RoofersCoffeeShop

RoofersCoffeeShop® Announces 2022 Roofing Influencers

Tue, 01 Feb 2022 06:00:00 PST

RCS Influencers celebrates its sixth year of giving back to the roofing industry.

RoofersCoffeeShop®, celebrating 20 years as the award-winning website where the industry meets for technology, information and everyday business, announces the 2022 RCS Roofing Influencers.

RCS Influencers contribute thoughts and wisdom monthly through interviews, videos and articles on RoofersCoffeeShop concerning pertinent industry and roofing topics. The Influencers represent all facets of the industry including contractors, associations and industry service providers. Their insights are recognized in a special category on the site called RCS Influencers.

“We have been committed to sharing the thought leadership of our RCS Influencers since 2017,” states Heidi J. Ellsworth, president of RoofersCoffeeShop. “Each influencer brings a unique perspective to issues that are of importance to roofing contractors and the overall roofing industry. We are thankful and appreciative of their willingness to share their insights.”

We are proud to announce the following 2022 RCS Influencers:

Anna Anderson – Art Unlimited

Charles Antis - Antis Roofing & Waterproofing

Julissa Chavez – SRS Distribution, Inc.

Trent Cotney - Cotney Construction Law

Kendall & Chris Ekerson – SA Roofing

Heidi Ellsworth – RoofersCoffeeShop®

John Esbenshade, Jr. – National Roofing Contractors Association

Rudy Gutierrez - Shell Roofing Solutions

Tammy Hall – CFS Roofing Services

Mike Hicks – Hicks Industrial Roofing

Joe Hoffman – Hoffman Weber

Rae July – Chinook Roofing

Danny Kerr – Breakthrough Academy

John Kiesel – Imagine Technologies/Division 7 Roofing

Wendy Marvin - Matrix Roofing and Home Solutions

Mandy McIntyre - 1st Choice Roofing

Arty Molinari – Tremco Roofing & Waterproofing

Mike Pickel - Texas Traditions Roofing

Ashley and Seth Pietsch - Integrity Insurance & Bonding Inc

Camila Santander – ASA Roofing

Greg Serevetas – USA General Contractors

Marty Stout - Go Roof Tune Up

Curtis Sutton - Rackley Roofing

For more information on the 2022 RCS Influencers, meet them here. Download the Top 20 insights from our 2021 influencers eBook here.

About RoofersCoffeeShop

As an award-winning website and online community, RoofersCoffeeShop is committed to being a roofing professional advocate by supplying consistent information, education and communication avenues for all roofing professionals, and especially contractors, while promoting the positive growth, education and success of the roofing industry overall. Visitors to the site continue to find excellent opportunities for sharing information while participating in important ongoing conversations concerning new technologies, safety and the overall roofing trade. From the rooftop to the board room, RoofersCoffeeShop is “Where the Industry Meets!” For more information, visit www.rooferscoffeeshop.com.

Integrity Insurance & Bonding "Can't Wait for IRE 2022 and NWIR Day"

Sat, 22 Jan 2022 09:00:00 PST

By Jessica Hale, Integrity Insurance & Bonding Inc.

Integrity Insurance & Bonding recaps their favorite events at IRE 2021 and looks forward to attending IRE 2022.

The International Roofing Expo (IRE) isn’t just a favorite event among roofing contractors, it is also a favorite event of Integrity Insurance & Bonding. This past year, IRE took place at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. As the premier event for education and networking within the roofing industry, Integrity Insurance & Bonding Inc. relishes in the opportunity to discuss best practices as well as discover new technologies and the latest projects.

To start things off, National Women in Roofing (NWIR) took the spotlight first for NWiR Day. This event was filled with incredible female leaders coming together with the common goal of closing the gender gap in the roofing industry. From learning the latest application techniques, creating an all-inclusive company culture, or attracting and maintaining great talent, NWiR Day delivered on its promise to leave an impact on its attendees.

The International Roofing Expo is known for attracting both residential and commercial contractors, remodelers, builders, distributors, architects, engineers and manufacturers within the industry. Over the next three days we spent time on the expo floor checking out the latest innovations, visiting with supply distributors and getting to know contractors from all over the globe. This was a great way to connect, while continuing to stay educated in all aspects of this growing and ever-changing industry.

Getting together with other peers in the industry isn’t just about learning and deal-making, it’s about fun too, and IRE never fails to pull out all the stops when it comes to booking great events. This year’s entertainment was none other than, Darius Rucker and Little Big Town, in the #1 Concert & Fundraiser event presented by SRS Distribution at the Mandalay Bay House of Blues. All money that was raised by the concert goes directly to National Women in Roofing, the Roofing Alliance and the SRS Raise the Roof Foundation. The nonprofit SRS Raise the Roof Foundation was formed in 2012 as a way for SRS to give back to its communities, often championing causes like support for veterans and disaster relief. This year’s event raised an astonishing $50,000.

Another successful IRE experience in the books for team Integrity Insurance and Bonding Inc. who are already getting excited about IRE 2022 which is being held in New Orleans, Louisiana, in February.

Register now for IRE 2022 in New Orleans!

Learn more about Intergity Insurance and Bonding in their RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory or visit www.integrityibi.com.

Original article source: Integrity Insurance and Bonding

How the Right Insurance Plan Makes All the Difference

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 15:00:00 PST

By Integrity Insurance & Bonding.

Be prepared and stay protected for all possible outcomes by investing in a solid insurance plan.

Paying a good chunk of change every month for insurance may feel like a waste of money, especially when you are paying for something unlikely to happen. It’s no surprise that people are weary of getting insurance in the first place for this very reason. With the right insurance plan though, you won’t have to worry about protecting your business, property and family because they are all covered! When you have great insurance that’s handled by a reliable company, you won’t have to worry about where your money is going when the unexpected inevitably happens.

You’ve worked hard to build the life you have and the businesses you own. If we have learned anything over the last year, it’s that we can never be too prepared. Accidents happen. People get sick. Businesses are compromised. Fires happen. Ice storms happen. COVID happens. All of these things can leave you in financial ruin if you are not adequately insured. We do not ever want to place fear in the minds of our clients, and instead want to provide you peace of mind; that means doing our very best to make sure all the things you love are protected.

Ultimately, you can insure almost anything under the sun, but does it mean you need to? No! However, there are some things that are truly essential to ensure you keep life operating in the way you are accustomed. Keeping your business and property protected is a must. Keeping your family, home and autos protected is non-negotiable. At Integrity Insurance & Bonding, we pride ourselves on living out the message of honesty, transparency and consistency — on and off the job. Our clients are not just a paycheck; we love building relationships and staying connected, inside and outside of insurance. Regardless of your current insurance experience — whether it be with Integrity or elsewhere — if you need help navigating the sometimes-confusing world of insurance, we are always here to help!

Learn more about Integrity Insurance & Bonding in their RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory or visit integrityibi.com.

Original article source: Integrity Insurance & Bonding

Coverage That’s Right for Every Contractor

Sun, 19 Dec 2021 09:00:00 PST

By Integrity Insurance & Bonding.

We offer custom policies that cover all your bases, regardless of how big or small your business is.

Here at Integrity Insurance & Bonding, we not only cover all kinds of contractors, but we also specialize in providing exceptional coverage for roofers too. We know the ins and outs of this industry and ensure with every policy we provide that you are protected from whatever may come your way.

For all contractors, insurance is required for every single project, and in many cases very specific coverage is required to be awarded a job. A good liability policy has many benefits and protects your business from lawsuits and any claims made during the course of the job and after it’s completed. The most important advantages of having a strong policy in place are:

Benefits

It will protect your business against injury and/or property damage.
Liability insurance assists in covering costs and damages.
It provides value and security knowing that your assets and employees are protected.
It can be used to cover attorney fees and court expenses, should you ever be put in the position to need it.

Liability can protect your company as a whole, or individual claims against the company.

Coverage

Injury claims: This policy might be used to pay medical expenses, funeral or court-awarded compensation. (This is not worker’s comp related claims)
Damage claims: This insurance protects you when your company damages the customer’s property, or if your business causes an incident that makes their property unusable.
Products/completed operations claims: Claims that are related to damages caused by equipment installed by your company after a project is complete.

At Integrity Insurance we pride ourselves on making a policy that tailor fits your business’ needs. If your business is low risk, a Business Owners Policy might be perfect for you. If you are a commercial contractor, such as a roofing company, you probably fall into a higher risk bracket and will want to be sure you have the best protection a liability policy can offer. No matter how big or small the job, in the trade of construction of any kind, having adequate insurance against liability is always your best option. If you want to put our expertise to the test, give us a call today for a quote or to answer any questions you have.

Learn more about Integrity Insurance & Bonding in their RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory or visit integrityibi.com.

Original article source: Integrity Insurance & Bonding

Insurance Experts Share the Top 10 Endorsements to Look Out for in Your Policy

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 15:00:00 PDT

By Cass Jacoby, RCS Reporter.

Seth and Ashley Pietsch share the top 10 things to watch out for in your contracts to ensure you have coverage in this new RoofersCoffeeShop® eBook.

Let's be honest, without a degree in law it can be difficult to know what a contract is saying and the implications of some endorsements when you sign it. Especially in the world of insurance, there are plenty of lofty concepts that can be included in a contract that make it easy to feel out of your depth when you are Googling them.

But worry no more! A new RoofersCoffeeShop eBook by Seth Pietsch and Ashley Pietsch from Integrity Insurance makes it easy to understand the implications of certain insurance endorsements. In this eBook Seth and Ashley walk you through 10 key endorsements you should be wary of as a roofing contractor and what these policies entail.

“There are just so many moving pieces and there’s always a target on our back from a claim perspective,” says Seth. “Whether it's a roofing issue or not, you can get blamed, so really understanding the importance of having the right coverage is going to be critical.”

By the end of the eBook, you will have a better understanding of what certain insurance policy endorsements mean and how they apply to your business. You will also have a greater awareness of how to ensure your business is properly protected and how specific endorsements affect you from a coverage perspective.

As a roofer, it is of paramount importance to know about your contract and pick the right insurance company. You won’t want to miss out on this expert insight on pitfalls in coverage to avoid.

Read the eBook today to start learning about different insurance policy endorsements and how they affect your roofing business.

