Episode 5: Strategic Claims Management & the Customer Experience
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Wesley Todd [00:07]: This is the Litigation Management podcast. Once again, I’m your host CaseGlide CEO, Wesley Todd. And the Litigation Management podcast is where I interview some of the most successful and influential people in and around Litigation Management and oftentimes claims management. And as you know, we’re going for the big home runs trying to find the most important most transformative insights. And we’re interviewing people who are working on the piping the foundation of these industries that feed into litigation, especially claims, especially insurance, so that you can understand how the things that are happening on the front end are going to impact you as adjusters, as attorneys and as claims executives. And we’ve had some unbelievable guests and have more lined up. Today on the Litigation Management pod. I have Alex Meisner, and Alex is the VP of Innovation at Snapsheet. And Alex, I believe, I won’t steal his thunder here. But Snapsheet is you know, one of the most effective claims technology initiatives we’ve ever seen. They’ve made tons of progress. They are the crown jewel of the insurance technology space. And there’s nobody even close as far as on the claim side. And I just you know, I wanted to bring Alex on to talk about his background. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background, Alex?
Alex Meisner [01:34]: Sure thing. Well, thanks for having me, Wes, really excited to be chatting with you. So my background is really in statute. I graduated college in 2010. And very long story short, met our founder and CEO Brad Weisberg, he actually hired me in another company, he started body shop bids, which was the first version of Snapsheet if you will, hired me back in 2010. Body Shop bids was a two sided market place focused on helping non insurance accidents basically, if you got into an accident, and didn’t want to go through your insurance carrier, you could download “The Body Shop Bids” app, submit photos of the damage to your vehicle, in a matter of 24 hours, get a couple estimates from local body shops. It didn’t really work out too well. And so we quickly learned that insurances were something like 90% or 95%, of auto repairs take place, the insurance carriers. So we pivoted the company and focused on optimizing and enhancing the customer experience around the appraisal process for auto damage claims back in 2012. And so we really pioneered the concept of leveraging the power of the mobile phone for customers, allowing them to take photos of the damage to their vehicle and in a matter of hours, receive that insurance appraisal, and just expedite the speed of the claim. And so over the years Snapsheet is really focused on trying to better the claims experience. And as we started working closer with auto insurance carriers and understanding the difficulties of a claims adjuster, we realize there is a need for modern technology that really empowers insurance carriers to have a proactive approach to claims handling. And so if you fast forward to today, we have two sides of the business with our software offering, which is end to end claims and platform, all cloud based. And then we still operate our virtual Appraisal Services, which is an outsourced offering for not just auto insurance carriers, but really any company that has a claims organization or claims aspect of their business. So rental car companies, car sharing companies, fleet companies, we help them expedite the appraisal process on that side of the business. But today, we’ll be talking about our software offering.
Wesley Todd [04:10]: That’s a great story. And what about you in particular, I know that you didn’t start off with a VP title at a company of hundreds and hundreds of people, you started off doing and…
Alex Meisner [04:21]: We literally do everything. Yeah, so I was Brad’s first hire. So it was just the two of us in the early days. But it really was focusing on our customer support right, just sort of figuring out how to interact with our insurance carriers, how to support the end customer who has gone through the appraisal process, making sure adjusters have the information they need. And so sort of throughout my career at Snapsheet, I really worked in every department other than engineering, and really like working close with our customers. Our understanding their needs. So that’s really my main focus on today, I’m responsible for our enterprise software customers in terms of customer success, and then still work closely on the innovation side, trying to understand their problems, bring it back to our engineering team to really help them build out our platform.
Wesley Todd [05:20]: It’s really, really, it’s a great story, to have been there and seen it. I mean, it’s just incredible. If you ever been to the office, and it’s I mean, it’s so impressive and all the people there, it’s so impressive to imagine what it was like when it was just two of you? You know, Snapsheet has evolved, like you were seeing quite a bit over time, and been successful at every juncture, what are the things that you’re you know, you’re personally working on now?
