Educating The Future of Workers' Comp

James BenhamOn this episode of the InsurTech Geek podcast, we're talking about educating the future of workers' comp with Bob Wilson from WorkCompCollege.com. The InsurTech Geek Podcast is all about technology that's transforming and disrupting the insurance world. We'll be interviewing guests and doing deep dives into specific tech we see changing the industry. We're taking you on a journey through insurance tech, so enjoy the ride and geek out. This episode of the InsurTech Geek podcast is brought to you by Terra. Learn more about our cloud native risk management information system at t e r r a dot insure.

And we are back with another great episode of the InsurTech Geek podcast. With me, my illustrious cohost, the most interesting man in insurance. That's right, Rob Galbraith. Rob, how's it going? It's going well, James. How are you doing these days? Outstanding. You know, summer is wrapping up. Kids are back to school. And, you know, I got a I got a high school senior and a high school freshman, and we're doing college applications and all that stuff. So it's an interesting time. And, the freshman's doing cheerleading and all kinds of stuff.

I have two daughters, so it's always interesting there. But it's it's been been good. And, of course, a temporary pause in insurance conferences. It's like a strategic pause around the beginning of school, and then then it resumes again. So just got back, you know, as I mentioned in the last episode, was at WCI in Orlando, which is where Bob and I were hanging out. Bob, how's it going? Good. Good. How are you? Outstanding. It was good. Good seeing you and and speaking with you and presenting with you over there in beautiful Orlando, otherwise known as Hot Muggy Orlando in August.

Bob WilsonIt was a good time. That's true. And we actually got a little cooler weather than we're used to in August. So you were you were kind of lucky, believe it or not.

James BenhamYeah. It was interesting. And I I I was surprised about that. You know, we had the kids chance golf tournament on the on Sunday, and, it was tolerable. Like, I didn't feel like I wanted to die. That was

Bob Wilsonthat was a really it's a nice change. It's a benefit of having a hurricane sideswipe the state and suck a lot of that moisture out. It sometimes happens. We get nice weather. If a storm comes by, you know, that's what we really like. Yeah. Exactly. When it comes by, clears everything out, cools everything down for a little bit, gives you a little respite from the, from the heat. Are you in Orlando today, or where where are you at? No. I'm actually in the Sarasota Bradenton area just South of Tampa on the Gulf Coast.

James BenhamYeah. That's that is honestly Saint Pete Beach to Sarasota Bradenton. I just love that section of Florida. It's my favorite favorite place in Florida to go to. Best pit the best place to be in Florida, I think. Yeah. I think it is too. It's amazing. I I love it. I I get down there to to see customers and really always enjoy my time down there. And it's a it's a it's an awesome place. And especially, like, ten months a year, there's two months where it gets a little warm, but even then, honestly, it's better than Texas.

Like, because here, it's just just hot and humid, no ocean, no breeze. You know? It's yeah. The ocean's a wonderful moderator of temperatures.

Bob WilsonI'm I'm inclined to agree. And you just normally, even you said you go a couple hours inland towards Orlando and there's a huge difference. So I'm I'm very happy to be where I am. And you're right. Couple of couple months a year, we're in the worst now. September, I think, is to me the hottest month, and but it'll be great once we get to October.

James BenhamOh, yeah. Yeah. Then it's just smooth sailing from there. I love it down there. That's great. Well, thanks for joining us today. We're going to jump right in. You know, this show is all about technology for insurance. There's a lot of, you know, some different I say a lot. There's a few different definitions of Insurtech. But for us in the show, we like talking about technology for insurance. That includes technology for continuing education. And and so after you and I spoke, was like, man, I really wanna have you on the show to talk about workcompcollege.com and what you've done there because you've you've really created a a hell of a a learning resource for those of us about for for my listeners who don't know about 80% of my business is in work work comp.