Learn more about Integrity Insurance & Bonding in their RoofersCoffeeShop Directory or visit integrityibi.com.

Come See RCS at the Western Roofing Expo!

Fri, 17 Sep 2021 15:00:00 PDT

By Cass Jacoby, RCS Reporter.

Don’t miss out on one of the largest regional roofing expos this September 21-23.

Known as the premier regional roofing event in the United States, the Western Roofing Expo 2021 - September 21-23 at The Mirage Las Vegas - features a two-day trade show, 24 educational seminars, two keynote luncheons, the Roofing Games™, golf and sporting clays tournaments, an amazing welcome party and lively-silent auction and unbeatable networking with powerful industry connections.

RoofersCoffeeShop® will be there, sharing information and handing out “Next Time You See A Roofer — Look Up To Them” bumper stickers.

The CoffeeShop will join many great manufacturers, distributors and associations as they share new ideas with Northwest roofing contractors. View the trade show map to plan your time at the expo. Be sure to visit these RCS Partners:

ABC Supply Co., Inc. Booth 719

AccuLynx Booth 1029

Angi Booth 223

Art Unlimited Booth 611

ATAS International Inc. Booth 731

Beacon Building Products Booth 801

BITEC, Inc. Booth 306

CertainTeed Booth 909

Cotney Attorneys & Consultants Booth 1215

DaVinci Roofscapes Booth 912

Equipter Booth 208

EVERROOF Booth 613

Franklin International/Titebond Booth 724

GAF Booth 503

GCP Applied Technologies Booth 201

General Coatings Manufacturing Corp. Booth 712

Geocel (Sherwin-Williams) Booth 1106

Guardian Booth 226

HOVER Booth 828

IB Roof Systems Booth 300

ICP Building Solutions Group / APOC Booth 601

IKO Manufacturing Booth 919

Integrity Insurance and Bonding Inc Booth 125

JobNimbus Booth 930

Johns Manville Booth 1218

Leap Booth 419

National Roofing Contractors Association Booth 107

National Women in Roofing Booth 131

New Tech Machinery Booth 106

Owens Corning Booth 1101

PABCO Roofing Products Booth 301

Quarrix Building Products Booth 311

Roof Hugger, LLC Booth 832

S-5! Booth 1224

Sales Transformation Group, Inc. Booth 113

Sashco Inc. Booth 733

SIKA Corporation - Liquid Applied Roofing & Waterproofing Division Booth 324

SRS Distribution Booth 401

United Asphalts, Inc. Booth 728

Western Colloid Booth 406

Western States Roofing Contractors Association Booth 1219

And don’t forget to check out ATAS International, Inc. at booth 731. Frank Saldana, product representative at ATAS will be speaking on Thursday, September 23 at 10:15 a.m. about Sustainable Building Envelopes. You won’t want to miss what he has to say.

Check out the newest RoofersCoffeeShop eBook for Integrity Insurance and Bonding, Inc. and be sure to visit them at the show to learn more.

Join Trent Cotney and the team at Cotney Attorneys and Consultants for the following educational sessions:

Wednesday, September 22

Navigating Legal Issues of COVID-19, Ben Briggs
Empowering Your Field Leaders, John Kenney
Navigating Material Volatility and Supply Chain Issues, Trent Cotney

Thursday, September 23

The History of Roofing, Trent Cotney and John Kenney

Legal Issues When Using Subcontractors on Projects, Trent Cotney

Register today so you don’t miss out on these opportunities to visit these RCS partners and better your business and roofing skills!

Learn more about the Western States Roofing Contractors Association (WSRCA) in their RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory or visit www.wsrca.com.

Seth and Ashley Pietsch and Jessica Hale - The 10 Things You Need to Know About Roofing Insurance

Mon, 06 Sep 2021 18:00:00 PDT

By Colin Sheehan, RCS Reporter.

The importance of knowing what’s in your contract and what questions you need to ask your insurance broker.

In Season 3, Episode 41 of Roofing Road Trips, Heidi J. Ellsworth visits with the up-and-coming power couple in roofing, Seth and Ashley Pietsch, as well as Jessica Hale from Integrity Insurance & Bonding. Seth and Ashley are passionate about working with roofing contractors to get them the best insurance possible that mitigates risk for their company and employees. This podcast will focus on the most important things to understand about roofing insurance, and in particular what questions roofing contractors need to ask their brokers.

Seth started in the insurance side of the roofing business in 2007, working as a commercial lines producer. Ashley got her start working for her dad’s agency doing primarily commercial construction insurance in 2004. In 2018, the couple started their own agency, Integrity Insurance & Bonding.

Jessica has been working at Integrity Insurance for a little over a year, and previously worked in property management and banking.

"I love it here,” said Jessica. “It's a good fit, the whole values, morals behind Integrity are why our whole team loves it here, and what will keep us busy and thriving.”

Insurance is always complicated, but when it comes to construction and roofing there are just more moving pieces that can kick off a claim. In the Pacific Northwest, where Integrity Insurance is based, the ongoing weather elements harming a roof can cause water penetration issues, for instance, that represent a potential claim against a roofing company or contractor.

“Whether it's a roofing issue or not, [roofing contractors] get brought in and they get blamed for weather issues or whatever related issues, even though it may not have anything to do with them,” said Seth. “So really understanding the importance of having the right coverage is going to be critical, not just if you are found to be liable and there is an actual claim that your insurance company has to pay out on, but [also if] you get brought into these claims, these construction defect claims, and the insurance has to defend you.”

Having the right coverage plan can also help you predict defense costs which, depending on the situation, can add up alongside claim expenses or indemnity payments. Ashley also mentioned most contractors don’t know what’s in their contracts to begin with, which means they will be unprepared to deal with a claim issue in the best way.

“At our agency, we usually review their subcontract agreement in place, and put together a sample certificate that they can send to their subs,” said Ashley. “That way, they have a guideline to go off of what they need, what requirements that they have in their contract that they need to comply with, and really sit down and train them and go over what additional insured means, what waiver of subrogation means, what primary non-contributory means, and why it's important to your business and protecting you.”

Listen to the entire podcast to hear more from experts in roofing insurance and to learn their top ten things contractors need to know to protect their businesses.

What’s HOT in Roofing, Coffee Conversations LIVE From IRE - Day 1 - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 08:00:00 PDT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an live interview from Coffee Conversations LIVE at IRE 2021. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast here.

Seth Pietsch:
Thank you, Heidi, for having us. Seth Pietsch with Integrity Insurance and Bonding, and we are also one of the influencers of RoofersCoffeeShop®. So thank you very much.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. So you are. Out of Portland, Oregon. Absolutely an amazing group. John.

John Gardner:
Well, kudos to RoofersCoffeeShop again, really good. Heidi, great to see you.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Great to see you.

John Gardner:
And gang. Good to see you too. My name is John Gardner and I work with Owens Corning and I'm responsible for all of our training and our education. And I roll up into our contractor team and our contractor network. So good stuff here today and thanks again.

Heidi Ellsworth:
We've been doing a lot of work together-

John Gardner:
We have.

Heidi Ellsworth:
John and I, on accelerators and working with contractors. So I'm excited to talk about that today. So Lauren.

Lauren Lausten:
Yeah, Heidi, thanks. Really excited to be here and appreciate you having us here and as part of RoofersCoffeeShop, I am with Angi. We're a home services marketplace that connects homeowners with pros to get their projects done. So we work with roofing customers directly and with a large network of service pros. So yeah, really excited to be here.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow. So, and this was planned. We have some powerhouse folks here who are covering all sides of the industry. So with Angie, everyone knows what's going. I mean, we're going to ask you a little bit about that, Lauren, just what is going on with Angie? Because so many contractors involved Owens Corning who leads away, Integrity Insurance, just really bringing value. We just have put a lot of new stuff on Roofers Coffee Shop from you, Seth, on the top 10 things to be looking for because insurance, it's hard.

Seth Pietsch:
Yeah. It's the best thing to put you to sleep at night. So if you can't sleep, read your insurance policy.

Heidi Ellsworth:
There you go. And then of course, my most favorite person in the world, because I am scared of lawyers until I met Trent and Trent's firm does so much for everyone in the industry. Everyone's been talking about you, Trent. I hope your ears are burning because every-

Trent Cotney:
Hopefully in a good way.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. All in a good way. All in a good way and I'm not scared of you anymore.

Trent Cotney:
Good. Good.

Heidi Ellsworth:
So we're all good. We're all good. So we're going to get going with what's hot. And so we're going to start out with kind of looking at what's been happening nationally this year. We know some of the biggies, but we may have a couple other things to come through here too. So Lauren, I'm going to start with you. What are some things and trends you're seeing with contractors and what's happening overall that you see in the roofing industry?

Lauren Lausten:
Yeah, I'd say on the contractor side, we're having a really strong year. We have 10% more roofers are active with Angi this year than we had the prior year. So lots of people who are looking to invest in and grow their businesses. On the homeowner side, we're kind of level with where we were in 2020, which was a really big year for us in terms of demand. So we started off super strong, January, February. It's leveled off a little bit the last few months, but across generally, really, really strong demand for roofing projects from both the homeowner and the pro side.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. It's really interesting when you think, I mean, we think about all the things we're dealing with, with COVID and with materials and pricing, all of that. But on the other side of it, the contractors who have planned ahead and who are diversifying and doing things a little bit different are they're extremely busy.

Lauren Lausten:
Yeah. A lot of our biggest customers are coming to us about geographic expansion, which markets look good, how should they change their product mix? We know metal roofing is growing in a lot of parts of the country. So yeah, a lot's happening.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. Metal roofing is, it's a lot. So, but John, what are you hearing? You have the top contractors in the industry are your platinum and so many others. What are you hearing?

John Gardner:
We share a lot of them, right? Right.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. Oh yeah. Yes we do. Thank you.

John Gardner:
Yeah, we share a lot of them. And, when obviously, when COVID, 2020, when COVID came, there was a little bit of a, a pause as we all know, but very quickly, one of the most interesting things is the contractors decided that by and large, if there was going to be a pause in the business, which there was very briefly because we saw a huge spike, it was the energy around trying to become better. And by that, I mean, for some of the tools and resources that Owens Corning has, we saw a substantial spike in the use as well as the engagement within our own sales organization to say, "Hey, can you help me with this?"

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah.

