 Welcome to another edition of Business in Hawaii. My name is John Strandberg. We are broadcasting live in the ThinkTech studios here in downtown Honolulu. If you want to tune in live, we are at www.thinktechhawaii.com. You can also sign up to get on our mailing list there as well. The theme of Business in Hawaii is to bring you stories of local business by local people. Our guests share with us their journey to building successful businesses in our sometimes challenging environment. In the ThinkTech studios today is Daniel Lee, Vice President of Commercial Lines for Island Insurance. Daniel, welcome and thanks for coming in today. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. So one of the things I learned about you quickly is the accent you just spoke is not from Hawaii. So tell me more on how you got that and what brought you here today. Yeah. So I was born and raised in Oklahoma. I actually moved my family out here about eight months ago. So most recently I've been in Dallas, Texas. I wasn't raised in Oklahoma, but all of my professional career has been in Texas. So the last one year I was also in Connecticut. So that's where my accent comes from. You got the accent from Connecticut. Yeah, exactly. That's right. Because after you met me, I spoke with you on the phone originally. I was expecting a six-foot-four blonde-haired Texas guy to come in and say, Hey, I've gotten that even over there in Texas, believe it or not. But yeah, it's been great though. And I think it's fair to say that maybe I don't know if I really just naturally fit in anywhere, grown up in Oklahoma, in Texas now in Hawaii, but it's been a great life thus far for me. So you've been in Hawaii about eight months, are you saying? Yeah, eight months. Again, I'm speaking for the people of Hawaii. You'll find us very easy to talk with and very welcoming. So I hope you've been treated that way with Island Insurance. Absolutely. So I mean, it's a wonderful, small family-owned company here to serve the community of Hawaii. But from a life perspective, and I can speak for my wife as well. I've got a wife and a young daughter that moved out here. And just to clarify, we've never lived in Hawaii. We don't have family in Hawaii. So this was a big change for us. But it's something that we were really, really excited about. And the community has just been so warm, both from a life perspective, but also from a business standpoint. My daughter, of course, she loves it out here. And we're really looking forward to what I think would be a very special childhood for my daughter Sophie as well. Yeah, raising kids in Hawaii is probably the best thing ever. I raised two here, and I'm done, thank goodness. So your wife moved here with you, your daughter moved here with you, you've been here eight months. So Island Insurance, just for our viewers to understand what Island Insurance is about. So Island Insurance, locally owned and operated. BNC Insurance Company offers both personal lines as well as commercial lines, BNC products and services. What was PNC for? So property and casualty. There are different segments within the insurance sector. You've got life, you've got health. But we focus on, from a commercial perspective, which is what I'm directly involved with, commercial property, general liability, workers' compensation, commercial auto, and then commercial umbrella. We also, the company offers homeowners and auto for a personal lines perspective as well. Okay, we're going to backtrack a little bit on your transition to Hawaii, because originally I'm not from Hawaii either, though I look at for the most part. But the transition is kind of, it's unique in a way that it's, I was sharing with you before the show. When I first got off the airplane here in Hawaii, I just felt like I was home. Everyone just kind of looked like me and just felt right. Did you get that same experience? Yeah, I did, but it's been quite the transition. Candidly, I'm still in process of transitioning and acclimating. The culture here is wonderful. It's one of the things that attracted us. But there's a lot of differences, both from a life and a business standpoint. There's a sense of community here. It's wonderful. And look, Hawaii is a smaller community in and of itself. And so the folks naturally have to lean in on each other. And the relationships, personal and business, are that much more important here in Hawaii? And we've felt that just in eight months here. But there's a lot of other things when you talk about cost of living, adjustments. I'm not thinking about this as much yet, but my daughter's really young. But education looks a little bit different here versus where I was at in Dallas, Texas. But all in all, it's very, very positive. I'll tell you, people ask me about that transition. And if I just talk to my life standpoint, it's very difficult to compare the two. They're so different. Hawaii is a very, very special place. We loved Texas as well, but they're just different environments. They're different places to raise your family. And it's a great life challenge for my family to be here. It's not easy, but it's been nothing but positive thus far. That's actually really good to hear because I've experienced all that myself. I'll tell you, the first thing I noticed was the cost of milk. Yeah. I left California almost 23 years ago, moved here. Milk was $1.75 a gallon. Get here, it's five bucks. Whoa, and today's even higher. I tell everyone, yeah. So we had Costco back in Texas, right? And we were friends back in Texas. Costco's part of the family here in Hawaii. It's a real factor in consideration. For anyone considering making the move from the mainland here, the financial piece, there's a challenge there. But there's a given and take. There's things that are presented here in this community in Hawaii that all the money in the world can't buy. There's a lifestyle change. There's a lifestyle adjustment for us, which we love. There's a natural beauty, and then just culturally. That's the biggest piece. There's a warmth with the community no