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Ross Buchmueller

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2016-07-01

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2016-07-01

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1. “That's a good question. I do think I go back to Hank's advice about don't be afraid to take risks that I think probably having started a couple companies from scratch, it's not as if I'm afraid of risk. But I naturally am not a risk taker. And I think if I wish from day one, I had a little more courage on stuff I may have done even grander things, but I'm certainly proud of where we've been.”

   2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “Service that we provide and the intellectual challenge of the business. But I tend to emphasize the purpose to them more because I know that they're right to go to work knowing they're doing something that's important that makes a difference. And when I see the impact that we have when we help people rebuild after Sandy or heaven forbid if these California fires do move in the wrong direction for our membership, there's no doubt that what we're doing is important. And I think young people really appreciate that.”

   2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “Well, first of all, I think it's a great business. I welcomed these 47 kids on Monday and among other things shared with them the great challenge that is this business. You're trying to understand risk. You're trying to anticipate what could happen. It's a complicated business. And so intellectually, it's fun to take on challenges like how much should you charge for hail insurance in Oklahoma. I mean, but my advice to them largely centers around purpose that I think that young people have it right when they want to be part of something that's greater than simply trying to reward shareholders. And we by no means are the only purpose-driven company in the world, let alone the only purpose-driven company in the insurance industry. But if you combine the good, important work of insurance, the social...”

   2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “One of our competitors actually has a video. I mean, it's, well, it's true. So otherwise, you'd think it was done from the onion. And it says, if you were buying a flat screen TV, you probably are smart enough to figure out what to do and where to go and how to do it. But insurance, you couldn't do that. So why don't you just go to the guy that we pay money to make sure he recommends my company? And that's the best way to go about doing it. And it just gets right at the heart of this issue. We're talking about some of the smartest, most successful people that we're trying to serve. And there's been a view that either you're unable to understand it or you don't want to understand it because you're too busy to worry about insurance. So just let it continue to be a black box to you. I think more transparency in this information.”

   2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “I don't know whether I'm making the right choice. I don't know why my home went up $500,000, whatever else is. And I think there is, and like there has been in just about every other industry, this shift where it will move more to seller beware and that the consumers will eventually have all the information in their hands or on their phones or in some way they will be able to get a more accurate view of what it costs to replace their house or a more accurate view about what competitive rates are out there or a more detailed comparison of coverages. And from our standpoint as somebody who thinks that transparency is great, we would love if this moved even faster. But I think it'll be a pretty big shock to the industry when consumers start being more informed.”

   2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “Well, I'm not sure how much roiling. But I do think that the insurance has been this category that is a little bit more low interest, hasn't been the thing that everybody focuses on. And as a result, there either is less information out there or the perception that the information is not out there. It's been a bit of buyer beware. I don't know.”

   2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “And that was thought of as absolutely common. And so the pace in which information flows. And I even think today about how I made decisions at that point in time so they would present me with a risk and I'd make a decision. Today, I can get dozens and dozens of sources of third-party data will come in. Someone will have helped me score that risk and I'll be able to go make a precise decision. And back then I would look and I'd say, you know, looks good to me or doesn't look good to me. I mean, it, so data technology, the way we communicate, it's a bit obvious, but it wasn't that long ago that, I mean, I remember when we had our first fax machine installed, we had to figure out what the skinny little paper was all about and stuff, you know.”

   2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “Right. Well, and we would send things off to the typing pool. I was trying to describe to my daughter the other day about how I'd get an idea for a memo and I'd scribble it down and I'd mail it to a typing pool who would then type it and then.”

   2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “Well, data and technology is probably hard to understand. Think about it. I mean, 1987 doesn't feel like it was that long ago. This is not some old story where we picture the old New York.”

