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Travis Kroger - The Batman of Cyber Insurance
116 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, we're joined by Travis Kroger, the "Batman of Cyber Insurance," to discuss his unique approach to cyber insurance. Travis was tasked early on with becoming his agency's cyber expert. Through consistent learning and relationship building, he's excelled in an area most insurance brokers avoid.
Travis explains how he partners deeply with clients to implement critical controls and conduct tabletop exercises, bringing tremendous value beyond just policy placement. We discuss the rollercoaster cyber insurance market, the limitations of admitted carriers, and why MGA solutions fill an important gap despite contributing to pricing volatility.
Throughout the wide-ranging conversation, Travis drops knowledge on attracting billion-dollar accounts, the overlooked potential in tech E&O, and why cyber will remain a profitable coverage line. With infectious passion for helping clients manage risk, Travis epitomizes the next generation of cyber-focused agents.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Announcement
00:00:20
Speaker
Awesome. Welcome to the Insuresec podcast where me, Abe Gibson, Ryan Dunn, get to interview the cool guys and gals of the cyber insurance and cybersecurity world and really where those two intersect. Today we have an incredibly awesome guest, Travis
00:00:39
Speaker
Travis is going to give you his background. If there's anybody in this industry that's more of a nerd when it comes to cyber insurance, it's probably Travis. There's not many people that are more nerdy than I am when it comes to cyber insurance and he might take the cake. So when the two of us get together, it's a lot of fun.
00:01:00
Speaker
But I'll let kind of Travis give us his background and how he got here and what he's up to. Feel free to go back as two people fell in love or wherever you see fit.
Travis's Beginnings in Cyber Insurance
00:01:14
Speaker
No, no, I really appreciate you guys having me on. It's always fun to talk shop and actually have people that appreciate the work that goes into learning everything there is and keeping up with the cyber insurance world. Going way back my first week of working in insurance, I wasn't even licensed yet.
00:01:35
Speaker
My boss, his name was Kevin, uh, old white guy, really good at golf. When you think about an insurance agent, that's Kevin, right? Uh, he comes up gruff voice, intimidating. It's Alga Travis. There's this type of insurance out there.
00:01:51
Speaker
I don't know anything about it, but I know that our clients need it. You're a nerd and I want you to learn insurance. So anything you need to get good at it, you just go ahead and do it. And I first week there, I thought I was getting fired. Like my heart was racing. And so that kind of set up the trajectory of, Hey, you can do whatever you want. Just get really, really good at this. Um, first week of insurance.
00:02:19
Speaker
I didn't have anything else to do. So I started reaching out to the people that had cyber insurance in their name. I wrote, I reached out to my brokers, underwriters, carriers, you name it and said, Hey, will you talk to me about cyber insurance? And I started a weekly call that still goes on. Uh, it's called Tuesdays with Travis. We sit down for an hour. I should be podcasting it because a lot of great content goes into that. Uh, but that's kind of my secret sauce that you guys obviously know about, but.
00:02:48
Speaker
We started learning the ins and outs of cyber insurance because in 2018, when I was just getting into it, all you needed was a name and revenue and I could get you a million dollar quote for a thousand bucks. So it was the intricacies of the policies that sold the policies. Nowadays it's qualifying for the policies. So having that background of learning the intricacies, knowing where to look, knowing how to sell it and knowing what to do is awesome.
00:03:16
Speaker
But I found that the real value lied in the group of people that I had gathered over this time. They were industry leaders that were willing to share their time with somebody that knew nothing. In the advancing world of cyber insurance, that is more valuable than the knowledge itself.
00:03:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:56
Speaker
That's huge. I love that story. Cause it's so true. Like the new guy gets picked out as the cyber person, right? It's like, Hey, you're new. Like you're a nerd. Like you go do this. Like I have no frigging clue what a cloud is, but it's gotta be protected. I get like, okay, sure. Whatever you say. Um, that's great to hear. Was that always Travis was that, um, in South Dakota.
00:04:22
Speaker
where that retail shop is, is it the same retail shop that you're at today? You know, we want to give some background on that as well.
Work Culture at Bowen and Associates
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, so Bowen and Associates is where I'm at. I got into the insurance world like most people. My mom said, hey, you'd be really good at it. She's worked in insurance for 20 years and that's where she was working. She told her boss, hey, I think he'd be really good at it. And she's a little biased, but they said, all right, yeah, we'll start him out at the bottom. So I started out as an account manager, really learned the ropes and excelled with this cyber insurance stuff.