So I I'm super heavy on work comp. You know, we we also on our services group, JBKnowledge, we work for property and casualty property business, you know, carriers, and, you know, we have some health, life, and disability. Terra, our our core system is just for comp. So, I mean, I spend a lot of my day in comp, like a lot of my day in comp, and there's a huge need for continuing education and for certifications. There's really not there are college programs for insurance. They're fairly young.

There's really not a college degree program I know of for workers' comp. And so, you know, we we we need continued education. So before we talk about work comp college, I wanna talk about you and, like, how you got to this point. And because you you, I also wanna talk about Kids because you have done a ton of work with Kids Chance, which I'm a huge, huge fan of. But from 1999 to to June 22, you know, you you're you're, you know, president, CEO, work workerscompensation.com.

Like, just walk me through your career and and, you know, how you got into comp in the first place. And then, you know, like, where where where were you born and raised first? And then how'd you get into comp?

Bob WilsonOh, wow. Okay. You're going back a little bit. I was, born in, South Jersey, Cherry Hill. We lived in Haddonfield till I was 10. But when I was 10, my father, cashed in all his retirement and quit his job as an electrical engineer, and we moved west where my parents bought a motel restaurant and lounge in Durango, Colorado. So, yeah, it was quite the change. So we were I was raised in Durango. If you ask me today, where's home? It's Durango. But after I went to college, after college I went into restaurant management because I'd been working in restaurants since I was 10 years old.

Because by the way, when your father buys a restaurant and you go to work whenever you need to, whenever you're told. But I've got a pretty varied career. I ended up doing general managership, district manager for a large multi concept company. Eventually though, ended up in human resources, did technical recruiting for a company that was then called Computer Associates, CA, CA Technologies at the time. They're not around anymore. They were bought out by Broadcom a few years ago. But then in the mid nineties, I actually started my own web development business, developing websites for local clients, and I had a few in Europe as well.

Through that, I was introduced to a gentleman, an attorney in Sarasota, who had bought the domain workers workerscompensation.com and had never done anything with it. He'd owned it since '95. This was in 1999. So I tell people I got into workers' comp the exact same way everybody else gets into workers' comp, completely by accident. We ended up having a pretty common view for what could be built with that domain and what could be done with it. And we set up a company, and I ran that company for twenty two years.

So that's what brought me up to this point. Couple years ago after 2022, twenty three years, I really enjoyed it, had a great time, but it was time for a new challenge. And an opportunity came up to to start work comp college with my partners, Mark Pugh and Don Abrams. And we just decided the time was right to make that move. So that's what very quickly brings me to this point.

James BenhamYeah. And I mean, I stumbled into WorkComp too. Right? Started Everybody does. Yeah. Stumbled I started building custom software twenty years ago for a property inspection company for property insurance. And then and then a few years after that, about sixteen years ago, I landed my my first work comp TPA as a client just through a a friend's connection. And I was like, oh my gosh. This is it. This is this is where the data needs are. This is where the software needs are. This is where the technology needs are.

Bob WilsonAnd just dove down the dove down the proverbial rabbit hole. It's true. And I'll tell you, this this industry industry is like Hotel California. You can check out anytime you like, but you can never ever leave. Once you're here, you're here for life. That's it. I I speak at conferences, and sometimes I'll ask the audience, you know, all of us as kids, we wanted to be astronauts or doctors or firefighters or policemen, know. How many of you in school knew that you wanted to be a workers comp professional?

And nobody, excuse me, nobody ever ever raises their hand to that. Although one time in Washington state I had a guy in the back of the room, about 300 people in the room, he raised his hand and I stopped. I said I've never actually had anybody answer in the affirmative and he yelled back well I'm not particularly known for my good choices in life, but you know that was a pretty funny response for it. But, yeah, it's it is. Well, I think we all got here by accident, but it's a it's a compelling industry and it keeps people here.

