Brain Surgery, Not Assembly Lines: How Builders Mutual Is Rethinking AI in Claims

James BenhamAnd we are back with another great episode of the InsurTech Geek podcast. I am your host, the InsurTech Geek, James Benham. With me, the most interesting man in insurance, my good friend and illustrious cohost, Rob Galbraith. Rob, how are you doing? Doing well, James. Doing well, James. We are, recording

Rob Galbraithjust ahead of the World Cup semis, so, some interesting football in the next week.

James BenhamYeah. Like the game where the foot is actually used to strike the ball. Yeah. More than, like, once every fifteen minutes. Very exciting. I... As a kid who just played soccer growing up, I thoroughly enjoyed this. I was a goalkeeper my whole childhood, and then, then played in my twenties for a while as a defender. Got tired of being the last guy in the back. So definitely, definitely appreciate the game. Rob, did you play? Did your kids play?

Rob GalbraithI did play, and, my kids played. Nobody was super good. They all got my soccer skills, which was very, limited. And, I distinctly remember I played right back because I could not dribble. I could not score. Our team was actually pretty good in high school. I was the only kid on our team that did not score because sometimes when we got way ahead, right? We put the defenders, the striker and things like that. So, yes, somehow, I did not score, but I could kick the ball a long way and I could run into people.

So I guess those were the qualities needed for the right back. Yeah. For a long time, it's kind of weird in The United States. I feel like I feel like soccer slash football.

James BenhamLike, more kids playing it with, you know, less, you know, the the the most insignificant historically of a professional league until the last ten years. It was kinda a weird dichotomy because, like, everybody played it. You know, a lot of people played soccer growing up, and then you had this very small professional league. Now MLS has blown up. I mean, they're... You know, they... This turned into a real deal. They have a they have a cup with Mexico and, you know, in Canada, and then we got, like, a 27 or 29 teams now, real stadiums.

I mean, we got we got a legit pro league now, which, of course, is super exciting, and, I am wearing the jersey of my favorite player. I am a hardcore Argentina fan and and Messi fan. And so I... And have been for a long time. Not a bandwagon fan. Been Argentina fan for decades now for a lot of good reasons. But, you know, love, love our Houston Dynamo. I, certainly appreciate Austin's fanatics of their team, and, then, obviously, I'm I'm wearing, you know, the Miami Miami, which which is, you know, because of one player.

There are the same reason most people wear Miami jersey. Ken's joining us from Raleigh, North Carolina. Ken is is Raleigh soccer country?

Ken BunnNot at all. Not at all. We are a lot... We are hockey through and through these days with the, hurricanes winning the cup this year. Yeah. Yeah. And and I myself am a cyclist, so I, I watch the Tour de France incessantly every year. My wife says it's like watching the grass grow. She has no understanding of how I can sit for three hours and watch, watch guys on bicycles. I don't know. Watching golf is watching grass grow. It's it's probably similar experience. It's cyclist to watch the Tour de France.

Yeah. Yeah. And and what? Is today stage 10 or something? Yeah. It's Yeah. Stage 10, and, they're... I I haven't... I I wait for the recording on workdays, so I'll I'll get home tonight and make my wife, you know, sit through dinner and watch it in the background.

James BenhamSo... Yeah. Yeah. I I won't ruin it for you then. So Tell me what happened. Oh, I'm not gonna tell you what happened. It... But, I mean, I think the Tour de France is amazing. I mean, well, I I, in college, did a lot of road biking and, then kind of continued it for another few years after college. And now I have a crossover. I don't I don't ride a pure road bike anymore because I got tired of sliding across the concrete and removing skin from my body.

So I I

Ken Bunnraced for I raced for a while, and, I've had plenty of those little accidents.

James BenhamMan. They're they're tough. They're tough. So I I get it, man. I like I like global sports. I mean, is definitely a global sport, and soccer is too. That's great. Well, glad to have you on the show, Ken. And Glad to be here. Yeah. You know, this is a two two of us that that are pretty hardcore insured insured tech geeks and insurance geeks, I would say too. Rob is a longtime insurance guy, and I I learned the industry through the lens of a technologist building software for it for 2.5.