Alex Meisner [05:53]: Right now, it’s really, my focus has been understanding our customers’ problems. That’s really what it’s all about, is working with our claim system customers, as well as our payments customers to help them better leverage our platform. You know, our offering is the new cloud-based SaaS offering, which is sort of a different model than a lot of insurance carriers are used to in terms of purchasing software. So it’s going to take time, a lot of hand-holding, the system is, is really geared for Self Service Administration on the carrier side. So instead of having to rely on engineering teams, or third parties to tune the system, we actually give them the power to build workflows to determine you know, how they want flames routed so on and so forth. So a lot of the elements of a claim system that previously required engineering efforts can be done by our users you know, typically, a business analyst is tuning the system. So really helping them learn how to do that, sort of fits their needs, and then taking the feedback back to our team in terms of what we can do to enhance the platform because claims are wild. They’re not linear, and every day, you see a new scenario, a new edge case, and we want to try and solve for this.
Wesley Todd [07:27]: That’s really interesting you know, focusing on the problem. So it’s tough in your shoes, because you not only have to focus on the problems at every level, but let’s just look at like the problems on the front lines. I mean, when I say every level, I mean, IT department, executives, like there’s things getting in everyone’s way everywhere. So your pricing has to be good, your contract has to be good, your sales has to be good, your support has to be good. But I think what would be really valuable for this audience, we’re made up of a lot of adjuster’s attorneys and claims executives zooming in on those problems. So you have, whether it’s auto-playing property claim, in being on the litigation side, we see it like, we see what happens when those go wrong. So the first thing is, for whatever reason, they may contact someone else before they contact the insurance company. Problem number one, whether it’s an attorney, or some kind of adjuster, or chiropractor, I mean, who knows. I mean, and I think that’s what the original product got out. And then there’s, you have to schedule an inspection or scheduled some kind of meeting. I mean, these are all things that I think Snapsheet gets tackled one by one, but in the vast majority of insurance companies still are big challenges. And then there’s how you communicate, there’s how you pay? There’s just so many different problems, what are, amongst those things, what are the biggest problems that you see? And how does tech come into play there? And then also, what are some of the issues trying to implement tech to solve those problems?
Alex Meisner [08:59]: Yeah. I mean, I think one of the biggest problems, which is the catalyst for additional problems further up or downstream is that traditionally, insurance claims have been reactive. Insurance carrier’s adjusters wait for you know, the customer to file the claim. Once that claim is filed historically, it’s a request for information. It takes a long time. And you know, not all claims are the same. You have low severity claims, you have high severity claims or claims in certain jurisdictions, it might have a higher propensity for litigation and so, what we’re trying to solve is really how do you take the claims process and make it proactive? How do you leverage technology to complement the adjuster? A lot of what we’ve seen, especially with the legacy infrastructure is adjusters spend their time not actually adjudicating claims but doing non-value added work, rekeying information across multiple systems, searching information, they’re working with multiple tools. So we really want to simplify the claims experience for the adjuster, that’s our focus. Because if the adjuster is equipped with the right tools, then the customer is going to have a better experience.
Wesley Todd [10:23]: What do you find there? Like, you got me curious. Now, I guess the people putting in the software couldn’t be further removed you know, at a lot of these large publicly traded shops and not to bash them, but it’s just you can’t run a multibillion-dollar software company and beyond you know, understand exactly the adjuster’s issues. What kind of chaos do you see with some of these companies you know, on the legacy platforms in that regard? I’d be curious, like, because you talked about, like, rekeying information. I’m just thinking in my head, all the different systems that they might go to get an estimate or might go to request you know, medical records or might I mean, it just, it’s got to be absolute hell for those adjusters.
Alex Meisner [11:07]: Right. I mean, insurance carriers blame orgs have always relied on a lot of third party vendors. On the property side, whether it’s to do inspections, water mitigation, auto side, you have the data aggregators, you have the salvage yards. And what’s interesting is, there are a lot of behemoths, who really have you know, there’s duopoly a lot of the time for each sort of segment. And because of that, insurance carriers haven’t had a lot of choices, or a lot of variety in the solutions that they’re looking for. So they’re kind of stuck with one or two different options. And if they’re not a friendly, easy to use solution, that’s going to impact their infrastructure. And that’s why over the years, you’ve seen insurance carriers tech stacks get complicated. That’s why they have to rekey because systems aren’t talking to each other. You know, just like inside of insurance carriers in any organization, their silos, a lot of the big carrier big vendors, insurance carriers rely on today have closed platforms, which makes integrations, the ease of doing business that much harder. But luckily, with really the emergence of cloud based technology API’s that the industry is leaning into, we’re starting to see that change.