   2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “The appraisal dilemma that you described, right, the idea that someone went out to your house and increased the value by $500,000, Stephen Levitt would look at that very simply and he would say that one day an appraiser got yelled at because a house burned down and they didn't have enough coverage. And so the incentives are I don't ever want to be the guy who gets yelled at because there wasn't enough coverage. So I'm going to increase it even more. And so I find that there's hardly a day goes by that I don't think about the principles that he writes about and speaks about in business and in life.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “Well, I find when the company has gone from 20 people 10 years ago to over 500 people today that I feel like I read about culture and environment and organizations more than anything. So Simon Sinek's point of view, both first starting with purpose, but then some of his more leaders eat last, the most recent book. I enjoy Stephen Levitt and the Freak Economics guys. And I think about the...”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “Well, I really think there's a broad number of them these days who fully embrace. There might have been 15 years ago, you might talk about a small number of people who embraced this idea of an alignment of interest. And I think today it's become much more commonplace and almost table stakes if you want to be good in that business. So I think that's a great sign for wealthy families, but also for those serving that it's become so established that conflicts should be avoided transparency.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “You talk about Vanguard and sort of thinking about the Bogle view of the world is certainly, uh, Hard to argue with a lot of times. But I take great pride in being an operator of a business much better than an investor. And so I look for help from people who share the values of an alignment of interest rather than me thinking I'm clever enough to do it myself.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “Well, you know, I don't know if it was as much mentoring. I think that everybody who worked there, he created a great moral model. You watched the way he led. I enjoy it. I was joking with somebody. Every year I share the annual report with him and he's usually kind to write back a quick note and often with questions. And I think we all still respond to him as if he's the boss. Than a decade later. So he was great, and he was a great teacher, but I think also you realize that you don't go and say, I want to be Hank Greenberg. I mean, that is a really unique man who's accomplished so, so much. I clearly learned a lot and have just deep respect for him.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “You know, I think back to, you know, I had a childhood as a caddy was sort of one of my greatest experiences just as a young kid going off and getting up bright and early and looping. And I got hooked up as a really young kid with some young guys who were who turned out to be become extraordinarily successful. But at the time they were young guys. One was a young accountant who ended up becoming the CFO of a very, very big company. And I watched everything they did. I sort of really aspired to be like them. The way they treated a knucklehead kid carrying their bags thought, boy, those guys are just great. So I think probably besides the natural thing of... Watching your parents very closely. I probably learned more carrying golf bags than a lot of other things early in my life.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “And so I was in Hartford, Connecticut, and businesses came to campus, and there were a lot of them in Hartford. I grew up in Boston. But Chubb was offering me a job in New York. For a Boston kid who'd never spent time in New York, that seemed like a really neat idea at the time. And so I knew nothing about what they were doing. It's just that that job was in New York. And so I accepted that job not particularly well informed, but I was going to share a house in Brooklyn with some buddies from school. And it was great. And I end up really enjoying it. And so, you know, even if it was somewhat accidental, I haven't done anything else, even outside of our little niche for 29 years.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “So I went to Trinity College in Hartford in a classic Northeast Liberal Arts College and studied economics along with art history and voodoo witchcraft and magic or whatever you do at a liberal arts school.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “But far more, they rely on the advice of friends and family, like your brother. And so we've created a team that we refer to them as member engagement, but they organize all across the country every month, arguably every week, opportunities to get members together with their friends and family to tell the story, member to member or peer-to-peer with the idea that they would be telling their friends a story about what happened when we rebuilt their house. A story would happen when they saved money, a story would happen when they got great advice and service. And last year we had about 3,000 of these interactions. This year we'll have a lot more. Insurance has been a low interest category where people wouldn't stop and say, boy, I really think I'm an engagement insurance company today. And yet, they're willing to.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “Yeah, so I think that there are two sort of insights that have come from both research and to some degree common sense. One of them is that wealthy families rely on the advice of trusted advisors. And so to the extent that we have relationships with family offices or wealth managers, that's helpful.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “This is how many lightning rods you need, or this is the right water shutoff valve you need, or this is the right solution. This is how much it costs. This is the vendor that we think is best. Here's a work order. I can get it done for you. The fulfillment of advice for wealthy families has proven to be as valuable as the advice itself because they're busy and they're not experts. And if you can go and get it done for them, that makes a huge difference.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “Between you and me, bud. But you're busy, or you're not. And if I told you that you should put a lightning suppression system in, you think you'd know how many lightning rods were needed or how I would do it, right? And so what we ended up developing are these group we call member advocates. I think there'll be as many as 50 by the end of this week. And they would take the advice and say, right.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “Sure. And so in every major market, we've got risk managers who are expert in that market. We've got people who in the Northeast, they, boy, do they understand nowadays ice damming and snow on roofs and burst pipes and everything we've gone through. And in Florida, they understand how to make sure that every opening is protected so that the windstorms don't damage the house and lift the roof off and everything there. And they try to provide as much advice as they can. And not only that, I think that this is where we've differentiated ourselves, is that insurance companies would make a pattern of saying, you know, Barry, you should do this. Here's a piece of advice for you.