I'm mainly... I would say I'm I'm a claims guy first. I I've I spent a lot of time with adjusters for twenty years solving all their technology problems and then took a head first dive into policy administration, underwriting, billing, all other fun stuff. And and so we we love talking about insurance. We love talking about technology, but more than that, we love talking about the people behind it. You're one of those people. So I wanna hear about you. We're gonna go way back way back in time.

And I wanna hear about, like, what what what... When you were a kid growing up, where did you grow up, and and what did you wanna be when you were when you were a kid?

Ken BunnI'm a local. I grew up in this area. Lived most of my life here in and around Raleigh. My my mom and dad, grew up in in Raleigh, so I didn't stray too far, from home. Growing up, you know, everything from a garbage man to an astronaut to, you a doctor, lawyer, whatever. But once I got into college, I was headed down the law path. I thought that was the direction that I was going to head. So, yeah, that's how I ended up in insurance. I worked at a law firm in college

James Benhamand,

Ken Bunnwas, graduating, and one of the attorneys pulled me in the office, and he said, so what are you, you know, what are you gonna do? When are you applying? I said, well, I've got some debt. I need to pay that off. And he said, well, we're we're not gonna... We're not paying you enough to pay off your debt. You need to go get a job. And he's the one that recommended, insurance. And so off I went.

James BenhamYeah. So you went from NC State, which, again, local local guy going to local local, university.

Ken BunnLocal unit. I I had no choice. I'm a third generation NC State grad. My son is a fourth generation, and I have a a young daughter who I'm hoping to continue in, you know, a second, fourth generation NC State

James Benhamperson.

Ken BunnWe'll we'll see. Yeah. We don't we don't give them much choice.

James BenhamYeah. It's like I I I live in College Station, Texas, home of Texas a and m. People don't get a lot of choice in here, but both my daughters decided to, break my heart. Oh, wow. Oldest went to NYU and the youngest wants to go to University of Hawaii. We'll see how that all works out. But, I think they're trying to pick the farthest schools from from each other.

Ken BunnSo My my son tried that, but he gave... When I when I showed him the bill and, said I'll pay the amount that it costs you to go in state. And if you choose to go out of state, you can you can take care of the delta. He quickly realized that being a fourth generation NC State

James Benhamgrad would be a good path. Had some merits. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you end up at Nationwide for eighteen years, and you really rose through the ranks from claims market manager to field training manager, IT division. Now the... This is the interesting part for me is that you really rotated through claims field, IT, program management, and then back to claims. What what... Walk me through that rotation.

Ken BunnI... Yeah. I don't know if it's... Was my ADD or if it was just, me trying to find new and different things to do within insurance. I, you know, I started out... I I don't like to admit this. I'm lead claims department, and I really only handle claims for about three years. That's very atypical of someone in my position. But when I I got lucky, I, I I got into training and project roles really early in my career, and that kinda gave me a bit much broader perspective.

Once I got into that, those claims adjacent roles, I I realized that I, you know, I I loved organizational design, workflow process. I love that side of the business. So I really look for jobs that would build those chops, early on. And then, after I did that, then I realized, hey. I I really wanna get back into direct line leadership in claims and and move back. So that's kinda why that path meandered back and forth between, claims specific and claims adjacent jobs. But I think it really gave me a good, perspective to be sitting where I am.

Even though I'm not the most technically oriented claims leader, I've got a a perspective from across a lot of different areas. You know, one one of the things that I think is the most beneficial is that IT experience. I couldn't program my way out of a paper bag, but I know the process. I know what's happening, and I understand how a project moves, through the cycle. And I think a lot of leaders sitting in my chair don't. And so impatience or misunderstanding or higher expectations coming out of the IT side, are often issues.

Whereas I I feel like I understand that IT process and and work well with my IT partners. It's things like that that I think have gotten me where I am is, you know, not just that pure technical stovepipe straight up the ladder.

