal to what full coverage would have been if it didn't have the salvage title. Because they're basically, like you said, they're, they're going, look, we're taking this on the chin. Yeah, you know, yeah, we're, we're, we're going to assume that you're a safe driver, right? And that you're not going to get in an accident, because if you do, everybody's up a creek.

Well, and with a salvaged vehicle, um, it's less about the driver than it is the integrity of vehicle. I mean, you may hit those brakes and they just don't work. You know, you may hit something and the frame crumples in the way it's not supposed to.

Sure.

So most frames are actually supposed to bend, but if it, if it doesn't work properly, then everyone in your vehicle could be injured. Everyone in the next vehicle, you know, could be injured as well. So that's really the, the biggest thing on that. But with a vehicle that's approaching 20 years, You may actually be able to go to a company like Hagerty and get it classified as a restored vehicle and get full coverage on it, but it's going to be expensive. Yeah, you're going to pay a pretty penny. Yeah, you're going to pay a pretty penny. But, you know, for some people it's worth it. I've always wanted an Excursion. We go camping, we have a camping trailer, I have an F-250, and an Excursion is basically, you know, the F-250 for

your, you know, Extended family. Yeah, your brood of children.

That's exactly right. And now you know why I have one.

Yeah.

And most— I mean, let's just say this, if I hit you, you're the one that's gonna pay.

Yeah, well, your insurance is the one that's gonna pay.

It's your fault.

Yeah, because, well, I'm just saying, it— that thing's a beast.

Yeah, they're very heavy.

They're very heavy. In fact, A little piece of trivia, they did a weight comparison whenever they put these things out. The only personal vehicle that was heavier at the time was a Hummer. Like the H1, original Hummer. Number 2, Excursion. Thing was heavy.

They're pretty awesome. Yeah, they're pretty awesome.

I love mine.

Are the diesels heavier than the gasoline ones?

Oh yeah.

Yeah, mine's a V10 gasoline, which a V10, I mean, that thing's, it's huge. But the V8 diesel's still heavier. They've got, I mean, little things like they got 2 batteries in them, right? So like little things here and there that just make the diesels heavier.

Yeah.

So anyway, but okay, let's get away from salvage for a minute.

Okay.

What about, I mean, is there anything that we should talk about regarding just auto insurance in general?

I think the biggest thing that people need to realize is that auto insurance is really a financial product. You know, we look at it as replace my car or fix my car, but the biggest part of that is protecting you from damage that could happen financially as well. So let's say you hit somebody. And they find out, oh, Craig, you know, he owns a business, he's got a nice big property, he's got a nice vehicle. Um, you know, I live in an apartment and I'm down on my luck, so I think I'm gonna sue, right? And we're in Houston, there are plenty of lawyers with nothing to do.

Yep.

Right?

Yeah.

So they're going to come after you, right? And so let's say they have actual damages, you know, that are $100,000 in damages, and you've only got $50,000 in coverage. They're coming after you for the extra $50,000.

Yeah.

Right? So, that's why I recommend, you know, if you're a homeowner, you should have at least $100,000 for a single-person bodily injury limit, $300,000 for a single event. You know, so, if you're driving down the road, you hit a bus full of nuns, $300,000 in coverage, right? So, that's going to protect you. Now, if a lawyer comes and he looks and says, well, he or she looks and says, this person has $1 million assets, they're not going to stop at the $300,000, right? They're going to come for the rest.

Yeah.

So the more assets you build, the more coverage you really need. And it's one of those, you know, you got to pay to play.

Yeah, man, that happened to us not too long ago.

It was a truck of nuns.

No, not that one. Some excursions. He's got all the nuns in the excursion.

That's right. Catholicism just raises his hackles.

Yes.

No, so my wife was, uh, coming home from picking my kids up from school.

Okay.

And she was stopped at a stoplight. Uh, the story goes that my, my wife heard my son ask a question. She kind of turned around, what'd you say? And the next thing she knew, she bumped the person in front of her. I mean, it was like the slightest of bumps. Um, maybe just took a little pressure off of the of the brake. She's not even real sure what happened.

