How Tech is Powering the Modern Agent in Licensing, Launching, and Leveling Up

James BenhamOn this episode of the InsurTech Geek podcast, we're talking about how tech is powering the modern agent in licensing, launching, and leveling up with Brett Fulmer from Newport Beach Insurance Center. 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. Terra, this week's episode sponsor, is revolutionizing the world of workers' compensation claims and policy management.

Terra's cutting edge platform empowers insurers with comprehensive benchmarking tools, robust management systems, and an integrated ancillary services marketplace. Discover how Terra is driving innovation and efficiency in workers' comp at terra.insure. That's T E R R A dot I N S U R E. And we are back. Another great episode of the InsurTech Geek podcast. With me, of course, I'm James Binnam, your host, the InsurTech Geek. With me, my illustrious cohost, Rob Galbraith, the most interesting man in insurance. Rob, how's it going, buddy?

Rob GalbraithIt's going well, James. I'm excited for this, episode with, our guest, Brett Fulmer, because he's one of the the OGs of InsurTech. We'll get into some of those stories, but, go back a ways. And, Yeah, he's got a lot of experience. I'm really excited to to have him on and looking forward to the discussion today. And how San Antonio is the the pollen popping out there? The pollen is popping for sure. We've gotten rain, which is good, but now we have humidity, which is really bad, especially because I've been doing a lot of outdoor projects as we prep the house for sale.

So yeah, it's not good, but it could be worse. It could be worse. I mean, at least it's still just in the 80s here, not the hundreds yet. So yeah. Ain't it funny when you go to sell a house that like you do all the projects you've been meaning to do? My wife hates it. My wife hates it. Said that she has said that we've been in this house ten years and she's like, I don't wanna wait till last minute and fix all this crap

James Benhamfor the next person. And that's kind of what we're doing. It's exactly what you're doing. So here here's here's the the life lesson for everybody listening. Just do your whole punch list now. Just right now. Just do your list. Just do the list. That way you can actually enjoy it before you sell the house. So I was well, I I love I love my house. Like it when it got built in o seven, I kind of like watched it and watched it and watched it. And then the guy who built it, the builder who built it moved into it.

And then he finally went, put it up for sale and I bought it in 2019. So I've been there six years and someone was like, well, this this would have like really good. If you do this has really good resale value and I just looked at them and said I don't want to move. Don't talk to me about resale value. I don't care. I'm fixing this stuff because I live here every day and I I this is like this is the house I always wanted. So just don't don't talk to me.

I don't care. I don't care about resale value. I'm putting a pickleball court in, so I'm actually like really excited. Nice, nice. So I I have a small little concrete pad. I'm expanding it to just be big enough to pull off a a game of pickleball.

Brett FulmerSo I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm a little geeked out about it. You know? It's it's an exciting moment for me. With me, Broker Brett. What's going on, Brett? What's up, guys? I was just excited to come on and bug you. Yeah. I broke the news before I hit recording that, you know, have her first kiddo potentially, like, next week. Due dates in, like, five days. So I thought I'd do a little pod circuit then go in the baby cave, say hi to everybody, and then disappear from the world for a little while.

Nice.

James BenhamSo you're doing a little little baby dealing.

Brett FulmerYeah. We're

James BenhamLittle baby broker Brett. Little little

Brett Fulmerb b b coming out. Somebody's calling him a broker baby. You know? Broker baby? Nice.

James BenhamSo

Brett Fulmeryou don't know what the gender is. Right? You're you're like, you're it's like a wait and see. We're gonna be surprised kinda thing. Right? Just like insurance. You know? It's for the you know, enjoy the randomness and the outcomes, and we don't know what's coming. Yeah.

Rob GalbraithI wore the mint green just for you. Right? Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. That's not exactly

James BenhamYou gotta get all the neutral colors. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you gotta yeah. It it it's all good. I mean, you should do, like, the color party, but, like, do it like, do something, like, super viral. Like, the second the baby comes out, you, like, pop a blue or a pink cannon in the room. Not just like, I'm gonna do that here. You're like, I don't care. TikTok for the You do a color reveal during live birth. I'm mad at it. Just

Rob Galbraithdon't just don't, you know, stream online and say you're there for the unboxing.

James BenhamThey probably won't go over there. Yeah. That would be that would not be great. I get a little bit of trouble with that one with the yeah. Hey. You never yeah. Depends depends on who your significant other is there. So Yeah. It might could be good, could be bad. You never know. Be eventful. Well, having I was present for both of my daughter's births. You know, they're they're now 18 and 15. So it's I'm on the and then, of course, Rob's even a little farther along than I am.