James BenhamYeah. And and after this this long, you know, good career at a at a at a really great insurance company Yeah. You, for the last twelve years, have been at Builders Mutual Insurance Company where you're now vice president, you're the claims leader. Walk me through the transition because that... That's a that's a pretty big transition from a company like Nationwide into a mutual insurance company.

Ken BunnWalk me through the Absolutely. It was a a leap of faith, actually. I, you know, I was very happy. I'd I'd had a great career and felt like I had a great career ahead of me if I wanted to continue it at Nationwide. But what I was presented with with Builders Mutual was... We were about a $200,000,000 company back then when I came. We're about six fifty now. And the claims department was a outsourced DPA, and they wanted to bring it inside. And I think they reached out to me.

There were a few folks that knew me here at Builders, and they reached out to me because of that process, mindset that I had, the operational, organizational stuff that I had done, and said, hey. How would you build a claims department if you were here? And those conversations led to a job offer. And I I took the leap of faith and and came over, and it it definitely... You know, it it was a culture shock for me. You know? At Nationwide, if I had a problem, I picked up the phone and call...

Called somebody. There was somebody who knew what I needed at Nationwide. And when you're at a smaller company, you know, in in the morning, you turn the lights on. During the day, you authorize a million dollar check. And, at the end of the day, you take the trash out. And so you just gotta you gotta be very versatile and, you know, find places to get those answers that used to be right there in your lap at the the big carrier.

James BenhamYeah. It's a it's a it's a... It's different. I mean, the... This is the... The resources available to you are different. Right. So it's a... It def... Definitely requires a a transition. Tell tell me about the company. Like, what is it... What what did it specialize in? Was it focused on? Yeah. Builders Mutual, we're a Southeast Regional

Ken Bunninsurance carrier. We focus on the construction industry. We... It's all we do. We don't do anything outside of construction. We are very focused on that contractor community, both general contractors and subcontractors, trade contractors. We operate from Maryland up north down to Florida, across to Mississippi, and soon to be in Arkansas. So that's that's sort of that footprint. We're very relationship oriented because of that. We we really sell our expertise. That's... You know, again, all we do is, construction. So we work to really attract and cultivate, that expertise, and I think that gives us a a competitive advantage.

It's an incredible company with, we treat our employees well. You could walk in the CEO's office at any given point in the day and have a conversation. It's, it's just... That's been the refreshing part of of being here at Builders Mutual, and you'd you'd probably have to drag me away kicking and screaming. It's it's been a fun ride.

James BenhamYeah. I mean, from what I saw, you guys have over 28,000 policyholders. Right. 5,000 independent agents, over 500 employees. I mean, yeah, it... It's it's... And it all started as a self insured fund in in North Carolina. So, yeah, you made the leap that... I mean, I I work for a lot of sifts and cigs, and I work for carriers and TPAs. And so I work on both ends of the spectrum, and y'all made a... That very difficult leap, you know, almost, you know, what, twenty nine years ago, almost to to put capital together and then turn in...

Turn it into a into a mutual insurance company, which is hard. It's hard to get a sift to be that large and that's hard to make the transition to being a mutual insurance company. So, you know, obviously, kudos to a... There... There's gotta be a great board and a great group of people that really made all that happen.

Ken BunnYeah. The the leadership team here... And and it's not just the leadership team. We we... It's a... It's an incredibly cohesive unit. It's it's just a different environment. I don't I don't know really how to explain it. Everybody's all in. Our employee satisfaction is is tremendous. In fact, I joke quite often, our claims department engagement scores are among the best in the company. And I go, but that... There there might be something wrong when your claims adjusters are the happiest folks in the room. You should be more unhappy doing this job.

Yeah. Yeah. No. I joke about it. Well, no. I'm very proud of those numbers, but, yeah, it is it is a... It's an amazing place to work. And the the... Our board, most of our board has a construction background, so they know the business that we are operating in and for. So they've been great, with their guidance. And then a lot of the leadership team, you know, we've had a... You know, our CEO is is closing in on thirty years with the company. We've had a lot of long tenured, folks, but we've also supplemented recently with some great outside talent.

So I think our our executive team is a is a really strong one just based on finding that right person and inserting them, into that need that we have. So... Yeah. That's awesome. Rob?