Right.

Um, but you know, they stopped, the lady gets out that's in front of her. Are you okay? Is everybody okay? Yep. We barely touched you. Is there any damage? No, there's no damage. I mean, even on our vehicle, which was a Honda Odyssey, that those things are just made of like plastic, um, it, it— no damage. Like, I couldn't even find a scratch on the— on our vehicle.

Right.

So it was kind of like, all right, well, nothing happened, everything's good, we'll see you later. And my wife was just like, kind of like, well, I don't even know what happened. So she was like, if you're good, I'm good. And so they left.

Mm-hmm.

6 months later, we get a claim against us, right, that this lady had been in hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of, of doctors because of the, the physical problems that she had, right? You know, neck injury, back injury, all of these sorts of things. And so our, our, uh, it was actually one of the lawyers from the insurance company that called us.

Mm-hmm.

I was like, look, we got a problem. Here's what happened. And my wife was like going, It was, it was nothing. Like, honestly, I, I don't even know what happened. And like, my wife was actually— she told me, she's like, now that I'm hearing this, I'm wondering if she backed into me, you know, like at the light.

It happens.

That she backed into me on purpose, and then now we have this whole thing. Well, this dragged on for like a year and a half, and, and we're getting phone calls here and there, back and forth. And it turns out, like, we were being told you may have to come into court, like, for this. And, uh, we finally found that they settled out of court for $50,000.

Oh my gosh.

She got $50,000 out of this deal. And our insurance— I mean, this is a small amount for what it was, but I'm like, our insurance went up $50 a month, right? It's like $600 a year our insurance went up because of this weird situation that nobody ever found themselves, you know, would ever be in.

Right.

And now we're in it. And so you're sitting here, you're preaching to the choir on this.

Yeah.

Make sure you've got enough insurance that says, look, we are going to, you know, vouch for you.

Right.

If something crazy like that happens.

Exactly.

You know?

Yeah. I was pissed.

It happens way more than you think. It happens a lot.

Yeah.

Scam artist. Yeah.

Is there anything happening in your industry to try and curtail some of that kind of stuff?

So there is, you know, we, we do try to get people to video. We try to work on things like that. There's, there's things that we can do. Social media is actually a huge tool for our industry. Because, you know, that lady may have said, well, you know, here at aerobics, you know, 2 weeks later, right? And then we walk into court and say, well, you know, is aerobics part of your therapy? Um, you know, because you've— you said you were here, there. Um, so there are the investigations. We, we actually hire former private investigators, we hire, um, you know, criminal investigators to work in our industry when they're done working for the and they will find out what's going on.

Yeah, so come to find out, this was like 3 or 4 claims that she had had, right?

Of course.

Like, this was not the first one, and every time it was with the same doctor.

Yeah.

Right, and so she was kinda working with this other guy, and basically what the lawyer was telling me was, look, our, I mean, our hands are tied because because the police never came.

Right.

If the police came and could have looked at her and said, there was no damage, she was walking around fine, that would have been the end of it.

Yeah.

But since that never happened, it was her word against ours.

Right.

And so there's another thing there, right? Like, always make sure the police come.

Yeah. So I tell my clients, as soon as you're in an accident, you can video.

Mm-hmm.

So it's only a one-person consent state. So you can start videoing everything, and there's no reason why you shouldn't do that. Then if it's the other person's fault, you should go ahead and collect their insurance information and do not give them yours. If it's not your fault, they don't need it.

Mm-hmm.

Because what they'll do is they'll take that and call and say, she backed into me, or he backed— you know, he was doing— he was on his phone, or whatever. Uh, the next thing that I tell people is once you have that insurance information in your hands, call when you're there and verify, especially with the officer there, because there is so much fraud out there where people will call, buy a policy, they get the ID cards, and then they cancel the policy.

Mm-hmm.

And so you have people driving around with ID cards that look current and they're not. Next thing you know, you go home, you get around to calling and filing the claim, and they say, well, there's no policy.

Wow.