00:04:58
Speaker
and being a locally owned shop, I had the flexibility to kind of do what I want.
00:05:05
Speaker
And, uh, we've got 35 people. Again, South Dakota is not a huge state, so we're the largest locally owned that hasn't sold out with 35 people. And it's, it's a fun family of insurance. I mean, our culture here is that of a tech shop, right? We have flexible hours, great pay. Um, we have a wellness task force, WTF for short.
00:05:30
Speaker
Um, our, our more, our breakfast and our snacks and stuff. Um, it's, it's a great place to work. I can't recommend enough, uh, to work for a small locally owned independent agency. Uh, especially if the owners have the right culture. Yeah. Um, you know, I'm of the.
00:05:51
Speaker
You kind of ring something in my head here, right? I'm of the opinion that there's a new wave of insurance agent sets that's coming to play here. You know, gone are the, I'm sure Kevin's a great guy. I'm sure he's a few, but you know, gone are the day of, are the, you know, the insurance agent set, you know, sit back and wait for things to happen. Um,
00:06:16
Speaker
And now it's more of a proactive type of approach. It's a fast paced style office. It's not, Hey, let's rest on our laurels. Let's, let's go out and find out what's new and how we can be different. And so it seems like Bowman is like that. It seems like from soup tonight, like from culture to processes, you guys are doing that.
00:06:41
Speaker
Um, you know, is there anything in particular that you're doing from a cyber perspective that you could relate to that? Yeah. So I think Chad GPT is, is the hot ticket item of a couple months ago. And what I've found is I integrated that with my daily workflow. Um, I pitched the idea to my bosses and they're like, run with it. You would do what you want, figure out how it works. Um,
00:07:09
Speaker
Abe recently got me hooked on superhuman. So as I find these new things in the cyber world that are working for me, they're speeding up our office, making things more efficient. And then my relationships with my carriers. What I found is a lot of my cyber carriers are the big ones, right? That everybody uses. And they're really good at everything else. And it's very hard to get penetration into a large company like that.
00:07:38
Speaker
But when you're the number one cyber producer in that state, all lines listen. And so I've been able to help our agency that way. And I hope to keep that growth trend going.
Tech Background and Expertise Development
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's phenomenal. Big. That's sweet. Did you always have like a proclivity or like an interest in tech or is cyber kind of
00:08:08
Speaker
when you got into cyber insurance, that's when you kind of got into tech stuff. Or were you a hecky before you got into this space? You know, I, I wouldn't necessarily call myself a techy. I was, I was always the kid that had a computer, right? Um, I'm a little older than you guys, but like in 1992, we got our first computer. I think I was three. Um,
00:08:33
Speaker
The first thing I did was learn how to play games on it. I could go from MS-DOS into doom two by the age of five and by the time I was five and it's like that ability to do that. And for fun, I would, before internet, we would mess around with Excel. My dad was big in Excel. And so I ran a fantasy NASCAR league when I was in second grade on Excel.
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's a thing. I had no idea that was a thing. Um, but I do all the highlighting and stuff like that. So I always excelled at computers, always excelled at technology. Video games have got me hooked. Um, these bags under my eyes that I do have three small children when I've also been playing Starkfield like crazy. So it like, I love.
00:09:22
Speaker
all things electronics. I'm a gadget guy. And so cyber security and cyber insurance were just kind of a natural fit. I already spoke the language. I understood what was going into these things. I knew the bare minimum to have a secure shop and I knew how to portray that to business owners and those things kind of all led to cyber insurance. Yeah. Go ahead.
00:09:49
Speaker
I was going to say, obviously Travis and I have talked before and one of the things that I've always been really intrigued by Travis is his
00:10:01
Speaker
his ability to go beyond just the placement of insurance and to take accounts from zero to one and help them implement certain controls to get them to a place of insurability. Chris, did you learn that on the calls that you were having on Tuesdays?
00:10:23
Speaker
A lot of people ask where to go for certain information. I'm kind of curious how you approach that to get to the point where you could go into a business and have a conversation with them and help them get from zero to one. So again, it goes back to saying my fifth grade teacher had on a coffee mug. In one word, all the way around his coffee mug, it says, you gotta wanna.