James BenhamYeah. Absolutely. So talk to me about work comp college. What was the problem that you saw that led to this? Well, had a few things we wanted to accomplish with it. First and foremost,

Bob Wilsongraying of our industry, which we've been talking about for years, which was greatly you know, the great resignation accelerated lot of brain drain for our industry. And we're not attracting new people into our industry like we should be. We're not doing that. We wanted to do a couple of things. We wanted to improve outcomes in comp through better training that really focused, in addition to best practices in terms of managing and working with injured workers, also focusing on really what's called the human element, the biopsychosocial factors that can so often affect a claim, but have not been traditionally addressed in a training environment.

And so we really wanted we set up a program called the Workers Recovery Professional. It's a certification we created, that would do both. Essentially, it would train people as to the best practices in dealing with injured workers, but also deals with emotional intelligence and by, you know, understanding what's going on in the mind. What's proper communication? How do you say no effectively? If we have to say no, how do we do that in a proper manner? It's all really designed the theory is, of course, that we can reduce litigation if we can improve the communication and get better results and better outcomes with these injured workers.

The other thing, though, is I think we wanna really change the narrative of the industry. As I said, we don't do a good job of attracting young people to our industry. You know, I'm I'm gonna be 64 November. I'm part of the last tale of the boomer generation. When I went to school, we were taught basically, you're gonna grow up, you're gonna get a job, you're gonna support your family. If you don't like your job, suck it up and do your job. And that's pretty much the way we were raised.

Today, and generations today really don't have that or weren't raised with that philosophy. They really wanna make a difference. They wanna do something and be part of something bigger. And there's nothing wrong with that, by the way. We, you know, we make fun of generations sometimes, but there's nothing wrong with that attitude. But if you ask people outside workers' comp, I I talk a lot about how little people outside our industry actually understand this industry. If you ask them about what workers' comp is, they'll tell you that we're a stodgy paper pushing industry that's boring, heavily regulated, and all we do is manage claims.

And and the reality is if we do things right, if workers' comp, when we get it right, we're an industry that restores broken and shattered lives. Take people at some of the worst moments of their life, the lowest points of their lives, and to whatever capacity possible, restore function, quality, and a contributory role to their lives. And that is a really noble effort. And we as an industry do not talk about that. We don't market ourselves that way. So we really want to see ourselves change the narrative.

And that was the genesis that led us to start Work Comp College. Now, we've evolved a little bit. You know, we started with one program. It was one size fits all, 64 courses, fifty some hours of content. We've since developed several new programs, and we actually are now finding that those programs, we've created over 150 courses in a year and a half. And this has been a community driven effort with people coming from all over industry to help because they want to leave this industry better than they found it.

And part of that is really making sure that we can take the content we now have and customize solutions for people. We're now working with corporate onboarding programs. We're doing specialized training for certain people, sometimes just pulling classes we already have elements of. We have what's called a virtual training center, which is a standalone LMS that can handle our clients content as well as pull in certain courses through LTI, certain courses into their LMS that we manage. So we really have found ourselves shifting from just an educational company, really the phrase we use is EduTech, because we are really a technology company that happens to serve education.

We're So that's I didn't mean to go on too long there, but that's really what brought us here.

James BenhamYeah. You have some more popular LMSs that have a lot of canned content that allow you to put your own customized content, but they don't dive into the specifics of of work comp. Like, you've got I mean I mean, honestly, LinkedIn is definitely in the business of continuing education. Right? So link LinkedIn learning, but they don't they don't and they have insurance content, but they don't dive into certifications and they don't dive into work comp. And and, you know, you've got a few other platforms like that where you can use canned content plus your own and architect, you know, learning paths.

Like Udemy is another one. Right? So there there's a few of those, but really what what I what I see with with you is a is a really kind of very similar to what we have as a really myopic focus on workers' comp. And that's what you want if you're in the industry. I I want very specific content wrapped around workers' comp. Just walk me through the because you have, you know, the virtual training center. You have workers' recovery professional certification, the WRP associate certification, state education programs, you have Medicare secondary payer accreditation, you have advanced training education center.