matter where you go, from our neighborhood to the town, and then even in the company. Local company for me. So I feel actually blessed transitioning into Hawaii, but also not just transitioning into the state, but being a part of a local company like Island Insurance, welcoming me with open arms. Joining a new company, there's a transition anyways, but that much more coming from Texas to Hawaii. It's been nothing but supportive from a business standpoint for me. On a business standpoint, what was the transition that was the toughest for you here? I'll tell you, so one, the transition continues to happen. A lot of folks talk about pace. But pace is so broad. And I think one thing that folks either on the mainland and maybe even here, it's important to appreciate is that it is a tight-knit community here in Hawaii. Very tight-knit. So the relationship is king. I think everywhere, especially in insurance, even on the mainland unless the relationship is king, but there's that much more, it's amplified that much more here because it is a very close-knit community. You will see your business partners, customers, walking on the street on a Saturday, on a Sunday, on a Monday, on a Tuesday, every day of the week. And so the personal relationships do bleed in to the business side of it. There's a trust component that needs to be developed as you do business. I think it transcends all industries here in Hawaii, but investing time to understand and appreciate the people, the community, that allows you to accelerate building that foundation of trust, which is just paramount if you're going to do business here in Hawaii. That's one thing. So people talk about pace, but they need to understand. You just need to invest a bit more time up front on the trust piece, on the listening, observing, appreciating. Whereas I think on the mainland, sometimes the pace feels fast because you kind of go right into what needs to be done, what's our goals, right, and let's just go. Right. So on the mainland, I've worked there as well. It's the amount of people that you have to go through. I think that creates that false sense of pace where you have to work faster. But overall, my experience in Hawaii, the slower I work, actually the more productive I am. I'm not bouncing from project to project, job to job. And it's just, I find myself more productive here in Hawaii than anywhere else I've worked. Yeah. And I'll tell you, I've even shared with my old colleagues and friends and family on the mainland that it's not so much pace in terms of work ethic, you know, energy, it's the process of transitioning. It's the process of change, right? It's the process of building trust and building foundation. That piece, the other thing is you think about, you know, culturally I think a lot of folks, you know, can see and recognize, you know, at times there's more, there's a more reserved nature right here in a meeting. It's just, you know, fighting to be the first one to talk, the first one to ask the question. But it's not because there's a lack of care or passion. There's great listening that happens here. Communication goes both ways, right? It's actually speaking, but it's also listening. And the people here from a business standpoint do a great job listening, very, very thoughtful. And so it's just different. There's a humble factor involved here in Hawaii as well, which is it took a long time for me to learn. And it's come to a point where I've been here 24 years, I'm finally getting it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In my short eight months, I've got a lot more miles to walk, right, here in Hawaii, but you're right. You know, there's a respectful aspect of the culture here and humility, honesty, being humble, it's very, very important. And I think, I tell you, I think a lot of the folks coming from the mainland, they may be humble, but it's how you show it. And you need to understand your customers, the people around you, the community around you and how they receive as much as, you know, what reality might be for you. And, you know, communications received a bit differently here as well. And so being cognizant of all these things, it's really, really important. Aside from the actual business, whatever business you might be in, business specifics, this part of it, again, it touches all industries, no matter what business you're in. Yeah, insurance is all about relationships. Yeah. You know, by day, I'm worth an IT company. And what's for us is all about relationship, is without the relationship, I don't have a customer and I can't service them. And it's the same with insurance and any other industry. It is, it is. And, you know, relationships go internal and external as well. So even for me, while I've joined the company and they're all my teammates, right, they are all of my work family, still need to invest time, right, and have the patience to build the trust with each one of the individuals. It's very, very important. And I think that's a big difference. And that is what bleeds into the whole the pace thing, I think, as well, the speed. But once you appreciate that dynamic here in Hawaii, you'll be a lot better for it. Right. Transitioning in. Okay. Well, we're going to go to a quick break when we come back. We're actually going to talk about insurance, not just about relations and transitioning to Hawaii. Sounds good. We're going to take a short break. We'll see you back here shortly. Hi, Mabuhay. My name is Amy Ortega Anderson, inviting you to join us every Tuesday here on Pinoy Power, Hawaii. With Think Tech Hawaii, we come to your home at 12 noon every Tuesday. We invite you to listen, watch. For our mission of empowerment, we aim to enrich, enlighten, educate, entertain, and we hope to empower. Again, Maraming, Salamat Po, Mabuhay, and Aloha. Aloha, and welcome to At the Crossroads. I'm your host, Keisha King. I'm live at five every Wednesday, where we have entertaining and educational conversations that are real and relevant, both here in Hawaii and across the globe. I'll see you at the