00:10:48
Speaker
Um, and that stuck with me because cybersecurity is not something everybody wants to learn. Um, cybersecurity, I could, I could throw the book at you. I could tell you all my secret sauce. I could tell you exactly how I did it in 99% of the people wouldn't do it because it's a lot of work. Um,
00:11:08
Speaker
But that 1% that wants it, basically I would, I'm a member of the cybersecurity council of South Dakota. I sit in on meetings with people talking way over my head. Um, again, a great network. I bounce things off of them when I don't know what to do and help me out. It's a group of my peers.
00:11:26
Speaker
Uh, Google is a heck of a drug. Um, if I know that something is possible, I hammer it out in Google until it gives me the answer. And now that I have Chad GPT, I don't even use Google anymore. Um, if I don't know how to do something, I throw as much information out there as I can and figure out how to do it. Um, so to get that company from zero to one.
00:11:53
Speaker
90% of it is following a cyber insurance app, right? As you guys know, that lays it out exactly what you need to get coverage. Then if they're running a Google place or Google workspace, I figure out how to get them from there to there using a Google workspace. If they're a healthcare industry and HIPAA compliant, I figure out exactly how to do what they need to do within the realm of HIPAA, just through some research and then using
00:12:21
Speaker
What I learned and my relationship with the cybersecurity council and the owners of the business, I explained it. And if they don't know how to implement it, I find them somebody that can. Managed service providers are some of my top clients. I love them. They help me out every single day. And hopefully I help them out for people that can't get from zero to one on their own. Yeah, that's huge. And I mean, there's so much to unpack there, right?
00:12:47
Speaker
I feel like your point about you gotta wanna, and you talk about your story of being three and having a computer. I feel like a lot of people in the cybersecurity, cyber insurance space
00:13:03
Speaker
just had a natural proclivity to be around computers or, um, you know, just, uh, software programming, you know, you name it. I feel like a lot of the folks like naturally were that person, you know, I, I can't speak for a, but you know, I was a similar person where, and Travis, we're not too far off an age, by the way, you know, I, um,
00:13:31
Speaker
I always felt like if you were that person that was always interested in software, always interested in hardware and figuring out how this works, you would do very well in the cyber insurance, cyber security space because you naturally just want to learn about it and how it works and how to unpack it.
00:13:50
Speaker
how to fix it. I think you also have created a very interesting like triage of information gathering, implementation, and then you also have the help if needed, right? Those MSSPs or MSPs that can come fill that gap.
00:14:07
Speaker
You know, if, if you're lacking in that, you know, all right, I know what you have to do, but I don't know how you can do it. So here's this person that can flip for you. Um, are you, are you using any tools or, or anything, uh, to help identify things like gaps in their cybersecurity infrastructure or just all up in the, in the dome?
00:14:29
Speaker
I wish I had tools, man. I know that they're out there. Uh, insurance companies aren't investing in them the way that I hope that they would. Um, no, a lot of it's just all up in the dome. Uh, it's not a, it's not an ideal way. I can't really grow past a certain point the way that it is right now. Uh, so I'm trying to really focus on some, some good key tells that I can teach people. Mm-hmm.
00:14:57
Speaker
But right now what I have is not able to grow past a certain point. And I'm bigger with the use of technology and about six months from now, I'll get past that. So you, I think one of the interesting things and just kind of spitballing off of the conversations that we've had. When you, when you lead with cyber, you can see it time and time again. I see agencies where.
00:15:27
Speaker
I would consider your shop public medium-sized for most independent agencies, because there's maybe 40,000 independent retail agencies in the country. To be in the top 100, you'd still be considered a small business by most insurance carriers on a revenue basis. You guys are probably medium-sized, right? But I've seen time and time again,
00:15:53
Speaker
shops that are not nationally known, be able to really play out of their league when they lead with cyber and they're playing with the big boys, they're playing with Marshes, they're playing with Aeon, all of those big shops. And it's because they're solving problems that these business owners have. And it's usually related to cyber and these big shops are not, they're like most of the other industries, they're just not
00:16:22
Speaker
touching it. Tell us about kind of your experience and being able to, you know, I've talked to you about, do you have some large accounts that you're working with? Like tell us about some of those accounts that you've not mentioned names, but just some interesting stories about those accounts that you're working with.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah. So I have to thank, uh, cybersecurity council, right? They give me a lot of screen time in front of their members because every one of their members hates cyber insurance and doesn't know anything about it, but they're all tech people that have to do these certain things in order to qualify. Uh, so it just gets a bad name and they're able to let me get in front of these.