And so you've got some really you know, you you looks like you started with one and then kind of just kept broadening out, like, all all the different things. But, I mean, what is the end result when someone goes to work on college, like, the end of the day? What do they what do they get at the end of the rainbow? Well, it it depends on on who they are. It really does. There are individuals

Bob Wilsonwho can take an individual certification course and they really get better feel. We call it Work Comp three sixty of not just understanding what they need to do to do the job properly, but where their position fits within the industry. One of the criticisms I think I've had of the industry is that we're heavily siloed. And we've dealt with people who within their own companies don't know what the People Next department that what they do. We're trying to make sure people have a better picture of where they fit within the machine that is workers' comp, and that's an important thing.

But if you're a company coming to us, and I'll give you an example, we deal with the Office of Injured Employee Council out of Texas. We have 72 ombudsman who are in our school taking that is a customized program we've developed based on courses we have. They each have they're assigned a course a month that they have to complete as ongoing training. Those, in that case, they are actually meeting state mandated requirements to training for the agency. So it really depends on what their needs are.

And that's really the same thing that has led us to start customizing solutions for people based on that, because not everybody may want a WRP certification. You mentioned the Medicare secondary payer accreditation, which is something we did in partnership with an up and coming MSP law firm, Sanderson firm. Heather Sanderson's very well known in that, in the workers' comp industry. They created the Medicare secondary payer accreditation to help people in an area that is obviously highly regulated and confusing and difficult to manage. And that has really been a really successful product for us.

So we look for partnerships as well, where we can take someone else's content, we can serve as the technology arm to make that become a reality. Yeah, Bob, I think it's really fascinating. It's great to

Rob Galbraithmeet you, hear a little bit about your background and and hear about what you're doing at at WorkCompCollege. You kind of alluded to this a little bit that, you know, you've been in WarComp for, you know, over two decades now, but yet it it sounds like you kinda see yourself still a bit of an outsider. Right? You didn't have that, like, long career to carrier TP or whatever. So I'm just kind of curious, like, what are your view of of work comp and how it's changed over the last two decades?

And then maybe, like, you talked about the brain drain. I'm just kind of curious, you know, how much is that? It's just like a a gap? Like, hey. This this, you know, tacit knowledge kinda used to get passed down, and now it's no longer there. Vis a vis, like, you know, actually, it's a maybe more dynamic industry. Like, the needs are changing, the profiles of of employment and and stuff is changing. So I'm just kind of curious, like how much is, I guess, evolution versus revolution in terms of, you know, where the the gap and the needs are that you've identified.

Bob WilsonWell, I I well, there's a lot in those couple questions that you presented. Questions a while ago. I apologize. I know. And I I've got a great memory, but it's short, so you may have to refresh me some of the some of the questions by the time we get to the end here. The industry has I wouldn't describe anything in workers' comp as a revolution, perhaps an evolution. It is not it's a very risk averse industry. And I'm sure as your audience knows, it's not the first to rush out.

There are not a lot of early adopters in the workers' comp world rushing out to try something brand new. There are some, but there are not a ton of them. So I think one of the biggest changes we've seen over the time is we've adapted. Obviously, industry has had to adapt to there is a decreasing frequency in terms of injury, which is a good thing. However, there is also an increase in severity, so that's something they've had to adapt to. And we've seen a shift when I first started in the industry, about two thirds of any claim was indemnity costs and one third was medical.

Well now it's inverse that, The medical runs about two thirds and the indemnity is one third. I have seen shifts and I think it's one that I encourage a great deal. The industry went through a lot of consolidation, particularly in the early 2000s through a lot of mergers, a lot of acquisitions, a lot of consolidation. And as a result, you had a shift away from what would be old claims management of people. You talk to old claims managers, they'll talk about stroking a check on the hood of a car, you know, to settle a claim.

They were in the injured workers' homes. Tom Glasson with AIG has a really compelling story about being in an injured worker's home, and when the wife opened the refrigerator, she only had half a gallon of orange juice. That was the only thing in there for her kids. That's stuff that can impact you when you realize that our actions mean things, that we have impact in people's lives. Today, you're in a cubicle or in your home, know, you may cover your office may cover 19 states. You never meet the people that we're dealing with.

