How Well Do You Know the Market?

Ben Curtis: All right, Ray. I'm excited for our episode today. This is gonna be so much fun. I thought it'd be fun to see if we could stump each other with some questions today. So I've got a few questions prepared. I asked you to prepare a few. Exactly. Well, we'll see.

Raymond Moss: Good. So you're not supposed to know the answer to these questions? Okay. Well, we'll see if you know these, 'cause that'll be interesting. So, all right — well, before we start, let me tell everyone why we're here, because this is the podcast that accompanies the DOT Analysis platform, where we discuss real-time trends in the truck insurance market and explore answers to the questions you're not allowed to ask. I'm Ray.

Ben Curtis: And I'm Ben, and this is The Inside Lane.

Raymond Moss: Alright, we say that — the questions you're not allowed to ask — but we are now asking them explicitly.

Ben Curtis: We are. Yeah, you know, I thought of the perfect analogy for that the other day — at least in my mind it was perfect. Play this out with me for a second, see how this goes, okay? Imagine I got invited to go on an African safari. I was like, "Hey Ray, you want to go on this African safari with me?"

Raymond Moss: That would be very fun. Yes. Yeah, that'd be sweet.

Ben Curtis: You'd want to go, right? Alright — if I said, "We've gotta get there," what would be your preferred way of getting to Africa?

Raymond Moss: Well, I could take a cruise, which would be kind of fun, but I don't know if I'd have enough time, so I'd definitely fly.

Ben Curtis: All right. Well, interesting you say that — I mean, I would obviously choose to teleport. I'm not sure why you'd want the twenty-hour flight.

Raymond Moss: Well — I did not know that was an option, so yes, okay. If that's an option, I will teleport. Just flying would be my default.

Ben Curtis: Okay, so that answer right there perfectly illustrates the point I want to make with this. And that is that we so often limit what we think about and what we do in life by the extent of our imagination, or our belief about what's possible. I think you experience this too — I experience it all the time with onboarding new teams, or even working with customers who've been on this DOT Analysis platform for a while. They're limited only by the extent of their imagination for the types of questions they can ask. And as you start to push back the boundaries of what's actually possible, boy, do the opportunities open up — the insights that come out when you start to expand those boundaries are really incredible.

Raymond Moss: Yeah. Okay. Well, are we doing anything else before the questions? Because otherwise, I have my first question, if I can go first.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, go for it. There's no specific format. We'll just see how we do on these.

Raymond Moss: Okay. Well, the briefing notes for this episode were very—

Ben Curtis: Should I be nervous?

Raymond Moss: —light. So I didn't know exactly where we were going. But all right, here's the question — I'll give you the context. There was a producers' meeting for an insurer that a whole bunch of different producers went to, from a whole bunch of different agencies. This particular agency had been a customer of ours for a while, and they went to this producers' meeting — it was a producers' meeting for National Interstate. And of course, many people in the market know National Interstate has a pretty decent-sized book in trucking. At the end of that meeting, National Interstate was asking for feedback about anything they could do better. So this particular agency, through one of their producers, reached out to me and said, "Hey, can you help me ask some of the right questions of National Interstate?" — to submit their feedback on how the meeting went. And I said, "Well, I wasn't at the meeting, but you were. So let's look at their book of business and try to match up some of the context for the things they talked about with what we can see in Market Intelligence." So I get into a question.

Ben Curtis: Are you getting to a question here, Ray? Okay.

Raymond Moss: Alright, so here's the question. As we were talking, we found five states — and here's what I wrote down — we found five states where they have literally zero net growth in fleets over the past year, despite having a decent number of phenomenal fleet accounts, National Interstate.

Ben Curtis: Boy, is this gonna be...

Raymond Moss: No growth at all. Totally no growth.

Ben Curtis: So existing business, no new business in five states. Is this gonna be multiple choice, or do I have to just come up with this out of fifty states?

Raymond Moss: This is gonna be so easy. You just have to get one to get a point. So you've got a pretty good chance here — there's five of them that I wrote down. All you have to do is give me one. Come on, that should be easy.

Ben Curtis: Okay, I mean, I'm thinking it's gotta be one of the less common states — one of the lower states anyway. I'm just looking at a map, I'm not looking at National Interstate.

Raymond Moss: Well, you're looking to the side, so I'm suspicious you're opening up Market Intelligence.

