Claims Automation, AI Adoption & The Future of Adjusting

0:00On this episode of the InsurTech Geek podcast, we're exploring how insurance continues to evolve to meet the needs of today's construction industry. Our guest, Ken Bunn, vice president of claims at Builders Mutual Insurance Company, joins us to share how his diverse background across IT operations and claims has shaped his leadership approach. We'll dive into how Builders Mutual is leveraging technology, strengthening contractor relationships, and preparing for the next frontier in claims and risk management.

0:37The InsureTechGeek podcast is all about insurance and how it's being transformed by technology. Join us on a disruptive journey, interviewing the leading voices of the insurance industry from all around the world. So enjoy the ride and geek out. Tara. This week's episode sponsor is revolutionizing the world of workers' compensation claims and policy management. Tara's cutting-edge platform empowers insurers with comprehensive benchmarking tools, robust management systems, and an integrated ancillary services marketplace. Discover how Tara is driving innovation and efficiency in workers' comp at tara.insure.

1:18And we are back with another great episode of the Insure Tech Geek Podcast. I am your host, the Intertech Geek, James Benham. With me, the most interesting man in insurance, my good friend and illustrious co-host, Rob Galbraith. Rob, how are you doing? Doing well, James. Doing well, James. We are recording just ahead of the World Cup semis. So some interesting football in the next week. Yeah, like the game where the foot is actually used to strike the ball. Yeah, more than like once every 15 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 played in my 20s for a while.

2:02As a defender, I got tired of being the last guy in the back. So definitely appreciate the game. Rob, did you play? Did your kids play? I 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, we put the defender, the striker, and things like that. So, yeah, somehow I did not score. But I could kick the ball a long way, and I could run into people.

2:41So 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 soccer slash football. More kids playing it with the most insignificant historically of a professional league until the last 10 years. It was kind of a weird dichotomy because everybody played it. A lot of people played soccer growing up, and then you had this very small professional league. Now, MLS has blown up. It's turned into a real deal. They have a cup with Mexico and Canada, and then we've got like 27 or 29 teams now, real stadiums. I mean, we've got a legit pro league now, which of course is super exciting, and I am wearing the jersey of my favorite player.

3:28I am a hardcore Argentina fan and Messi fan, and have been for a long time, not a bandwagon fan. Been an Argentina fan for decades now for a lot of good reasons, but love our Houston Dynamo. I certainly appreciate Austin's fanatics of their team. And then obviously I'm wearing the Miami, which is, you know, because of one player. They're the same reason most people wear Miami jersey. Ken's joining us from Raleigh, North Carolina. Ken, is Raleigh soccer country? Not at all. Not at all. We are hockey through and through these days with the Hurricanes winning the Cup this year. Yeah. Yeah. And I myself am a cyclist, so I watch the Tour de France incessantly every year.

4:20My wife says it's like watching the grass grow. She has no understanding of how I can sit for three hours and watch guys on bicycles. I don't know. Watching golf is watching grass grow. It's probably a similar experience with a cyclist to watch the Tour de France. Yeah. And what? Is today stage 10 or something? Yeah, it's stage 10. I wait for the recording on work days, so I'll get home tonight and make my wife sit through dinner and watch it in the background. Yeah, I won't ruin it for you then. Tell me what happened. I'm not going to tell you what happened. I think the Tour de France is amazing.

5:04I mean, 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 ride a pure road bike anymore because I got tired of sliding across the concrete and removing skin from my body. So I raced for a while, and I've had plenty of those little accidents. Oh, man. They're tough. They're tough. So I get it, man. I like global sports. I mean, cycling is definitely a global sport, and soccer is too. That's great. Well, glad to have you on the show, Ken. Glad to be here. Yeah. This is two of us that are pretty hardcore insured tech geeks and insurance geeks, I would say, too.

5:53Rob is a longtime insurance guy, and I learned the industry through the lens of a technologist building software for it for two and a half decades. I'm mainly, I would say I'm a claims guy first. I spent a lot of time with adjusters for 20 years, solving all their technology problems, and then took a headfirst dive into policy administration, underwriting, billing, and all the other fun stuff. And so 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 want to hear about you. We're going to go way back, way back in time.