Rob, what were the ages on yours again? I forgot. Yeah. So my oldest is gonna be 24 three weeks, and then 20 year old and 15 is our youngest and just signed her up for driving school. So it happens fast. Brett happens fast. It does, yeah. So we have the same youngest age and I was I remember that, but I knew he was a few years ahead of me on the top end and. Oh, it flies by, but I tell you what, it is nice when they can get do their own errands.

Like, this particular they're both they're both applying for work and jobs and stuff, and, you know, it's, it's it's exciting times for for everybody. Well, Brett, are you in are you in Newport Beach? Are you in California right now? Costa Mesa. So just kind of above Newport. And then Five five minutes away. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, we're super spoiled.

Brett FulmerFun place to do business. Cool clientele, a lot of small lot more small business than you'd think kind of Orange County too, which is kind of fun to to be around.

James BenhamSo there's two places that if I lived in California, would live. One is Carlsbad. Mhmm. Because I love Carlsbad. The other one is Newport Beach slash Costa Mesa because I Uh-huh. I had a I had a large client of mine for a few years out there. We had this big, big project that we eventually finished. Cool. Was an insurance. It was it was a really cool insurance project. And and so I got to go there a lot, like, a lot a lot. And I would stay right on the beach.

Mhmm. There's like a there's like a Baja Sharkey's or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where Newport Beach is. And then it goes right across is like a like a ocean's prime or something. I forgot what it's called. Ocean twelve or ocean ocean twenty one. Oceanfront twenty one. Whatever whatever that restaurant is above it is like a little B and B Mhmm. Right there on the on the beach, right there on the water. I just, like, loved staying there. Newport Beach is super cool. Costa Mesa is super cool.

There are a ton of small businesses there. Oh, yeah. Like, around the airport, there's a ton of business parks right around the the John Wayne Airport. Like, just

Brett Fulmerjust you know, it's gotta be great target rich environment for a good broker. That and then it's kinda like a salty, conservative, small business, cash flow in, making a bunch of money, still driving a pickup truck. You know, I could see why you'd like the neighborhood too, kind of the whole, you know, be your own VC vibe as well. So

James BenhamYeah. It is. There's a lot of, like, bootstrapped entrepreneurs out there. And, you know, of course, being a being a fiscally conservative capitalist, I would definitely I definitely I definitely appreciate Orange County a whole lot. So it's, that's awesome. Well, we're glad to have you on the show. Let's, let's just, you know, kinda remind everybody what you do and, you know, really how you got to where you're doing what you're doing right now because you you know, at least from the last time I looked at your your LinkedIn, this whole journey started about a decade and a half ago.

And and you you started you you actually got a a bachelor's from Cal State Fullerton in comparative religions, which is absolutely nothing like what you're doing right now. Yeah. Although you you could argue that insurance is a faith and belief system. Yeah. True. True. Tell me when you were growing up, what'd you wanna do when you're growing up and why'd you study that in college?

Brett FulmerWell, full transparency, Edge LA County, working blue collar plus neighborhood, which was awesome, multi ethnic. Actually, I will tell one story I'm typically not supposed to tell. Then I got another funny story for Rob later from 2018 ITC. But when I was a little kid, I joked around about wanting to be the butler on Fresh Prince Bel Air because I think that knew that was a rich neighborhood. My mother's like, Don't tell your father that. What is that? What are you talking about? So that was always a funny one.

Then I think I want to be an architect, but honestly, like a good salesman, not like a random neighborhood, but I would say got into more mischief around the neighborhood. I was more preoccupied with that and sports and school was just something I did. And then comparative religions at Cal State Fullerton was awesome, best grades of my life, read, write, and think. 20 person major, 20 person minor at a 35,000 person school. It was just fun. I think similarly with the forever game that is insurance, just diving into weird things and going deep, and it was cool.

It was a great place to kinda read, write, and think. You know, I got that degree, made the folks happy, and, was proud of myself too. I grew up I don't mention this often, but ADD and dyslexia was always in and out of RSP classes. You know, high school guidance counselor even said, like, college wasn't gonna be an option, and my parents were like, let's go get a new counselor. So just that that stubbornness that it takes to get things done in the world. Yeah.