Ben Curtis: I'm only looking at a map. I'd say let's try one of the Dakotas — let's try North Dakota.

Raymond Moss: All right, let's see if you're right. I'm gonna jump into Market Intelligence and pull up National Interstate's book of business here.

Ben Curtis: Should I guess a couple more states before you show me?

Raymond Moss: Okay, yeah, sure. I'm gonna take your first one as your official guess, but let's see what your second and third guess would be.

Ben Curtis: All right, I'll go North Dakota, we'll try New York — that's a tough state — and just for fun, Arizona and Nevada. So those would be my guesses.

Raymond Moss: Alright, well I said you could guess one, but for the point, we'll count that. All right, so here we go. Check this out.

Ben Curtis: North Dakota's negative. Okay. And I got Nevada.

Raymond Moss: But here's the thing — remember—

Ben Curtis: Wait, are we on fleets, or just on National Interstate right now?

Raymond Moss: We're just on National Interstate right now, so that's right — the picture's gonna change.

Ben Curtis: That's right. See, this is your very specific question, your imagination.

Raymond Moss: This is the — right, because here's the thing — this producer wanted to know something about their appetite, and this revealed itself to us as we were combing through their book of business. So, two things: you picked out the first one, which was we need to look at just their fleet book. So now I'm looking at their fleet book.

Ben Curtis: Okay, so not a huge change just going to that — I saw a few states drop out of there.

Raymond Moss: So here we go — this is what's really fascinating. I'm just looking at their fleet book, but notice how they have a decent number of Canadian filings — or I should say, filings for motor carriers domiciled in Canada, that's a better way to say that.

Ben Curtis: Yeah.

Raymond Moss: I just want to take those out of the picture. I'm just going to look at the whole U.S. by pulling in these four U.S. regions. All right, so here we go — here are some states that have had fleet presence but zero growth: Oregon, Idaho, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. And then — this is kind of cheating because I wish you could combine them — Nevada had minus one and Utah had plus one, so they kind of net out to nothing. But amazingly, here's what the producer wanted to know: they wanted to know, okay, National Interstate, you've got growth in fleet all over the place — what's going on out west? Why is there no growth in your fleet book out west?

Ben Curtis: Right.

Raymond Moss: But yet, if I click on here — look at this — I have some phenomenal fleets in Idaho. Why aren't you growing there? You have a good book. So there we go.

Ben Curtis: All right, so did the producer get an answer to that question directly from National Interstate, or is that still just a hypothesis about the reason right now?

Raymond Moss: Well, they are gonna fire off that question to National Interstate based on that meeting, so we'll find out — I don't know, it's a really good question.

Ben Curtis: Okay. Alright, so I didn't do too bad on my state guesses here, right? North Dakota is negative — how many do they still have in North Dakota?

Raymond Moss: Yeah, they've got three. They lost one.

Ben Curtis: Pretty low, yeah, okay. And is New York — New York is flat, so that was correct, right?

Raymond Moss: Yeah, so — man, I can't even—

Ben Curtis: And then Arizona?

Raymond Moss: Arizona — well, you got Arizona. Yeah, there you go. Not bad. So there we go — there's my first question. Fascinating. But that's such a good thing to be able to see, because if you can't see someone's book of business, you can't actually ask informed questions.

Ben Curtis: Right. Okay, all right, let me get a question out here now. Let's see. All right, so my first one is a fleet question as well. This is related to Acuity. So Acuity is well known for writing short-radius business, right — like five, six hundred mile max is kind of their published guidelines. Everybody knows that.

Raymond Moss: Yep, that's kind of their sweet spot.

Ben Curtis: All right, but if we look at the entire fleet market, Acuity is actually the second-highest insurer by weighting as far as the number of fleets they insure. What's one of the other top two — or the other two — in the top three for insurance companies that insure fleets overall? This is multiple choice, so I'll give you four choices — two of these four, unless you want to just guess without multiple choice.

Raymond Moss: Okay, all right, no — I'll take multiple choice. What are they?

Ben Curtis: There's four answers, two of these are the other two. We'll see if you can guess at least one of them — which two of these four are also in the top three: insurance companies that insure the most fleets in the U.S. So the options are Old Republic, Travelers, National Interstate, or Sentry.

Raymond Moss: Man, and we're defining fleets as ten or more units?