6:31And I want to hear about like what, what, what, when you were a kid growing up, where'd you grow up and what did you want to be when you were, when you were a kid? I'm a local. I grew up in this area, lived most of my life here in and around Raleigh. My mom and dad grew up in Raleigh, so I didn't stray too far from home. And growing up, you know, everything from a garbage man to an astronaut to, you know, 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.

7:13I worked at a law firm in college and was graduating. And one of the attorneys pulled me in the office and he said, so what are you going to 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 not going to, 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. Yeah. So you went from NC State, which again, local guy going to local university. I had no choice. I'm a third generation NC State grad. My son is a fourth generation and I have a young daughter who I'm hoping to continue in a second, fourth generation NC State person.

7:55Lord, okay. Yeah, we don't give them much choice. Yeah, it's like I live in College Station, Texas, home of Texas A &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 each other. my son tried that but he gave when i when i showed him the bill and uh 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 grad would be a good path had some merits yeah yeah well you end up at nationwide for 18 years and you really rose through the ranks from claims market manager to field training manager, IT division.

8:50Now, this is the interesting part for me is that you really rotated through claims, field, IT, program management, and then back to claims. Walk me through that rotation. Yeah, I don't know if it was my ADD or if it was just me trying to find new and different things to do within insurance. I started out, I don't like to admit this, I lead a claims department, and I really only handled claims for about three years. That's very atypical of someone in my position. But what I got lucky, I got into training and project roles really early in my career. And that kind of gave me a bit much broader perspective.

9:33Once I got into that, those claims adjacent roles, I realized that I, you know, I loved organizational design, line, workflow, process. I love that side of the business. So I really looked for jobs that would build those chops early on. And then after I did that, then I realized, hey, I really want to get back into direct line leadership in claims and move back. So that's kind of 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.

10:20I've got a perspective from across a lot of different areas. You know, 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. 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 feel like I understand that IT process 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.

11:09Yeah. And and after this, this long, you know, good career at a really great insurance company, you for the last 12 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's a pretty big transition from a company like Nationwide into a mutual insurance company. Walk me through the. Absolutely. It was a leap of faith, actually. I, you know, I was very happy. I 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 million dollar company back then when I came.

11:59We're about 650 now. And the claims department was outsourced EPA 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 took the leap of faith and came over. And it definitely, you know, it was a culture shock for me. You know, at Nationwide, if I had a problem, I picked up the phone and called somebody.

12:43There was somebody who knew what I needed at Nationwide. And when you're at a smaller company, you know, 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've got to be very versatile and, you know, find places to get those answers that used to be right there in your lap at the big carrier. Yeah, it's different. I mean, the resources available to you are different. Right. So it definitely requires a transition. Tell me about the company. Like, what is it? What did it specialize in? What does it focus on?

13:23Builders Mutual. We're a Southeast regional insurance carrier. We focus on the construction industry. 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 sort of that footprint. We're very relationship oriented because of that. 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.

14:11And I think that gives us a competitive advantage. It's an incredible company with we treat our employees well. You can 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 being here at Builders Mutual. And you'd probably have to drag me away kicking and screaming. It's been a fun ride. Yeah, I mean, from what I saw, you guys have over 28 ,000 policyholders, 5 ,000 independent agents, over 500 employees. I mean, it all started as a self-insured fund in North Carolina. So you made the leap that – I mean, I work for a lot of CIFs and SIGs, and I work for carriers and TPAs.

15:00And so I work on both ends of the spectrum and y 'all made that very difficultly, you know, almost, you know, what, 29 years ago to put capital together and then turn it into a mutual insurance company, which is hard. It's hard to get a SIF to be that large and that it's hard to make the transition to being a mutual insurance company. So, you know, obviously kudos to a, there's got to be a great board and a great group of people that really made all that happen. Yeah, the leadership team here, and it's not just the leadership team. It's an incredibly cohesive unit. It's just a different environment.

15:37I don't know really how to explain it. Everybody's all in. Our employee satisfaction is tremendous. In fact, I joke quite often, our claims department engagement scores are among the best in the company. And I go, 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, yeah. No, I joke about it. I'm very proud of those numbers. But, yeah, it's an amazing place to work. And our board, most of our board has a construction background. Um, so they know the business that we are operating in and for, um, so they've been great, uh, with their guidance.