Crossroads. Aloha. Welcome back to Business in Hawaii. Joining us today is Daniel Lee, Vice President of Commercial Lines for Island Insurance. Well, Daniel, before the break, we talked about transitioning to Hawaii from Texas where you're from, but let's talk about Island Insurance, because you said you're Vice President of Commercial Lines. As a person who uses an insurance, I understand homeowners insurance, renters and so on, but exactly what does Commercial Lines insurance do? Yeah, so Commercial Lines, essentially insurance products and services for businesses of all sizes, from small business owner all the way up to the larger corporations. And it's essentially, from a property casualty standpoint, I think about Commercial Lines is protecting the business, protecting the business's assets, protecting the people, which is arguably the most important asset for a company or an organization, and then also protecting their ability to continue to service or provide their services for their customers, whoever those might be. But again, property, commercial property, if you think about theft, you think about fire, you think about catastrophe insurance, general liability. Look, it's a growing, the litigious environment, wherever you are, it's growing and so it's important to protect the business from that perspective. Auto fleets, delivery vehicles, any commercial vehicles, and then workers comp. Workers comp, providing a safe workplace and protecting your employees, your most valuable asset is important. There's a legal aspect to insurance, there's legal requirements, but then there's really just the responsibility just to protect your business. And work comp, most states, not all, most states you're required to carry work comp for your people, but that's kind of in a nutshell. And there's umbrella, umbrella sits over. It sits over. So again, prior to show, we talked about different types of insurance and we shared about the minimum legal requirements versus what you really need to protect a business. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, you know, so from a, here's where I kind of look at insurance and I look at insurance and risk management kind of together. Risk management is a service offered both by our customers, so I'm on the company side, our customers are independent agents, right? They have risk management offerings, right, risk control offerings. We also supplement what they can do to provide that ultimately for the end client, but as, especially as the complexity of the business grows, so this is sophistication because it's that much more important. So you, and now more than ever, you'll see the risk management piece involved at the insured level as well, the policy holder. And so you can get the insurance, that's just one piece of it, right? And then the other part that dovetails it is the risk management piece, right? Risk manager, safety programs, fleet management programs. These are all parts of insurance and it's up to ultimately that the business, the end client, the policy holder, or how sophisticated, how involved they feel they need to be or are willing to be. There's varying levels of, or various levels of perspective, right, on risk management, so. But, again, to your point, there is legal requirements as well, but I just think that's just the beginning. Insurance is a much bigger world in terms of business. So you talked about risk management. When it comes to that, you asked the end client what their threshold is in risk. Is it, I'm accepting this much risk and my insurance should cover the rest or is there a median ground? Do you provide training on risk management? Yeah, it's a little bit of all of the above. John, we want to tailor the risk management program. We have risk control consultants to the needs of the client based on what they have, maybe what they would like or sometimes it's bringing new ideas to them to help support, making it a safer workplace or just building out their risk management programs. And ultimately, it's their total cost to risk. We're looking at their total cost to risk and we want to help them bring that down. Productivity with their employees, turnover, so all of that stuff impacts business and ultimately their success as well. So it's really important that we work closely with our agency partners. Ultimately, these are their clients and we are here to support the agents and their clients and so they know their clients better than anyone. How we can support them from a risk management standpoint, it varies by industry, by line of business. So there's a lot of variables in there and it's our job to understand what those variables are and make it as effective as possible. And again, we had a very long conversation before this show. One of the things that I was told by a lot of different agents and other companies in the past is insurance. Not a lot of people joining the insurance industry. It's not as quote-unquote sexy as doing what we do, IT or development or programming. How do you come back in that? Yeah, so I think that's an opportunity for the industry country-wide for a lot of different reasons and I think, and I'll speak just because most of my time is on the mainland, there's efforts being made to bring education and information out to the younger folks, right? Getting at them earlier because it's a wonderful industry from a career perspective. It's an important industry from a business standpoint. It's a need to have. It's always going to be here. In today's day and age. It's our job as current employees of the industry to get that information out. There's a big opportunity. There's perpetuation issues. There's a gap. There's a lot of folks that have been in the industry for decades with a lot of knowledge. But I think in pockets there are big gaps between talent and there are certain universities that are rolling out or have rolled out insurance and risk management programs. There's opportunity to do that more across the board. And so it's something that is near and dear to my heart. I did not know much about insurance. So