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “And there will be people who look at that and say, that would make a great media room. And so now you've got or not. Right. And so trying to be there to give the right advice to sort of say, you know, not only is that not a great idea, but you've really changed the ensurability of that home once you have living area well below the necessary elevation. And so if we're not there at the right time to stop them from doing that, we can't help. But we try to select carefully. We try to advise as much as we can make sure that we, you know, listen, if you want to ensure wealthy families and then tell them, by the way, you can't live near the water. Yeah, exactly. So you although we did, we did.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “Yeah, I think exactly. But I think what will end up happening is that each individual location, there are mapping techniques to determine what elevation you should have. I mean, the common things which we've seen over the years is someone built a home up sufficiently elevated and the first floor living area might be 15 feet above the ground. ample and straight and dry.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “Will certainly. I mean, I think that we use catastrophe models to try to understand the likelihood of losses and try to deconstruct them to understand what their assumptions are, including about water temperatures and sea levels. And I think we create standards by which we expect to only ensure homes that are properly elevated. Meaning”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “Construction processes don't work that neatly. And so sometimes with a 13-month project, you've got to pay 24 months of insurance because they're fully earned for the annual period. And so we thought we could design a product that would be better and we could certainly add a lot more value. And then once we're done, back to kind of one of the points we talked about earlier, the people who build these homes that are brand new, those homes are much better equipped to withstand whatever loss might be coming its way by and large. And so we have adding new members who have homes that are extremely insurable because they've been built to the most contemporary standards.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “You should have insulated in this way. You should have put a shower pan in this way. You should have put the simple, these nuts on in a way that will be less likely to corrode and less likely to create water damage. The value we can provide when you're sitting down with the architect right at that point in time is far greater. And so we felt like it was important.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “Yeah, so there are specialists who develop what's called either a builder's risk or a home insured under the course of construction. And there are different types of risks, and it can be a risky proposition. At the point in time where people are doing work and it's unoccupied at night, and even all the way to the end when they're varnishing the floors, there are periods of greater risk than you might find otherwise. So traditionally insurance companies have stayed out of that business and let the construction experts do it. And then when they're done, we would take the policies. The problem is it doesn't always work that tidy. Number one, there isn't a lot of service. So when they build a house and you get out there later and say, you know, you really should have put these windows in to reduce the likelihood of windstorm. You really should have put these tiles on to reduce the likelihood of hail damage.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “Custom built home exactly. So we started a new product launched in Texas a couple months ago geared to helping people design a home that's more likely to be resilient and mitigate against loss with engineering services right there when you're sitting down with your architect and then ensuring you all the way through the construction project and then once you're done put it onto a standard homeowners policy. And so that would be a reaction to looking at this market and saying one, there's a demographic movement. And the second thing, back to what we talked about earlier, if your purpose is to help people pursue their passions with greater confidence, when they want to build a dream home, we should be there. And so we ended up trying to build out what it would take to help people through this construction project. And so far so good.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “Yeah, less and less. And I say that it's usually the extremely unique construction, either historic or somebody put an enormous amount of money into it. They know they'll never get the money back and we need to be able, but we have to promise to rebuild that house the way it is. What I would say is that we have responded to a movement on the dramatic increase in new construction for luxury homes. So there's been a significant double digit increase year after year since we hit the bottom. For new home starts and the fastest growing new home start area is 4,000 square foot and above that's a substantial size.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “Yeah. What I would say, though, is from our perspective, these are largely high quality problems. It creates more opportunities for us. These are folks who are feeling good and wanting to ensure properly. The challenge is if you go back to 2008 when it moved in the other direction at a point in time where the home would have been worth more to them if it burned down that trying to convince somebody to insure a home for its cost to rebuild when they could buy their neighbors for half the price of real estate movement are so much tougher for insurers on the downward cycle than they are on a steady or upward cycle. So we're watching it. We're seeing opportunities, but we don't get a lot of anxiety about the current market.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “Sure, not the real estate exactly. But the challenge is that sometimes if it's a historic home that costs even more because you're actually promising to replace all the unique features, they may not have a market value. So while there's a limited supply and a great demand for homes at a certain point in time, there's also that argument going on right now in Manhattan about whether there's too much supply on the ultra high end side of that and they're not moving as much.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “We just started in California in the last two years, and so we're very, we're monitoring very carefully and we're looking out for members. So what I do think on this question, that description you had of that the million dollar sale for an $800,000 listing, I mean, we do see, we tend to play a little bit higher up. So the average or the entry level for our programs are a million dollars of replacement cost, which on a market value could be considerably higher than that.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “Literally, well, unfortunately, literally, the real estate market is hot. Yes, and literally California is on fire right now. So this is a set.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