Rob GalbraithYeah, Ken. It's fascinating to hear your journey and your past. So I'm really curious, you talked about when you started it, Builders Mutual having this vision to kind of take everything outsourced and bring it you know, inside. So for the past twelve years, it's been obviously a big thrust of yours. What were some of the key decision points? And maybe you can touch on what that meant organization ally and from a technology standpoint because that seems like that's obviously a, you know, huge decision. And so there's probably some key decisions that needed to be made along the way.

So just maybe for our audience, just kinda give us an overview of what was some of those key moments. Just the decision on how to bring the team in house, you know, was a...

Ken BunnWe did a lot of noodling on what the best approach was. Do we, move away from the TPA that we were using, hire another TPA to, you know, give them the business and run it off until we could build the claims department internally, or did we try to leverage the TPA, that we were already using? And in the end, that's what we did. We actually worked with that TPA to retain a lot of the talent on that team. And there were mixed feelings about that. You know, we weren't sure if that was gonna be the right approach.

We weren't sure if the acceptance of that group and moving to the company rather than just being with the TPA was gonna be, was gonna be there. So, again, a little bit of a gamble to bring that... Those folks over. But once we did, we recognized that, man, there... That was the best choice we could have ever made because we brought in folks that were... They they knew what we did. They knew how we did it. They knew the tools and the process. I couldn't have done it without them.

You know, I... If I had to one day sever a tie and then take over everything, it would have been tremendously difficult. So being able to bring over a substantial number of folks from that TPA to kinda keep, you know, keep rolling along was was important. And the first thing that I noticed was that that team actually was an incredibly good, group of folks, very talented, very technically knowledgeable. They just didn't have the tools, that they needed to be successful. You know, I think that's part of the reason that we chose to to detach from the TPA is we felt like as we were growing, that relationship was a little more strained.

You know, we were... They're they're there for a profit. We're here to grow. It it wasn't quite, you know, working. So that's... That was a decision point. So bringing over those folks that knew what we were doing and giving them the tools that they needed to do the job better, it's... Again, it's... It was just, an amazing experience, and it continues to be. I... I've still got... Of that core group, 39 folks that we brought over. We still have close to 30 of them left. So...

And most of the ones that aren't here are retirements. So that that core group of folks we built around and supplemented and augmented, and it's, a very high functioning quality team.

Rob GalbraithFrom a technology standpoint, Ken, did you have a vision for, you know, those... You said they didn't have the right tools. Right? So in terms of giving them the right tools, did you have kind of some ideas based on your experience at at Nationwide of what you wanted to give them, or did you also, you know, influenced by their feedback? You know, did they sense that they didn't have the right tools as well? So I'm just kinda curious that interplay and how you decided, you know, what

Ken Bunnwhat technology to leverage. I probably talk about that all day and all the ups and downs, that you experience when you're trying to transform, especially in a small company. You know, Of course, coming off of my experience at Nationwide and being part of some of the biggest projects, claims related IT projects that the company had, my first inclination was we've gotta replace this antiquated system. That's, you know, first thing. That's the easiest decision. Right? It's what what all of us wanna do. But the appetite wasn't there.

It just wasn't. It was, wait. You you wanna you wanna transition the claims tools before we do policy and billing and others and... You know, because we had been such a underwriting and sales centric company because we outsourced claims, I I think it took us a while to get around how important it was to upgrade the the system. So for a while, we knew we had to just operate on the on the legacy system we were on. So what we did is spend a lot of time on process.

We sort of tore apart what we were doing, where the... It just, you know, where the dysfunction was. You know, the team had done a lot of work in trying to do more with less, but they just stacked a lot of things on top of each other. And so we had to kind of break all that down and re... Retool. And then along the way, we we added tools where we could. We knew we couldn't integrate a lot. We didn't wanna integrate a lot because we knew we wanted to move away from that legacy platform.