I was very fortunate. I think a lot of folks fall into it because what you think of insurance as is, you know, homeowners, right? An auto. I'm thinking of my local guy down the street with an office on the corner. Everyone, you know, at some point in their life buys insurance, right? Consumers. But a lot of folks don't have as much information or an appreciation for the commercial side of it. And, you know, with complexity to me comes a lot of opportunity. The one thing that I always try to dispel is there's not one cookie cutter type of individual that fits into the industry. There's an opportunity or career path for different types of personalities, interests, you know, just for my group, right? Whether it's audit, whether it's risk control, whether it's underwriting, whether it's support, whether it's sales, leadership, there really is something for everyone. And not to say that insurance is for everyone, but it's definitely worth consideration for anyone looking into a career. And it's something that I want to, you know, however I think it's important to be in this community and even in my prior place, try to be an ambassador, to talk about insurance. It can be fun too, John, believe it or not. Show me the fun of insurance because every time you say the words of insurance, people cringe and like, oh, I'm paying for something I'm never going to use until you absolutely need it and then, bam, oh, thank God Ultimately, you're here to help people, right? We're here to bring value to our agency partners and to our policy holders as well. Yes, at times, you know, when insurance is needed most is when it's the most not fun, right? But it's our job to find work as a team, right? There's no silos of work. What we put out as a product and service is risk control, audit, underwriting, leadership, working with our agency partners. There's a lot of fun that's embedded in that process. Building relationships, right? Understanding different businesses. We touch all different types of businesses and so learning is every day. You're all, you know, keeps you on your toes every day and you know, it's, it can be fun, but Alright, well, you heard it here first. Insurance can be fun, which is not, well, just a stigma of insurance that screams oh, yeah. I'm writing a check. It's kind of cost me. Right. But the, you know, the rising cost of insurance has always been on the mind of a lot of business owners. Is anything being done in the industry to help reduce the cost? Doing business in Hawaii, it is Hawaii. It's quite expensive. Right, right. That's a good, that's a great question. So I can say this and I'm still getting my arms around, around, because every environment is different from an point. Litigious environment is different. The regulatory environment, different exposures, right. So if you think about Hawaii, there is a different catastrophe exposure than in Dallas. In Dallas, you know, you're looking at what we would say, minor catastrophe exposure. So tornado, hail, here there's hurricane, right. The hurricane seems to be in a week from now. That's right. And so you know, you have to as a company operating here, we have to tailor what we, our products, services, our offerings to the exposures that the businesses face here. In terms of a cost standpoint that's where I think the risk management piece comes very, very important. So price is a function of you know, exposure, risk but also risk management. Because there is to a certain degree insurance, insurance companies and agents can help control that risk, mitigate that risk up front. It's a proactive effort and ultimately hopefully reduce the total cost of risk and impact premiums in a positive way. There's market conditions though that are outside of policy holders control, right. And those market conditions you know, not to get too much into the weeds, hard soft market, right. With surplus you know we're actually in a bit of a soft market. I'll just speak for the industry in general and that means where you're seeing some downward pressure on price because there is excess surplus. But you know that's, I focus less on that and focus on what we control with the individual account and help helping the individual account. Achieve whatever their goals are. Every account can buy varying levels of insurance as well. Right, every business owner has got to make that choice on their own. With some guidance from your insurance person, obviously. We try to stay ahead of trends, lost cost trends, things like that. There's emerging issues. There's new exposures. We talked a little bit about cyber before here. There's, you know, if you think about driverless cars, there's different ways of looking at risk. I think one of the things we can do and we are and I say we as in an industry do better is leveraging data and analytics to help make better risk decisions, look at risk differently and risk pricing as well. But those are all factors. I got a mini lesson in insurance. If IT doesn't work out for me I'll give you a call. Is there anything last word you want to say? We're about to close it out. I appreciate being on here and having the opportunity. I'll tell you again, I just want to reiterate I'm very glad to be here. The transition is a transition. It is very specific to Hawaii but we're very thankful and blessed because it is such a warm community. My family and I, and then for me from a business standpoint I'm very passionate about insurance for anyone out there that is interested in insurance or learning more either reach out to your agent or if you have a friend or what not it's definitely worth investigating further because it's a wonderful industry and it provides a valuable service to all communities across the country. Thank you very much for your time. We are out of time, I want to thank Daniel for taking the time to be with us today. If you'd like to be a guest on our show please feel free to email your information to shows at thinktechhawaii.com Business in Hawaii airs every Thursday at 2pm and we are looking forward to seeing you here next week.