Ben Curtis: Ten or more units, yep. So Acuity — we talked about their low radius, but I'm sorry, that is the category I was looking at. Who else insures that low-radius — not fleets overall, the low-radius fleets.

Raymond Moss: 'Cause you're just — okay, that's the — okay, I was confused because you were talking about just low-radius fleets.

Ben Curtis: Yes, I'm sorry, I didn't make that clear in my question initially. So yeah, that's what I wanted to specifically understand — Acuity says that's their specific appetite, so they do insure a lot of that business, but they're actually number two. So what are the other two — number one and number three — out of that list? Who else insures the short-radius or smaller-radius fleets?

Raymond Moss: Okay, that makes way more sense to me. At first I was confused because I thought you were talking about writers of fleet business overall, but you're asking for the number one and number three insurer of five-, six-hundred-mile-and-less-radius fleet business.

Ben Curtis: Correct.

Raymond Moss: Okay. And tell me my options again, I'll write them down.

Ben Curtis: Okay, so short-radius fleets, number one and number three — your choices are Old Republic, Travelers, National Interstate, or Sentry.

Raymond Moss: I'm gonna — if it's National Interstate, then I'm gonna be bummed, because I've just been looking at their book specifically for that agent. I'm gonna go with Sentry as number three, and National Interstate as number one.

Ben Curtis: Okay, all right. So to do this, let's go into Market Explorer to look at the answer here. And we'll step our way through this. So your first thing — clarifying the low radius — let's just look at fleets first, and we'll see how it adjusts when we add the radius filter. So if we go in here and just look at ten or more units.

Raymond Moss: All right, so I'm on Market Explorer, I'm just looking at ten or more units, and now I'm filtered.

Ben Curtis: So we've got the whole market of ten or more units. On the side there, it gives us the weighting of insurance companies. Let's look at where that's ranked — read off the first six there.

Raymond Moss: All right, so I got at the top: Great West, then National Interstate, then Old Republic, then Progressive, Sentry, Acuity, Berkley, Zurich — and the list keeps going.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, so on and so forth. All right, so now let's take that — I included the unknown radius in here too, because most of those are the real short-radius guys too.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, short. Yep.

Ben Curtis: Let's go to the radius filter, add unknown up through 500 miles, and see who's got those fleets.

Raymond Moss: Okay, so here we go, because this is — I'm gonna see our answer here. Let's see if I'm right. Man, I did not expect that — Old Republic—

Ben Curtis: I know, Old Republic.

Raymond Moss: Dang.

Ben Curtis: Number one for short-radius fleets. And then Acuity pulls up to number two on the list — substantially better than they are overall in fleets for the short-radius guys. And then—

Raymond Moss: That is so unexpected.

Ben Curtis: And then number three is your National Interstate guess.

Raymond Moss: Okay, so I was kind of right on National Interstate, but I think I said they'd be first.

Ben Curtis: Yep, yep.

Raymond Moss: And Sentry's not even — I have to go way down to see them.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, isn't it interesting that you would have assumed — they do have a lot of fleet business, but not in the lower radius.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, I never would have assumed that. Am I allowed to do this? I'm gonna go to Market Intelligence, I'm gonna look at Old Republic, because now I want to know — I didn't realize Old Republic's book was that big, just because I think of Old Republic and I think of Great West and the connection there. But Old Republic actually has quite a few filings. Well, I'm always surprised.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, really interesting, huh?

Raymond Moss: Yep.

Ben Curtis: All right, I think it's your turn now — next question.

Raymond Moss: Okay, all right, so here we go — this one's kind of a two-parter, I couldn't really separate it, so call it one question, okay? It's also based on National Interstate, because I had such a good conversation — there were so many things in there, I had to pick this one. So — can you guess... this is very trivia-ish, but can you guess how many years National Interstate's longest-standing relationship is with one of their customers? And specifically, it's a 200-plus-unit fleet — if I remember right, I think it was 200 plus, we'll see here in a second — but it was a large fleet. So of their fleet customers, who's got the longest-standing relationship with that large motor carrier? And not who is it — how many years do you think it is? If you're within five years, I'll give you the point.

Ben Curtis: Boy. Okay, well, obviously I've not looked at anything that specific in their book, so I'm just gonna guess — thirty-two years.

Raymond Moss: No, but that's not a terrible guess.

Ben Curtis: Okay. Not within five, though.