So I didn't wanna spend a lot of time and effort in in, integrating. So we we picked tools that could stand beside our our platform, or that augmented in some way that was not disruptive. And then a few years ago, we decided... We finally got the opportunity to, to move to a more modern system, which we did. We're just coming off the hills of that. And now I think it's really where we're gonna be able to to go... That vision that I had, you know, ten years ago is now we can really start to to make some hay.

James BenhamSo can you, you've been quoted talking about AI and AI deployments. You you actually went on the record and and talked about that. Yeah. So talk to me about what you've actually implemented in production with AI and how how how how it's... You you don't have to mention the vendor if you don't want to, but, like, just tell me the the use cases that you've implemented and how it's going.

Ken BunnSo we've we've dabbled in a few things. And, we... What we tried to do when we were when we were still on the legacy system is, again, we knew we couldn't integrate. So we were trying to find things that we could use that would provide some use at that time, but then we could integrate once we go live with a a modern platform. So the first couple of things we did were we built some predictive models. We thought that that would be the the best place to start.

We worked with a vendor. We had a couple of work comp models, risk scoring,

James Benhamand The total incurred prediction? Total total incurred prediction.

Ken BunnBoth of those were great tools, but because they were adjacent to the system and not integrated, the adoption rate was not great. So... But it was a great learning experience. You know, I kinda early on because I... We did that back in... During COVID time. So, you know, we we were, I think, ahead of the curve for a company our size in looking at AI and AI tools, and it taught us a whole lot about what we can expect. I think, you know, a lot of folks recently are, oh, AI is gonna change the world.

It's gonna solve all my problems, and it's not. It's not gonna solve all your problems. It is gonna help. And, so it's... That project, and then we've done a couple others. We have a summarization tool, that we're utilizing. We have a risk scoring risk scoring on our commercial, GL book, that we've done. So, again, we've dabbled around enough to build our road map now. And so currently, we're, working on a project to, automate document workflow Yep. Which is... I wish that had been my number one now looking back over time.

Huge time savings for adjusters. Amazing. The ROI is is so Enormous. Yeah. So easy to to ROI that thing.

James BenhamI wish we had started there. Same thing with med record summaries for work comp investors. Yep. Yeah. Just Those those are just easy. Yeah. Monster,

Ken Bunnlow hanging fruit with tons of ROI, instant ROI. And we have a lot of catastrophic claims on both sides of the house, and so we get a lot of documents. There are... The... I Yep. Our claim files are massively document centric. And so having those summarization tools and and working to get better utilizing them is where a lot of our focus is gonna be over the next year. And then, again, the routing the routing of those documents. We we touch... You know, previously, we... We're touching documents two and three times to get to where they need to go.

Unnecessary.

James BenhamYeah. Yeah. Document routing and indexing is a monster area. And then I'd I'd also say all the notices, notice generation's a really big area of opportunity. There there tends to be a lot of high touch, a lot of multiple touch on adjusters and their assistance sending out required notices. So, I mean, there's a there's a a few of those categories. I I can tell you what I found on risk scoring and predicting total incurreds. If if those tools aren't on the screen where the adjuster is actually setting the reserves, they're not gonna look at them.

You're exactly right. Like, I... They need to be, like, right there. And and I've been I've been socializing this concept with a few of my clients for... It's it's really, really important to understand, like, the difference between predictive intelligence and normative intelligence. In other words, ODG versus AI. Right. And, you know, like, ODG still plays a super important role. It's not artificial intelligence. It's normative intelligence. Right? But, like, both your ODG data for... Obviously, I'm talking about comp in this case, but both your ODG data and your your predictive intelligence data need to be, like, literally as close to the button where they set the reserves as possible.

Ken BunnI I totally agree. And, again, that was a lesson learned. We knew going in to that project that that was going to be a limiting factor. But we were willing to do it because, you know, we worked with a vendor that we really enjoyed working with. We, you know, we we felt like we were getting it at a price that that, you know, we could afford to make some mistakes, which we did. But it it it really did highlight that these tools need to be integrated in a way that it it forced...