John Gardner:
And one of the kind of the key data points that I can share with you is Owens Corning University, we have a variety of course content, and we've got some content, obviously in partnership with RoofersCoffeeShop there. And Trent, we've done some stuff before in the past, too, some really good things. And the numbers that we're seeing with the engagement, prolonged engagement and extended engagement within the contractors themselves is very hot.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Awesome.

John Gardner:
And secondly is we have partnerships with great companies, including Angie, where we provide some of the best resources to grow your business. And those numbers with our third party partners, what we call our business services, has been equally as strong. And then the third phase, which can only happen in today's age, because we're in a place in the roofing industry where contractors are starting to leverage technology to make their business better. And so for the services that Owens Corning offers that have everything to do with technology, I'm talking about CRM, right, and all the things that go around the technology space within our contractors, small, medium, and large, boy, oh boy, they are absolutely taking advantage of at the time, some time to be able to educate themselves on that and introduce it. But the moving past, when COVID kind of passed in 2020 in business just spiked, the continuation of that has just been amazing.

So really thrilled about the roofing industry and our contractors that are saying, "I'm going to invest in my business. I'm going to invest in technology and I'm going to be able to be in a better place when it comes to how's my business operating and how can I better communicate and talk to a potential customer?"

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes.

John Gardner:
And those are in partnership with folks like Angi and folks like Trent and RoofersCoffeeShop, right, to help our contractors to get there. So huge, lots of moving parts in 2020 into 2021, all good stuff.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. It's really interesting that you say that, John, because, I mean, even at the very start of COVID, we have seen our numbers of online visitors just continually increase and move up, and it's amazing. It's amazing that we see how much you need that digital input. And so I love that Owens Corning University is so cool. We am on there. We are. I love it. I love it. Seth, what are you seeing on the insurance front?

Seth Pietsch:
Well, yeah, well, to piggyback on the technology piece, we've seen many, many roofing companies and contractors in general just really upgrade their technology and really invest in that. And in our industry, we're very relationship driven and when you have to go out and you have to do an estimate and meet with a customer, that takes a lot of time. So we're actually seeing just huge growth in sales, because everything is done online or virtually now where you're not having that drive time. You're not having that time spent, which is I like customer service. I like all of that. That is awesome. But being from a sales perspective, your sales are driving, are increasing huge because of the time spent. Now you're able to hammer out multiple bids in a day or an hour versus the old fashioned way of, "Okay, I got to drive across town, deal with traffic, deal with issues like that," where now sales are being driven so much online and through virtual estimates and everything else that the sales increase and the spike in revenue, just from that perspective, has been just huge.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah.

Seth Pietsch:
Now that's a good problem to have, but we're running into a problem of being able to fulfill those jobs and those deadlines on projects. So the sales side and we're getting jobs, we're getting things increased, but being able to actually do the jobs. Now that's a different hurdle that we're trying to jump over.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. Material shortages. It is like everybody, it's there. And it's so funny how you have the snowball effect from COVID and how it's worked its way down. Trent, you have done a lot of webinars on that. What are you seeing?

Trent Cotney:
So it will continue to be an issue, right? I mean, the material shortages, material lead times, I would anticipate, through end of second quarter, we're still going to be dealing with it. But if I'm looking at the upside, there's been a lot of great relationship building that I think has happened with distribution and manufacturers. I know OC, Owens Corning's done a tremendous job and I like this. I like the idea of us flying in formation. So it's been very positive in that regard. There's plenty of fingers to point. I get that. But at the end of the day, one of the things that, if I'm looking for a positive spin on it, is maybe we can start sitting down and figuring out how to work together rather than always pointing fingers at each other.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I like that. And I think as we're kind of talking about the changes since COVID and Zoom, right, we are online all the time. I'm online with all of you all the time. And that has made a difference too, I think, to assess point about time management and then also about building relationships and helping each other out. That's really become important. What do you see? I'm going to kind of go back around this way. Trent, what are you seeing with that COVID? It's funny when I wrote these questions, I said post-COVID, which it's not post-COVID, folks. And I only have my mask off because I am vaccinated. So I don't want anybody to be scared, but we are really kind of in a new stage now with vaccinations, with how we're handling it, with mask mandates and all that kind of stuff. What are you seeing for contractors on that level?

Trent Cotney:
Well, just like with the material issue where you're having to adapt your contracts and your negotiation tactics, we're seeing the same thing with the vaccine. So when the vaccines first came out, no one wanted to mandate them, right? Nobody, across the board. Literally in the last two weeks, we've probably had two dozen roofing contractors call us wanting mandatory vaccination policies.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow.

Trent Cotney:
And the reason has nothing to do with politics or what you think about it. It's chewing into their production and they're tired of dealing with it. And the other issue is many of them do federal work. And recently Biden came out with an order saying, you either got to be vaccinated or you've got to wear a mask and get tested periodically. So I think what you're going to see is an increased trend towards mandatory vaccination from employers to employee.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah.

Lauren Lausten:
I'd like if I could jump in on the consumer side. Actually like a month ago, we surveyed a thousand homeowners to find out what they're looking for with their roofing pro. And at that point, still 60% of people said COVID safety precautions were very important. And then when we dove into what precautions people are looking for, the first one, the social distancing, and then the second one was employee vaccination program. So at least from the consumer side, I think if contractors can find a way to give people assurance that there's vaccination, there's safety practices being followed, then that does hold value in the eyes of the homeowner.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, I think so too. John.

John Gardner:
Yeah. And those are really good data points because if you can match up, if the contractor can match up to exactly what you said, it's like, "This is most important to me, this is the second, this is third." In your own organization, that's important, but I think it's also very important to be able to address that because those homeowners, they're sharing with you what they want to share with the contractor, but they haven't had an opportunity to yet. So those are really important to just male blend into the business. This is no secret, but once COVID did hit, the transformation began with regard to how a homeowner's going to actually contact a contractor. How do they feel comfortable about doing it?

And without even going towards the, once I have a relationship with a homeowner, what's my process there?, it's really even before that. Before that it's, to your point, it's making sure that the homeowner understands that the contractor is sensitive to those and that they're going to communicate those effectively in a way the homeowner can understand and they feel good about that. Right?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right. Right.

John Gardner:
Number two is, and most importantly is roofing is I think he said, it's a relationship business and it's relationship business, even for Mr. And Mrs. Jones, who are about to hire a contractor because that relationship isn't that they hired that contractor is more than likely an extension of a relationship that they have with their neighbor or their family member or somebody. But what's very different about it is because people are gearing towards understanding what they want to buy, what they don't want to buy, learning via the internet and just doing a search. The intense need from our contractors is to make sure that they can be found because, at the end of the day, you're going to get referral business. You're going to get, and you could feel like, "Wow, I'm doing pretty well," but by and large, almost 100% of homeowners are going to do a reverse lookup on that contractor after their neighbor says, "Hey, I think you should trust this guy or this gal."

And so what I'm getting to here is that that whole piece on the technology side on the backend is so important because all of the dynamics change on a continuous basis in regard to what Google likes, what they don't like, folks like Angi are always looking at to make sure that they're always top, right, and that's why contractors do business with Angi, but contractors themselves, we've seen this in the last 12 to 18 months, is a resurgence in a much more focused interest, making sure that their digital side, that they've taken care of business on that side so that they can connect the dots for the homeowners that are already going to the internet to find them. The younger generation, they get it. In talking about the millennials, they know how to communicate that way, but that's a really strong parallel with what you were talking about and what I'm seeing with our contractors that are making sure they answer those questions plus more.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And it's interesting because we just launched Ask a Roofer this year, which is a homeowner site, just to educate, just research on roofing and different things. And then we have our contractors, to your point, are coming into our club because they get a directory, they get back links, they can get content published, they get to talk to the homeowners on Ask a Roofer. And so I think both of those, I agree 100% and we are continuing to see that same spike.

John Gardner:
Yeah. And I know we're at 15 minutes in, I didn't want to take anybody's time up, but I think this part is really important with regard to contractors with this particular area is the need to, to be able to connect the dots between what homeowners are seeing, right, from what they're looking for and what they're building into their own websites, building their social media is it's important to be able to work with a marketing agency that enables that contractor to see what's going on in his market. And if you're not working with a marketing agency that enables you to be able to virtually see what your competition is doing, what homeowners are doing, what their interest levels are, what they're looking at, how they're behaving, then you're in the wrong agency.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right.

John Gardner:
Right?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes. And we know, I mean, let's talk about this. The accelerator program has Anna Anderson with Art Unlimited and they are amazing. And these are the kind of, having been in roofing for so long, I say all the time, work with people who understand roofing because it's not the easiest thing in the world. And you don't want to spend your time training somebody else on what's going on. So Seth, are you seeing some of those same things with your contractors and folks?

Seth Pietsch:
Yes, I am. Mandating the vaccinations, there's definitely pros and cons in that whole situation. We just came out where many states were shut down. There was deemed essential workers, non-essential workers, lots of businesses struggled. We're already in a labor crisis trying to find enough labor to perform jobs. So now you start mandating vaccinations. There's going to be from employees that say, "I'm not getting vaccinated." So what happens to those employees? Well, those employees now have a choice, whether or not okay, they either get vaccinated, which may be a religious belief on why they don't do it, or just a personal, "Hey, this is, I don't, I don't know enough about the vaccine. I'm not going to want to do it." So now all of a sudden, now the company's put in a situation where they have a government contract that's mandating vaccines to be on the job where now all of a sudden you have more of a labor crisis because a bunch of the employees said, "No, I'm not getting the vaccine and now they walk."

So what happens in those situations is, "Okay, it sounds really good on paper. Let's mandate it. Problem solved." Well, the problem isn't solved because you're not going to have every employee comply with your new mandate. And when that happens, what's going to happen is we're going to continue this labor shortage, this labor crisis that we're in, which we're already understaffed, under manned, under gunned, under everything. That's only going to add to this crisis. So how do we now overcome those hurdles? Because there's only going to create more hurdles now with mandating things. Sounds great, but not everybody's going to do it. So when we're losing people that no longer want to work for us because now it's required, that's going to be a big problem to have that's going to hit us in the face that is, I don't know how we're going to deal with more labor shortages when there's already a labor shortage.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right. Trent?