00:17:04
Speaker
billion plus dollar industries and give them my spiel. And what that does is it gets me a seat at the table. I don't win them all, but it gets me a seat at the table that nobody else has ever done before. I've only been formally selling where I've actually been out pursuing people for nine months.
00:17:26
Speaker
And in that time, I've approached multiple billion dollar plus companies. Uh, and to give you an idea, our agency on average doesn't do any of those per year, right? We got a lot in the hundreds of millions, but none in the billions that.
00:17:44
Speaker
We approach on a regular basis and I was able to get a seat at two of those in the first six months of quoting, uh, which also was an experience. But again, we were batting way out of our league. I had, uh, very large brokers from Chicago, uh, playing very dirty ball games with me because I was batting out of my league and it's fun. It's.
00:18:11
Speaker
It's part of the game, and I get to play that game because of cyber. Cyber is one of the hardest insurances to learn. It's changing faster than anything else. And so when you can excel at it, it shows a competency that makes work complex simple, right? It makes a mod worksheet look like an elementary school paper. It's really,
00:18:38
Speaker
It's fun. It's really fun to be able to say, oh yeah, I excel at cyber and I can do all that other stuff too, because compared to what I spend all my time on, it's really not that difficult.
00:18:55
Speaker
Oh yeah. By the way, we have a guy that is as good at builders risk as IMS because he loves it. That's how we segment out our agency. And it's, it lets us play ball with the big dogs. God, Travis, I freaking love that.
00:19:12
Speaker
I'm fired up because, uh, I, when I was a retailer, I worked for a small, you know, it would be a small agency in size, but damn, like we'd be going up the Wilson's we'd be going against the aons just because of cyber tech, you know, type of coverages where it's so true. Like, Hey, yeah, cyber actually could be your biggest risk to your, you know, profitability.
00:19:39
Speaker
And if I can dominate this, yeah, sure. I can get your property, your G like I can do that. Blindfolded. Right. And so it does show like such a competency and sometimes these players, like if you're the new guy punching above your weight belt, like they know you're, they're going to be your number one client. Like they'll give you the W on that. And that's, I just, that fires me up because I love being in that position. Right. That's just so cool.
00:20:06
Speaker
Um, here's something that I can always sell that the big guys can't call our office right now. Yeah.
00:20:17
Speaker
And it's like, Jennifer works in a desk. I can hear her voice right now. That's how cool it's. I am to her. Yeah. So that reminds me of, uh, of Michael Scott. Uh, when they, I think it was Jim and Dwight, they went on a sales call and he just calls the customer service. I love it. That's where I got it from.
00:20:40
Speaker
I love it. That's where I got it from. I, you got in a presentation and they're like, you watch the office, don't you? I said, yeah. I said, does it work? Yeah. Did you put, did you have to end up citing it? You know, you put an asterisk like the office episode, whatever. I love it.
00:20:58
Speaker
I love it. So yeah, I mean, like a lot of people, you know, a lot of people are with comp kind of lead. And I've, I've told people this and people are like, don't share the secret. But there's so many industries out there with tiny little work comps, you know, premiums that are getting overlooked because everybody's leading with comp and.
00:21:18
Speaker
And I love the way that you can approach comp, you can approach cyber almost like somebody who does comp really well would approach comp, which is like, this is your mod.
Educational Approach in Insurance
00:21:28
Speaker
If we can do X, Y, and Z over the next policy period, we can lower your mod and lower your premium or your total cost of risk. You're doing that with cyber. Kind of give us an idea of how you're approaching these businesses. Are they reaching out to you?
00:21:47
Speaker
Or are you generally reaching out to them? How do you get people interested? That seems to be, for me, the biggest objection I hear from agents is, I just don't understand how to get people interested or want to talk about or feel like they need cyber insurance.
00:22:05
Speaker
All right, this part you can't tell anybody. Executives don't care about cyber. Executives don't care at all about cybersecurity. So I find the person at the company that is the number one most passionate cheerleader for cybersecurity. And I show them what I know about cyber insurance and cybersecurity. They get me in a room with them and the executive. And I tell the executive what I know about finance and how this risk could drastically affect their business.
00:22:36
Speaker
Oh, and by the way, your cyber guy really, really likes me. Um, so I don't, I don't make calls. I don't, I'm not a cold caller. I'm a terrible salesman. Um,
00:22:48
Speaker
What I've found is I volunteer to educate every turn. Um, and every time I teach somebody something, they have more questions. And when I answer those questions, they have more questions. And then when I ask them the question, Hey, can I write your insurance? Usually they say yes.