Not for... I don't like the word force, but it it encourages the adjuster to utilize that tool rather than you mandating that you have to go log in to this other system

James BenhamYeah. Do these things. They just won't do it. They... If if they've got a 125 claims for adjuster, which is kind of the industry average, then they they don't have the time. Yeah. People outside of claims don't understand when you say, oh, can't you do this just this one more thing? Yeah. No. That's on top of the 800 other one more things that we ask our adjuster teams to do. Yeah. It just doesn't work. Yeah. It doesn't put it in the flow. Yeah. Too many regulatory filings, too many requirements, too too many, you know, client handling instructions.

Yep. Too many, you know, too many claims best practices manual instructions. I mean, at the end of the day, it all piles up on them a lot. Yeah. I... That's good that's good good lessons learned. Real... Really good. Rob?

Rob GalbraithYeah. Just to add to that, I'd... Again, my background's in, underwriting and innovation, and so, we'd always give feedback to the claims on where we thought maybe some of their settlement practices could be improved upon. Maybe we're overpaying some limits. We're not checking receipts for $500 food spoilage claims, things like that. And basically the feedback we got was, well, if you've got so much time on your hands, why don't you start working And the queue so I definitely appreciate the challenges of, you know, hardworking claims professionals.

Like you said, you know, the queue always gets longer and there's always more on their Yeah, always more. Having said that, like, I'm very curious as you've introduced new technologies and sounds like new components, right, with some of these predictive scores or whatnot in their process, what have you learned over time in terms of what it takes from us to increase the odds that something is successfully implemented? I mean, do you have internal champions? You take your more tenured folks or maybe your more forward thinking folks?

Do they work with the vendors in the IT? Maybe you can describe kind of some of those lessons learned, for our audience.

Ken BunnEvery change management person out there is gonna just scowl at me right now, but I... I'm I'm very lucky. I have a team that's extremely resilient. I think for us... And and maybe it's maybe it's special to us or unique to us just because we're a close knit team. And, but it's really as long as I tell the folks what's gonna happen, they tend to accept it and and try it. And, so, you know, my only words of wisdom in the change management, space is to be real.

You know? Tell them what's gonna happen. Except when you've made mistakes. There... The the number of times that I've, you know, hat in hand, through our our claims platform change that I've had to say, guys, I'm sorry. This didn't go quite as I expected. I think as long as you're willing to be honest and not try to blow blow that smoke, your teams will tend to be accepting of whatever change you're gonna put in front of them as long as they understand the why. You know?

You tell them what's gonna happen and why you're doing it, and they know that you're willing to admit on the back end if you made a mistake and pull the plug. I think the team's gonna be pretty accepting of whatever you need to do. And, again, change management folks may may scream because, wait. You don't have champions. You don't have, you know, this communication process and everything. I'm like, we do, but it's... It... We also sort of just wing it. We we make sure everybody's involved and knows what's going on, and and that's how we get it done.

And it's it's worked so far. I'll let you know.

Rob GalbraithNo. That's great feedback, Kenton. And I think, the trust is important. Right? And and sometimes in a larger organization where you're not as close knit Correct. Or you're trying to scale across multiple leaders, it's challenging. I would say it takes a lot of vulnerability and humbleness to admit when you're wrong too as a leader, right, or that you didn't quite get it right. And you see other organizations where people are like, Well, once this project implements, like that's my stepping stone to a greater position either within the company or outside or whatever.

And so maybe the motivations, right, that the leaders to implement the changes or the lack of admittance if things don't go as they inevitably... I mean, they'll never go exactly as you plan. So,

Ken Bunnthere's probably a need for less change manager, would guess, when you have a close knit group. And you And that's quite It could be unique to us. So I don't... You know, I'm not yelling at the nationwide of the world to stop your change management programs. But I do think it is really about that building that trust and and folks understanding what you're doing and why.

Rob GalbraithThat and then admitting when you get it wrong, I think. Right? And then you've built that that, track record of trust over time to where, you know, they understand the why. And then if it pans out, fantastic. If it doesn't, then they know that you will... And you'll hear their feedback. Right? Right. Because I'm sure if it's not working, they'll Oh, they they let me know.