16:24Um, and then a lot of the leadership team, you know, we've had, uh, uh, you know, our CEO is, is closing in on 30 years with the company. Um, we've had a lot of long tenured, um, folks, but we've also supplemented recently with some great outside talent. So I think our executive team 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? Yeah, Ken, it's fascinating to hear your journey and your path. So I'm really curious, you know, you talked about when you started at Builders Mutual having this vision to kind of take everything outsourced and bring it, you know, inside.

17:15So for the past 12 years, it's been obviously a big thruster of years. What were some of the key decision points? And maybe you can touch on what that meant organizationally and from a technology standpoint, because that seems like that's obviously a 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 kind of give us an overview of what were some of those key moments. Just the decision on how to bring the team in-house, you know, was a, we 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 give them the business and run it off until we could build the claims department internally?

18:02Or 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 going to 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 going to be was going to be there. So, again, a little bit of a gamble to bring those folks over. But once we did, we recognized that, man, that was the best choice we could have ever made because we brought in folks that were, they knew what we did.

18:44They knew how we did it. They knew the tools and the process. I couldn't have done it without them. You know, 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 kind of 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 detach from the TPA is we felt like as we were growing, that relationship was a little more strained.

19:34You know, we were there for a profit. We're here to grow. 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. Again, it was just an amazing experience. And it continues to be. I've still got, of that core group, 39 folks that we brought over. We still have close to 30 of them left. And most of the ones that aren't here are retirements. So that core group of folks we built around and supplemented and augmented. And it's a very high functioning quality team.

20:18From 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 Nationwide of what you wanted to give them? Or did you also, you know, influenced by their feedback? Did they sense that they didn't have the right tools as well? So I'm just kind of curious that interplay and how you decided, you know, what to what technology to leverage. I should 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.

20:53You 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 got to replace this antiquated system. That's, you know, first thing. That's the easiest decision, right? It's what all of us want to do. But the appetite wasn't there. It just wasn't. It was, wait, you want to 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 think it took us a while to get around how important it was to upgrade the system.

21:41So for a while, we knew we had to just operate 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 dysfunction was. 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 retool. And then along the way, we added tools where we could. We knew we couldn't integrate a lot. We didn't want to integrate a lot because we knew we wanted to move away from that legacy platform. So I didn't want to spend a lot of time and effort in integrating.

22:27So we picked tools that could stand beside 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 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 going to be able to go. That vision that I had, you know, 10 years ago is now we can really start to make some hay. So can you, you've been quoted talking about AI and AI deployments. You actually went on the record and talked about that. So talk to me about what you've actually implemented in production with AI and how it's, you don't have to mention the vendor if you don't want to, but like just tell me the use cases that you've implemented and how it's going.

23:25So we've dabbled in a few things. And again, what we tried to do 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 modern platform. So the first couple of things we did were we built some predictive models. We thought that that would be the best place to start. We worked with a vendor. We had a couple of work comp models, risk scoring. scoring, and the total incurred prediction. Total incurred prediction. Both of those were great tools, but because they were adjacent to the system and not integrated, the adoption rate was not great.

24:17So, but it was a great learning experience, you know, kind of early on because that 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 going to change the world. It's going to solve all my problems. And it's not, it's not going to solve all your problems. It is going to 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 on our commercial GL book that we've done.

25:03So again, we've dabbled around enough to build our roadmap now. And so currently we're working on a project to automate document workflow, which is, I wish that had been my number one now, looking back over time. Huge time savings for adjusters. Amazing. The ROI is so easy. Enormous. Yeah. It's so easy to ROI that thing. I wish we had started there. Same thing with med record summaries for work comp adjusters. Yeah. Those are just easy. Yeah. Monster, low 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.

25:47Our claim files are massively document centric. And so having those summarization tools and working to get better at utilizing them is where a lot of our focus is going to be over the next year. And then again, the routing of those documents. We touch, previously, we're touching documents two and three times to get where they need to go. Unnecessary. Yeah. Yeah. Document routing and indexing is a monster area. And then I'd also say all the notices, notice generations, a really big area of opportunity. There tends to be a lot of high touch, a lot of multiple touch zone adjusters and their assistants sending out required notices.