So I, I go so far as I will call with the person standing there and I will say, you know, I'm here with your client. This is the policy number. They hit me and they're going to tell you what happened and how they are at fault. Here's the person. And I hand the phone to the person and say, this is your insurance company. You need to admit what you did.

Wow.

And they'll say, yeah, you know, I hit him. It was my fault. Yada, yada. Then I'll get the phone back and say, you know, okay, what's my claims number? You know, and I just handle it all right there. Because as soon as people leave the scene, all the stories change. Sure.

Yep.

All the stories change. So sometimes people misremember, you know, and it's innocent. But a lot of times it's not.

It's not. Dude, that, that was valuable golden information that you just gave. Like, I think that was—

that was— I don't think most people do that. I think they just exchange information and go about their day. Right.

Because you're already rattled. You're upset that it happened, especially if it's your fault. You know, you feel terrible. But, you know, it really is the right thing to do. You know, they kind of like the, I want to be in the room where it happened. I mean, yeah, go ahead and get it done.

And you're typically going somewhere.

Exactly.

I mean, how many times do you get in your car and like, I'm going nowhere.

Never let me out of the car.

Right, exactly.

It's like, no, you're going somewhere. You're in a hurry. Now you're late. All of those things, right? Like, let me just get out of this as quickly as I possibly can.

Yeah.

And you're, like you said, you're rattled, all of these things. So stop, take a breath, right? Call the police, call the insurance, take care of business. I mean, That thing can wait. This is the thing that's staring you in the eyes.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Is the reason—

is the reason people are afraid to call the police because they're afraid they're gonna get a ticket?

I think that's part of it. And then they don't want to— like you said, they don't want to wait, you know, because that is a low priority call. So the police officer may take 20 minutes to get there, right? And then if you're in a parking lot, they're just gonna say, well, you're on private property. There's nothing we can do.

Wow.

Um, so I think Lacey had that happen with someone backing into her in the parking lot.

Yeah.

Saying it was her fault. Well, it's, you know, private property. There's no camera. You know, what do you do? Um, so, but I see that those mistakes happen a lot to young drivers. So kids, you know, that are out, the teenagers, they don't know what to do. The adult takes advantage of the situation. And so it would be really good for people with young drivers to sit down and walk through through that and even role-play with them, you know, and say, hey, what are you going to say? You know, let's practice what you're going to say, what you're going to do. So that could, that could be something that families want to do with their

young drivers.

Yeah. So how important would you say, especially for a young driver, but for anybody, with these traffic cams— what are they called?

Are you talking about the dash cams?

Dash cams. Yeah. How, how How strongly do you advise those?

Um, well, I mean, it is admissible. So, you know, if you're a great driver, it's probably good to have one. If you're a bad one, you might want to turn it off. But, um, you know, I, I think that they're a great thing. You know, there are apps you can put on your cell phone now, um, that act as a dash cam. Um, so it stores it online. There's a lot of different options out there now. So, I mean, it's It could be a very good tool, and I know that it is admissible in court. So that's a good thing to have.

And you guys even have like smart devices, or is there— is it just an app that like tracks your, your driving safety?

Yeah, so we have, um, Liberty Mutual has what's called RightTrack, and it's a— we now have RightTrack Mobile, so it's on your phone and it tracks your, your motion. So it can tell how quickly you accelerate, how quickly you stop, what time of day you're driving, where you are. And all that data is being collected, and we provide that to the owner of the policy so parents can see what the kids are doing. And then some of that data comes back to the company. So the reason that they— the companies do that is twofold. You know, number one, we want to give people a chance to get a bigger discount. prove that you're a better driver, right?

Right.

But number 2, we're collecting all that data so that we can adjust our rates based on the risk in your area. So, you know, we know where you're going, how fast people are going. So it, you know, insurance companies are, in a really bad way of explaining it, giant data companies for making bets. So we're just going to say to you, hey, I bet you your premium That, you know, you're not going to have an accident, and if you do, we'll pay for it.

Right. No, absolutely. Well, that— I mean, it's one of those things that, that makes sense because you're really, as an insurance company, you're, you're responsible for so many things, right? And so the more information you have, the, the better you're able to cover people.