Raymond Moss: Not within five. So all right, check this out — I'm gonna go to Market Intelligence and open up National Interstate. And — the second piece of the question that I have yet to tell you is actually gonna bring, I think, what's most interesting. So check this out — I'm looking at their fleets that are a hundred-plus trucks, in the five-or-more-years bucket, and it is actually—

Ben Curtis: How many total do they have there?

Raymond Moss: They got 167, so it's a decent number of them, right.

Ben Curtis: Okay. Mm-hmm.

Raymond Moss: All right, so this specific fleet is actually in Ohio, so check this out — they've got eight of them, and this one right here, Nick Strimbu, they have been with them for twenty-four years.

Ben Curtis: Man. All right.

Raymond Moss: So you were within striking distance there — twenty-four years.

Ben Curtis: Yep, all right. Thirty-two — a little aggressive on my thirty-two guess. That's a long time.

Raymond Moss: Yes, all right, so if you don't have an answer to this next one, that's totally fine, but can you guess what captive program they're in? Which ironically is probably why they've been there so long — which makes sense, 'cause when you're captive, you're captive.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, I have no idea.

Raymond Moss: So they're in the Voyager captive program. And given the length of time — if I go here to History, check this out — they're with National Interstate all the way back in 2002, but it looks like they switched to Voyager in 2008. So a good long-term relationship there. It's just so fascinating to see — okay, they started with National Interstate, took them a couple years, now they're in a captive — but that's a phenomenal long-term relationship. I just think there's great value in understanding the relationships that insurers have with motor carriers and the longevity of them. It's just so cool, I like seeing that. So there you go.

Ben Curtis: Yeah — so did you filter through all of it to find that, or did you find a shortcut to figure out the oldest client?

Raymond Moss: Well, we were just noting in our conversation some of the long-enduring clients and relationships they'd had. This conversation with this producing group was taking so many different routes, and the reason I ran into that is because we were riffing on National Interstate and on the concept of how long relationships are enduring. So we went and filtered through that and looked through Market Explorer. And then we ended up getting to, okay, how long are they staying — how long do their captive members stay? And we found some examples to show that when you jump into a captive with National Interstate, you're probably really happy, because a lot of them stay for a really long time. There's like a thousand questions and answers packed into that whole conversation, but those were two really interesting ones that speak to the nature of their book of business.

Ben Curtis: Yep. All right, well, that was a very, very specific question. I've got a little bit broader one for my next one here, and this is related to a conversation we've been having over the last few weeks — I know we've discussed it on a couple of the other podcasts and some of our other client content and communication that's gone out — but this is related to Clear Blue. So here's my question: Clear Blue has been growing like crazy in the last year or two, especially in Texas — that's what we've discussed in previous podcasts and with customers. What competitor are they taking the most business from right now, of everyone else?

Raymond Moss: Overall, or in Texas only?

Ben Curtis: Well, because there's so much business in Texas, it is in Texas — but we'll just say overall. When we pull up the answer, you'll see it's almost entirely Texas, because that's almost exclusively where Clear Blue is. But not only are they taking the most business from them, they're smoking them in the head-to-head right now.

Raymond Moss: Wow.

Ben Curtis: So actually a pretty big story.

Raymond Moss: That is cool. So who is Clear Blue taking the most business from? Is this any business, or fleets, or non-fleet, or just anything?

Ben Curtis: Any business right now. I wanna see if you have an off-the-cuff answer, and then I'll give you a few choices if you don't.

Raymond Moss: Okay, my off-the-cuff answer was gonna be Trisura. That's just the first thing that came to mind.

Ben Curtis: Okay. Interesting guess.

Raymond Moss: I think — well, there's so many different things on Trisura, that's what my first thought was. But give me some multiple choices.

Ben Curtis: All right, so Trisura was not actually in my multiple choice options even. So all right—

Raymond Moss: So I'm clearly wrong.

Ben Curtis: Progressive, Canal, GEICO, or Accredited.

Raymond Moss: Interesting. Progressive, Canal, GEICO, or Accredited. I'm going to pick Progressive — I don't know for sure if that's right, but they've been getting their lunch eaten by GEICO, and it just seems like it would be in theme for their lunch to get eaten by someone else as well.

Ben Curtis: So before I found the answer to this, I would have guessed GEICO. And it's because we've unpacked GEICO's book in some previous episodes as well.