Wesley Todd [12:35]: Yeah. I mean, on the litigation side, there’s when you think of it that way, it’s obvious why there are so many claims that do go to litigation and get out of control. It is reactive you know, claims management. What’s funny, I’ve heard on several podcasts, I think we’ve even mentioned it here. It’s odd, because claims is the actual product of insurance, claims is the product like that’s what someone’s buying. And for that to be wholly outsourced is one thing. I mean, that’s like, you can do that and you can do that well. And I think we, you and I would both agree that you know, that gives you a lot of flexibility and there’s a lot of strength there. But it can’t be done well, without the right, you know, I think technology is the solution. It’s funny how these things persists at this point, and I mean, I can’t imagine what you know, the type of things that that the adjusters have to go through now, with all these disparate systems. It’s funny that you mentioned duopoly sale. So for those of you that don’t know what that means, I’m guessing you mean like there’s like two vendors in the space, to engineering firms, to soft claim software to data firms. I never even really realize it. And what’s that do to an insurance company? Have you seen they lose leverage? And basically, now you’re kind of at the whim of the process of all your vendors.
Alex Meisner [14:15]: I don’t know that they lose leverage. I just think that their options in terms of solutions is limited. The prevalence of modern technology for a long time was limited, because they relied so heavily on vendors for different aspects of their claims business. You know, I think there’s need an argument to be made that the end customer experience have been jeopardized, because there hasn’t been a lot of new entrants. And you know, until sort of the insurer tech revolution came about leveraging data, leveraging AI, you know, and at the end of the day, claims matter to your point. And you know, insurance carriers haven’t really invested in their claim organizations as much as they have invested on the front end in terms of distribution. So, and whether that’s a technology investment, a people investment, a training investment as you know, the industry is sort of facing this resource issue. A lot of the adjusters who have the knowledge, who have the experience are retiring. So who’s going to replace them? Where is that knowledge live? A lot of the time, it just lives in that person’s head. And so that’s where these new technologies come into place. You can have workflows, you can drive consistent outcomes without necessarily needing the tribal knowledge that exists today.
Wesley Todd [15:56]: Yeah, that’s just not how modern billion dollar businesses work anymore, right, like billion dollar I mean, you can call it insurance company, FinTech. I mean, you know, or a fin at least. And I mean, you know, like, it’s a financial service. And they don’t they don’t rely on a bunch of experts doing manual things. And yeah, I wonder, it’s a really interesting point you raise about why that’s persisted in the insurance industry.
Alex Meisner [16:21]: And I think, changing and at the same time, don’t get me wrong, insurance carriers are extremely good at what they do. They’re very large organizations are very good at assessing risk. But I think there’s an argument to be made to your point, as a consumer you’re buying insurance to protect you. You know, the claims process is the product but you don’t really interact with your insurance carrier outside of the claims process. And so there’s a lot that can be done to better the customer experience, educate the customer before that claim happens. Because the best time is no claim.
Wesley Todd [17:04]: Yeah, which actually is a good lead in. Well, first of all, the person that came up with the great idea, or the great quote, of browned around people paying attention to distribution and InsurTech, and not the back end was a Jamie from Snapsheet. He calls it the mullet theory, that the party is backstage, everybody’s paying attention to the front end, but the party’s backstage and in the back office with claims. I love that. But what you raised brings a good point. So I want to ask you about what the industry will look might look like 10 years from your perspective that you’re able to sort of see some of the transformation going on, some of the insurer tech activity going on. You know, to your point, claims as you experience insurance companies are really good at what they’re doing assessing risk, because frankly, if every insurance company has an average claims process, or if 80% of has an average claims process, then the fact that that’s not that efficient or effective, doesn’t really harm them, because they’ll all face the same claim severity fallout, and they all will just charge a different rate. They’re all like, there’s no you know, as long as they’re all charging the same rate. And having the same problems, the expense doesn’t really matter, because the expense gets rolled up into a new rate. But what can happen in the future, and I think, what there’s a lot of bets going on in the InsurTech space is that expense can be driven down? I think that to your point, a lot of it is on the front side going direct to the policyholder rather than through an agent. So they’re trying to drive down that expense. But of course, also they want to drive it down on the claim side. And if they’re successful in doing that, then there actually will be incentive for insurance companies not to just raise their rates, but to have a better claims experience so that there’s less severity and less lawsuits. So are you, you know with that backdrop, and your experience you know, over the past, nearly a decade now you know, looking at this on the front lines, how do you think the insurance industry looks different in 5 or 10 years than it looks today? And when I mean insurance adjuster, I mean, like the players in the insurance industry, the legacy carriers, the Insurer Tech’s you know, with that backdrop, what does it look like?