And I think that was a shift. As a result, it wasn't anything intentional, it just was economics as companies expanded, as they merged, as they consolidated. And I think we got away from what I would consider best practices in communication. I write a blog, I don't tell people I write a blog, I haven't written as much since we started work comp college. I used to write a lot when I was with workerscompensation.com called From Bob's Cluttered Desk. And one of the things I advocated in that was that we need to rebrand ourselves.

We need to the industry people do not understand workers' compensation outside from outside the industry. They don't understand compensation, particularly in the in the way that we are statutorily defined to provide it, but that's the word they hone in on. We used to have a discussion forum on the site that was dominated by injured workers, and we would watch every week an injured worker come in with this long description, this is what happened, I got to the doctor, you know, you hear all these things. They would always end this long description with the same, very to the same question, how much will I make?

How big will my settlement be? They weren't asking, how do I make sure they're sending me to the right doctor? How do I make sure that I'm going to be able to get better and take care of my family? So I had always advocated that we should rebrand as workers' recovery. Because recovery sets a different tone for all of us in the industry, it's a reminder every day of why we're here, and it sets different expectations when you have to fill out a workers' compensation claim if you have to fill out a workers recovery claim and you're assigned a recovery specialist instead of an adjuster or claims examiner.

So I think to get now to the point of your question, I'm finally getting around to it I think, I've seen a shift back in the last few years towards more quality communication. It may be called, I call it workers recovery, it's claims advocacy. You see more discussion about it and an embracing of it. I think that's an improvement for the industry that I've witnessed in the last few years. We're seeing more and more that a recognition that these large process operations may not be the best for the outcomes that we really need to see.

I know I at least got one of your questions. I don't know about the rest of the No. I love it. Just as a follow on, I mean, sounds like that's

Rob Galbraithpart of work comp college in your focus and the emphasis you have in your coursework is that focus on communication. So number one, right, having the technical and and building your technical expertise because as you mentioned, it is a highly regulated sector of the insurance industry. I mean, all insurance is regulated to some degree. Right? But Workop in particular is highly regulated, highly highly regulated, I guess, I should say. But then, you know, the the building the empathy, right, of the the why are you doing is go beyond the technical, right, dotting the i's and crossing the t's.

Bob WilsonAbsolutely. You know, and to James earlier point about workers' comp where there he's right. No. There are a couple universities that have some workers' comp programs, but not really a full degree in the area. And I think if you look at workers' comp, it's a relatively small sector of the insurance industry. You go to a RIMS conference and those issues that deal with workers' comp are relatively few. You have to immerse yourself pretty heavily into it because I think workers' comp deserves that support. But there are not, on a broader scale, a lot of people focusing really solely on workers' comp.

James BenhamYeah. Let's let's shift to talking about technology. I mean, you started in web design just like I did, by the way. I had to build hundreds of websites before I got to build insurance software. And you've got a passion for tech. You have a role leading the tech track at WCI, which is how you and I connected. You did an amazing job with that. Why do you believe it's essential to ensure that technology has a seat at every table? And, you know, this is not always the case in insurance companies.

You know, if you if you go to like internal insurance company conferences, like for for carriers, often the CEO, COO, chief revenue officer, CFO, they'll be at the they'll be up on stage and then the CIO is down with everybody else, even though it's it's also a C level officer. For some reason, there's a so the reality is in a lot of in a lot of insurance companies, the CIO and and the tech organization literally doesn't have a seat at the table sometimes.

Bob WilsonI agree. Go ahead. Sorry. Physically,

James Benhamthey're literally not at the executive table. So so why do you believe it's essential to ensure tech has a seat at at every table? And then how does integrating tech into industry discussions influence, workers' compensation?