Raymond Moss: Yeah.

Ben Curtis: They have a huge book in Texas, and just because of the volume of business there and the amount of single-unit business—

Raymond Moss: Yeah, that's really true.

Ben Curtis: GEICO has, which single-unit tends to move a lot more frequently than fleet does.

Raymond Moss: Right. Right.

Ben Curtis: Those two alone would have made me say, well, anyone doing well in Texas is probably taking a lot of GEICO's book. So pull up Clear Blue and let's see whose business they're taking.

Raymond Moss: All right, so Market Intelligence, going to Clear Blue. You want me to select just Texas, or—

Ben Curtis: So before you scroll down, yeah, just hover over the map so we can see where their policies are located. Look how many of those are in Texas.

Raymond Moss: Yeah... it's basically all Texas.

Ben Curtis: Right? I mean, it's crazy how much they have, and it's honestly surprising how diversified the map is for how little business is actually not in Texas — with that little spread out, it's almost surprising they even have any.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, you went through all the hoops in Arkansas to write seven policies.

Ben Curtis: Right, that's what I mean — isn't that almost more surprising in and of itself?

Raymond Moss: Right. Yeah, that's really — it is. Yep.

Ben Curtis: All right, so scroll down below the map, and let's look at who they're taking their business from.

Raymond Moss: Although before I do that — maybe I'll just say, having that information at our fingertips, maybe that's an indication that they intend to grow more in those other states. I don't know.

Ben Curtis: I mean, it's hard to say — yeah, it's hard to think they're not intending to, but I don't know, we'll see.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, all right, so I'm gonna scroll down — and Accredited—

Ben Curtis: Yeah, so not only—

Raymond Moss: Wow.

Ben Curtis: —are they getting the most business from Accredited, but take a look at the win-loss rate — well, here, let's do it this way. First of all, you'll see that who they're losing business to, Accredited's not even in the top of that list. But now, as an alternative, pull up Accredited's book instead.

Raymond Moss: Okay.

Ben Curtis: Because not only is Clear Blue winning — so the majority of their inflows are coming from Accredited — but go look at what's happening to Accredited.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, look in Texas, man, they are—

Ben Curtis: They're getting pummeled, and look at who their top loser is. So not only is the majority of Clear Blue's book coming from Accredited, but Accredited is losing the majority of their business to Clear Blue. So there is like—

Raymond Moss: Wow.

Ben Curtis: —a giant hole in the bottom of their bucket that's aimed directly at Clear Blue right now. I mean, is there any other way to understand this?

Raymond Moss: That's so great — quick, call every motor carrier with Accredited in Texas now. That's amazing, my gosh.

Ben Curtis: Well, but here — okay, you want another interesting tidbit here, because you're on Accredited right now, right?

Raymond Moss: Yeah, yeah.

Ben Curtis: So they're losing most of their business to Clear Blue. But where is Accredited getting business from? Because they're not — they are still writing business. Who are they writing most of it from?

Raymond Moss: They're taking it from Progressive.

Ben Curtis: And how much are they losing to Progressive?

Raymond Moss: About half. Look at that — they took fourteen hundred, they lost seven hundred.

Ben Curtis: So Accredited, even though they're bleeding overall and way down in total business, they're still writing a lot of business, and they're winning two-to-one against Progressive. But Clear Blue — not even on the map, they're just literally fire-hosing business to Clear Blue. So something very unique within these programs is going on that's causing business to shift in huge tranches between these different insurers. Isn't that fascinating?

Raymond Moss: Yeah. That is really fascinating. All right, well, yeah — I did not know, I did not get to the level of unpacking that story. That's really cool.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, so I'm sure we're gonna do more segments on that, because what's evolving there in the South among these insurers is really interesting. I'm sure this isn't the end of it — this is continuing to evolve in real time.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, I've heard rumblings and heard things about Clear Blue recently from other conversations we've been having with our customers. I usually don't dive into Clear Blue's book with people as often as I think you are, but that's really neat to know. That's cool. All right, you ready for my third one?

Ben Curtis: Yeah, all right, yep, let's do it.