00:23:08
Speaker
It's a relationship building. It's not selling. It's educating. And you know what? If they take all that knowledge and run to their agent, I know they'll come back with more questions. Yes. And again, it boils down to you got to want to, you got to, if you don't want to succeed in this industry, especially cyber insurance, you're not gonna. So true.
00:23:34
Speaker
I just love that because it's, it's such a natural selling motion. It's not forced. You're not, there's no tips or tricks to like what you have to say on the phone or, uh, like, you know, Oh, you mess that cold call up. None of that. It's just true, natural. Hey, I can help you call me. And then, Hey, if I, if you want me to write your insurance, great, I can do that.
00:23:59
Speaker
And I love that it's just, it's a very human approach towards insurance and selling insurance. Insurance has such a bad stigma. I mean, it's full. It's almost like used car salesman and lawyers at a baby and it's trying to break through that and say, you know what? Cyber insurance is one of the lowest premiums you're going to pay on your annual basis.
00:24:27
Speaker
By far. And that's why most insurance agents, they go after comp or, uh, large fleets, large property exposures. Cause they're millions and millions and millions of dollars. Cyber insurance might only be 20 grand. Yeah. And I think that's, that's an under underrated idea as to why nobody wants to get good at cyber. Yeah. I, um,
00:24:57
Speaker
That is such a good analogy. Use car salesman and a lawyer had a baby. I'll give you a story real quick of something I heard recently. I was talking to this cyber practice leader and I'm telling him like, Hey, we can, you know, a great thing about our method is that we can reduce your client's cyber insurance premium, you know, over time or by this year.
00:25:27
Speaker
Even, um, and he goes, well, why would we want to do that? That affects our commission. I'm like, are you freaking kidding me? Like that was the most appalling thing, a probably response I could have ever thought of. Like, why would we want to do that? Cause you want to help the client, dude. God forbid you lose 400 bucks on the freaking account because you reduce the premium by four grand. You know, it's like, like.
00:25:54
Speaker
help them out, let their premium reflect their cybersecurity posture and everything else will follow us. Don't worry about your pocket. It'll, it'll get filled. Right. That just that ticks me off. Like insurance, insurance is about helping people in my mind. Uh, that's where, what charges my batteries is helping people. I like to be that guy. If there's a problem, I'll help you solve it.
00:26:21
Speaker
money, honestly, I couldn't tell you what half my commissions are. I don't know what percent I get from what companies cause it doesn't matter. Yeah. It does. That just ticks me. Yeah. We're out there still. Well, uh, a
00:26:44
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we could probably talk for hours and hours and hours about the issues that our industry has. It'd take more than just one session with a therapist. So I'm kind of curious where, just kind of speaking broadly about the cyber insurance industry,
00:27:11
Speaker
One thing that I've been having a lot of conversations with people about is kind of the roller coaster that we're on. And you've obviously, you can only be in a cybersecurity area and you've been through like 10 years of all the other lines combined in terms of just like frustration. What do you foresee, I guess, in somewhat of a soft market now, where do you see us going in the future?
00:27:41
Speaker
Is cyber insurance the way that we're currently sustainable? So that's a loaded question and I love it.
00:27:50
Speaker
I loved the soft market that we had for three months, uh, coalition and just launched out there, their claims analysis and things are going to start tightening up. But what's really cool about the insurance industry is giants can't move quick. So the giants are just, I just got an email from one of our biggest, well, there's a second largest carrier in the world for cyber insurance. And, uh, they said that they are reducing all of their cyber.
00:28:19
Speaker
premiums for a year. So, um, as, as coalitions, like, uh, guys, guys, this wasn't, it wasn't a good quarter. Yeah. So moving forward, I can see a lot more emphasis on the fund transfer fraud, the wire transfer fraud. I mean, we're a shop of 35 people.
00:28:43
Speaker
And in the past six months, I've had to, uh, no past past three months, I've had to wire transfer frauds, right? Like social engineering, look at what just happened to MGM. That's on a grand scale. That took 10 minutes, uh, of a conversation of a help desk on a spearfishing attack.
00:29:03
Speaker
I think the social manipulation is going to continue on as companies strengthen their backups, ransomware is still going to be there. Zero-day vulnerabilities are still going to be there. I think the cyber insurance market as a whole will still be there, largely because we've already been through 2020, right? 2020, 2021 and the beginning of 2022.