James BenhamBut, you know, it's really great to study a lot of different things. Yeah. I'm gonna see that in general. Like, I I got a degree in accounting and master's in information systems, but I loved studying accounting. It was really interesting. I didn't intend to be an accountant. I just wanted to learn how business worked. And, I think that, you know, studying a lot of different things can really, you know, a vast variety of topics to make you a more well rounded person. My my I announced this on a previous show.

My daughter got into NYU and in the theater in the theater program. And so it's super exciting. She wants to be on Broadway. And she's been in a boarding school for the last two years for musical theater. And I said, look. Even if the, you know, the the the chances of you getting on Broadway are, like, you know, like, one tenth of 1%. So just remember that. Like, it's the same chances as somebody getting in the NFL. It's really hard. It's, like, really insanely difficult. You know?

So just just keep that in mind. But this education is going to make you wonderful at presenting and speaking and selling. And, like, you know, act actors are their own self employed business people. They, you know, they have their own LLCs. They run their own shop. They you know, like, the it's it's it's a business. They're entrepreneurs. They have to hustle and grind and sell. And so I said, look. This is gonna make you a killer salesperson. So and she's got the temperament. So I said, if you ever decide to go to insurance, just let me know because because, you know, you've got a lucrative career waiting for you in a in a in a big industry that's gonna value your your ability to present and and perform on demand.

You know, that's a big that's a big deal. So I think I think there's lot of value to that. So what what what

Brett Fulmerdo you do now and kinda what got you there? So I have a funny story from hanging out with Rob, like, February, and I think I can kinda tie all this together. So right now, I have my own retail agency that's kind of a test kitchen, work with some technology clients, and then a lot of just main street. Like, I have a a realtor buddy that's always sending me flip fix and flips, things like that. So I got my retail agency, Recruit for Smart Choice. And so help agents go from, you know, zero to one policy, you know, all day every day, then help some large ones kinda have better carrier relationships, manage that.

And then I've always enjoyed just hanging out with startups because they opened the door. You know? They were the InsurTech's ones that gave me, you know, access to product where I didn't realize that'd be a hurdle. It's been super fun just kinda regularly leveling up and then having friends, you know, founders as buddies that I can kinda be a feedback machine to. But then just try to support in general because you don't just always wanna be pushing your own kinda bag or buddies. You know, just kinda generally try to be helpful through insurance nerds or, you know, the other cool platforms we have.

It's been awesome.

James BenhamThat's great. And what kinda what kinda landed you there from

Brett Fulmerthe the early days career wise? So my dad was a commissioned salesman, scratch golfer, commissioned salesman, sold relocation logistics services, German English Scottish, like, very cool. And then my mom's Mexican from East LA. She's fun. I joke with a Mexican mom. She's out there yelling at you or buying you presents. There's no middle ground. They're never indifferent. I saw sales as a route to small business ownership, and small business ownership is a way to get, like, as independent as possible. You gotta recognize if you don't pay your taxes, the government will take your house or something.

But it's about as close as to free as you can get, so that's why I think I lean towards sales even though I'm I'm a pretty good salesman. I think my dad, my little brother, some others, I'm like, they're definitely better true salesman, but proficient enough. But, yeah, it's always just the independence chase. And then when I saw for insurance, you can compete with a laptop. I mean, it's pretty amazing. And the the counter to that's also trouble too that anybody can compete with a laptop, so it's a crowded field.

And it is a sleeper kinda game too. Like, you think it's not competitive or you think it's sleepy, and you don't realize how deep the relationships are, you know, how little people wanna work on it, the chances of something renewing and, like, trying to flip a client. In a past life, I did relocation logistics sales in Downtown LA, and I moved a bunch of households too. So you're smart, James, for not wanting to move. It's, like, one of the most stressful things people can go through.

But when I saw you could get paid every year, I didn't have to manage a crew. I didn't have to do collections. It looked awesome. And I do think it is one of those industries for the most part. You kinda gotta go get beat up, see how the world works a little bit, and then you're like, oh, like, I can be helpful to people if I do this right, and I can make an annuitized incredible income stream. Like, okay. You know, let's go check that out.

James BenhamThat's awesome. That's awesome. Rob?

Rob GalbraithYeah, Brett. So I'm thrilled to have you on. I can't believe we've been doing this for a long time. We haven't had you on as a guest before. So, love having you on. I know you've done a ton of podcasts with insurance nerds, that's actually kind of how we first met. So, yeah, I know you kind of mentioned you teased at the twenty eighteen ITC, you were kind of instrumental in helping me in terms of launching the book, The End of Insurance as You Know It in early twenty nineteen.