Trent Cotney:
So Seth brings up a really good point and it's a polarizing issue, right? And there are people that are for it, people that are against it. But from an employer standpoint, I understand the need and the desire to have it. What's interesting is I've had a couple of contractors call me with potential issues of faked vaccination cards.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Oh, my.

Trent Cotney:
That's become a thing. And people need to understand that there's significant criminal liability for faking one of those documents. So I was reading up on this. I was like, "Wow. It makes sense that you would get this right." So the Federal Trade Commission said, "Look, these little cardboard documents were never meant to be the equivalent of a vaccination passport." Right? Other countries have QR codes or something that show exactly how you've been doing it. So I think, what we're going to see is you're going to see an evolution of this to where just like you have TSA pre-check, you're going to have a more robust passport type system for employers, I guess. But yeah, I agree. The last thing we need is run some of our workforce off. Right?

Heidi Ellsworth:
I know. And well, and when you think about immigration and the borders being closed and everything that's going on, that I think that is just causing this ripple effect more than ripple, avalanche effect, that is kind of taken us all in different places. And it's really interesting, because I want to talk a little bit about material shortages. And it's been really interesting as I've talked to a lot of different people and there were people who were saying their materials shortage is not due to material. It's due to lack of labor. So they aren't able to run the factories at the full capacity, stuff like that. So again, I'm going to kind of start with you on what you've been kind of hearing that way.

Trent Cotney:
Yeah. And it's, it's a complex issue. Most people, when the thing first started, you blamed COVID-19. That's why we don't have materials. That's really one of about 20 different reasons why you don't have materials. One of the biggest issues is just in time inventory process where a lot of the raw materials and components that were used to make the end product aren't, if there's a problem with getting those, it creates a tidal wave effect. And there are other things. There's a trucking shortage, there's a shipping shortage, there's border closures, there's refinery shutdowns. And it's just led to this perfect storm, not to mention that, due to great marketing from Angie and others, the demand is through the roof, right? So you just can't, it's not an easy solution. And the thing that shows me that it's not an easy solution is that President Biden put together a task force. Anytime the US government puts together a task force, it means they have no idea how to fix it, but they want to look like they're doing something.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Well, and I think it comes down to communications and we were talking about this earlier today in that homeowners or consumers are actually starting to understand that there is material shortages. And so contractors now have this ability to have that discussion and to talk about it and to be able to put it out there. Are you seeing that, Lauren?

Lauren Lausten:
Yeah. I mean, we put alerts on our cost guides months ago saying we're expecting prices go up five to 10% this year, there are widespread shortages. So don't be surprised if lead times are higher. So we've been trying to do our part with setting customer expectations appropriately. So they don't just blame it on the pro or question the contractor, if they get that news later down the road, and generally, we've seen customers, if there's continuous communication and the right expectations, that they're willing to wait a little bit longer or have less choice of colors or product lines or whatever it may be. So I think that kind of started to sink in. And it also seems like with inflation just being so kind of top of mind and in the news, that's also factoring in a little bit more to people's decision making on what their projects or what to expect than it probably was a few months ago.

John Gardner:
Yeah. If I could add to that a little different take on it is, Trent, we've been talking about this and this whole group has been talking about it and it is what it is.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah.

John Gardner:
Sometimes you can get lulled into a false sense of security when it comes to high demand and limited supply because your work just keeps coming. And so you decide, "Well, maybe I can cut costs here, or maybe I can shave this a little bit. Maybe I can." Right? And you start to kind of tweak the business a little bit. And now, right now, is the time to look a year from now and say, "What does my business look like a year from now?" Let's just imagine that the supply level is changed and the demand level has changed. And what we have to be aware of is that it takes six months, 12 months, 18 months to place something in the business and make it work, make it affordable element of the business. If we wait 12 months from now to say, "Oh, wow, it did dry up," it puts the contractor in a really tough spot because many of the elements we're talking digital, we're talking technology, some of those elements take some ramp up time.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right.

John Gardner:
And also the way you're communicating with a homeowner and how you're approaching your lead gen and what you're doing for your labor, all is going to be, it's going to be an interesting rollercoaster when that time comes, when that's the client demand start to converge again.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Again.

John Gardner:
And so my advice, I think everybody at the table here would agree with it is right now is the time to look out 18 months and to start to kind of put your business, put their plan together and implement it and be ready to pull the trigger.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I really love that. And we're going to actually, that's what we're going to end on is your guys' advice for the next 18 months, because now is the time, John. I think that's so wise. What I see, too, is contractors trying to diversify their business. We just had a contractor out here, Wendy Marvin with Matrix. She is added on home improvement, some interiors, some remodeling, some different things so that she's diversified her business. So she's a residential and commercial roofing contractor, very successful in Vancouver, Washington, but she looked at it and she's doing exactly what you're talking about and diversifying it through there, excuse me. And Seth, you work with Wendy. So what do you say to some of these contractors, I mean, when it comes to their insurance? I mean, as to John's point, they're making changes in their business, they're looking at more technology, more risk. How does that relay?

Seth Pietsch:
Well, historically when it comes from an insurance perspective, if you're doing roofing and you're covered for roofing, you need to be pretty much to be covered for everything else, because roofing is about as hard as to get insurance for any construction trade out there. So really, yes, the diversification of just the types of business that you do and planning ahead and really looking down the road of, "Okay, I have this project coming up. It might be starting in six months, but how do I get prepared for it now?" It's trying to back order materials for a project that may meet may not be starting for six months or a year. It's just being prepared. And the best resource that I've been able to come across is, I mean, just to give kudos to Roofers Coffee Shop, is you have very talented people. I've been on half dozen to a dozen virtual meetings with Cotney, talking as a guest speaker and then Michelle Boykin and Reid Ribble and all these different resources, it's not just in your one geographical location, it's countrywide.

And so you can see what's happening just in different areas all across the country. And you can see how very creative ways have been implemented to deal with labor shortages, with material shortages and just, you can never just get comfortable. If you're not advancing and learning, you're falling behind. And you're just always, I'm always trying to find, even though I don't engage in construction with our company, we do the insurance for contractors, a big difference in doing construction, but I'm constantly learning new ways to try to help my clients be like, "Hey, did you think of this way? Or did you think of that way?" And with all the different panelists and influencers that are involved with RoofersCoffeeShop giving their best practices, that's where the information comes from on how to have the best ideas and procedures to deal with labor shortages, material crisises, everything else.

There's no one set answer that is just going to solve all problems. There's going to have to be trial and error and finding ways that work best for your specific needs. But having all of these different people join on these different social media things, it's huge and you can get information and, and everything that you need right there at your fingertips anytime you need it.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Well, thank you because that's what we try to do every day. I mean, I sit here and ask the questions. You guys have the wisdom, and we have it from so many contractors, like you said, across the country, sharing that knowledge across and being open to helping each other, I think makes such a huge difference. And kind of talking about that, Seth, I love this direction. When you talk about that, Trent, you work with so many contractors and you network them and bring them together also through Cotney Consulting and through Cotney Law. Are you kind of seeing more of that peer group, more of that looking for places to come together, like RoofersCoffeeShop or like Owens Corning or Angi or Integrity, Cotney.

Trent Cotney:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, to piggyback off what Seth said, if I want to know what's going on in the industry, I go to RoofersCoffeeShop. All right. So that's where I'm getting a lot of my news and it's because a great influencers like Seth and the contributions of everyone else that puts me in touch and allows me to do the work I've got to do. So one of the real interesting things that's come out of COVID is acquisitions. There's just a ton of contractors that are buying and selling. I had a couple of great conversations here. There are so many contractors that are looking to either buy businesses or sell their business. And I think part of it is it's just the right time. So part of that networking strategy is also knowing who in the various geographic market you can look to, to potentially buy or sell or partner with. We see a lot of strategic partnerships develop, which I think you're going to continue to see to help navigate some of the issues like materials issue we're dealing with now.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. Thank you so much for bringing up acquisitions. Talk about hot news of the day we are seeing, Tecta just purchased Empire out of Texas. We're seeing that on our last Coffee Conversations, we had the conversation with Ken Kelly and Kim Simone with Reliant and that exciting part. You should watch it, if you haven't. John, what are you seeing that way with some of your? Are you seeing some acquisition stuff going on?

John Gardner:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, you mentioned a few of them, but what's most interesting about that. You mentioned a few that are within the roofing space, right?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah.

John Gardner:
So Tecta, et cetera, but what's most interesting is never before like we're seeing now is investments. That's when companies outside the roofing industry looking at roofing, roofing space as this is a place where we can invest. Because it's sustainable investment that has pretty high return. And so I think that has a lot to do with the growth and maturity of just our roofing contractors and what they decided that they were going to do to invest in their own business. And, , I remember back in the 90s when I first started, it was few and far between of those contractors of size that really had that platform put in place to be able to shine and have those investors take a look at it. So that's the most interesting part of it is from my perspective and Owens Corning's perspective is the interest from outside roofing space is, I mean, that's a considerable thing.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah.

John Gardner:
That's a really interesting dynamic going on and that's fueling, in part, why there's so much activity. Trent, you just mentioned people are thinking about it, they're asking questions. Right?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Absolutely. Yeah. It's every single day. I've got a lot of friends that are contractors and they call me up and say, "Hey, time's come. Do you know anybody?" That's basically how it starts.

Well, I have to tell you, when obviously talking to Ken Kelly at the FRSA show on Coffee Conversations, he was very much about looking that it's private equity and then, like you said, the roofing looks very positive to private equity and that's a totally different vibe than what we probably looked at with the roll-ups of the 90s.

John Gardner:
Remember the roll-ups.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I was there. I remember. Yeah. Angie, are you seeing that outside of roofing because you have so many contractors that you work with or is it mostly kind of just roofing?

John Gardner:
Yeah, we are. I think in exteriors and kind of the home renovation categories, the most, I know, one our chief economist always points to is that Americans got like $2.5 trillion of home equity built into 2020 just because the property values were going through the roof. So I think that, and seeing how resilient demand was basically May of last year, quickly bounced back from the shutdowns and it was going gangbusters while a lot of the economy was still of kind of lagging. So I think that really caught a lot of people's attention. And I'd say pretty much all of our larger customers who are in exteriors, so windows, siding, roofing, or kind of like kitchen, bathroom remodel, especially, seem to really the hotspots where there's a lot, you're either talking to private equity or have recently gone through some kind of [crosstalk 00:33:18] action. Yeah.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. It was interesting because we had a really great conversation about this at National Women in Roofing that how do employees navigate this? So these mergers and acquisitions are happening. I've been through a few on both sides and it's not easy. So one of the things we want to look at is that kind of education for people. How do you best navigate that, keep your culture, take care of your people and how people kind of take care of themselves? We were talking about it around women, but it's everyone. So, I mean, Seth, are you seeing any of that?