26:28So, I mean, there's a few of those categories. I can say what I found on risk scoring and predicting total incurreds. If those tools aren't on the screen where the adjuster is actually setting the reserves, they're not going to look at them. You're exactly right. Like they need to be like right there. And I've been socializing this concept with a few of my clients for, it's really, really important to understand like the difference between predictive intelligence and normative intelligence. In other words, ODG versus AI. Right. And ODG still plays a super important role. It's not artificial intelligence, normative intelligence, right?

27:07But 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. 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 felt like we were getting it at a price that we could afford to make some mistakes, which we did. But it really did highlight that these tools need to be integrated in a way that it forced, not forced, I don't like the word forced, But it encourages the adjuster to utilize that tool rather than you mandating that you have to go log into this other system and do these things.

28:07They just won't do it. If they've got 125 claims per adjuster, which is kind of the industry average, then 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. You have to put it in the flow. Yeah. Too many regulatory filings, too many requirements, too many client handling instructions, too many claims, best practices, manual instructions. I mean, at the end of the day, it all piles up on them a lot.

28:39Yeah. That's good. That's good. Good lessons learned. Really good. Rob? Yeah. Just to add to that, so Ken, 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 the queue too? And so I definitely appreciate the challenges of, you know, hardworking claims professionals.

29:21Like you said, you know, the queue always gets longer and there's always more on their plate. Always more. Having said that, like, I'm very curious as you've introduced new technologies and sounds like new, you know, 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 uh internal champions you take your more tenured folks or maybe you're more forward-thinking folks do they work you know with the vendors in the it maybe you can describe kind of some of those lessons learned uh for our audience every change management person out there is going to just scowl at me right now.

30:06But I'm very lucky. I have a team that's extremely resilient. I think for us, and maybe it's special to us or unique to us just because we're a close-knit team. But it's really as long as I tell the folks what's going to happen, they tend to accept it 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 going to happen. Accept when you've made mistakes. The number of times that I've, you know, hat in hand, especially through our claims platform change that I've had to say, guys, I'm sorry, this didn't go quite as I expected.

30:54I think as long as you're willing to be honest and not try to blow that smoke, your teams will tend to be accepting of whatever change you're going to put in front of them, as long as they understand the why. You tell them what's going to 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 going to be pretty accepting of whatever you need to do. And again, change management folks may scream because, wait, you don't have champions. You don't have this communication process and everything. I'm like, we do, but we also sort of just wing it.

31:32We make sure everybody's involved and knows what's going on. And that's how we get it done. And it's worked so far. I'll let you know. with that. No, that's great feedback, Ken. And I think the trust is important, right? And sometimes in a larger organization where you're not as close knit or you're trying to scale across, you know, multiple leaders, it's challenging. And 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, and, you know, you see other organizations where people are like, well, once this project implements, like that's my, my stepping stone to a greater position, either within the company or outside or whatever.

32:12And so maybe the motivations, right. At the leaders to implement the changes or the lack of admittance of things don't go as they inevitably, right. It'll never go exactly as you plan. So there's probably a need for less change manager. I would guess when you have a close knit group and, and it could be unique to us. So I don't, you know, I'm not yelling at the nationwides of the world to stop your change management programs. But I do think it is really about that, building that trust and folks understanding what you're doing and why. That and then admitting when you get it wrong, I think. Right.

32:48And then you've built that track record of trust over time to where they understand the why. And then if it pans out, fantastic. If it doesn't, then they know that you will pivot and you'll hear their feedback. Right. Because I'm sure if it's not working, they'll tell you. They let me know. So, Ken, you're in high hazard, right? Yeah. I think the number one cause of construction work comp injuries is ladder usage. Last time I think I looked at it. Yeah, falls. Falls and ladder usage, yeah. But what we've seen across – Fortunately, I spent 12 years building construction software for general contractors.

33:27So I have – You know a little bit. 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 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.

34:08We're getting better at training and loss prevention and loss control, and we're squeezing this down. Like, where do you think this is headed? Are we, especially now with robotics, drones already took over a lot of dangerous inspection jobs. Now you're looking at robotic dogs like Boston Dynamics Spot that has been deployed on job sites for years now doing high hazard inspections and documentation and cameras. And now we have sensors on everybody. We're doing way better job 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.