So

Brett FulmerI definitely wanna have you tell that story for our audience. So I got two stories. One, told while driving a car with Tony that I don't know ever got hit the airwaves, but don't think I've told it besides that. Then, Rob, I wanna like dovetail it there. So like seven years ago now, technically, I haven't had a w two in seven years. A friend recruited me to something, ended up being like three hours of commuting. It was this like HR supplemental benefits product that kinda wasn't ready.

Got let go. He ends up putting like a scathing, like, letter in the notes. And at the time, I've been working in a restaurant a little bit, so I just levered up on bartending and basically haven't had a day job since. Similarly, I had a Toyota Prius at the time and it was having oil issues or something, and I didn't wanna steal my wife's car. So I took a bus from Orange County to Vegas, not realizing that it went to LA first and then San Bernardino, and then Vegas is like ten hours.

Ironically, while I'm on this bus trip, article I wrote a couple weeks before, maybe months before about APIs got posted on insurance nerds. That led to a bunch of different opportunities just from taking the time to deep dive on a topic. But the funniest thing was the bus ticket was $12 My room at Fremont Street was $60 and then this happy hour I ended up treating for was $180 It had Abel Travis, Rob was there, John Siegman, Bob Frady was there, Tony. It was like, oh, gee, like early, early.

And it's funny, the way I can kinda date myself in Insurtech is the Insurtech with the e versus without the e battle back in the day was like sneakily a big deal. And then so there were guys ahead of us for sure. Then there's like prehistoric Insurtech, I'll call it. But it is funny to be kind of one of the the old heads of the the circle now. And then the other story I was gonna tell was, so Rob had a day job at the time, and he cleared everything with the day jobs.

Said, hey, I'm working on this project. I'm gonna write this book. It's gonna be helpful. Like, go for it. Awesome. So I filmed like a promo video with Rob and Tony that, again, he had prior auth, but once they got out there, the day job wasn't as happy with him and it kinda led him on his own little independent journey. So it's just funny to look back at that. Yeah.

Rob GalbraithYeah. Filming on the streets down right on the strip outside. We had the the natural, you know, environment going on, everything. You did a great job with that. You're a man of many talents.

Brett FulmerIt's yeah. Sorry.

James BenhamYeah. No. It's okay. So let's let's talk about technology that you're really geeked out about because I I I always like really understanding first off, you know, you know, you're being plugged into so many parts of the industry and you're wearing a lot of hats, including, like, an agency owner, PNC network recruiter, startup. Like, you have you have a few hats that you put on. Like, what what do you what do you most because you're because of your active involvement in the insurance industry as an industry professional, like, what are you most excited about innovation wise that you think is materially changing these right now?

Not that's gonna potentially change thing, but that's that really is is changing the game right now. I would just say from a few recent meetings,

Brett Fulmerit's kinda crazy what AI is doing for building software, but you still have to have eyes on it. You still have to vet it. And then I always try to remind insurance agents, like, it's still your ENO. You know, you can fire up all these cool tools. You can sign up for whatever. But at the end of the day, there's an issue related to the client, like, it's your livelihood. So, you know, buyer beware. And then we could do this as like a PSA to all the AI startups.

Don't talk about AI. Don't say AI. Just tell me what it does. You know? And the other interesting thing is if you start thinking about it like BPO or business process outsourcing or AI, you look at like how it helps sort of the chain of activity. So you start thinking about them almost like another person or like a business entity is its own thing. The AIs are almost their own thing. Where do they fit? How do they participate? Am I gonna get anybody to leave their two screens for a third?

Probably not. So it's just really interesting. And being a latchkey kid, salesman, entrepreneur, like, don't think the personal touch is going anywhere, but we're all getting powered by it. You know? And I'm trying not to say the cliche thing about, you know, AI won't replace a person, but a person with AI will replace a person not using it. Try not to say that because that's been said a lot, but it's pretty interesting time. Yeah.

James BenhamIt is. I mean, it's certainly yeah. We're we're deploying AI across the whole enterprise pretty heavily. I I use the snot out of it, but it is it it it is a it is a tool that I'm finding more and more useful every day among many. Right?

Rob GalbraithRob? Yeah. So, Brett, I'm gonna kind of ask a dreaded three part question here. So I'll I'll pause. I'll I'll give you a prompt for each one. I won't hit you with all three at once. But, you know, what's cool about having you on is you've got this experience right from the agent broker side of things. And I know you work with a lot of agency and broker tech. You mentioned earlier, right, about the product side of it, right? And so you want to represent companies, want to have a product suite, you got to have stuff you got to sell.