Exactly.

And the better you're able to protect yourself. So, I mean, it's a two-way street.

It is.

There's no doubt.

It is. You know, and the lower risk you are, the better credit you have, the less accidents, claims, all of that you have, the less you're going to pay. Because that's what's fair to everybody in the risk pool. So.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, we've been, we've been talking for about an hour now. So, what other things Would you say? I mean, we've talked about flood insurance, we've talked about actually quite a few casualty things. We've talked about homeowner's insurance, auto insurance. Maybe we should hit on things like additional insured. So for like rings and—

Oh yeah.

You know, like sports memorabilia, things like that. Maybe we should hit on that for a minute.

Yeah, definitely. And, and, you know, watches are one of those things.

Yeah.

Um, there's a lot of companies that do smartwatch coverage. Um, you can add it onto your homeowner's policy. You can get what's called an inland marine floater policy that will cover, you know, special things like watches, rings, jewelry, all those types, artwork. But, you know, there are certain things that you want to go to your insurance company for, and sometimes you want to go to a dealer for. So you, if you're buying art, you know, you may want to use that, that company's recommended policy for that. If you're collecting, you know, sports memorabilia, your homeowner's insurance policy is probably not the best for that. You can actually go to a dealer association and buy insurance on whatever you purchased.

Hmm.

Just because it's, it's hard, it's kind of an intangible, right? A baseball card is just a piece of paper, right? Right, with some ink on it. So how do you really pay to replace that? Some of them are irreplaceable. Yeah. So sometimes it's good to go to your homeowner's company or, you know, a company like Jewelers Mutual or, you know, some of the Hagerties that insure art. Sometimes it's better to find an association that will insure those. So it can be pretty specialized.

So could— I mean, with these art So I collect art, right?

Original pieces.

And do they, do they do them by collection or they do them by individual piece?

They can do them either way. So it really just depends on how the expert will value it.

Okay.

So because some pieces of art, if you have one, it's worth, say, $100, but if you have both of them in a set of 2, it could be worth $500.

All right.

So it really just depends on that expert's opinion.

Okay.

Yeah.

Like, so, so just everybody— so everybody knows, the, the piece actually behind Ryan is an original piece. Uh, I think we have like 6 by that artist that we inherited, and all of them I think now are over 100 years old.

Wow.

And so it's just an artist from Florida.

I mean, it's nothing flashy, but they're cool pieces.

Yeah.

Um, and so like, it's— I've often wondered, like, should I insure these things? And like And part of my, my difficulty in making that decision is, well, like you said, like if something happens to them, I can't replace those, right?

Right.

Like the only thing there is the monetary value. And that would just feel sort of— to me, it would feel sort of cheap in like getting that money. It's better than nothing, right? But, you know, you know what I mean? It's like, yeah, I still don't have the painting.

Well, it has intrinsic value, right?

Right.

It has because of your interest in it. it's worth a certain amount, and that, that changes over time. So like, my wife bought me a watch for my birthday. Well, it's now worth $800 more than it was worth a year ago.

Oh, wow. Right.

And so, but 2 years from now, it could be worth $800 less. So it just depends on, you know, if you want to replace it, is it worth it to you? Because Insurance is just like I said, it's a transfer of risk. So if you lost this artwork, you might want to replace it with something. It may not be, you know, by, you know, who is it, Hodge. It may not be his, but it could be something that you appreciate. So it really just depends on how much risk you want to, you know, take, keep, or give away.

Yeah, so it's all funny.

It's—

for me, it's funny. This artist that I have a lot of his pieces in my house, his name is Merv.

Okay.

Um, and I, I want to say he's from the Philippines.

Is he the same guy that does the, uh, air filters?

No.

Okay, just checking.

Totally different guy.

Okay.

Anyway, he, he did these really cool, uh, multi-panel abstracts.

Okay.

Um, and I think I bought them all like 10 or 15 years ago. Well, uh, Anyway, one of them that he, he initially sent me, like, it came and it was like ripped and broken. He, he replaced it. It wasn't the same painting. I ended up having that one repaired, but I— because I liked it so much.