Raymond Moss: All right, this one isn't so crazy niche, but ironically it's kind of in the theme of what you were just talking about. So I've been running into this particular book of business, and it's similar to your question, but I'm gonna flip it on its head. I'm not gonna tell you who it is — I'm gonna give you four options, and I want to know if you've run into this story during any of our customer meetings or onboardings, because I've been running into this with multiple people, and I specifically got a phone call about this last week and had a phenomenal conversation about this book. This is a small-ish regional book of business — an insurer that writes in about twenty states, we'll just call it fifteen to twenty — and they've got less than a thousand filings.

Ben Curtis: Mm-hmm.

Raymond Moss: And they've been growing quite dramatically over the past — call it a year, a little more than that. They have not traditionally been a big player, but they're growing, especially for the size of their book and where it's come from. So I'm gonna give you four options — tell me if you've run into one of these that fits the bill. The first one is Western National Mutual, County Mutual Insurance, Midwest Family Mutual, and Pekin Insurance Company.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, let's just go with Midwest Family Mutual — I don't know, I'm just guessing.

Raymond Moss: Well, amazingly, that's it. So check this out — that's right.

Ben Curtis: It sounded right. It sounded right to me.

Raymond Moss: Well, it did — so maybe you overheard my conversation this week and you've been eavesdropping.

Ben Curtis: All right, all right, so where did this come from?

Raymond Moss: So here's where this came from — I had Midwest Family Mutual come up in multiple conversations, totally different underwriting groups, that brought to the table conversations about Midwest Family Mutual, because they were either encountering them in the market for the first time, or competing against them more recently than they had in the past. And if you look at this — this is so incredible — so I said, hey, let's just jump in and look at their book of business. And of course, it's kind of like what you said before — people, even though sometimes they have access to our tools, if they're a newer group that's onboarded with us, they don't always remember, 'oh, I can do that.'

Ben Curtis: Yeah.

Raymond Moss: And then you can jump in here and see so much context. So look at this — they only have—

Ben Curtis: They fly when they should teleport.

Raymond Moss: Yes, they fly when they should teleport — that's exactly the case, and that's what they were doing. They flew to me and said, 'Hey, Ray, help us understand this,' and I said, 'Well, hit the teleport button.' And you can understand that — they said, 'that's great.' So we teleported in here and looked at Midwest Family Mutual's new business. Look at this — I mean, again, I said small regional insurer, and they are, so it's not huge, but look at that fifty-one percent increase in new business over the past year. That's great growth. That's really cool.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, so just to clarify — because you just adjusted some filters there quickly, and for people who aren't watching, you pulled up not only Midwest Family Mutual, but you changed the selector from looking at their entire book to just new business. So when you say growth, you're comparing how much new business they've written in the last twelve months versus a year ago. That's the fifty-percent growth you're talking about, yeah, okay.

Raymond Moss: That's correct — yeah, that's what I'm saying, fifty percent growth. So that's a really interesting and exciting appetite to watch. And here's what's also fascinating — look at the radius they have appetite for in new business — it's ironically close to that Acuity appetite.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, that like three-hundred-to-five-hundred range.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, so if I scroll down, who did they take those from? A lot from Great West, Progressive, Northland — look at that, Acuity all the way at the bottom.

Ben Curtis: Well, you're looking just at the new business, so that's where their business came from. It'd be interesting to see — why don't you just turn back on their whole book? I'm curious to see what their inflows and outflows look like.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, so there you go — they lost a couple to Acuity. But it's just fascinating to see that there are markets out there with appetite for this kind of risk, and some people — they're not a big name, so they don't know.

Ben Curtis: Well, hover over the states a second there, 'cause your first question had to do with declining business, or National Interstate not writing out west — I see they do have some out west. Is that anything significant, though?

Raymond Moss: Nothing huge — like if I look at Utah here, they had — they have nine, and they're all pretty small, they've got two fleets.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, okay.

Raymond Moss: But yeah.

Ben Curtis: But it's nice to see a book of business that's not all overweighted with single-unit. I mean, I see they're substantially non-fleet, but they don't just have a huge single-unit book, which is more promising.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, yeah — and really it also shows some of the quality of their underwriting appetite, that they're willing to look at more than just a single unit, even though they're a smaller book of business. Because writing a single unit is definitely a different game than writing even something with five units — definitely different from a twenty-five unit. And look at that — they have eighty-three fleets in the ten-to-forty-nine-unit category.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, interesting.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, really fun to be able to talk about the real existence and complexion of a book of business when you encounter someone in the marketplace you maybe haven't encountered before. It's a new challenge — and if you're flying blind, well, you'd better teleport with eyes wide open. How about that? So there you go.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, for sure. Okay, you ready for my last question?