So it's not just about making your life easier in terms of the agent broker role, but then also having the product. And I know you can get into kind of some specialty or what's the market like, what's resonated, what's not. And then you've been an advisor for many startups like kind of over the years. Would love to kind of just get your thoughts on what you've seen. One of the things I think is you keep it real with those guys, right? You're not just there to kind of pat them on the back and whatnot.

So would love to hear a little bit of stories with that, but let's start. So again, those three parts right there. So let's just start on the agency broker tech side of things first before we go on. So what are you seeing? I feel like in those early days that you kind of mentioned there really wasn't a lot of it was kind of about disert intermediation replacing. There's obviously been a pivot. I think it's happened over the last three to four years. You see BrokerTec Ventures and others out there.

So what have you kind of seen over the years and where do you think the state of kind of agency broker tech is today?

Brett FulmerYeah. You know, TechCrunch disrupts, you know, disremediation. Insurtech was the enemy at first, which I get if you kinda had, like, a, like, a molehill to protect, but I didn't have a book of business. I didn't have you know, I wasn't worried about the IA channel being under attack because I wasn't established and, you know, barely could land a job, you know, around personal lines. People need help. Above $400 personal, above 1,200 commercial was kind of what we've seen. I think there are two ten thousand pound gorillas in our industry that I think generally build good tools.

I use one of them, but they've kind of absorbed some of the client facing workflow tools. I also think you're gonna have to meet agents in their own kinda kunky, clumbersome way. Like, they're not changing too much. So the best tools I've seen complement how we act naturally and maybe kinda get our information to us easier versus, you know, that third screen is kinda the death nail for any concept that's not fluid for the day to day. So you kinda gotta meet agents in their flow.

And then I think we touched on it. And then in regards to helping the founders, you know, it's funny. I realized just kinda being upbeat, kinda being a good locker room guy, kind of a good sixth, seventh man off the bench, and then being a little bit of PR. You know, the broker Brett thing was a fun happy accident. It started because I couldn't get my friends to fill out paperwork. So it's like backslash home, backslash auto. And then I did know that like, I thought it was a cool way to kinda keep contacts, attached to me versus with the agency and versus, like, in that agency's inbox.

Nothing wrong with them. I mean, it's a very decent job. You know, the owners kinda tweaked my paycheck, I kinda went elsewhere. But yeah, it was just a way to connect, have initiative, build lists, connect with people. I read the book Never Eat Alone fifteen years ago, and another friend said, it's funny to say it, it's either people or money, or if you could have both, that's great. But I knew I didn't really have a big bankroll. So I think I've always been kinda gathering, you know, people and doing mind share kinda concepts.

But, yeah, I love my founder buddies. It's been super fun. You know, Ali gave me a great compliment from Feneo. He said I was like a little mini CEO in The United States. That's why he called me. What was I? I forgot. But, you know, then Stewart from Marvel has been awesome to work with. Lance from Juniper Labs. You know? Yeah. It's been great. Toby and Tony just raised some money for one fort. You know? So tell me a little bit about the product side of things.

Have

Rob Galbraithyou seen it where Where are people resonating from a startup standpoint where kind of those more traditional carriers really have it as in the personal lines space, commercial lines space, hard to place, E and S. Maybe you can give me a sense for where you feel like it's resonated the most.

Brett FulmerWell, I thought Stuart did a great job with Marble that got acquired by the Zebra. One of my cheats when I'm organized and caught up is to pay attention to fintech and then pay attention to consumer packaged goods, and that's gonna land more on the personal line side of the house and look for that fluidity. I don't think I'm giving away any trade secrets here. It was interesting realizing the carriers have what they call, like, a platform side of this house and then agent distribution, and they'll kinda turn on those floodgates depending on how the market's looking and capacity at different times.

So it's interesting to kinda quietly watch them, how they'll sort of go out in the world through one tech enablement versus the agent channel. You know, and I think they're generally providing good services, no judgment. It's just interesting to pay attention. And then on the commercial side of the house, it's pretty low hanging fruit. Clients just wanna be able to get to their policies. They wanna stay organized, and I could do better at it. If you can pre fill stuff, if you can make it feel like an easy fintech operation, they're gonna be happy.

If they can get to the docs without bugging you, they're going to be happy. But at the end of day, they want to be able get ahold of you. I think that's still paramount and the most important thing.