Right.

But he sent me something else, and I have a few more of his pieces. And but I think I looked up— I looked up his art because I think he's doing stuff in New York now, and he paints sheep now. Like cartoon sheep. And it's like he was doing like these really cool, sophisticated abstracts that I really dug. And I was like, well, maybe I'll just buy some more now. And it's sheep. It's like, it's like really like corny.

Is this body painting on sheep or is this a paint of—

Paintings of like sheep? Okay.

Because I mean, if you're going to buy sheep with paint on them, it's probably not worth very much.

No, no.

I can't imagine cartoon sheep are worth much.

Yeah. Either way.

No.

you're getting taken to the cleaners. Like, it's— yeah, I was just like, what happened to you, man? It's like, who—

like, he, he was probably involved in a front-end collision. Probably.

Most probably didn't have his seatbelt on.

Here's, here's Starry Night. Now I'm going to do Calvin and Hobbes.

Yes, exactly, exactly right.

Well, and then that's the thing is you— the, the value of the art that you purchased could have just like gone out the window. You don't know.

Yeah, yeah. I was like, no, stop doing that, right? He must have found a buyer, you know, that's just like really— I don't know, who knows.

Well, I mean, I've got— I, I think I mentioned it, uh, before, but I've got a ton of Nolan Ryan memorabilia.

Oh, awesome.

A ton of it. Yeah, like, I mean, I, I mean, just, just in raw dollars that I've spent, it's 10 grand.

Wow.

Just in raw dollars.

Yeah, and the value is going up.

It's going up all the time. And once Nolan Ryan dies— and that will be a very sad day—

Well, the president of Texas dies, it's sad.

Exactly, exactly.

No, we, we're in complete agreement. Yes. Uh, but you know, having all of that stuff, like, there's some— there's raw value in it as well as in, like you said, the intrinsic value of, like, just personally, that is obviously special to me, right? So, you know, it's important to make sure— and I guess that's really where I'm going whenever I ask about this additionally insured stuff— is just make sure you know what you have and insure it accordingly, right? Right.

And be realistic about the value, because I have clients that will go on these cruises and they go to the art show for the free champagne. Yeah. And then they say, well, this painting is worth $10,000 and you can have it for $134.99, you know. And then my client is like, I need to insure this for $10,000. And I'm like, well, actually you only need to insure it for $134.99. Yeah, because that's what you paid for it, right? Yeah, you know, maybe in the future it'll be worth more. Um, so that's why it's good to always have collections of things like that, um, updated on your insurance, because you may be paying like for those paintings that the value could have dropped. you could be paying a ton of money for,

you know, insurance on something that's worth $100, but you're paying for $10,000 worth of insurance, right? So it's good to get those updated every once in a while. Yeah.

Did you guys hear about— it was like the most expensive art purchase ever recently? No, it was like some Saudi guy that— it was— and it's not even like been proven that it's a da Vinci. It's just rumored to be a da Vinci. Right. I think he paid like $400 million for it or something like that.

Yeah.

And it's, it's a pretty crappy painting.

Well, the funny thing about that though is, is so he paid $400 million, but it's really only worth whatever the, the second losing bid was, right? Because whoever lost, that is the next best value of that piece of art.

Yeah.

So he could have paid $400 $400 million, the guy underneath him could have said, well, I'll pay $390 million. It's really only worth $390 million. So unless there's somebody out there willing to pay $400 million, then it's not worth that.

Yeah, you know, I've got a couple of collections that I think are pretty cool, right? Um, and, and that's what people all the time, they're like, how much is that worth? I'm like, however someone will pay for it, right? Like, if— I mean, if someone's willing to pay $10 for it, that's what it's worth.

That's what it's worth.

It's worth— it's worth something emotionally to me, right? Part of that is because I put a lot of time and effort into it.

Exactly.

You know, but at the end of the day, the dollar amount just depends on whatever someone will pay me for, right?

And the hard part on that is, is it even replaceable? You know, there's some things that are not replaceable, right? So it's hard to nail a value down on some of things, right?