Seth Pietsch:
I'm seeing actually quite a bit. So in the insurance industry, a lot of the large nationwide insurance companies are acquiring the smaller independent agencies. And there's been about six or seven acquisitions of very well-known insurance agencies throughout Oregon and the Pacific Northwest that have been acquired by big insurance companies.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow.

Seth Pietsch:
And what's unique is it's actually creating a really good situation for smaller agencies because the big nationwide firms, they definitely serve a role and they serve a very important role, but there's also a role for the smaller companies. So talking about on the roofing industry as, okay, these smaller roofing companies may be getting acquired from a larger roofing company, but that creates new opportunities for a project manager or a foreman that has been on the cusp of wanting to start his own roofing company. And now he has an opportunity because now there's really just big, huge, giant roofing companies that may not want to deal with a residential homeowner. And that's where this project manager has been working for the last 20 years. So now it gives him an opportunity to start up his own roofing company, service the industry and the area, the property owners, that he's serviced for the last 20 years and now he has that opportunity to do it. And that's personal experience.

That's what we did. Our insurance company that we started with got acquired by a large company. We wanted to do something different from a huge giant company. And so that gave us an opportunity to branch out and start our own. So it's a very good opportunity for a smaller business to start and now become a larger business because now that client that they serve is now being underserved because the larger companies wanting to serve the larger clients.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right. I think that's really smart. I mean, that's really, it's right on. And I would say too, as we, because this always happens, remember in the industry, I mean, how many times, we go through all these consolidations and then-

John Gardner:
And then it unravels.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And then everybody, all these startups come out and it starts all over again.

John Gardner:
Starts all over again.

Heidi Ellsworth:
We've seen it, I should, say decade after decade. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy. So one of the things I would say out there for people who are thinking about starting a roofing business or who have just started a roofing business, this is the group to talk to. I mean, let's be serious. You need great insurance, you need great legal, you need a great manufacturer. You need a great lead source with someone marketing that's going to help you do that. So there's a lot to be said about these new companies coming up and what we can do for them. What are, let's just kind of go there. And I do want to say one thing out there is that we have, we're a little bit over halfway through this. If you have any questions, if you have any comments, of course, we have Megan Ellsworth in the background, she's monitoring the chat and everybody else.

Heidi Ellsworth:
So she will give me the high sign and we can ask some of those questions, but feel free. This is still wide open for questions, either on YouTube or on the go-to. Excuse me, Angi, you got people starting out, you got young companies out there already who have just started, what should they be doing working with Angi to help grow their business and to do it in a way that is sustainable?

Lauren Lausten:
Yeah. I mean, I think the fundamental to being successful on our platform, because anyone could pass kind of the licensing, background checks, there are certain table stakes things that any pro has to pass, check those boxes, but the profile ratings and reviews, customers are getting kind of more and more choosy as far as what they look for. And really the reviews number of recent reviews, average score, is kind of front and center as people are deciding. And even if they got it as a referral, they'll Google you and check you out on different platforms. So I think kind of delivering the positive customer experience and following up with homeowners to get that online reputation is kind of the table stakes. And that also leads to the referral business and in a more diversified helping marketing mix up over time.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. We, Karen Edwards and I, wrote a book, Sales and Marketing for Roofing Contractors, and we're kind of like, "Oh, everybody's going to think this is kindergarten." Right? But it has turned out to be so many contractors were like, "That's exactly what we needed. We needed to start at the very beginning and be able to understand how to walk our way through it." And I think that's one of the things that Angie does really well is to be able to deliver that in a way that is easy to utilize and whether you're new or old, you've been around for a while, this technology, the digital, like we talked about before, is where you got to be looking. You got to figure out reviews and what people are saying.

Lauren Lausten:
And I think people are more and more looking different places, or they're not just going to fill out one form on your website and then sit back and wait, they'll keep filling out forms or calling in. And so the more quickly, however, kind of the homeowner raises their hand and says, "I'm interested," the more quickly you can get ahold of them, get out there, run the appointment, get them the proposal, the more successful you'll be and the top pros more and more are using technology to automate text messaging and emails and all of these different channels of communication. So we really encourage all the pros in our network to kind of follow up as quickly as you can, using as many channels as you can because otherwise people kind of attention spans are short and they'll be off looking at it at something or someone else.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Every digital communication is important. John, you're doing this every single day with contractors. And I know Owens Corning is just wide open, bring in a lot of young contractors and kind of help them. What are you seeing with that?

John Gardner:
Well, I think for Owens Corning anyway, and I think in general with regard to the roofing industry, we've come a long way since the 90s. And I'm speaking primarily with regard to manufacturing and Owens Corning, for sure, we've made a massive investment in our contractor group and our contractor team comprised of a dozen, two dozen folks that their job is nothing but contractor.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow.

John Gardner:
And so you mentioned something with regard to Angie and making sure homeowners have various ways in which to connect with you. But for many of our contractors, just saying contractors in general, they never get found. And so you're always guaranteed to lose a job if you're not going to be found in a place where a homeowner wants to be. And then number two, and what we've learned over the last 10 years, but really focused heavy in the last five years is look, the products that we manufacture, we're super proud of them. We are absolutely super proud of them. And I think they stand on their own as being some of the best in the industry and so it's not table stakes, but it's not good enough to just have a great product anymore.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right.

John Gardner:
Our contractors want a absolute, shake my hand partnership. And when they say that to us, when we've earned our contractor's partnership is because we were able to, and this is what they're asking for, I'm not satisfied with just the shingles and the accessories that you're providing us. I want you to help me with installation. I want you to help me with production. I want you to help me with sales. I want you to help me with marketing. I want you to help me with coaching. I want you to help me with labor. I want you to help me and these are questions and these are the partnership requirements today. And we have invested heavily in that, in part with partnerships with RoofersCoffeeShop, with Trent, with Angi, because we know what we're really good at. We also know who are the best in the industry and outside of the industry, they bring to help.

And so to kind of summarize, answer to the question for you in a different way as is contractors that feel like Owens Corning or other manufacturers truly have their back when it comes to what's your one-year, five-year, ten-year goal and how can I help you get there? are those contractors that will rise to the top, but those are also the contractors that reward you with their loyalty. And so with that, it starts that whole process and that cycle again of second generation contractors, third generation contractors.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes.

John Gardner:
Listen, it's the best job in the world, to be able to say, we have an amazing product for you, but it's just an awesome experience to be able to have the privilege to be in somebody's business and do what we can to help them. And that's the part of being in the roofing industry as a manufacturer and particularly with Owens Corning is that is the agenda for all of us. So it's across the board.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. Well, and it goes back. Yeah. It goes back to what you're saying is that we want more young people in the industry. Now, whether they go to work for a contractor, manufacturer, distributor, or whether there's someone like Greta with Golden Construction out of Massachusetts, who said, "I have my degree in entrepreneurship and I'm going to start a roofing business" and her and Freddie did it and they are doing, they are just shaking up the world. She's one of our RCS influencers. She's amazing. And, but I think they have hurdles and they need help. I mean, Seth, it's not easy for brand new contractors to get insurance, right?

Seth Pietsch:
It's not. I always advise the new contractors that are trying to get licensed with the Construction Contractors Board is, "You really need to have a good attorney. You need to have a good CPA and you need to have a good insurance agent" and having a relationship with those people around you is key because one insurance policy, it doesn't cover everything and there's a lot of different dynamics that go into it and you really need to know what type of coverage you have as a roofing company, because there's different forms and exclusions that are going to pertain to residential roofing versus commercial versus height exclusions. So when you first start out and with your business, you just need to have that dialogue option to be able to talk to your agent, find out what the pros and cons of each insurance policy is, and there's a place for this, too, but buying online is usually not the best option when you're a roofing company, because it will get you licensed, but it provides a very watered down version of the insurance policy that you're needing.

So you really needed to have a relationship with the people that you're working for where you can call them on their cell phone or their office and they'll get back to you. It's very important to be able to answer your questions when you have them, because you're going to have a lot of questions the first couple of years and even after, but the first couple of years, especially.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And that kind of brings me, Trent, I would love to, you have Cotney Consulting, you're doing estimating training, you're doing so much training that's going to help, not just in new businesses, but also in people moving up and really finding that career in roofing. What are you seeing with the people coming in with the consulting and the estimating and all of that great stuff?

Trent Cotney:
Sure. So about a year ago when we brought John Kenny over, he's got 45 years of experience in the industry, we started developing a suite of estimating training and we've got intermediate and advanced modules, and we just saw a big hole in the industry there. We didn't see really that kind of training readily available. So it's digital, we have it in Spanish and we're moving forward with additional training. We've got safety and other training modules that we're going to have. It's all on shopcotney.com and the idea behind it is to help those new contractors that sort of come into the business. I think one of the things that I see with new contractors is a lot of times there is a focus on sales and sales is critical, but you also have to watch out for the bottom line.

So part of the thing is making sure that you shore up your standard operating procedures that, like Seth said, it's what you don't know that that kind of gets you. So you want to make sure that you're doing everything you can to protect whatever your bottom line is going to be. And I think it's just like Seth said, you got to have a good accountant, good legal, good insurance agent to do that.

John Gardner:
You got two out of three.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, right here. I think we got everything we need. Now we had a quick question come in and I want to just read that question here. And it was the velocity of delivering quotes is faster because of technology. The valid timeframe of a quote is shorter because of price increases while the lead time for material is longer. How does it contract or reconcile all those different dynamics? I'm going to start with you, Trent. Do you want me to read it again?