Bob WilsonWell, I I think it's critical, and your point is absolutely right. Not only do you have that physical disconnect, you have a disconnect as far as I've observed from C suite level executives sometimes when they're implementing new programs of what they think they've actually purchased and what they've what is actually being implemented. But yeah, I think you a disconnect today between technology and decision makers, and technology needs a seat at the table. There are some amazing things coming down the pike, as everyone who I'm sure listens to this podcast is aware.

And if you're going to utilize it properly, technology needs to have a seat at the table so that they can actually help produce the proper solutions for what companies need to have done. There are great stories about horrible implementations at times. There was, I think, North Dakota Workforce Safety and Insurance, a big story about they tried an implementation where obviously things broke down and people either didn't understand what they were getting or ended up in a lawsuit. Very expensive. Technology really didn't have a seat at that table to help determine what should be done and what was needed.

But part of that problem is, as you know, you write software for this industry. You're one of the few people, James, who actually understands some of the processes like these regulatory bodies have that not every software company understands those processes. So I think we have to bring them in, and particularly because technology is going to become so dominant. And that's another change back to one of Rob's questions is, particularly post pandemic, I'm seeing a relaxed attitude towards investigating different technology solutions. You know, prior to the pandemic, half our industry couldn't even get their own webcam to work.

Know, they just really we just didn't do that. And there's been a huge acceptance after the fact. The pandemic forced us into a mode. I think the industry did very, very well actually considering, but I think that that has opened the door to bring in more acceptance. But again, people need to plan properly in order to be able to utilize the right technologies. Did that address what you were asking, I think, James?

James BenhamAbsolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. It's you you know, I know it's 2024, and I know that technology adoption at a consumer level is is greater than it's ever been. If you just look at just the amount the amount of tools the average citizen engages with and the amount of connectivity you have, the amount of devices they have, the amount of time spent on devices, the, you know, the the tech the tooling they use has gotten far more sophisticated. We're we're starting to see this really pull in. And and I was talking about this on one of our previous shows, Bob, that, like, there used to be a pretty big distinction between an InsurTech and a legacy insurance company.

And now for me, as someone who works for a lot of these companies, building software and providing license off the shelf tools for carriers, TPAs, MGAs, some of whom claim to be Insurtechs and many of whom are legacy insurance companies that are very tech forward. Internally, the difference isn't that big anymore. Like, I, you know, I get to go to the meetings. I get to go to the boardrooms. I get to to deal with the the owners and the executives of Insurtechs and and tech forward insurance companies.

And, you know, the beautiful thing is you're really starting to see a lot of people pull it forward and say, hey. Look. They they need to be in the the in the boardroom. Tech always needs to have a a seat at the table. They need to be in all the key committees inside the company. We need to make tech centric decisions. And so I'm definitely seeing a a big change there that's been really positive. And, you know, but but not with everybody. There's definitely still folks who who view, you know, the the tech staff as order takers and

Bob Wilsonand have a have a different have a different have a different perspective on it. There's an old, line from the Simpsons, and I'm not a big Simpsons fan, but I managed to catch this one. Homer Simpson looking at his computer and he goes, oh, the Internet's on the computer now, which I have used that line periodically sometimes to describe some attitudes you find within the industry that people are, you know, it is, but it kind of summed it up. It spoke to me. It's like, oh yeah, the internet's on the computer now.

This is real. And you're right. I think there are companies, you know, it's interesting. There are companies that definitely are tech forward. There's an old saying I like, it's not the big who eat the small, it's the fast who eat the slow. And there's a lot of concern a few years ago about all these mergers and acquisitions, and people were saying, oh, we're not going to have the competition, it's going to be monopolies. And I said, no, you're going to have young upstarts who will then be able to move quickly, they'll be nimble, they'll be able to out decide these larger companies that become bigger and lethargic, and they'll start cutting inroads.

And it's a cycle that goes on. Particularly, I could mention in the MSA sector, MSP sector, there are a couple firms, law firms I can think of that are young and nimble and growing, and they're really, I think, beginning to cut share into some of these bigger companies that are out there working. But they have to understand what they're dealing with and be able to make their decisions wisely. Without, you know, if you're going use technology to do it, like you said, you've to have a seat at the table, absolutely.