Alex Meisner [19:28]: I mean, I think the legacy carriers are here to stay, to be honest, starting insurance carriers very tough. There are some, you know, successful Insurer Tech’s out there, who are, who are making waves, the lemonades of the world and you know, they’re inspiring the legacy carriers, the incumbents to work harder to do better to improve that customer experience. And we’re starting to see it on the digital offerings as it pertains to claims, the ease of submitting a claim. It’s all there. So I think 10 years from now, I think they’ll look very similar. I think what will be different is, the technology that insurance carriers are using. You know, COVID really forced insurance carriers to go virtual to go remote. So it will be interesting from a planning perspective to see our justice coming back in the office, or is this really the revolution and the digitization of the insurance carriers and the claims process, but I don’t think it will look that much different. I think you might you know, you’ll start seeing AI, from a claims perspective being woven into the process more holistically. You know, it’s hard to insert technology, or these new technologies inside of these you know, existing business processes, the legacy infrastructure on to do that in a way where an insurance carrier gets reaps the benefits is difficult. And also, you have to prove that the technology works. Adjusters have very difficult jobs. And so regardless of what your solution is, you need to prove to them that it works and makes their life easier, not harder. A lot of times new technology unintentionally, actually creates more friction than it’s results. But 10 years from now, I think it’ll be very similar to be quite honest.
Wesley Todd [21:41]: That’s really interesting. I think I’m hearing more and more of that lately. There was the threat of, you know, disruption and transformation and, but I do think more and more now. And it’s funny, because it comes at the exact same time that hundreds of millions of dollars are being pumped into billions of dollars in valuations of InsurTech’s for the first time ever really. I mean, it was not to the extent it is now, the valuations and the amount of money going into the [inaudible] eliminates the Metro miles, [inaudible] of course, you know, the leaders in the space. It’s funny to hear that now that we think that that they’ll be able to keep up and adapt and be able to compete.
Alex Meisner [22:36]: It’s good for the consumer, for the customer, competition is going to drive change within the industry. And so that’s really important. We’ve seen it accelerate, 10 years ago when we first got into, into the industry, insurance carriers, we’re just starting to understand that the customer experience matters. And so they’ve done a good job over the course of the last 10 years, and enhancing the customer experience from a claim perspective. But there’s still a long way to go.
Wesley Todd [23:13]: Yeah. Now, I think that’s a really good point. I mean, it just shows your, it shows the balanced approach. And you have been able to witness. I mean, when you guys first came in, it was you know, you were the first trying to digitize that front end.
Alex Meisner [23:29]: And really the one of the biggest changes we’ve seen is the emergence of the gig economy from the insurance perspective between the Uber’s of the world, the car sharing platforms, the Airbnb, these were new risks that didn’t exist before. And very quickly, insurance carriers sort of leaned into it and started writing that business. So it’s been interesting from a litigation perspective, I’m sure you know, it’s a different animal. The gig economy versus, you know, a standard, personal or giving commercial claim.
Wesley Todd [24:08]: Yeah, that’s interesting that you bring that up. Because there’s such an influx into that industry. And we know people in that industry, I think that if I recall correctly, a lot of those firms are creating captives or to some extent and self-insured you know, trying to self-insurance to some extent, they I think the insurers had a difficult time driving the right amount of rate for that book of business. Have you seen that too?
Alex Meisner [24:44]: Well, yeah, I mean, that’s what we saw in the early days is the need for the captives for those gate [inaudible] content platforms is there because there was no data for insurance carriers to assess that risk. And so they were sort of watching it and letting that data aggregate. But now you’re seeing more insurance carriers starting to take on the risks themselves, because they understand it. Now they’re seeing the data and they’re having a better time understanding it.