00:29:29
Speaker
When you're losing 20 years worth of underwriting profitability in 18 months, that is the bottom, right? We've been to the bottom. They've learned a lot. They're learning every day with the advent of AI and the underwriting techniques that are going on.
00:29:47
Speaker
I would love to see the insurance companies band together and come out with the standardization that if you pass the insurance company's minimum standards, you get this seal of approval. That means you can buy insurance. Um, I don't think that'll happen because of politics and stuff and how quick things are changing, but.
00:30:07
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you kind of saw it when travelers knee jerk reaction was put MFA on absolutely everything. And then what happened? Other companies that had no idea what MFA was six months ago. Now we're mandating it. Um, the word attestation wasn't in anybody's dictionary until travelers spit it out. And now everybody has one. Um,
00:30:29
Speaker
I really think that we're going to continue to see evolution, but it's going to slow down.
Cyber Insurance Market Challenges
00:30:36
Speaker
Um, companies realize that there's still profit in it. It's still relatively cheap. I mean, I just sold, uh, it was a hundred and $80 million company, a $2 million policy for six grand. It's like, that's cheap.
00:30:54
Speaker
Yeah. Like when your audits off by 20, you don't really care and you're making a big deal out of $6,000 cyber policy. Like I think that there's some room to go up in the premiums and I think they will. Um, probably at least another 60% in the next couple of years. But at the same time, I think people are starting to understand that the risk is there. So it'll slow them down, but not very much. Yeah.
00:31:26
Speaker
It'll be interesting. I love it. Um, and it's touching on so many different points that, you know, we can unpack and, um, obviously with, with the recent events with MGM, they were, we're probably looking at depending on where you're at the tower, right? They had a massive tower from what I, from what I've read. Um, we're looking at full limit losses and some of those, some of those carriers or MGAs are not like,
00:31:54
Speaker
are not very big. With what we've seen, the first two quarters here in 2023, and then you have a big event like that, and some small markets have full limit losses.
00:32:12
Speaker
I really hope we can adjust quicker than waiting an entire year and having to go through premium reductions for what reason? I just don't get it. But I think that there's probably a mixture between there's some optimism here in the way that things are going, but there's also like, I don't think we fully learned from our states in previous years and cycles.
00:32:40
Speaker
I was just had a conversation about two weeks ago with a broker and, uh, she is a rock star and she was like, Travis, I just got a memo from one of my smaller MGAs. And in order to remain more competitive, they're dropping MF on email as a requirement. There's so many of those out there now. I said, can I buy puts on that company? Yeah, right.
00:33:10
Speaker
Like a holy cow. Yeah. I'm not understanding that like we're going backwards in some of the, in some of these carriers. I'm like, it's reminding me and Travis here, you kind of alluded to this. It's reminded me of like 2015, 2016, 2017, where it was like five questions. If you could fill out the demographics of the company and the revenue, like you have a quote and that just blows my mind that.
00:33:37
Speaker
We went from a hard market, learning hard lessons. You know, we find some, a little bit of profitability. We get a little bit more capacity from ILS structures. And then now we're back in it like a, it's like a kid that just keeps on wanting to stick his hand in the candy jar. You know, it doesn't make any sense. Well, I, I love MGAs and I'm a huge proponent of the technology they brought to the world of insurance. They're, they're causing a lot of this.
00:34:07
Speaker
problem with the big dogs. Uh, basically they're nimble, right? They they're small, they're quick. They can make decisions on their own. They don't have to go through 10 reinsurers to make a decision.
00:34:20
Speaker
And then you have them dialing back their premiums, dialing back their requirements. And the big guys going, well, there goes all our market share. They're all moving to this MGA. We need to lower our premium, lower our requirements. And then the MGA has a bad core dial it back up as fast as they can change their appetite. And the big guys are stuck there for a year because they filed an admitted paper with 56. That's what we're seeing. And when you understand that you're going to see.
00:34:50
Speaker
I think is going to be a pattern and I've already started to see it where you go admitted, non-admitted, admitted, non-admitted. And you're, you're just about playing leapfrog every other year because one is 60% cheaper than the other. It's crazy. And I think that's going to happen until, uh, the admitted market just disappears.
00:35:11
Speaker
That was going to be my question. Is there, is there a future for the admitted market? I just don't know. I just don't think it evolves way too quickly to have like a sustainable admitted product. Makes too long to file. Yeah. I think.