Rob GalbraithThen Brett, you mentioned a little bit about your founder buddies and hanging out with some of these Intertechs. Tell me about like, are you giving them your kind of personal experience in the agent broker space? Are you connecting them with some of the clients of yours directly? Are you just kind of other folks in your network kind of I know there's folks out there that are probably advising Intritex or may have been approached by Intritex startups on advising. They may not know exactly like, is this something I want to do or not?

What do they need from me? Obviously, common is just to kind of leverage your connections, right? And all that, but kind of going maybe beyond that, I would love you to kind of share, what are the types of questions they're asking from you and what type of help do you provide? Yeah, a 100%.

Brett FulmerIt's kind of evolved a little bit. My classic three rules were always, like, trust and like the founder because life is short if you don't trust and like them. Like, see the tech working somewhere else but not on insurance yet, which used to kinda be easier and then believe the team's capable. And then I also joke around about three free dates. You're not trying to like right off the bat because you also have to see if they have legs or what the back and forth is gonna be like.

Because we talk to work people as much or more than our own family at times. It's gonna be a long journey. There's gonna be ups and downs. So trust is huge. Sharing resource is huge. Hopefully, the founder's kinda making you look good. One of the bad signs can be if they're kinda like pulling everything towards themselves really early, it's hard to kinda feed your crew for the whole journey. Business savvy right now to, you know, James classic point, like, gotta stay alive and make money today.

I'm trying to think what else kind of around your question. So go so I was a psychology major in community college before comparative religion at Cal State Fullerton. I kinda got distracted. I think it was a psychology today thing, but they said if there's less than four positives for every negative comments, people won't wanna hang out with you. And if there's more than 11 positives for every one negative, people think you're psychotic or you're crazy. And then there's also the other theory that everyone thinks they do the dishes all the time.

So I'm always trying to earn points. I don't know if it's because, like, a good commission salesman father, you know, he's always ranking us, but I feel like everyone thinks they're always doing the dishes kind of thing. So I just try to be helpful. I try to help founders, try to help buddies, make introductions, not keep score, and, like, literally have four times the points that I'll ever need to ask. Like James, for instance, he's been awesome. And, like, couple times I pinged him just for an intro or an ask, he's like, hey.

Here you go. But hopefully try to bring value your way, get you on insurance nerds, you know, just try to, like, fill up those coffers. Plus, it's a lot of smart, nice people. It's such a happy accident career. Some of the nicest, smartest, most ambitious people I've found have been in our game, and I feel fortunate to stumble across it. Yeah.

James BenhamAnd there's a remarkable density of talent here.

Brett FulmerIt's and it's a long game. Like, the carpetbaggers or the people who think they can come in like, oh, we figured out RPA is cool. How can I throw it at insurance? It's like easy coming to go.

James BenhamI them swooping seagulls. They they you should appreciate that being in Newport Beach. But Yeah. Mesa bit. They come in, they swoop in, they poop on your head, and they they try and come eat your food and then they leave. It's a this is my twenty first year in insurance and and you know working for TPA's carriers MGA's. You know it was a PBM that brought me to Newport Beach, by the way. So I learned the I learned the pharmacy. I had no idea how complex the PBM pharmacy benefit management space was and work comp super complicated.

And you know the one one of the things I I appreciate a lot about about about the industry, but I I also appreciate there's like an infinite level of complexity. Like there's never an end. To understanding things. Like like, whenever I think I understand a corner, like, I just got my first two health, life, and disability clients in the last two years. And I was like, oh my god. This is a this is a there's like a whole other side of the house. Like, there's there's a lot here I didn't know.

And then you make how much on commissions? I'm like, man, that's incredible. You know? I think, yeah, find out there's just a there's there's just infinite complex complexity and infinite challenges everywhere you look, which is really fun. There's, like, a lot of smart people trying to solve it at the same time. So I think that's that's something that that's super appealing to a problem solver. If you were like me and you're a Lego kid when you're when you're when you're young, you like to build things right To your point, like, so I'm property

Brett Fulmercasualty, life health, and I helped a life insurance startup come to The US from Canada, then some friends who do supplemental benefits, realized I was licensed in all 50 states. I've helped out with enrollments for supplementals, done group benefits, done life, commercial, personal. I really like the professional lines around tech companies. That's probably my favorite place to play, but yeah, it's different. And since we're getting nice and nerdy on this, I always think of property casualty like building a wall and you grab different coverages to cover the nut we have to protect versus life to health.