Rob GalbraithYeah. So Bob, I'm thinking, you know, we're talking about the you know pace of technological change, technological integration and adoption but yeah we've also talked about you you know mentioned right this is very much an evolution not a revolution in war comp so as you think, for our our viewers and listeners, you can kinda paint a picture of kinda where you see the future of work comp going in the next five years. And and do you think it will continue to lag behind, say, some other lines of of insurance?

Or, you know, how do we how do we, I guess, reconcile, right, this desire to move faster or adopt you know, have more technological integration with kind of that slow deliberate

Bob Wilsonspeed that work comp seems to to move at? Well, I think we'll see it actually speed up. I I really do. I think the decisions will become easier because the technology is becoming so much more powerful. And the other interesting thing, and I really don't feel comfortable speaking about other lines of insurance, know, I've been in workers' comp for twenty five years now and I couldn't claim to have any expert knowledge on other lines, but it does strike me that we more than anything are a medical system as well as an insurance system as well as a legal system, and technology will really shine particularly in medical management and some of the things that are happening with the way we can treat injured workers and some of the things that are available to help injured workers.

So I think there, work comp actually has an opportunity to be a leader in adoption for some of these things because we do deal with issues that other lines of insurance do not deal with. I think what you will see is the industry will become leaner, more efficient. I do believe we will get better outcomes. I'm actually pretty optimistic about where we're going to go. I however also see probably some pretty large errors and potential flame outs on the way from mistakes. I mean we all talk about AI and artificial intelligence and all the things that it can do, and I know that somewhere out there there's a CEO somewhere who's drooling at the opportunity that they think they can get rid of all these people who manage these claims and just let AI handle it, and that will be an absolute disaster when that happens.

You know, AI without guardrails and James, this might be your phrase. I stole it from somebody. Humans in the loop. If you don't have a mhmm.

James BenhamI I I said it, but it's not mine. I definitely did not create that phrase. I I I heard it from others, but it's the most accurate way to describe what you and I obviously agree on, that that humans need to be kept in the decision making

Bob Wilsonseat. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, AI is a is a great tool, but any tool any fool with a tool is still a fool. And if they make stupid decisions or they allow the system to make decisions, I think that's gonna be a problem. And I do I think we're gonna see some stories where people will learn valuable lessons. Hopefully, they'll learn valuable lessons through the improper use of some of these technologies. But I think people who really understand what they're what they're embracing, what they're deploying will actually do very, very well.

There's some exciting things coming down the pike that I think can help our industry a great deal.

James BenhamAwesome. Well, really great conversation and really good substantive conversation around education, continued education, the future of work comp. So I really appreciate you joining us. Again, if you want more information, Bob Wilson obviously has a a great LinkedIn presence, but he also is really active at workcompcollege.com. Is there any other any other place they should go to find that information about you? No. I I think that would do it. I think you can go to workcompcollege.com.

Bob WilsonI will put in a quick chant a plug for kids chants you mentioned earlier, which is a great operation that provides scholarships for kids who have a parent who has been seriously injured or killed on the job. I'm on the board of directors of Kids Chance of America, a wonderful organization. So you can you can find out more about me there. I'm sure I got a bio on their site. But, really, no, WorkCompCollege.com or LinkedIn is a great place. Yep. And thank you. I do appreciate the opportunity today.

Glad to have you on the show, and thank you to all our listeners

James Benhamfor tuning in today to geek out for our interview with Bob Wilson from workcompcollege.com. From Rob Galbraith and myself, this is the InsurTech Geek Podcast. See you next time. The InsurTech Geek Podcast is all about technology that's transforming and disrupting the insurance world. I've been your host, James Benham. That's jamesbenham.com with co host Rob Galbraith at endofinsurance.com. We're taking you on a journey through insurance tech, so enjoy the ride and geek out.