00:35:25
Speaker
The admitted market is great for general liability. It's great for auto. It's great for property. It's great for some directors and officers, things that don't change. It is not great for cyber insurance. And I'm sure there's some people out there like our division of insurance, when they have a cyber question, they call me.
00:35:46
Speaker
I, I'm supposed to be calling them for questions and issue with that is they don't know anything about cyber insurance. They don't know anything about the evolution and the speed that the market is progressing. And so I think when they're having these requirements for these carriers to file six months in advance for a year long commitment, it's like, you cannot do that and be sustainable. It needs to go away.
00:36:13
Speaker
I don't know what's more, that is such a flex to have the DOI call you. In all my marketing materials, I'm the guy that the DOI goes to for questions about cyber. That's great. Yeah, no, they're good people over there. They're really good at the traditional lines and the laws associated with those. But when it comes to cyber, it's a Wild West form.
00:36:42
Speaker
Yeah, it needs to be dynamic. It needs to be able to change within the year.
Targeting Tech-Heavy Industries
00:36:47
Speaker
You can't wait 12 months for the policy form to change. It's not going to work. Yeah. Do you generally target specific industry classes or are you acting more as like a service to the existing book of business at Bowen? How does that work?
00:37:12
Speaker
So a little of both, uh, or the way that I was able to get into this position and continue doing kind of what I want is I bring service to our clients, right? I helped them set up incident response plans. I helped them. I've started doing tabletop exercises. I started a separate company that does tabletop exercises with some of my security guys. Um,
00:37:38
Speaker
And so I'm offering services that no other insurance agent is willing to stick their neck out for because they take time and they don't make money. And so that service and helping walk our existing clients through the importance of cyber risk management and helping them understand like their 80 year old construction company is a prime target.
00:38:05
Speaker
having those conversations adds a lot of value. It's that thought leadership. When I send them out a newsletter saying, Hey, I thought about you guys because this construction company in Wyoming was just attacked either in Wyoming be there same size as you and it cost them a million bucks. So just a heads up. Um,
00:38:27
Speaker
So I do bring a lot of value that way to our existing clients. With new clients, I'm going after all things technology. I'm going after the tech, you know, the tech manufacturing. And the reason I'm doing that is because their premiums aren't super high everywhere else, but their tech, you know, can carry a lion weight, a lion's share of the premium because it is so important.
00:38:53
Speaker
So they get overlooked by those guys going after comp because they only have 15 employees, right? But they do $300 million worth of business and most of it's automated. Um, so they're, I'd say 60% of their package is going to be tech, you know, related. And that's, that's in my wheelhouse.
00:39:14
Speaker
Um, going after the security guys, the MSPs, MSSPs, um, they're a great source for referrals. And if you speak their language and they trust you, they'll send them all to you. I love it. Well, I mean, we just wrote an account. Um, it was a $100 million SaaS company, uh, cyber and tech premium was 300 grand. Their GL cop, all the other lines combined were like under 20 grand.
00:39:41
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's the thing though. You got to be good at them because if you were detecting no policy without understanding anything about cyber and technology, you're going to be lost. Yeah. You're going to look at that policy form and be like, uh, what am I looking at?
00:40:08
Speaker
Well, you're going to look at that application and be like, uh, I don't know what this is asking for. And I'll go toe to toe against anybody in the country on one of those applications, because again, you got to want to, and there's, there's a lot more low hanging fruit than that one. Yeah. Yeah. I think, um, you know, I think what you're doing, uh, Abe and I were just on a call and.
00:40:36
Speaker
We are telling the, the underwriter basically like, Hey, it's people like you that are going to keep this, uh, line of insurance and business. And so it's people like Travis are going to keep companies profitable, but also keep cyber insurance. So we're profitable. So, uh, you know, I think, you know, for everybody listening, you know,
00:40:59
Speaker
Take notes on what Travis is doing, because I mean, from the tabletop, tabletop exercises are super underrated. Like that is massive. Sure. It's a good lead source for you, but at the same time, like that is what gets the companies to understand. Okay. What would be the impact if I had a loss and what can I do to mitigate that? So I think that's super impressive.
00:41:23
Speaker
Do you know how many cyber incident response plans don't incorporate insurance? I had a client that you're very, very security oriented, miscompliant. Like they, they do literally everything by the book. We sat down for a tabletop and first thing their IT guy goes, Oh, well I'll just, I'm just going to wipe that system.