Life and health feels like circles on top of each other and kinda overlapping. It's interesting. They're apples and oranges, but, you know, similar and different.

James BenhamYeah. But but but it's all just a bunch of fruit. You know, it it it it is. I mean, you it is overlapping circles between life, health, and disability. Right? Like, it's a it's a it's a very it's a very different space. And and technologically speaking, we're dealing with very different tech, like, underlying technology platforms that underneath them. Although there's a lot of similar component based technology, we've had to we've had to learn the different systems and integrations, and it it's it's definitely, again, infinite complexity complexity, infinite challenges.

It's been it's been fun to have to learn.

Brett FulmerOh, sorry. Go ahead, Brett. And Rob might have on this. Not to get too rabbit holy, but I feel like property casualty tried to, like, put systems around it, like Guidewire, Duck Creek, and get all their old Cobalt servers working. And then life health just, like, started with, like, clean new stacks. It's been funny too to even see how, like, the two worlds have attacked this transformation problem. Sairava jumped in.

Rob GalbraithNo. No. No. I think that's a fascinating observation. I actually kind of agree. What is the equivalent of a Guidewire in the live space? I don't know that we really know that or not. And then I feel like a lot of the life has been kind of more the simple stuff, right? The term life or accident type insurance rather than a whole life, right, that has an investment side of it or whatnot. I also wonder if health maybe more like large commercial, whatever word is more like, Hey, you need that intermediate, you need the agent broker, right?

You always hear more particular in the life side than the P and C side, right? Insurance is sold, not bought. And I know that's a big problem, right? Just a lot of people are kind of wrestling with is just the demand side of things on the life insurance side. Yeah, just kind of, I guess winding up, Brett, like, there any overarching lessons that you guess you would say from kind of all your years as a, you're in the trenches, you're working on both sides, right? With kind of traditional side and the startup side, but yet you also, I feel like have this unique position where you just talk to a lot of people, whether or not you're kind of personally involved in what's going on.

You just like people, you're interested in people, you're interested in what's going on or whatever. So I would love maybe kind of some high level thoughts on where we've been and where we're going on the Intrutech side. I

Brett Fulmercan go a little heady to wrap this up and tie it back to comparative religions. Love it. When you talk to different people, you get their vantage point. I always think like you you get a little bit too deep and weird. And my wife's actually home today, so she's gonna overhear me being weird on this podcast. But like if God was this like big beautiful crystal down in the middle, you know, the earth we're all looking at, we all have kind of a different angle. So I can get, you know, Rob's view.

I can get James' view. I can get and it's no different with business or anything else. You're kinda like combining all these different vantage points. And it's really cool. Like, there's a lot of smart, nice, gifted people who academically, professionally crushed it. And it's really cool to kind of bend their ear and hear how they're attacking things to potentially bring it full full circles. We're about to have our first kiddo. Those people skills, you know, where it's service industry, playing sports, resilience. Technology is awesome. It's gonna make our life easier.

It's gonna help our clients, our customers, our coworkers. But at the end of the day, we're all just kinda on the journey together. So I think finding people, you know, you like being around, you wanna spend time with, and you can kinda go through ups and downs. Like, that's what it's all about. Yeah.

Rob GalbraithThe human element. Yeah. I think so. Hopefully, it's not going anywhere. Podcast. Yeah. Still still can't get past the human element. Right?

James BenhamYeah. The people are the people are everything. It's a you know, I spent a long time in construction, fundamentally seventeen years, building software there as well. And and there was a ton of overlap with insurance, obviously, because there's a a a just a crapload of insurance in the construction. I mean, that's it's a high risk activity. So there's there's, you know, builders risk insurance and subdefault insurance, and then there's, you know, a a ton of work comp and high hazard work comp. And then you have, you know, general liability and then cyber.

They they get cyberattack too. So I mean, just know, it's a it probably a a dream for a broker because, I mean, they're gonna buy a lot of stuff and and including all the surety bonds if you're if you're a surety guy. So one one thing that was, like, really cool in construction is that they build a physical product, but they don't have as I I I don't feel like they have as much time for a lot of the relationship building because they work six hours they work six days a week, ten hours a day building things.

Like, it's a really it's a it's a it's a high pressure, high stress, low margin business. Insurance is is different because we they take they take incredible amounts of risk. You know, the entire thing can turn on a dime with things that are completely outside your control. Right? You know? But there is more time for relationship building, just because it's not a it's not a six day a week, twelve hour a day job. It's just not. Like, it's just not yeah. There's and so you end up with, you know?