So, well, man, is there, is there anything else about, uh, homeowners policies that people are vastly unaware of?

I think that, um, one of the best things that people could do is, um, I want to give a neutral site that they can go to. So there's a website called the Office of Public Insurance Council.

Okay.

And it's run by the state of Texas. So every reputable company that operates in Texas, they have to put on that website— they don't have to, but they report how they cover claims. So on your declaration page, it could say, well, you have, you know, $10,000 for water damage. What you need to know is what type of water damage and how you pay it. So you could say you have $180,000 in personal property coverage, But it won't tell you if it's replacement cost or actual cash value. So, the best thing to do is go to that website, and you can choose what company you're with. You can select what policy type you have from that company, and it will tell you what is

covered and how it's covered and what's not. So, that's a huge thing. I have customers all the time where I'll say, well, yeah, You know, this policy is $200 more, but let me show you why.

Okay.

Or your policy is, you know, $400 a year, but let me tell you why. So, that makes a big difference. So, I always tell people, you know, my hope is to save you money on the front side and the back side, right? On the front side, the premium, on the back side, when you have a claim. But it's way more important to save $10,000 on a claim than save $200. on annual premiums.

Sure.

So, that would be a huge thing that people should do. If they want to, they can contact an agent. I'd love for them to contact me, of course.

Yeah.

But we are, we are more than willing to give people free evaluations of their insurance, go over the policy with them, show them how to look things up, and help them find, you know, one of two things. You either have a great policy and you shouldn't change, Or here's some enhancements you need to make or a change you should make. And then the other big thing that a lot of people overlook when it comes to their home and their autos is the financial protection of life insurance. So I try to always tell people, you know, you're trying to protect this home, you know, from all these different things that can happen, but are you protecting it from a loss of income? So,

if you pass away, is your house going to be paid off? If you become seriously disabled, is your house going to be paid off? Is your family going to be protected? Are your kids going to, you know, have food on the table?

Yeah.

So, that's a huge conversation that we have with people is making sure they have life insurance and enough of it to cover their family while they're adjusting, either You know, you get enough coverage for them to be comfortable how they are, the current lifestyle, or you get enough to take care of them while they're adjusting. So that's another huge thing that people don't have enough of it. Usually they have it through work only.

Yeah.

And they don't know that most employer life insurance policies, if you go on disability for, you know, many different reasons, if Let's say you have cancer, you go on disability. Once you're not actively working, your policy is gone most of the time. So, people are counting on that policy for their family, and, you know, all of a sudden the protection is gone.

Is that because most of those policies are term policies?

So, they're group life policies. So, you have to be an active member of the group. Of the group, yeah. So, when you become disabled, you're no longer an active member. Active member of the group. So that's why the life insurance is basically either suspended or terminated during that time. So, and if that's your only policy, if that's your only policy, you can be toast. Yeah. Or your family. I mean, really, it's not for you. So it's for your family.

Right.

So, yeah, I like to think that I've spoiled Laura for any other man. So, you know, she's never going to be happy with another guy. So I got to make sure we have enough life insurance. That's right.

So yeah, obviously.

That's obviously.

Obviously.

Oh yeah, Brandy always tells me she's like, yeah, I think we have like four policies on you.

Yeah.

Which like probably not enough.

I changed the the combo on the safe at that point.

Exactly. Well, man, it's been really really good and yeah, it's awesome. I think we could we could talk for another two hours most likely, especially about Nolan Ryan.

No, just go on forever.

This could. such a Nolan Ryan podcast.

You guys get started. This could, this could go on for a while, but, um, I, I do want to get to, uh, the most important thing that we're here for, which is the Final Four.

Final Four.

Yeah, this is the Final Four questions we ask all of our guests, and you're here tonight sitting in the hot seat, so we want to get to that tonight. So great, here we go. All right, just gonna run them off. Ready?

I'm ready.

All right.

What is the must-have tool that you won't leave your house without?

Oh, man, that's a tough one.

Yeah.

