YouSaid · the spoken record

Ross Buchmueller

lines on the record: 83
first: 2016-07-01
most recent: 2016-07-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, for more than that. So since we started back in 2007 was the first full year of writing business, we grew by 40% every year. And we grew 40% last year. Now, you know, those numbers, to put in perspective, we're still about a $600 million business. We're in about a $15 billion niche With only two other competitors, Chubb and AIG, really, who are in this. So we have been in many ways slow and steady building up a business that still is undersized within the category. But 40%.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Maybe a bit of serendipity, and probably when you look at any business that has great success, they can look back at some little factor that said, boy, would this business have been as successful if the Florida market wasn't Uncompetitive for that period of time, but the real principle was select carefully and we can build a great business.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, listen, I would just say size matters in this case. And so for both engineering reasons and just the common sense, these large homes held up very well. There's a terrific group, the insurance institute for building and business and home safety that is testing damageability down in a facility in South Carolina. And we're learning more and more about what causes damage or what construction helps mitigate damage. The newest big homes were withstanding damage far better than anything else. And yet when you're building a new home in 2006 and 2007, insurance companies were already kind of full up of what just happened in 04 and 05. So our concept, not limited to Florida, was what if we pulled together the most responsible owners of the finest built homes and bring them together to create their own insurance company? And it just so happened that the owners of the finest build homes in Florida were being kept out because they were all new to the market coming in and people said, I'm full already. And so...”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm sure it probably helped. You had a couple of factors going on there. So one of them was that in 04 and 205, where you had four hurricanes in 2004 make landfall in Florida, and then 2005, you not only had Wilma and Rita, but you had Katrina, who obviously did the damage in the Gulf. And so insurance companies naturally backed off a bit and were trying to digest what just happened, what's likely to happen in the future. And so clearly there was a bit of an opening there for us. But the real issue is this is we were able to determine that very well-built homes, and in this case the newest built homes, built to the highest standards, were far more likely to withstand damage than a home that had been built decades before.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're trying to find out whether it is the new normal or whether or not this is a cycle. But certainly the cost of replacing roofs the last couple years has been more than we might have anticipated.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, I think you have to be careful if the market were to become overcompetitive and you simply thought you couldn't underwrite to a fair return. You know, the good news for us is we operate in such an uncompetitive world with two or three other companies. And so we see less competitive cycles than you might see in a commercial insurance where there might be dozens and dozens of companies competing for the same type of business. So we also look, though, at economic cycles. In 2008, we had a significant amount of business in southwest Florida where the economy was hitting it hard and we had to be careful that our membership was holding up and being resilient in those financial times. These days, we're looking at the massive and frequent hailstorms in the center and south of the country.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, you know, I think that USAA has been an inspiration for us in many ways. You know, they use the same reciprocal structure. They are laser focused on the service to their membership. So, in many ways, I think we view them as someone to look up to. I would say we get most of our inspiration from the wealth management industry, where you have real evangelists who are out there trying to build businesses without a focus on short-term profits, but focused on this long-term view of if I serve my clients well, I will prosper. In the meanwhile, I have no conflict and I am just simply going to serve them well. And that gives us inspiration”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think that for us it's a flattering comparison. When you look at Vanguard, one of the first things they say is that they're uniquely driven to do what's best for investors. And I think we share that value. Now, we use independent brokers. They're much more of a direct-to-consumer. We think we are very high touch. They're definitely low cost. So operating-wise, there's probably some differences. I think we share the value that let's focus on the customer and serve them as the most important part of the equation.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so, you know, simply, one of the things we've done is it said if the value goes up by more than 10%, the appraiser cannot issue the report. They have to make a phone call and go through line by line to make sure you agree with what we said so you don't have that shock. And there's lots of practices where the industry has done it the way they've done it. They believe they are right. There is some goodness in it, but it doesn't sit well with consumers”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, you saw the experience the way it's probably designed to be seen, which is unfortunate, right? So here's one of the great challenges. If you're with a standard company, they may overlook real issues that would cost more to rebuild. And so when you eventually had a claim, they might not have noticed some of those features. So, the challenge is as trying to underwrite properly, we want to get these values correct, but we can't make it feel like a bait and switch.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“New business writing companies where the premiums are lower if they've never met you and higher if you've been there for 10 years. And so we just dealt with a lot of these issues where products are built to be more generous, priced to be more efficient and principles put in place like treat your loyal customers better than you treat somebody you've never met.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, for starters, the coverage is typically restrained on their homeowners policy. You can't make a claim for much jewelry to buy a rider or a scheduled personal property policy that is priced to make massive profits for the insurer. And in our case, we provide more cover in case you forgot to insure something and the stuff that you intentionally want to insure, your higher valued items, are at a much lower price. So part of this is an inefficiency, but part of it also is designed for this rewarding shareholders. The things that people do that everybody, even if you're not insurance expert, just know are wrong, you know, I think we've been able to identify and fix. Years ago, there was a mortgage company that said sort of, you know, even kids know it's not right to treat your new friends better than your old friends. But insurance companies will still have.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For this additions and alterations coverage in apartments. But I guess my point is it's a very inefficient market. There are lots of little quirks. All of them can be rationalized, but it's inefficient. So I think the inefficiencies, and there are many, and part of the charm of our business is this is all we do. And we have looked at these inefficiencies and found ways to make things work, whether that is the way jewelry insurance is overpriced.