35. “Barry, I'd also be remiss if I didn't stop you first and say that you don't tell an insurance guy that the country is on fire. Because when we look at California, we have seen that so figured out.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

36. “Could have alerted you ahead of time that said it looks like you're underinsured. That might have reduced the shock of seeing that. And so in any event, I don't think there's any part of the business where analytics aren't being used.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

37. “Yes, I think we would. I think you have to be to be successful in the insurance business these days. So from our perspective, and we've just actually made an investment outside of our actuarial area in a chief data scientist, and she has built a team up that looks at stuff beyond the products. So on the underwriting and actuarial side, we do analytics to understand the people we ensure and their behavior and the responsibilities and the risks we take, like the likelihood of a hailstorm or what type of roof is more likely to cause significant damage. But the analytics really applying to all aspects of our business. The performance of individuals, recruiting college kids and the likelihood that they're going to succeed, the effectiveness of direct mail campaigns to how do we make sure we don't upset too many people when we appraise your house. Using third-party data that's available so that instead of a bait and switch, if we”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

38. “Well, yeah, I mean, if you think about it, if you're trying to return on capital, you need to get investment returns or underwriting returns. If the investments aren't there and you need more underwriting returns, that requires you to raise prices. So having a lower cost of capital, this is a good time to be able to take advantage of that to some degree. But we buy a lot of reinsurance from people who need to see a fair amount of return. Lower interest rates naturally would lead to higher prices and probably competition keeps it from being too much higher.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

39. “Well, you know, I think we made the decision that short duration, high quality, despite the modest Yields, negligible yields was the right thing. We had enough risk in our business with hurricanes and earthquakes and hailstorms that we wouldn't take enormous amount of investment risk. So it's been tough these years to generate meaningful yield, but we like our position. We've got lots of liquidity, lots of flexibility, but surely not as much yield as we'd like.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

40. “And he's been terrific. But the other side of it is, in addition to buying a single digit equity percentage, they made a very generous commitment to provide additional capital as we need it, a defined amount, but it can be called upon and a contingent capital. So if there was either an opportunity for greater growth or a crisis where we had to replenish, Excel has given us this capital flexibility that's absolutely terrific for us.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