Trent Cotney:
No, I got it. So there's two different scenarios that you've got to look at. One is whether you're entering into a new contract or you're already stuck in an existing contract. So to keep it simple, if you're in a new contract, there are certain contract provisions that you absolutely have to have in there to protect you. One is the price acceleration provision because it's Roofers Coffee Shop, if they reach out to me, I'll give it to them. No problem. And the other is a material availability provision that deals with delays. Okay. There's other things, but those are the two big ones. If it's an existing contract, then what you need to do is I've got a four step process that I like to go to. First is you set the stage. You work with your manufacturers and distribution to provide letters and documentation, evidencing, whatever the issue is. The second is you review your existing contract.
So what you want to do is you want to go down and see what provisions do I have, regardless of whether it's residential or commercial, it may help me get this in front of the customer. Okay. The third step is get in front of the customer. It's either a change order or a claim, or if it's a homeowner, just simply going up to them and explain what the issue is, then you negotiate, right? So a lot of negotiation techniques have really come into play with the materials issue, everything from offering added workmanship warranty, we're willing to split the baby on material price increases. I've seen adding walk paths. I've seen upgrading, I've seen maintenance plans. I've seen all kinds of stuff to get from point A to point B. But the key thing that I want everyone watching this to understand is happy customer, happy contractor. That is the key thing. Focus on keeping that customer happy.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, that's great. That's great advice. Thank you. And thank you for the question, Nancy. That was a great question. Okay. I want to, we're getting close to the end of our hour. So one of the last questions that I tasked to this great team was what should a roofing company, a contractor, even an individual, what should you be thinking about and planning for the next 18 months? I mean, we know what we went through the last 18 months, so now the next 18 months, and some of it we've already talked about, but if you could kind of summarize what you think are some of the most important things. So we'll start with you, Lauren.

Lauren Lausten:
Yeah. Thanks, Heidi. I think the two things that stand out to me are the customer experience and technology. So on the customer experience, I know it's when things are busy and chaotic, it can be easy to kind of let communications slip through the cracks, but really honing in on the processes to hold the customer's hand and deliver a great experience from end to end and beyond the project and have them be kind of an advocate and building your online reputation is, is really a solid foundation for kind of whatever the future brings in terms of demand. And then on technology, I think we've seen a lot of the same things John was kind of speaking to earlier, more and more requests to integrate their feeds with their CRM or their automated texting service, all the tools that are now out there. And I think a lot of our kind of leading edge smartest contractors are really investing in that and ditching those things together into their business processes to run more efficiently and also kind of lay the foundation for growth and ending profitable in the long-term.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And being profitable. That's a big one. We want to make sure. John.

John Gardner:
Well, I think for me kind of looking forward, two places. First, just kind of emphasize what we talked about earlier, and that is with regards to look, you can't sacrifice sales for marketing. You can't sacrifice marketing for sales, but because the space has changed so dramatically and the space meaning what's in between Mr and Mrs. Jones' head and how are they going to go to market is really hyper-focused on my brand and hyper-focused on how I get found. And so there's a lot to unwrap there, right? But one of the things that we recognized about two years ago, Heidi, as you know very well is look, there's three primary pillars here that that can help essentially to drive the business. One is brand and marketing. The other is sales process and having a sales process for the sales person and a sales process for the ownership and the management of the company. And they have to work simultaneously. And the third part is what's my overall process? How do I get everybody in my organization, whether it's 2, 5, 10, 200 people, totally on the same page running in the same direction?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes.

John Gardner:
And we call them our business accelerators and that's Rodney Webb, Sue Hawkes with Yes, and Anna Anderson with Art Unlimited. By far some of the most advanced training, but digestible for contractors of all sizes. So I highly suggest taking a look at that. And Heidi, you know that really well, because we worked on that and we communicated a lot of that out to the market.

Heidi Ellsworth:
It's really important because they can help you plan for that next 18 months.

John Gardner:
Exactly.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right?

John Gardner:
Yes, exactly. And the last part is we, we talked about this, but it's worth noting again, invest in your employees. Invest in your employees, and the way that we try to help with that is to provide the right type of training and education, whether it's live or on demand or virtual through Owens Corning University, is you have to invest in your employee. I don't care if it's the marketing person, the sales person, the installer, production guy, if the employer employee is not engaged with our company and feels like you're not engaged with them, the chances of them leapfrogging to somebody else is really high and the amount of dollars that we all spend on our employees and the numbers it back up, substantial. The cost to lose an employee who you find to be productive, it can be thousands and thousands and thousands of lost dollars and lost time. So I would encourage contractors to, look, start simple.

Here's a simple sales process. Here's marketing, here's production. Here's how you, et cetera, et cetera. We've done it. We've tried to help. And we think we have a great platform at Owens Corning University to be able to plug those in. In addition, we have partnerships with awesome folks like Trent Cotney, awesome folks like RoofersCoffeeShop, awesome folks like Angi, where, look, if we're not great at it, we need to have somebody else speak to our contractor and that's great stuff. So those are my two.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I think that's so great and prepare and prepare. Seth.

Seth Pietsch:
There's been so many great ideas thrown out there today. If I can just advise one thing to take away from this whole hour long informative talk we've had is get involved. Get involved with the roofing industry. I mean, this industry is, is absolutely amazing. It's one of the best industries that I've ever been part of. And look at all these talented people around that you can reach out to and get information from, whatever it is. And it's everywhere. It's the east coast to the west coast. And there's, don't think that it's just, "Oh, I don't want to be involved because my competitors are there." No, you know what? You're going to find that a lot of your competitors turn out to be good friends and that want to help you. I mean, there's so much business out there right now that we kind of all need to help each other.

And that's what this panel's for. That's what this industry is for. That's what the NRCA is for. And, if you're on the borderline of, "Well, I should be involved or not," do it because you're going to be able to get all the information that you're looking for through somebody. Somebody will know somebody who puts you in the right spot and getting involved with the roofing industry is the best advice that I could give anybody out there listening.

Heidi Ellsworth:
So that's great. That's awesome. Trent, can you bring us home?

Trent Cotney:
It's hard to follow you guys. It's pretty good. So, if I had to say, I would say look to the future. I mean, I think renewable sustainable energy is going to be key. I think what we're going to start seeing is roofs as profit centers. I think we're going to start developing solar, wind, kinetic hydroponic, advanced green technologies, carbon capture, that I think are going to reshape and revitalize a lot of what we are currently doing in roofing. So how do you keep your finger on the pulse? Roofers Coffee Shop right there.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes. Keep it on the pulse because all these folks, they have it and they're bringing it to you. And I also want to, I want to talk about ABC Supply because ABC Supply sponsored this today and they are another great company that is looking out all the time for their contractors, bringing them home, making things happen, offering great programs and working with all of the folks who are here. So I want to say thank you to ABC Supply. You rock. Thank you so much for sponsoring our live Coffee Conversations at IRE. And I really want to say thank you to all of you. You, I'm humbled at the wisdom and just the giving back to this industry that you all do. And thank you so much. So please join us again. We're going to be doing this again tomorrow on our IRE Coffee Conversations.

It's going to be with our RCS influencers, all contractors, and they're going to be talking about what they're seeing at the show, what's happening in their areas. Again, sponsored by ABC Supply, who is really wanting to bring this show to you wherever you're at. We're also going to be live the rest of the day with fun interviews and information, including some happy hour visits with our Latinx friends and the first timers and welcome party. So don't miss a moment and we'll see you next time. Thanks.

Seth and Ashley Pietsch & Jessica Hale - The 10 Things you Need to Know about Roofing Insurance - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Thu, 19 Aug 2021 14:47:00 PDT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an live interview with the folks at Integrity Insurance and Bonding. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Speaker 1:
Welcome to Roofing Road Trips With Heidi. Explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a long-term professional within the trade. Listen for insights, interviews and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Hello and welcome to another Roofing Road Trip. This is Heidi Ellsworth with RoofersCoffeeShop®, and I am not tripping very far today because I tell you, this roofing road trip is just taking me right over the Cascades to the Willamette Valley, where I am with Integrity Insurance and Bonding, with Seth Pietsch, Ashley Pietsch and Jessica Hale. Welcome to the show, all of you. [crosstalk 00:00:37]
You know what? I love this, even though this is a virtual road trip, we still aren't really on the road. One of these times, I'm going to grab my mic, get in my car and come over and see you guys in Portland, because we're only about three hours apart. [crosstalk 00:00:52].
I would love it too. So today I'm... To me, this is a really important podcast for a lot of different reasons, but for a lot of people out there, there's a couple things that I'm just really scared of. And I'm really scared of anything that has to do with lawyers, and I'm really scared of anything that has to do with insurance.
But luckily for me, I know some of the best legal people in the roofing business, and I know the best insurance folks in the business, and that is Integrity Insurance, led by Seth and Ashley. Jessica has just started and really has kind of brought a whole new flavor of marketing and getting out there, and business development, so it's been really exciting.
So let's start out with a quick introduction. So Seth, can you start real quick? Just tell everybody a little bit about yourself?

Seth Pietsch:
Yep. Started in insurance in the end of 2007, been a Commercial Lines producer pretty much the whole time. And then in 2018, Ashley and I started our own insurance agency, Integrity Insurance and Bonding.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it. Ashley?

Ashley Pietsch:
And I'm Ashley. I started in insurance in 2004, working for my dad's agency at the time. And I primarily do commercial insurance, a lot of construction, a lot of roofing contractors. We also do personal lines here in the office as well.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And Jessica?

Jessica Hale:
Jessica Hale, I've just been in insurance just a little over a year, and property management and banking before that, and I love it here. It's a good fit, the whole values, morals behind Integrity is I think why our whole team loves it here, and what will keep us busy and thriving.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That is so true, and I have to say to everyone who's listening, this is not the first podcast we've done with Seth and Ashley. So to really talk about family business and the great culture that is there, please listen to some of our past podcasts on Roofing Road Trips, where they've talked about family and culture, and just how important that is.
But today we're going to talk about insurance. We're going to get down to the nitty-gritty. And Seth, I would love it if you would kind of start out with why is it... Honestly, for a lot of us out there, we think, "Well, there's just a lot of insurance people and we don't really know what to do."
For roofing contractors, why is it so important to pick the right insurance company to help them on this journey, and to help their business?