Raymond Moss: Let's hear it.

Ben Curtis: Okay, this is gonna be an appetite-related question, so I'll set it up that way — 'cause interestingly, we haven't had any real appetite questions yet, so that'll be fun. That's one of the most fun things to unpack in this software, isn't it — insurer appetite. Okay, so here's my appetite question. The setup is this: the top five insurers of fleets — ten or more units, what we looked at before — are Great West, National Interstate, Old Republic, Progressive, and Sentry. So that's the top five insurers of fleets in general. Only one of those is currently writing new business that's substantially less Red ISS than what their renewal book is. Which of those five has a substantially lower Red ISS appetite for new business compared to their existing book? What do you think?

Raymond Moss: What an interesting question, because you can apply this knowledge in two different directions — both what you're defending at renewal as an underwriter or producer, and what you're going out and trying to claim in new business as an agent or underwriter. That's a wonderful question. All right, so what are my options?

Ben Curtis: Alright, so it's one of those five — we're just looking at the top five, we could do this on any book, but I don't want to find some obscure ones, so I'm taking the top five. You can pull up the list here if you want to see it — if you just go to Fleets, this'll show us who those are.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, I'm gonna do that — all right, so I'm just in Fleets. There we go — so Great West, National Interstate, Old Republic, Progressive, and I have Sentry here.

Ben Curtis: Yep. So of those five, which one? To find the answer, we're gonna do what we just looked at on the book you had up, where we compared new business to renewal business. We're gonna look at Market Intelligence and see what their new business appetite is compared to their renewal business — which one is writing substantially cleaner? By cleaner, I mean substantially lower Red ISS percentage in their new business than in their existing book. The rest of them are either the other direction, or essentially equal — there's one outlier.

Raymond Moss: That's cool. You know what? I bet that's Great West, because when I look at their book of business, they appear to be doing okay at renewal but struggling on new business, and I think it's because they've pulled their risk appetite in — they're more afraid, if I can use that word, of Red ISS.

Ben Curtis: Okay, well—

Raymond Moss: That's my hypothesis — should we check it?

Ben Curtis: Yep, go to Market Explorer or Market Intelligence, go to Great West.

Raymond Moss: All right, I'm gonna pull up Great West.

Ben Curtis: Yep. So limit it to fleets.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, limit it to fleets — all right, so I've got Great West with their fleet business. Do you want me to look at just new business?

Ben Curtis: Let's do renewal first, and then we'll compare it to their new business — look at just renewal.

Raymond Moss: They have eleven percent in Red ISS.

Ben Curtis: All right, and just once again, for people who aren't watching — let's summarize what we have. How many fleets do they have in their renewal book? We kind of know what our total numbers are.

Raymond Moss: About twenty-four hundred.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, so twenty-four hundred fleets, eleven percent Red ISS — that's the renewal book. So let's compare that to their new business.

Raymond Moss: All right, so their new business book of fleets with Great West — four hundred and fifty. And ten percent — so it's basically the same, so I'm wrong.

Ben Curtis: Basically the same, only one percent different. Yeah, and they — right, in the sense that yes, they still have that pretty conservative appetite, and definitely — I'd presumably say that's an indicator of why they're not growing much right now, or are red in a lot of states, right? Okay.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, yeah, it definitely is the case. The next one I would look at would be Sentry.

Ben Curtis: Okay, pull Sentry up. Now here's what I thought before I looked at Sentry — I think they have the riskiest book, so let's look at their renewal, yep.

Raymond Moss: Renewal is first — so I'm looking at Sentry's fleet business that's in their renewal book. They've got eleven hundred, twenty-two percent Red ISS.

Ben Curtis: So their renewal book — would you say twelve hundred is what's in their renewal book right now? Eleven hundred policies, eleven hundred fleets, yep.

Raymond Moss: Eleven hundred fleets. Yep.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, and twenty-one percent.

Raymond Moss: Twenty-two percent Red ISS. Let's look at their new business.

Ben Curtis: Twenty-two percent Red ISS, okay. So let's compare that to their new business.

Raymond Moss: Their new business book — they're offering a business, that's kind of cool.

Ben Curtis: Interesting.

Raymond Moss: I didn't expect that.