41. “No, Yeah, no, and so I think that in a fairly complicated transaction, we did a recapitalization of the holding company. So we have a for-profit company that manages the policyholder-owned exchange, and that's where the investors see their returns. And so in a very complicated transaction, they brought in KKR to take a minority position. And we had received over 20 unsolicited inquiries from insurance companies who wanted to be in a specialist market, liked our model, liked the predictable fee income and the customer-centric reciprocal. And I have to say that Excel, they were terrific. Mike McGavick, who's the CEO, has been a good friend throughout this process. And I think that the biggest thing we get is for me, is I get to talk to Mike probably once a quarter about culture and challenges and leadership.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

42. “Yeah, just in December. And to back up, we've had the same partner from the beginning. So StonePoint Capital in 2005, right before left, we agreed to build this business together. And to think about it, we're in the 11th year with the same private equity sponsor. Pretty impressive.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

43. “Paper was stuck to a painting and it pulled off the treatment of the oil and it can't be repaired. And that became installed. And then a print from Dolly was damaged in storage beyond repair and with all its mudstains it is on our walls. And then a 12th century Chinese plate was cracked and then reassembled. And so when we've had art that has been insured and it has no value in salvage, we install it throughout our offices as a reminder for why we're in business to help people pursue their passions of collecting art.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

44. “Well, it's interesting a member, a very prominent family here in New York, had a glass sculpture cut from one piece of glass by a Czechoslovakian artist who had built these beautiful glass pieces and they discovered a tiny crack in it, but it became of no value. So we paid the claim in full and there was no salvage value that anybody wanted. And our claim department were trying to figure out what to do with this massive piece of glass. And we thought if it was installed in the reception of our headquarters, it would be a reminder for everybody of why we're in business. And we did that. And then all of a sudden claims people from around the country started saying, well, really, this...”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

45. “So, understanding value and then understanding exposure. And we've got a group of people who have done this for a long time, and that allows us to be pretty good at it.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

46. “Valuations an important part of it. And so we have a team of experts who have experience in valuations and then they use a network to make sure that we have the right valuations. But it's only part of it. So for example, a massive hailstorm in St. Louis just hit a wonderful sculpture that was in the backyard of somebody's house knocking the toes off of a cherub. And so you have to look at damageability. And so from an underwriter's perspective, that's not only looking at the risks of outdoor sculptures, but understanding transit risk of pieces that are on loan or pieces that are moving from house to house. Because honestly, the exposure inside of a house installed properly on a wall isn't that great. Once it starts moving, boy, that's there.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

47. “Yeah, no, it's a great challenge. And I think it's also a challenge if you hire talented and experienced people who are accustomed to working in a stock company, their mentality may be different. So the first thing we did is we established a set of principles that are actuarial and pricing team would use to make those decisions. One of them would be there are no new business writing companies or in other words the existing members will always pay less than a new member and that helps guide them. But clearly we have to manage this business professionally that we have to make sure we charge enough and so we lay out these principles that guide them to seek an adequate rate, to try to be fair amongst the members so you don't have subsidization where some groups are not paying nearly enough and some groups are paying too much.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

48. “Yeah, so we use a network of around 700 independent brokers. They are fiercely independent. They work for their clients. They put their clients' best interest first. They do work with other companies. And so if we don't serve them well, they can offer them someone else. But I will tell you that after 55,000 families have joined, it's really the existing members and their enthusiasm that will lead to the next 55,000. So we have principally a channel of independent brokers, and then we try to inspire the enthusiasm of our membership to grow the next group.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

49. “Yeah, I think for some time now, as I said, it's a $15 billion. Gosh, our competitors have suggested could be a $40 billion market. And it's a part of the economy that is showing growth, the wealthiest Americans. So we see plenty of upside. We don't see any... And they will help us really more in 2017 and 2018 when they're maturing or they'll hopefully move on. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, 27 out of the 28 we hired last year are still with us. The 2010 class, the entire group is still with us. So we hope we can keep”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

50. “Sure, and I'm sure if I went back to AIG, Mr. Greenberg would say, so 600 million part of 15 billion, so you haven't been able to crack it.”

    2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source