Wesley Todd [25:16]: And have you followed the embedded insurance movement at all, where a lot of people are talking about like Tesla, for example, doing their own insurance. And you know again, mostly tech and data driven, the idea being (a) there’s theoretically money to be made there, but (b) that they could do it better and less expensive than the competitors, and give them that experience, that that full, you know, full cycle experience with Tesla. If you heard anything about that? And what are your thoughts on that?
Alex Meisner [25:50]: I mean, it makes sense. If, when you go purchase a car, why not purchase the insurance at the same time? It makes life that much easier? Why isn’t everything like that? You can go buy a product from Apple, and you can get Apple Care, which is effectively insurance right there and then you don’t have to search around for it. So I think you know, it’ll be interesting, especially what Tesla’s doing, because you know, they’re also creating the entire, they’re trying to create sort of their own ecosystem if you will, from you know being a carrier to having their own repair facilities to really managing the experience end to end for their owners. So I’m curious to see how it develops, because they’ve tried a few times but it’s really, let’s wait and see.
Wesley Todd [26:45]: Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. It’s tough, it’s going to be tough for them to be able to spend that effort resource from you know, does it make money as an insurance company? But I think to your point, they’re trying to create that whole ecosystem. And if it’s a better experience, and lead to people buying more Tesla’s, so maybe insurance sort of becomes a dirty word and it’s really just about the user experience. And then it becomes table stakes for these car companies to deliver that. And I think that kind of makes a little bit of a sense from an embedded standpoint. So you’re right. It’s they want to own the environment, probably not because they think they’re going to make as much money in insurance as they do you know, selling software driven cars. But that’s, I think that’s right. They’re trying to own that whole user experience. Why not?
Alex Meisner [27:42]: They have the technology, maybe you know, maybe they will be the first at scale to have a touchless claims experience, because the car talks, with cars talking, they’re listening from a data perspective.
Wesley Todd [27:58]: Yeah, I mean, that that makes sense. It’s funny, because what you know, what could an insurance company do about that? Like, I had Nick Lamparelli on here from previously from InsurTech from “The Yellow Book Road” podcasts. And everybody knows him. He’s everywhere in InsurTech. And he was saying that if you’re a policyholder, and you’re paying you know, $500 for auto insurance, or $500 for home insurance, and the insurance companies not investing in technology, or not you know, going all in on technology or user experience. He brought up a really good point to me about that, I hadn’t thought about as he reminded me that they are sitting on all this surplus. They’re sitting on all this funds that they invest for a couple percent. And by not investing in claims user experience, by not investing in subrogation actually, that was one of the things that, you know, we’re getting money back for the policyholder the way he phrased it, by not investing in some of that they really are. It does actually kind of irk you a little bit. It’s interesting, because you think about it. Well, they’re just sort of breakeven insurance companies. To me, they’re not breakeven, but you know, they’re it’s a probably a fixed you know, they want to make whatever three 5% a year and invest that make another you know, 3%, 5%. But then when you break when you bring it up that way, and you realize they’re sitting on all that money that could be invested in a better policyholder experience. And then when Elon comes in with a 10 times better product, because he’s spending money to that the insurance companies weren’t spending they just weren’t investing in. It sort of makes you feel a little bit differently about it.
Alex Meisner [29:48]: Yeah. I mean, retention is key, like your claims experience is only as good as your last best experience. So these days, there’s a lot of good customer experience to be had whether it’s taking an Uber during COVID. Ordering food, it’s easy. But filing an insurance claim is not as easy as that. And if you have a poor claims experience, you know, I forget what the number is something like 60% of people that have a backlink experience are going to switch carriers. And so the insurance carrier is empowered with claim experience.
Wesley Todd [30:23]: Wow, I never, I haven’t heard that before. And those 60% of people also, a lot of them are gonna want to sue the insurance company, right? If it was really bad, they’re gonna be incentivized to sue, they’re gonna be frustrated, because companies just don’t do that anymore, particularly with something that’s like really important, like a house or a car. Like, it’s just not a matter of calling back and forth and being forwarded to four different people. And to your point, I mean, I think they’re actually have gotten a lot better at this because they they’ve had to but yeah, this is why I wanted to have you on because I feel like this is really valuable for adjusters to understand and attorneys understand that this is where it all these factors really come from. Full circle though, I think one of the first things you said, if insurers were able to be more proactive, as you mentioned, then that would reduce claims, reduce litigation. I mean, it sounds like you’re not 100% bullish on the industry’s ability to do that anytime soon. So everybody, listen to the podcast and you know, breathe a breath of relief, that they’re not going to be out of a job because it’s going to be a you know button click, but talk to me a little bit more about what’s proactive claims handling?