James BenhamSo so, Ken, you're in you're in high hazard. Right? Yeah. You know, I think the number one cause of construction work comp injuries is ladder usage. Last time, I think, I looked Yeah. At Falls. Falls and laddering. Yeah. Yep. But what we've seen across the... And I I... You know, fortunately, I spent twelve years building construction software for general contractors. So I have You know a little bit. Yeah. I have I have spent a lot of time with contractors. A lot of time. Hard workers, amazing industry to serve.

Really amazing. They build stuff. They drive around cities and see the things they put together with their hands, which is very different than the insurance business. We we drive around to see the things that we insure on paper. It's a very different, feeling, but we get to be involved in that amazing industry. We are seeing, across the industry, we're seeing, you know, work comp rates soften and soften and soften. I think because you you know, claims are getting managed. We're better at training and loss prevention and loss control, and we're we're squeezing this down.

Like, where where do you think this is headed? Are we especially now with with robotics? I mean, drones already took over a lot of dangerous inspection jobs. Yeah. Now you're looking at robotic dogs like Boston Dynamics Spot that has been deployed on job sites for years now doing, you know, high hazard inspections and documentation and cameras. And now we have job... Now we have sensors on everybody. We're doing a way we're on training. I mean, it looks like high hazard is not nearly as high hazard as it used to be because of training and technology.

What's the reality? Yeah. Frequency

Ken Bunnis definitely down, and that's a good thing. You know, we wanna send every worker home to their family safe at night. That's our goal. The problem, I think, the problems that we'll see, even though there's a lot of good and there's a tremendous focus on, where I'd love to see a shift. You know, for years, we we, in the claims world, have focused on risk transfer. You know? Hey. Let's let's... It's a react... Sort of a reactive approach to the risk. Let's just transfer that risk to somebody else.

And and I really am starting to see and happy to see, this transition to a more proactive, you know, risk avoidance, not a not a, you know, risk transfer. So making the job sites safer, doing more to help the workers, those are all great things. The problem is when you're in a high hazard, when you have an injury, it's an injury. It's not a paper cut. So these these folks are hurt. And, the the problem that we're seeing now is the medical utiliz... There's so much we can do for these individuals, which is a wonderful thing, but there is a cost.

We are seeing the the catastrophic claims cost going way up. Long term care, all the catastrophic emergency care that can be done, life flighting, all of those things are very expensive. So I do think even though we've seen the the market softening with a lot of rate reduction, I think we're kinda hitting the bottom, now. It feels like it, because it's it's... You know, that that delta is not quite as much as it was. We were running loss ratios in the forties and fifties on work comp, and, you know, that's amazing, but it can only last so long.

So we're we're really focusing more on, more of our expertise on handling those catastrophic claims, trying to bring workloads down, so that we can do a lot more handholding and relationship building with the injured worker and their family, which that... It has a cost. But I think those are the better approaches to handling these these big claims. So I don't know if I even answered your question. I might have gone off on a tangent. No. It's it's it's relevant. It's interesting. It's it's a it's a combination of

James Benhamprocess improvement and technology and training. Yeah. Yeah. And and the the end result is a safer job site, actually. Just Yeah. And I think we're... So, here at Builders Mutual, we,

Ken Bunnten, twelve years ago, we created the Job Site Safety Institute. It's a nonprofit that's focused on job site safety. And we've we've fund a lot of initiatives that are, really a proactive approach to safety. In fact, the type two... One one of the most recent, not most recent, but in in the past few years that we've really been pushing through the JSI is a type two hard hats. Seems like very small thing. But these hard hats, you know, are exponentially better than a traditional hard hat.

So little things like that, you know, not even technology, just, you know, better equipment. But we've, we've also funded initiatives on... You know, that use technology for training, wearables, you know, IoT stuff. So builders, you know, we're all in. We're all in on the safety side.

James BenhamThat's awesome. Rob, you wanna take us home?

Rob GalbraithYeah. I can. I just, you know, very quickly, you kinda alluded a little bit to the future. Is there a particular technology or set of technologies you wanna give a shout out that that you think are gonna be game changers the next five, ten years or you hope are?