And and you and and really, you're touching every industry on the planet. So you you end up having to be good at a whole lot of different industries. And so I I I think there's just a there's a lot to like in in both spaces. I think what what I why I decided to dedicate two decades to the past decades to insurance and then the next two because I'm I'm committed for this for at least twenty five more years. Because that's kind of, like, my personal window and when I'd like to work until.

And I kinda you know, I had a I had a really kind of a sad event recently. Really close friend of mine, Skip Brechtel, who is a great mentor, was on the show twice. He passed away. A few weeks ago, we we had his funeral, and there were about 300 insurance people flew in from all over the country to see Skip. Like, it was incredible. He worked until his last until three days before he passed away because he late stage terminal cancer, leukemia. And he he was giving presentations until, like, three days before he passed away.

Like like and so I I I kind of, like, sunset all my horizons on when I wanna stop working. So I like, no. I wanna go out like Skip. Like, I wanna go out. Like, I wanna work until I'm done. And and I wanna I wanna have meetings until I remember, like, one of his last times he met with me goes, yeah. We got a lot he goes, you got a lot to do. I've set everything up. We've done handoff meetings. Like, he literally did handoff meetings before he died.

He goes, don't mess it up. And I was like, oh my gosh. That you are this is a lot of pressure. But, like, it was that important to him. Like, he he had this legacy work wise that he wanted to leave and he wanted people to carry on his vision. And, so that kind of recalibrated my my hopes. But he was definitely an InsurTech geek. Go back and listen to his episodes, man. Dude, he was innovating from day one in insurance thirty years ago. I mean, he you know, insurance all star and, work comp all star, insurance all star, and, you know, innovated every single day.

He geeked out every single day. So, there there's that's one thing I really appreciate about insurance, why I'm excited, of course, why it's always good to catch up with you and hear hear how things are going over in your world. Because, you know, I think we all have a lot of runway left and a lot of interesting things and interesting problems we can tackle. The reality is in insurance, there's a there's just a lot of problems that haven't been solved yet. I mean, a lot of problems that haven't been solved yet.

So let's go. Let's go. Let's go tackle them. Brett, anything to close out with my friend?

Brett FulmerNo. I just appreciate to your point. I mean, was twenty eighteen when met Rob in person. I'm about to turn 40 on Saturday than our first baby's due on Sunday. So I'm joking that we'll just smash together a midlife crisis and a baby all the same weekend. I'm not going anywhere. My wife's one rule is I just can't do anything that's not insurance. So I can go hog wild on startups and retail and wholesale, but, you know, not out of this game yet and looking forward to seeing what we get into.

James BenhamAwesome.

Rob GalbraithRob, any closing comments? No. No. It's just awesome to have you on. Brett, if you guys don't follow Brett on Instagram, he's got some pictures, some some really good food too. He's a good grill. He loves to grill. He's a Well, I the show. Are you, a Traeger smoker guy? Are you, like, a green egg person? Are you, just straight charcoal? What's your what's your poison? My scrappy persona, man. I like to keep it, you know, rugged. The Weber kettle got me got me going about ten years ago.

I got one for my 20 birthday

Brett Fulmerand just kinda got me addicted. And then my wife was in grad school during COVID. That got me really into cooking too, just holding down the fort while she was buried in books. So it's fun, similar to the sales chase, cooking, running, building business. To your friend who had passed, and sorry to hear, just skinning the game, doing things you care about, building things. It's fun. I don't Yeah. Just building things make things happen, you know, whether it's food, running, or a company, like, just trying to be great, whatever you're touching.

Yeah.

James BenhamAwesome. Well, thanks a bunch. Thanks always to all of our listeners out there as well for listening into and geeking out to another episode of the InsurTech Geek podcast. This has been James Benham, your InsurTech Geek, Rob Galbraith, most interesting man in insurance, and broker Brett. It's Brett Fulmer, soon to be a daddy. Congrats again. Let's go. And, hey. Let's go LFG, baby. Time to it's a it's a different phase alive, brother. Have a good morning. Gotta go up. Let's go. Exactly. Exactly. Thanks for tuning in to geek out today, and we'll see you next episode.

The InsurTech geek podcast is all about technology that's transforming and disrupting the insurance world. And your host, James Benham. That's jamesbenham.com with cohost Rob Galbraith at endofinsurance.com. We're taking you on a journey through insurance tech, so enjoy the ride and geek out.