Alex Meisner [31:48]: Proactive claims handling so you know, a lot of claims handling is rooted in the diary. You talk to a customer or claimant, you set a diary for two weeks out, one week out, whatever that may be. Communications documents could be coming into the claim final. But they’re not being addressed as they come in, or being addressed based on when that diary was set. So proactive claims handling is about handling the right claim at the right time, keeping claims moving forward. If you request a piece of information from your customer to aid the claims process, and they give it to you right away you know, the expectation today, especially with like things like text messaging, is customers want instant gratification, I sent you something now you have to send me something right back. And so that’s what it’s really about is, how can we help insurance carriers give them tools to enable a proactive claims process? And it starts I think, even before the claim, whether it’s home or property, if you put some technology in your customer’s hand to document the condition of their home or their vehicle, when that first claim comes in and the adjuster has access to those photos easily and can make a very quick determination. Yes, this is new damage. It’s not pre-existing and settle the claims that should be settled quickly that’s a great customer experience. You know, he’s still here a lot of times, well, I already sent you that. Your insurance company will request documents or information that you’ve already provided them. But they’re just not easily accessible to the claims handling. And so it’s trying to understand I think, after a while, how can we send this claim down the right path the first time, based on characteristics based on all the different variables. But claims are tough. Claims are very difficult. There are a lot of things that are out of the insurance carrier’s control, whether it’s state regs, the customer itself cats the environment, the weather, the climate is going crazy. So it is what they do is very difficult. But there is now technology that will enable them to better to achieve their goals. They’re getting there for sure.
Wesley Todd [34:29]: That’s a great perspective. I think when we first got into this, it was you know, like wait, how could this be? This is ridiculous. I’m sure when you first looked at claims you were like this is awful. And then as you started to and same with me with claims litigation, so much so that I risk my whole career on it, but then as did you, but you do have a level of respect for how challenging it actually is in play? I mean, this is…
Alex Meisner [35:00]: It’s such a difficult job and you know, adjudicating a claim and adjuster has one of the most difficult jobs, I think out there. Because not only do they have to be empathetic, they are dealing with very traumatic losses for their end customers a lot of the time. So they have to make them their customers feel okay. But at the same time, they have to duplicate the claim based on the policy and the circumstances in the context. And so when you add that on top of having to work on multiple systems, and all the other things they do, like, let’s you know, let’s empower adjusters to adjudicate that’s really what they should be doing.
Wesley Todd [35:41]: Yeah. I think we’ve given up on the fact you know, on the idea that technology is going to be able to do really anything to remove adjusters, it’s more about giving them more time to close the case, instead of doing all the clerical work, which we’re all prone to do that we see that other things that in the litigation side, like it’s very easy to just respond to your emails. And that’s why our nature you know, that’s where 80% of us are instincts are just respond emails. And so yeah, the idea is not replace anybody when that’s not possible in claims or in litigation. But the idea is, you could just take that 80% of manual effort off their plate, give them you know, different alerts, different triggers, then they’ll be more successful. So it’s an evolution from a technology side to come to that realization?
Alex Meisner [36:35]: I mean, just you know, the art of putting together the claim documentation or the claim extract, to hand over to their counsel, or to their outside attorneys, when cases do go to litigation like that itself, is very difficult to do. It should be easy. It should be clicking the button here is everything you need here, all the artifacts structured, here’s all the documentation. But it’s not that easy right now.
Wesley Todd [37:05]: Yeah. So what about if there’s someone listening to this, they’re an adjuster, maybe they’re an attorney, maybe their executive director, something like that. That’s where we were 10 years ago, or whatever, for me, it was like seven or eight years ago, and they’re saying, actually, I think I can help solve that problem. You know, they may be you know, stick they may feel like, like, there are transformational advancement that can be made. What advice do you have for somebody sitting in the adjuster side, or sitting in the attorney side, maybe you’ve seen experience that people come out of that and become valuable people at Snapsheet or elsewhere? Like what advice you have for somebody that thinks they have an idea, or thinks they have an opportunity to change the claims industry, or the legal industry or something like that?