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Where you wanted to ensure the fixtures and fittings or the marble floors or the mahogany walls, that they would sell a deductible from $100 all the way up to the highest deductibles of tens of thousands of dollars. And no matter what deductible you picked, the price was the same because they put the deductible credit in the wrong place in the algorithm. I mean, a silly little mistake. So here I was, a 22-year-old trainee, and I wrote a memo saying this is wrong. And anyway, 2016, it's still the same. So”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Over half a billion dollars in what I was going to say is I think I think where we see is you have two big issues. One is there still remains inefficiencies in this market. In 1987, I joined Chubb out of college. I went through an underwriting training program and I came back to the New York branch where I was set to be an underwriting trainee and they introduced a product called Masterpiece. And at that time, masterpiece was coming to New York. This was within a couple of months of me joining the company. And we looked at the first release of the product and it had a flaw that if you were to ensure a New York City apartment.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, again, I've been in the business for almost 30 years, and so I'm a bit of a fan of the industry and like to think that as a group, we do more good than bad. I don't mean what...”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Interestingly enough, it's about as different as you could get. And so for it to have the same guy build both companies and to look at it now, but I think it reflects both AIG's strength and what Pure's purpose is. At the time, we had the biggest balance sheet in the industry in AIG. And so for us to take on extraordinary risks for people who had art collections and the billions of dollars and to extend limits to help people ensure what might have seen uninsurable at the time, that made sense. You start a business from scratch and you're now trying to operate a company where you're carefully selecting the most responsible people and pooling them together in the most efficient way. Very different things. Very, very different things. And so the common expertise was common, but other than that, it was very different business.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. Wouldn't that be good if we could have done that? But, you know, listen, I mean, I guess I'll put that out as I was loyal to the company and I believed in the company even though I set up a different business, but I did hold probably a little more than I should”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, maybe even more than that. So winning was the existing businesses were getting stronger all the time. New businesses like mine were entering and making an impact. They were acquiring Sun America American General, you know, and there was a certain sense of confidence and purpose and pride. And it was a great deal of fun. And boy, did I learn a lot.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, again, I think that in the insurance industry, my recollection, and now we're going back a bit, but the market capitalization of AIG was bigger than the cumulative market capitalization of just about all other publicly traded insurers. So it dwarfed everybody. I mean, it was a $200 billion market cap back. I want to say $6 billion.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I just last week was with a friend who now runs a big company and who was there at the time. And we were having this reflection about the good old days, as it were. And I think the common theme was winning. You just felt like you had such an edge and there was such momentum built around winning. And I think everybody throughout the organization embraced that idea that we were and could do great things and win. And people took great pride in winning. And so I think that was the first notable thing. I mean, I was long gone by the 2008 issues. You know, that was a really important part of the culture they was winning.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, you know, he was hands on in that he was there to help you at any turn. In my case, he had we still use Rolodex's back then, but he had a great one. And if you're getting into the high net worth business and you have Hank. Behind you, that's a great tailwind to meet a lot of people who could help your business. And so he was helpful in that. But most importantly, he created a clear sense of accountability. It was your business. And so his help was there, his involvement was there, but let there be no doubt that good or bad, it was your business. And we got to about a half a billion dollars in the first few years when I was there before I left. And the business continues to perform well. I take pride 11 years after having left. It's still a good business.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. And so, you know, for 12 years at Chubb, I'm being told, calm down, young man, your day will come. And here's this guy telling me that I better take it now because I'm going to start losing my courage to take risk. And so it was an absolute great decision and I loved every minute of it.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, and his point was a good one. You know, I had just been married for a couple of years. Today we have two kids. We were expecting our first child. And his point of view was that you're not going to be able to take risks or you may not be willing to take risks real soon when your life.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're hosting our chairman for a dinner with some European executives. And they said to him, so I see this merger, what is this going to mean? And he reflected and said, we've never had competition and we never will. And boy, I was sitting at the dinner saying, I'd like to compete against a company that doesn't think they'll ever have competition. And about 60 days later, I got a call from AIG saying they were exploring getting into the business, and I'd be willing to have a conversation. And so, you know, I flew over from London at the time and had breakfast with Evan and had lunch with Hank and met everybody in between.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, so I was in London building out a UK high net worth practice and a few other things. The first thing that happened was we were hosting our chairman at the time and two companies in the United States, Continental and CNA, had merged. And they both had a consumer business.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, so I think the reciprocal structure probably gives us a 10 to 15 percent advantage, in part because insurance companies need to cover the cost of the claims and the cost of your expenses, but also the cost of capital. And when your capital is free, contributed by policyholders year after year, that certainly reduces the burden, the need to return. The other part, though, that I think is just as important is when you start a company from scratch and you have this idea of what you want to do, we have been able to select our members, our policy holders carefully. So if you only ensure those people who are more responsible, who are less likely to make claims, who appreciate what you're offering, you can do it at a lower cost. So I'd say on average our members report savings north of 20%.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do it in a way that it was entrepreneurial. Boy, we thought we'd have something terrific. And that's what we've done. But some of these conflicts are not sinister. They're simple, right? That shareholders want premiums to be higher and policyholders want them to be lower”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Perhaps weren't run with some of the modern. Corporate culture Environment. So beyond the rewards Environment might not have been as”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or demanded by consumers I want to be treated with this sense of trust that I know. Behave well. And we were able to look”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What we Or, I certainly did, along with some colleagues who joined me at Pure. Some inefficiencies in the way that market had operated.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“High net worth area, which is what we focus on serving successful families, is the only business I've been in right out of college Got a job as an underwriter at Chubb in the personal insurance area. So, on one level, discovering high net worth It's where I fell into.”
2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
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2016-07-01 · Masters in Business · Interview With Ross Buchmueller: Masters in Business (Audio) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source