So when, whenever we're leaving the house to go camping, my must-have tool is a pocket knife.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, if I've got to have that in my pocket, you can— I don't need a screwdriver. I don't need a wrench. I can figure something out. I can whittle something. We'll figure it out. I think it's because I grew up doing Boy Scouts and stuff like that. So I gotta have that pocket knife.

There you go. I'm with you.

Yeah, that was Craig's, by the way.

Nice.

Back in the day, episode number 1. I'm actually—

I'm still waiting, Nova Company, right, for my new flashlight that has the knife in it. Yeah, I want to check that out.

We were actually told that we were gonna get something.

We'd receive indications.

Yeah, but that didn't happen. Didn't happen, which is fine.

That's right, we can still be friends.

We're patient people.

Have you seen this thing before?

No.

Dude, I'll show it to you after the show.

It looks awesome.

It is awesome. All right, next question. All right, here we go. What is a job you walked away from?

So a job in my house? Like the home repair?

Yes, let's go that route.

All right, let's go that route. So, um, whenever there is water involved, like plumbing, I tend to walk away unless it's PVC.

Oh, okay.

If it's PVC, I'm good to go. But as soon as I see copper, hands off, I'm done. So we, we had a leak in our shower, um, and the handle broke, and I was trying to change the cartridge on it, and the valve was all messed up inside. So I called in a buddy to come and replace it, and he got that done. And I still need to put the sheetrock up on the other side. It was a few weeks ago, but, uh, Yeah, when it comes to copper metal plumbing, I'm done.

Yeah, and I mean, aren't you glad that you did that?

Because you're done. Yes.

It's done, you know it's done well.

Right.

Your wife Laura's like, you're an awesome husband.

Yes, because—

She's still broken.

Yeah, she gave me an E for effort. You know, I tried, I tried, right? You know, I looked good doing it. But at a certain point, I just have to say, you know, I can afford to hire someone for this one.

Right, exactly. That's good. Yeah. All right, 3rd question. All right, how do you wind down at the end of a long day?

Oh, besides complaining about my day to my wife.

Oh, that's a good one.

Yeah, that's the first part of the day of the wind-down process. But I think, you know, hanging out with the kids. You know, my son just got a Nintendo Switch. So we, we jump on Mario Kart, and I show them how it's done.

Of course.

So I destroy them, like no mercy.

No.

Oh, yeah.

At all.

You got to whip them until they figure out how to do it.

Exactly. Yeah. So, but really, it's, it's family time, right? We all go work to take care of our family. I tell my wife, if it wasn't for them, I'd probably live on like a floating shack and just fish.

Oh, there's no doubt.

Um, so if you—

let's just be completely honest, if it was just me, I'm living in my RV. Yes, somewhere down in a crazy remote location.

In a van down by the river, maybe.

Yes, in a non-creepy, I will shave my mustache if I have to kind of thing, right? You know?

Yeah, no, I, I think that's the main thing is just being around the people that are the reason why you do it, you know, and put up with it. Yeah, because it would be easy to walk away some days and just say, you know what, I'm done. You know, I can go work at an easy job and go be a park ranger with my pocket knife, you know, and everything will be fine.

That actually would be really fun.

Yeah, it would be fun if it paid well.

But, um, but does it matter if you've got a van by the river, right?

You could be a motivational speaker.

You'd be good to go.

That's right.

So cool. All right. Yeah.

Question number 4. Okay, all the way around in third, here we go. All right, what's one of the best pieces of wisdom or advice you've ever received?

Oh, I think one of the best ones was that no one will care about your business as much as you do. Because I think a lot of times we, you know, expect other people to take care of our business, whatever it is. If it's your family, you know, your relationships, your work, um, you know, we think, well, they'll take care of it, or this is just going to happen, or, um, you know, why didn't they do this, or why didn't they do that? And the truth is, is because they're just not as invested in it as we are. You know, nobody's going to do as good of a job handling your business as you are.

That's right.

So, um, and that comes with relationships too. You know, you can't expect your spouse to do 200%. You're both supposed to be 100% and 100%. Um, so it goes both ways, but that's been a huge one for me.

Yeah, no, that's really, really good.