00:41:48
Speaker
No, bro. You, you pay a lot for insurance every month. Um, they'd really like to see what was on that. If it causes a system, you want to refine this a little bit. And now they have a year long retention policy. They make an image and throw it on the shelf.
00:42:08
Speaker
But by the way, it's completely off topic. And I just realized this, this was not planned Travis, but Abe and I are both wearing black t-shirts and I'm just letting you know, it was not planned. Thanks for the memo guys. I know. Sorry. We had to let you know. So I think, you know, as kind of, um, kind of wrap things up just a little bit.
00:42:34
Speaker
I think, you know, the important question that everybody's kind of, you know, the elephant in the room, Marvel or DC? So I'm surrounded by DC surrounded. I'm a Batman fan through and through. Um, as a kid, I was just captivated by him because I mean, he's a bad-ass, right? He does martial arts, doesn't kill people. Where's black and yellow, which is one of the coolest color combinations out there. Sorry, Iron Man fans.
00:43:04
Speaker
And he's a superhero that with enough money, time and dedication, you could probably become. So I was kind of like Batman. That being said, I prefer Marvel movies. Don't tell anybody. Yeah, the DC movies are lacking in quality for sure.
00:43:25
Speaker
Agreed. I saw the flash this summer. Garbage. Garbage. Garbage. Garbage. Garbage. Garbage. Oh my goodness. I was laughing so hard at the scene where he's like running really fast and just how bad it looks compared to like you're spending hundreds of millions of dollars on this movie and you can't get him to look good while he's running fast. Come on.
00:43:53
Speaker
Oh man. I think that answers everybody's question. It wasn't already obvious with the background that you had. How would people get in touch with you?
00:44:07
Speaker
either people that are going to fangirl over your technical expertise here, or somebody might be listening to that. That was a business that wants to get cyber insurance. How are people going to get in touch with you? What's the best way to get connected?
Contact Information and Closing
00:44:24
Speaker
I tell you when I posted a lot of stuff on LinkedIn, I love LinkedIn. I think I'm one of two Travis Kroger's in the world that you can find me. Uh, the other one lives in California. He might accept your friend request too. So
00:44:37
Speaker
LinkedIn's a great place. If not, my email is Travis K at Bowen associates.com. B O E N is how you spell Bowen. Um, we're out of South Dakota, but we write nationwide. So I'm not afraid to, to quote anything. Um, our agency is licensed, I think in like 38 States, but I gotta go ahead from the ownership group. Again, we're a small nibble agency is like, just get licensed wherever you get business. So, um, we're, we're good to go.
00:45:07
Speaker
Um, that's not a concern I have. I will have to say one thing, Travis, you do not have a Dakota accent or is that only a North Dakota thing? Well, I tell you what we get the long O's. Yeah. The O's, uh, like Dakota, but I talk too fast. So you can't, here's the Dakota. Fun facts. People from South Dakota have a, a streamlined.
00:45:37
Speaker
career in media if they want, because there is no discernible accent. Anybody from anywhere can understand what they're saying. And I always thought that was kind of a fun tidbit from the Dakotas. Like Tom Brokaw was, was probably the most famous, right? Yeah. That's awesome. I find the, the, the O's hilarious. Like I've, I've talked a bunch with a company called Ostra.
00:46:04
Speaker
And I, I always called them Austria. And then I just, I get on the call with them and they're like, yeah. And we got Ostra. I'm like, what the hell? I'm completely off here. Yeah. That's awesome. North Dakota, Northern Minnesota. I mean, they're all higher than some of Canada over by New York. So I, you know, I think it's, it's fair.
00:46:29
Speaker
Yeah. Also, also for the people that are viewing Travis, what camera do you have? That thing is phenomenal. Well.
00:46:40
Speaker
During COVID, I started streaming video games a little bit on Twitch and we had this gorgeous DSLR. It's a Sony A6300 sitting around because we used to travel a lot and then COVID hit and we weren't using it. So I used that in a Cam Link adapter from Elgata and it's the quality is there.
00:47:05
Speaker
It's clean. Yeah. And so I run that. There are better ones out there, but it works just fine for me. Yeah. I don't know how much better you can get, to be honest with you. Love it. Love it. Well, this is Travis Kroger. Kroger as in my local grocery store. Yes. If you're wondering how to spell it. The Batman of Cybertron. I love that. I love that. It's been an honor, Batman.
00:47:57
Speaker
Let's go.