Seth Pietsch:
Well, absolutely. That's a great question. When it comes to construction and roofing being included in the construction industry obviously, there's just so many moving pieces and we always have a target on our back, from a claim perspective.
In the Pacific Northwest, we get a lot of rain, we get a lot of the weather elements that are always beating down or beating on our house, our roof, our siding, our windows. And so when a house has a leak or there's water penetration issues, you have the usual suspects that get looped, factored into the claim or potential claim. And it usually starts with the roofer because they're designed to keep the water out of the house.
So whether it's a roofing issue or not, they get brought in and they get blamed for weather issues or whatever related issues, even though it may not have anything to do with them. So really understanding the importance of having the right coverage is going to be critical, not from just if you are found to be liable and there is an actual claim that your insurance company has to pay out on, but you get brought into these claims, these construction defect claims, and the insurance has to defend you.
So the defense costs alone, depending on the situation, whether it's a Condo Association or Homeowners Association, those just defense costs can really add up and claim expenses. So having the right coverage in place is going to help just the defense cost alone, let alone indemnity payments.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. And you know what? That really leads to understanding your contract. And again, I'm going to come back from the simple side of things. It's not easy to understand those insurance contracts or any contracts nowadays. Terms of use, all that kind of stuff, it's all out there. So I always feel like I really need to focus on working with folks who can explain it to me, to make sure I'm not signing something I shouldn't.
So maybe Ashley, just some of the experiences you've had too working with some of the contractors on contracts, and just how confusing that can be?

Ashley Pietsch:
Yeah. A lot of contractors actually don't even know what's in their contracts. And so what we usually do here at our agency is, first of all, we usually review their subcontract agreement in place, and put together a sample certificate that they can send to their subs.
And that way, they have kind of a guideline to go off of what they need, what requirements that they have in their contract that they need to comply with, and really sit down and train them, sit down and go over what additional insured means, what waiver of subrogation means, what primary non-contributory means, and why it's important to your business and protecting you?
A lot of people have no idea what any of that means and it's in their contract, but they don't request it. And if you're not requesting it, you're not getting it. And a claim happens, then you are held liable for a lot of things that you could actually shift down to your subcontractor. So we take a lot of time going over that with clients and helping them answer questions, and all of that.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I think that's so important. You really need to trust, you got to find people like all of you to trust, to kind of help you walk through all of that. And Seth, I know the other day we were talking about contracts, and you said there are just some key things that you're finding in contracts for roofing contractors, that's really bad for them, that you're finding other brokers are writing or insurance companies, whoever it may be. Can you expand on that?

Seth Pietsch:
Yeah. There's a laundry list of things that you really want to look out for in your insurance policy, and this goes for any type of contractor. But in Oregon, once the job is completed, that's when the statute of repose kicks in. And that could be... Depending on its new construction, in Oregon its 10 years for residential and smaller commercial. And then a large commercial project is six years. So basically you're on the hook for construction defects for X amount of years after the project is done.
So when you're moving insurance carriers, or even at renewal, if you're trying to provide a completed operations coverage for prior projects that you've done in the past, one of the big things is a lot of insurance companies, when they write a new policy for a new... Not a new contract, but a new policy for a contractor that's, let's say been in business for 15 years, they try to throw on or want to try to throw on a prior work exclusion.
Well, a prior work exclusion, when you're on the hook for construction defects for up to 10 years for prior work that you've completed, that's definitely something that you want to avoid because sometimes it's very difficult to pinpoint when an actual construction defect manifested itself.
A lot of times it goes back to when the job was performed, but a lot of times it happens five years after the job was performed. And then they've got to figure out when that actually was. Well, if you're with a new insurance carrier and they have a prior work exclusion in your policy, anything that's deemed not to have occurred outside of their policy period is excluded. And now all of a sudden, you're paying your own defense costs out of pocket.
So that's one of the main things that I avoid, is a prior work exclusion at all costs, because that's excluded in essence, all your price completed operations that you've performed, at least up until the last, well, the statute of repose, but 10 years for residential in Oregon, which, that's a long timeframe to be held accountable for construction defects.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. That's a really long time. I'm like, wow, 10 years, and I've lived here my whole life. I didn't even know that. That is crazy. Okay, those are the kinds of things that I know you do all the time for contractors, and you're looking through their contracts, you're really looking at understanding their business because you understand roofing, which I think is such a huge part of it.
But I also know... So I'm going to make a comparison, but with computers, if you don't know the question to ask in Google, or you don't know the question to ask of how to fix this, you have a hard time getting the right answers. So it really starts with the right questions.
And Seth, I asked you to come up with your top 10 questions because we want to share those on Roofers Coffee Shop and really kind of every month, go through a question, but we want to kind of launch it off here a little bit. So those top 10 questions that we kind of talked about, can you share your top three?

Seth Pietsch:
Absolutely. My top three would... One we just touched briefly on would be, does your policy include a prior work exclusion? No matter what it is, a manufacturer, a contractor, whatever it is. But if there's something that's excluding prior work, that's something that you should be avoiding at all costs.
Depending on the situation, not all roofing contractors perform residential work, but if you are engaging in any type of residential work, you need to know whether or not your policy excludes residential work. And if you're performing new residential work, how that new residential exclusion is going to affect you, because just because you have an insurance policy, that does not mean that it's covering all the type of work that you're going to be engaged in.
So residential exclusions would be number two, and then I don't like bodily injury exclusions. So if there's any type of exclusion that pertains to basically an over action exclusion, which would be you don't even have to be the general contractor, but if you're a lower tier or a subcontractor and you are also subcontracting work out, you have a responsibility to keep the job site safe.
So if a subcontractor gets injured on the job, even though workers' comp in Oregon is sole remedy, which means they basically... the workers' comp carrier will pay first and ask questions second. A lot of times the workers' comp carrier or the subcontractor's attorney will come back to the general contractor or the contractor that hired them as a sub, and then seek for reimbursement of medical expenses.
And if you have an overreaction exclusion to subcontractor, your policy would exclude a subcontractor from trying to sue you or recoup medical expenses from their injured employee. So not every situation is going to apply to every single contractor, because if you're not subcontracting work, that's not a huge issue for you. But in most cases, almost every contractor is using some sort of a trade, or another contractor to help them with a job, or do some sort of a trade for them.
And so those are big issues having overreaction exclusions, and it's actually pretty scary to see how many policies I come across that excludes that type of work. It's more times than not that I come across these policies that have those exclusions hidden. And it's definitely very concerning to see how many insurance carriers that are excluding this type of stuff in their policies.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That, I don't even know how someone would be able to think of all those things. So to have this list to ask... So we have folks from all over the country, right? Who are there. So if you're in Florida, or if you're in New York, first of all, you should always check with Integrity because they are licensed.
Ashley, how many States now? It keeps growing.

Ashley Pietsch:
I think we're at 14 now. [crosstalk 00:14:09]

Heidi Ellsworth:
Jeez. So you should always check in there, but we're also going to have these 10 questions that are going to go over all these things that Seth... Those are the top three that we just talked about, but you're going to be able to have that as a document to really be able to start asking those questions when you get ready for renewals.
And so kind of talking about renewals, Jessica, I would just love to get some of your insights on what you've seen. You're doing a lot of business development. You've been working with Integrity and seeing the contractors, and talking to them.
What are you seeing and hearing as the contractors are coming in for renewals, or maybe they want to come in and have their policies checked? What are some of the things you're seeing?

Jessica Hale:
Well, I'm just going to say for stuff for my job, being on the marketing end of things, is to really make sure that our clients are happy and getting that feedback, and that is our retention is huge. And because of, again, for me, and the reason that I love it here, insurance is daunting.
There's a lot of details and input, and a lot of background that goes into it, and our pros here that handle that part. And I'm good at the relationship part, and so to really make sure that we have that retention because people don't just stay, they don't just stay because the price is low or the coverage is enough. They stay because they like the people and they feel heard and valued.
And so that's what it comes back to. For me, my part of the job is to make sure the beginning, are you understanding everything. At the end, did you get everything you need? We want to make sure that you do renew with us over and over again. And most of our business, a ton of our business, we're just starting to do a lot more advertising, and clearly, here with you.
But so much of it is just word of mouth. People talk about us, and again, sometimes when you have to up your coverage, if your policy isn't covering everything, maybe the price goes up a little bit. But if people are getting the service that they want and they deserve, they come back. They feel covered and valued, and those are the kinds of relationships we want to have with our clients.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Well, I think you are right on target because roofing is all about relationships. And when you can bring the personalities, the great relationship building that all of you have, with a great knowledge of protecting their business, their roofing business, that is so important. It can totally take you down. We've talked about this before.
And Seth, I know that we have fall renewals coming up. I don't know all the dates or all the time. So maybe just talk a little bit about kind of what that timeline usually looks like? I know it's different for all carriers in different places, but talk a little bit about that and then what the contractors should be doing right now to get ready to do their research ahead of time?

Seth Pietsch:
Sure. We do our best now. Sometimes we're ahead of the game, sometimes we're a little bit behind, but we do our best to try to start the renewal process 90 days in advance. For one, when you're ordering loss runs, which shows your prior claim and your current claim activity, loss runs are only valid for 90 days.
So when you start the process, let's say six months in advance before your renewal, well, that doesn't do too much good because your loss runs are only valued or are valid for 90 days. And so then you have to get them revalidate. So 90 days in advance is about when we start. 30 days before renewal, is about the time period that insurance companies really start getting serious about offering a quote, because for one, quotes are only valid for 30 days.
So if you're trying to really get ahead of the game, it's a little bit difficult. It's good to get all the information to your agent well in advance, but a lot of people are like, "Hey, we've got to get certificates sent out," which they do. We were fully aware of that because everything a contractor or a roofing contractor needs is usually yesterday.
So we understand the importance of getting things sent out, but it's very difficult to get quotes and buying coverage 30 days before renewal, because carriers are only sending out quotes within a few weeks before renewal because they're only valid for 30 days.
So if you are renewing your general liability, I would say anywhere from two weeks before renewal or maybe a little bit before, a little bit after, you're still in very good shape. So within a couple of weeks before renewal, if you're done and everything's bound and you've got the policy numbers and the binders, that's usually... you're in a very good situation from renewing early, because it's not the easiest thing to get bound and renewed two months before your actual renewal date.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Okay. Now, what if you want to change? What if you want to change brokers? What if you want to change insurance companies? And it's now, so we're in July, what's that process look like? And maybe Ashley, do you want to take that one? Kind of talk a little bit about that?