Ken BunnYou know, I I think, know, one of the things that I've... I don't have a specific one that I'm gonna sit here and go, oh, this is it. I I think what we really... What I'm really focused on is not replacing adjusters. You know, I think that's the... That's sort of that shiny object out there that that folks may see, hey. I can reduce expense by adding this technology and getting rid of some headcount, and that's not really where I am. I really think that what we wanna do is use technology that absorbs the transactional work, you know, indexing document routing like we talked about, summarization, all those things.

You know, AI is really good at patterns. And so if you can find those things that are, pattern based that your AI tool can take so that you can put the real work on the adjuster. Let the adjuster focus on what's the important part. You know, the more touches with the injured worker, or the policyholder or claimant, more interaction, more observation. It gives them more time to really digest, what's happening. I I... My my team's heard this over and over, so I hate to overuse it.

But I said, you know, you you can't you can't work on an assembly line and do brain surgery at the same time. So if you can get rid of the assembly line, then you can focus on that brain surgery. Okay. And that's really where we're looking at tools. What are those tools that I can take that that repetitive transactional work away from my adjuster so that they can really perform that that brain surgery on that that difficult complex claim? And I think that if you look at that...

The other thing that I think we we don't wanna do is completely remove those small transactional claims from the claim adjuster workload because, you know, you... If you take all of that,

James Benhamnoncomplex stuff away, where are gonna train your new folks? Yeah. Yeah. Where do where do you get seniors if you don't have juniors? Correct. This is the problem we're having in software development too in insurance, Ken, is where do you get senior engineers if there's no junior engineers? If you if you if you assign all the menial low end work to AI, then no one actually becomes a senior. Becomes a senior. And so I think that's why you need to pick and choose your tools well so that they can be,

Ken Bunnyou know, take away take away that work and also inform the adjuster on what is happening and why and use it as a training tool, so that it it works alongside of them and they understand what's happening, rather than replacing. It's just just my 2¢. You know, if I'm right, golden. If I'm wrong, you know, maybe I'll be retired.

James BenhamNobody will care. I don't I don't I don't buy that. Well, this has been a great conversation.

Ken BunnI really appreciate you. Where where are you... Do you still ride every week? I do. I do. I, I had to take a little bit of time off my bike, for... Because of an injury, but I am, back at it. In fact, my wife is is green lit a new bike for me. So I'm in the in the market right now. What do you get? I'm not sure. I I need to get something a little, you know, I still think I'm a racer from my old days.

Yeah. But I'm not. I need something more comfortable. But I still wanna look cool when I'm out there, you know, Cycling is looking good.

James BenhamMost of it's looking good, man. I I remember I remember one of my buddies that I used to cycle with said it, you know, James, if you can't do it in Oakley, it's not worth doing. That's right. He he was all about the cool sunglasses, and, you know, I had a... I I still have my Ben and my favorite shirt, riding shirt was a Ben and Jerry's jersey. Yeah. The matching socks. You know?

Ken BunnEvery... Everything's gotta look good. Well,

James Benhammy favorite bike that I've ridden as far as a road bike, my first one twenty five years ago was a Torelli.

Ken BunnOh, yeah. I remember Torelli. Cromali.

James BenhamIt was... It wasn't aluminum. It was Cromali, Italian racing bike, and then, and then I I just fell in love with Fuji. I just

Ken BunnI just love I love riding them. I just... I really do. I had a titanium bike when I was younger, and I... I'm leaning so much to going back to that. You know? All my buddies, when I was riding it, they were like, you can't race that bike. And, and I did. And, you know, won some races on it, but then I realized I needed that stiff racing bike, I switched. And I've I've, I've gotten to the point where I'm like, if I could just have that bike back.

James BenhamThat's great. Well, appreciate it. And as as always, Rob, thank you so much for joining. Absolutely. Yeah. Fantastic conversation, Ken. Thanks for coming on. Yeah. Thanks, guys. And to our listeners, thank you for tuning in today to geek out our interview with Ken Bunn from Builders Mutual Insurance out of Raleigh, North Carolina. See you next time. Enjoy the ride and geek out.