34:41What's the reality? Yeah, frequency is definitely down. And that's a good thing. You know, we want to 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 I really am starting to see and happy to see this transition to a more proactive risk avoidance, not a risk transfer.

35:27So making the job site 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 problem that we're seeing now is the medical utilization. There's so much we can do for these individuals, which is a wonderful thing. But there is a cost. We are seeing the catastrophic claims costs 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 market softening with a lot of rate reduction, I think we're kind of hitting the bottom now.

36:17It feels like it because it's, you know, that that delta is not quite as much as it was. We were running loss ratios in the 40s and 50s on work comp. And, you know, that's amazing, but it can only last so long. So 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 it has a cost. But I think those are the better approaches to handling these big claims. So I don't know if I even answered your question. I might have gone off on a tangent.

37:02No, it's relevant. It's interesting. It's a combination of process improvement and technology and training. Yeah. And the end result is a safer job site, actually. Yeah. And I think we're so here at Builders Mutual, we 10, 12 years ago, we created the Job Site Safety Institute. It's a nonprofit that's focused on job site safety. And we fund a lot of initiatives that are really a proactive approach to safety. In fact, the type two, one of the most recent, not most recent, but in the past few years that we've really been pushing through the JSI is a type two hard hats. Seems like a very small thing.

37:45But 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 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. That's awesome. Rob, you want to take us home? Yeah, Ken, I just, you know, very quickly, you kind of alluded a little bit to the future. Is there a particular technology or set of technologies you want to give a shout out that you think are going to be game changers the next five, 10 years or you hope are?

38:26You know, I think, you know, one of the things that I've I don't have a specific one that I'm going to sit here and go, oh, this is it. I think what we really what I'm really focused on is not replacing adjusters. adjusters. You know, I think that's the, that's sort of that shiny object out there 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 want to do is use technology that absorbs the transactional work, you know, indexing document routing, like we talked about, summarization, all those things.

39:04You 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. My team's heard this over and over, So I hate to overuse it, but I said, you know, 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.

39:47And that's really where we're looking at tools. What are those tools that I can take that repetitive transactional work away from my adjuster so that they can really perform that brain surgery on that difficult, complex claim? And I think that if you look at that, the other thing that I think we don't want to do is completely remove those small transactional claims from the claim adjuster workload. Because, you know, if you take all of that non-complex stuff away, where are you going to train your new folks? Yeah. Yeah. Where do you get seniors if you don't have juniors? Correct. I mean, that's, 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?

40:28If 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, you know, 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 works alongside of them and they understand what's happening rather than replacing. It's just my two cents. uh you know if i'm right golden if i'm wrong you know maybe i'll be retired and nobody will care i don't i don't buy that well this has been a great conversation uh i really appreciate you where where you do you still ride every week i do i do i uh i had to take a little bit of time off my bike uh for because of an injury but i am back at it in fact my wife is is green lit a new bike for me.

41:24So I'm in the, in the market right now. What do you get? I'm not sure. I need to get something a little, you know, I still think I'm a racer from my old days, but I'm not, I need something more comfortable. Um, but I still want to look cool when I'm out there, you know, cycling looking good. Most of it's looking good, man. I, I remember, I remember one of my buddies that I used to cycle with said, you know, James, if you can't do it in Oakley, it's not worth doing. He was all about the cool sunglasses and, uh, you know, I had a, I still have my Ben and my favorite shirt, a riding shirt was a Ben and Jerry's Jersey, uh, matching socks, you know, everything's got to look good.

42:06Well, my favorite bike that I've ridden as far as a road bike, my first one 25 years ago was a Torelli. Oh, yeah, I remember Torelli. Cromali. It wasn't an aluminum. It was Cromali. Italian racing bike. And then I just fell in love with Fuji. I just love riding them. I just really do. I had a titanium bike when I was younger, and 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 uh and i did and you know won some races on it but then i realized i needed that stiff racing bike and i switched and i've i've uh i've gotten to the point where i like if i could just have that bike back that's great well appreciate it and uh as as always uh rob thank you so much for joining absolutely yeah fantastic conversation ken thanks for coming on thanks guys and to our 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.

43:09See you next time. Enjoy the ride and geek out.

43:32We get吃ed.