Ben Curtis: Yeah.

Raymond Moss: Seventeen percent — well, that's a little different, but it's not a ton different.

Ben Curtis: So it's still safer, and still up and growing. The fact that they've gotten a cleaner appetite and they're still growing is interesting, 'cause like we saw, Great West is not the case. All right.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, yeah, that is.

Ben Curtis: Okay, we got one more to look at — pull up National Interstate.

Raymond Moss: My gosh, I should have known this because I was just in here. All right, I'll start.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, and it's a recurring theme today.

Raymond Moss: It has — that's unbelievable. All right, so National Interstate renewal business — they got approximately eleven hundred fleets, I'm rounding my numbers here, and of those eleven hundred renewal fleets, eleven percent of them are Red ISS. So I'm going to switch this to new business — I'm looking at National Interstate's new business, they've got 260 new business fleets this year.

Raymond Moss: Wow, seventeen percent.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, so that's not lower, that's higher — so yeah, they're on the other side of the spectrum.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, so okay, let me put this into—

Ben Curtis: They're writing much riskier business than their renewal business.

Raymond Moss: Right. So National Interstate has opened up appetite for more risk in new business than they're willing to renew.

Ben Curtis: You could — I mean, that's one hypothesis. Obviously you can explain this a few different ways — I never want to be too quick to explain the reason, because it doesn't necessarily mean that's their willingness to renew. It could just mean that's the business that's on their books, and we're not looking at what they wrote it as — it's just the current status of that business. So we don't want to get too presumptive there. But yeah, it indicates that they definitely have a looser risk appetite for new business than what their current book looks like, for whatever reason. So yeah, all right.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, all right, well that's super cool.

Ben Curtis: Let me just summarize what we went through, because that was a little bit of a meandering path. So of the top five insurance companies for fleets overall, no other criteria — we were looking for which insurer has reduced their risk appetite the most, in the sense that their new business is substantially less Red ISS than their renewal business. And the answer to that was Sentry. Sentry has the biggest dip in new business they're writing — only 17% Red ISS, compared to their renewal book of 22% Red ISS. Everybody else — Great West and Old Republic — were essentially even, only off by 1%, so they're writing the same stuff they're renewing. National Interstate was higher — they're writing 17% Red ISS with only 11% renewal. And Progressive — their renewal business for fleet, this actually surprised me, was 13%, and they're writing 20% Red ISS. So Progressive is really loosening up their guidelines relative to their book, and of those five, they have the highest appetite for Red ISS.

Raymond Moss: Wow.

Ben Curtis: Just something to be aware of out there — that all other things being equal, not just looking at the net difference, but as far as total value, one out of every five fleets Progressive is writing right now is Red ISS.

Raymond Moss: Wow. Cool.

Ben Curtis: All right, well — I think we each stumped each other pretty well today, but—

Raymond Moss: Yeah.

Ben Curtis: —this was a lot of fun to banter back and forth on. We say fun all the time, but it really is fun to figure out how creative of questions you can not only ask, but then get answers to — that's super interesting. And when this comes out of client conversations, and these answers are all driving real market results and real impact for the people you're working with, it's just great to get to see.

Raymond Moss: Right. Well, it's such a driver of strategy — if you know what's happening in the marketplace at such a strategic level, then your daily focus changes, whether you're competing as an underwriter and setting pricing, adding credits, or as a producer — in all those different disciplines and arenas, this strategic knowledge comes into play.

Ben Curtis: Yeah, I mean the other thing that comes to mind is — you ever been on a road trip, and over time your windshield just gets dirtier and dirtier, covered with bugs — maybe you drove overnight — and then you finally stop at a gas station, and you're like, 'I'm just gonna clean this windshield off.' And you get back in the car and go, 'my word, I've been driving the whole time not like this' — it's crazy how that's kind of what this feels like when you look at the market this way. And then you realize, boy, I've been operating not without any intelligence or insight — a lot of people out there have great intuition and market knowledge, but it's like a foggy or dirty windshield. It's not the clarity of picture that this provides. And once you realize the clarity that's possible — boy, clean that windshield off.

Raymond Moss: Yeah, super cool. Yeah, that's a good analogy for sure.

Ben Curtis: Okay. Well, that was fun for today. We'll see what we've got in store for next week, but for now, I'm signing off.

Raymond Moss: All right, we'll see you guys later. See you next time.