Alex Meisner [38:00]: I think run with it and question everything. I think it’s you know, the insurance in particulars industry of why we do it this way, because we’ve always done it that this way. But people rarely ask, why are you doing it that way? And a lot of times, you have to peel the onion back to understand the answer. It’s because of, you know, dependencies on legacy infrastructure that they have to overcome. You know, there’s a myriad of answers. And so a lot of the times that original problem might not be the actual problem, it might be a symptom of the actual problem. So I would encourage anyone with an idea, really dissect it, try to understand it and cure the disease, don’t cure the symptoms. That’s what I say there’s a ton of opportunity, especially in the claim space, never be satisfied beings can always be better and that’s universal.
Wesley Todd [39:07]: Every adjuster is a million-dollar business. They’re shelling out so much money in claims payments, and expenses. Yeah, there’s just they learn so much so fast. And I would just add to that, I definitely agree that go ahead. And it particularly early in your career, just start challenging the status quo. Why are we doing things this way? But yeah, don’t assume that your original idea has any value because it’s, like you said, it’s probably tons of dependencies, and there is some core disease beneath it. And then the question is whether you got a good idea for that too. Because that’s I think, what everybody’s been trying to resolve? I would add to that, and it’s something I’ve learned from being able to talk to you reach out to people, so like you know, reach out to Alex, you could reach out to me, reach out to anybody at any of the tech companies that you work with, and they’ll talk to you all day about, or a lot of them will about what the issue is? It’s in everybody’s best interest to actually get that to the forefront, because the insurance company will be better, the vendor will be better or the prospective vendor you know, might get a new opportunity. So, I mean, I’ve gotten a lot of value from you know, picking up the phone calling you. And I think there’s no, I think you agree, I mean, you could talk to anybody in this industry.
Alex Meisner [40:32]: Oh man, I learned something new every day. It’s endless, insurance is so complicated. And so it’s my favorite part I love, especially talking to adjusters and picking their brains understanding what they’re dealing with, why things are the way they are, it’s exciting. And that’s people forget about insurance. It’s such a great opportunity this industry, because you don’t really think about it, if you’re not part of the industry you know, we both kind of outsiders. And so it’s like, well, there’s a lot that can be done here to make it better. But at the same time, insurance carriers are very important to protect us. So it’s a great industry and I encourage everybody, if you have an idea, try it.
Wesley Todd [41:26]: Oh, yeah. I’ve never people have never been more open to it. If you haven’t, if you don’t feel that way, you just haven’t talked to the right person. Because I know, I’ll hear you out that’s for sure. And I’m sure, Alex would to where there’s definitely, the more information the better. Yeah, well, I, I mean, we could talk for hours as we have in the past. But I really appreciate that. I mean, I think the adjusted attorneys now know why I would bring on a Director of Innovation from a Claims Tech Provider, it’s because these things are evolving, and they’re gonna have direct impact on our work as adjusters and as attorneys in the claims department, in a legal department. You know, I think it’s really important to hear from somebody that’s helping shape the future of what those claim files and what that process and what that experience is going to look like soon and already actually already is to a big extent. And I also think that the journey of you know, first employee at a two person company to now, how many employees is Snapsheet have? Over 300?
Alex Meisner [42:39]: Yeah, right around that number.
Wesley Todd [42:40]: The VP innovation there is inspiring to all of us that there are problems to be solved. And there is value and reward to those who are to go through the grind of trying to solve them. So I really appreciated your insights as always, and I’m sure that the audience did to. The claims process is a tricky and difficult one. It’s nice to hear somebody talk about it constructively, but also fairly. If somebody wants to keep you know, keep up with Snapsheet or with Alex, and while there’s different things you’re working on, how would you recommend they do that?
Alex Meisner [43:18]: Yeah, you can find Snapsheet or myself on LinkedIn. You can go to our website, snapsheetclaims.com or just Google Snapsheet, that’s always the easiest.
Wesley Todd [43:29]: Great. Well, hey, thanks again. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Let’s do it again sometime soon, Alex.
Alex Meisner [43:33]: Thanks for having me, Wes.