Ashley Pietsch:
Yeah. You don't feel like you have a relationship where there's a trust, or that maybe your agent doesn't explain to you what you have, or whatever. The sooner, the better. First of all, if you end up issuing a broker of record, which means that you're basically brokering your policy from your current agent to a new agent, each carrier kind of has their own guidelines, but it usually takes five to 10 business days for the company to process that broker of record, and transfer everything over.
So there is a waiting time, which a lot of people don't understand. They're like, "Well, I signed this yesterday. You're my agent. I need all this done." There is a waiting time. If you want to explore and see what kind of coverages you do have, we always say if you do have a good working relationship with your agent, call them, give them that chance, write down your questions, schedule a time to go over that.
If you don't feel like you're getting those answers, and you want to reach out to someone like us, another agent, give them the most time so they can really get to know your company, get to review your coverages, know what program will best be tailored to your business.
But literally, as long as you're probably doing it 30 days in advance, I would say there should be enough time, but you might get down to the wire.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And so a little bit of a mystery here to us non-insurance folks, but I've always heard that there's renewals in May and November. Is that myth or truth, Seth?

Ashley Pietsch:
There are, but they are also... We had some roofers renew last month and we have some this month, we have some in October. There's a lot of roofing contractors that renew in those dates, but they renew all year long, every day.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow. Good. Okay, because that's a little stressful, if you have to try to get in that certain time, that certain window, more like medical insurance probably.

Ashley Pietsch:
Yeah.

Heidi Ellsworth:
So I'm going to go back and I'm going to just talk real quick about when contractors are having problems with insurance claims or OSHA, or any of those kinds of... Safe in Oregon, all those different kinds of things. I know they don't all, how do they go about understanding the processes, who to talk to, what to go through?
So Seth, maybe you can kind of talk a little bit about that. Just when they're actually in the claims, in the problem.

Seth Pietsch:
That's a good question. What we try to do when it comes to a situation with a claim is if we... Sometimes we don't even get notified that there is a claim. We just, all of a sudden, get notified from an attorney saying, "Hey, your client's been put on notice," because in Oregon, you can go to the Construction Contractors Board and you can see the prior insurance carrier for every licensed contractor in Oregon.
So a lot of times, these different attorney firms will just send a direct notice directly to their carrier, whether it's current or prior. And now all of a sudden, you get multiple notices of a claim that you didn't even get made aware of, or the client wasn't even made aware of. And then all of a sudden, everybody just gets bombarded with a claim.
So put in a perfect situation, when there is an issue where we get notified or the roofer gets notified about a claim, is we gather the information as much as possible. The date the work took place, the type of work, the address, the client, just your most basic information that you would need.
We submit the claim directly to the insurance company. We follow up with them to make sure an adjuster is assigned. Once it is, we relay that information to the client, letting them know, "Hey, John Smith, Jane Doe, they're going to be contacting you. Here's their information. Here's our email or phone number, et cetera."
And so we get that process started to make sure that everybody's in the loop, the process is going as quickly as possible because when you're paying all this money for insurance and roofing contractors pay, more times than not, more money than other trades, just because of the type of work they do and the exposures, you wont have the best possible claim scenario that you can, because why would you be paying all this money for insurance when a claim experience to go south or negative?
So we're always following up with adjusters because adjusters, just like anybody, gets very busy. They're dealing with what they feel is the most burning hot fire for the day. And a lot of times, they don't follow up or get the chance to follow up on something that they need to.
So we are constantly sending out reminders for status updates on claims, to make sure that all the information is provided. If there is something missing, we help the client navigate what they need. So they're always being kept in the loop because if you go two weeks and you're wondering about a claim, that takes up a lot of your time in the day, worrying and wondering about what's going on.
So we try to be engaged as much as possible to just keep that claim process going along as smooth as it can, and just giving reassurance to our clients that we're handling it.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense to me, and that's the kind of support you need. I can tell you what, when you're in the thick of it, you need to know somebody has your back and somebody is working with you, so important.
So I want to kind of take to that one step. I always love to talk about proactiveness. And so Ashley, what can roofing contractors be doing besides reading their contract? We've talked about that. We're going to come out with the 10 questions, but what are some other things that are really important that they do through operations, through their everyday business, to help keep their insurance rates down?

Ashley Pietsch:
Well, safety on a job site, clearly, that's where a lot of claims come from. A lot of claims come from auto, a lot of auto issues, making sure as a business that you're running NVRs before hiring somebody. When you hire somebody and then you send an MVR to the... Motor Vehicle Report to the agent and say, "Hey, we need this guy covered." And it's like, he's got multiple violations or she's got multiple accidents, or whatever, that's difficult.
That also can, at renewal time, play a part in jacking up your insurance rates. They kind of look at what your drivers, what your guidelines are as a business owner, when you have people that are driving your company vehicles out there. So really taking a part and making sure that the people that you're hiring do qualify to be driving a company vehicle.
I would say safety meetings, constantly meeting with your staff. There's a lot of companies that put in GPSs, that's always helpful. I'm trying to think about any other...

Seth Pietsch:
Yeah. Some of the big ones that we like to see is actual loss control meetings or visits with your insurance company. Not all general liability carriers, especially for roofing contractors performing residential work, have this opportunity or this option, but definitely on the workers' comp side.
We like to have actual loss control visits with our safety rep from the workers' comp carrier, because workers' comp is going to be one of your largest premiums that you pay from an insurance standpoint. And when you have an employee get injured on a job, or on performing a roofing job, it usually can be pretty severe because you're working at heights, you're working around... Just that in general, it can be a pretty significant injury and it can last for a long time, depending on how the disablement is, how long that lasts.
Your workers' comp carrier can be paying for several years after the injury actually occurred. So getting direct loss control with your designated worker's comp safety rep, or general liability rep too, they do those too, loss controls and just learning your hazards and exposures, those are really vital in your overall business health.
And it also creates really good rapport with your insurance company. Many, many times, if a situation comes up, and from an underwriting standpoint, frequency versus severity is actually more negatively looked upon because the way the insurance adjuster is going to look at it, or an underwriter, is they're like, "Look, you had three small claims, and luckily they were small, but if you have multiple small claims, eventually one of those small claims can turn into a big one."
So now you're looking at frequency and severity. So one big severe claim where it can be like, "Okay, this was just one of those off and/or... It, wasn't likely to occur again," is much more easy to loss control and to implement procedures to help reduce the likelihood of that happening. But if you're constantly rear-ending somebody in a vehicle, and it's constantly happening, eventually you're going to hit somebody hard enough, heaven forbid, where it actually does cause serious bodily injuries to that person. And now you have two rear-ends claims, and now a third one, and that one turns into be a $500,000 claim. And so now you have frequency and severity.
So constant loss control, constantly tweaking and meeting with companies that performed safety meetings and procedures and stuff. There's a lot of companies that specialize in that. I know Western States has companies that they work with that does that. So there's so many resources out there, it really shouldn't be that difficult now.
It can start to get expensive. So you have to obviously look at your budget to see how it's going to implement you, but there is three services that your insurance companies can provide as well that offer those.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's excellent, that's excellent. That is such great advice. And so now, as we're looking at this, for everyone listening out there, what we really wanted to do today was kind of talk about those contracts, what to look for. As we said, we're going to have the top 10 on the website coming out over the next 10 months basically. And we also have talked about the renewals and what you can do to be proactive with insurance. I just think that is so key, and getting to know people is, I think one of the best things you can do.
So Jessica, as contractors are out there right now, how do they get ahold of you? How do they get ahold of the team to really kind of talk through some of these topics?

Jessica Hale:
You can obviously call our office. Usually within a few minutes, we can have an agent call you back if there's someone not available right away. Obviously Seth is the guru, so he's got a lot of the fine details, and we all kind of refer back to him, but email, calls, set up an appointment.
We love to have lunch with people, take you to a happy hour. We want to hear more about your business and learn what we can do for you. Key for us is we want to fine-tune something that yes, refers, but refers to... There're all kinds of different businesses and maybe of other construction things that you're doing also.
So we really want to fine tune a policy that works for exactly your business, and make sure your livelihood, your family, everybody's covered. So we want to get to know you a little bit more than a three minute conversation. And so yeah.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, that's perfect. And so just for everyone listening too, for that phone number, for the website, for everything that you need in order to get ahold of the team, you can find that on Roofers Coffee Shop, in the Integrity Insurance directory.
It's all there, phone numbers, information, names, the whole nine yards. So it makes it really easy for anybody to find this team out of Portland, Oregon. So Seth and Ashley, just real quick, any last thoughts? Any last words?

Seth Pietsch:
You want to go first?

Ashley Pietsch:
No. We just appreciate you having us, and this is an industry that we're really passionate about and we really love all the relationships we've gotten to know. If anybody has any questions, whether they just want to pick our brain, we're always available, and yeah, that's all.

Seth Pietsch:
Yeah. The roofing industry is absolutely awesome to be a part of, and we've been very, very blessed over the years to build the relationships that we've had, and the friendships that we've had. And I think everybody says, "Hey, read your policy, read your policy." Well, it's very difficult for a non-insurance professional to understand your policy.
So glancing at the endorsements, just to see what they say. And then if you have any questions, be like, "Well, does that pertain to me?" Having an open conversation with your Asian or getting the answers to your questions that you may have. That shouldn't take more than 30 minutes. I think everybody has an extra 30 minutes to look over their policy really quick, just to see if there's anything that stands out.
And it's the best way to fall asleep at night. If you can't fall asleep at night, read your insurance policy, and I guarantee you it'll put you to sleep. I

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it. I love it. Well, I want to say thank you to all of you. I know we'll be here again. Also, as I said before, if you visited the directory, you'll also see where this team will be in upcoming trade shows. I know one of them is Western States this fall.
So be sure to visit them, watch for these questions as they come out to the site. And thank you, Seth, Jessica, Ashley. Thank you so much for being here today. [crosstalk 00:34:21]
Thank you, and thank you everyone for listening. We appreciate you so much, and please listen to all of our podcasts that are available on riverscoffeeshop.com under Read, Listen, Watch. You can find all of our Roofing Road trip podcasts there, but you can also subscribe to them on your favorite podcast channel. So be sure to do that so you don't miss any of these great episodes. I hope everybody has a wonderful day and we'll see you on the next Roofing Road Trip.

Speaker 1:
Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips with Heidi from the rooferscoffeeshop.com.