YFP REI 124: Insurance Updates and Scaling a Business with Bryan Neal

Bryan Neal, insurance agent, talks about the shifts in the insurance landscape and what investors should consider to make sure their investments are protected.

Episode Summary

Bryan Neal, insurance agent, returns to the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast to talk about the shifts in the insurance landscape after COVID and what real estate investors should consider to protect themselves and their properties. He also shares his journey growing his own insurance business.

About Today’s Guest

Bryan Neal, originally from Jonesboro, Arkansas, earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. His career in the insurance industry began with a State Farm Agency, where he discovered his passion for the field. After a brief tenure with Farm Bureau, Bryan co-founded NRG Insurance. In 2021, Bryan sold NRG as he transitioned to launching a new agency, Treblestone Insurance.

Bryan and his wife, Rachel, welcomed their son, Nathan, in November 2020, and their daughter, Emma, in 2024. Bryan continues to expand Treblestone Insurance, with current focused marketing efforts in Tennessee.

Key Points from the Episode

• Insurance shifts impacting real estate investors with expert Brian Neal. [0:06]
• Insurance agency ownership and carrier relationships. [4:47]
• Insurance rate increases due to inflation, supply chain issues, and catastrophic losses. [11:55]
• Insurance coverage and market value increases. [17:19]
• Insurance needs for real estate investors. [22:17]
• Insurance for rental properties and hiring contractors. [26:11]
• Insurance and business strategies for real estate investors. [31:43]
• Real estate investing, advice for beginners. [36:19]

Episode Highlights

“There’s nothing that we’ve done as far as advising people not to buy in a certain area due to insurance concerns. Now has it slowed things down? Or have I seen insurance become the roadblock to somebody purchasing a home? Most definitely. Which is honestly mind blowing. Because I have not experienced that to this point in my career.” – Bryan Neal

“I’ve seen several instances where the house just wasn’t even insurable due to the how tight everyone has gotten in their underwriting and so literally these individuals, either they couldn’t get the proper coverage that they needed to close on the loan is just wasn’t even an option to buy it unless the person that was selling it did a lot of updating. In every scenario there is always, typically a way to solve it. That’s why I like being on the independent side because I say if it can be written by anyone, we can find somebody that will do it.” – Bryan Neal

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

• YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast #14: Protecting Your Investments
• TrebleStone Insurance
• TrebleStone on Instagram
• TrebleStone on Facebook
• Subscribe to the YFP Newsletter
• YFP Disclaimer
• YFP Real Estate Investing Facebook Group
• Nate Hedrick on Instagram
• David Bright on Instagram
• YFP Real Estate Investing Website
• David Bright on LinkedIn
• Nate Hedrick on LinkedIn

Episode Transcript

Nate Hedrick  00:06

Welcome to the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast. I’m Nate Hedrick.

David Bright  00:09

And I’m David Bright. We’re both pharmacists and real estate investors that believe that real estate investing does not have to distract from a meaningful career in pharmacy.

Nate Hedrick  00:18

Each episode we share stories that educate and inspire pharmacists to leverage real estate investing as a part of your financial plan. Hey, David, how’s it going?

David Bright  00:30

Good, Nate. Thanks. How’s it going, man? 

Nate Hedrick  00:32

Good, really good. We just finished up a really nice interview. And we’re doing all the summer stuff. It’s everything’s good. It’s weirdly busy. But otherwise, we’re doing well. 

David Bright  00:44

I know, with the with the agent hat on I know you’ve said it’s a little different being a solopreneur. We’re so used to as pharmacists, when you when you take vacation leave, you’re gone. And someone else covers your pharmacists duties. But yeah, this is this is a little different with the realtor thing, right? 

Nate Hedrick  01:00

I’m such a big proponent of like, when I’m gone, like, my emails are off, my phone is off, like I want to be gone. And I can do that a little bit less now. I have to be a little bit attentive to that. And usually, like I can prep my clients like, Hey, we’re gonna be gone for a week, I’m gonna be slow to respond. But even that, like I can’t just turn it all the way off, which I’m a little resentful of, I guess. I’ll manage, it’s worth it. I like what I do.

David Bright  01:25

So yeah, but at the same time, you were just telling me a story right before we hit record about a flip of how you were able to leverage that with yourself management, though, too.

Nate Hedrick  01:36

Yeah, so I really kind of a cool story just I turned a vacant rental listing that when I was interviewing prospective tenants for ended up securing a really fantastic tenant. And as we started talking more, he said, Hey, you know, I’m actually wouldn’t be opposed to buying a house. And so I had a listing down the road that I thought would be a perfect fit for him after talking to him for an hour. And now we’re under contract on that place. So I don’t want to jinx it. But it was a cool way to kind of turn a rental client into a listing client or a real estate client. So that was that was pretty fun. 

David Bright  02:07

That’s cool. So it’s not all bad. There’s a lot of there’s still a lot of value in holding that real estate license and playing both worlds. Right.

Nate Hedrick  02:14

Very little bad. In fact, very little. Just just a little bit. But But speaking of bad, one of the things that if you didn’t catch our July newsletter not to like bury the lede there. But if you didn’t catch our July newsletter, about the one of the pieces in the article we mentioned was about insurance carriers pulling out of certain areas of the country, particularly Florida, California, disaster zones. We we kind of wanted to springboard this episode off of that same idea, like, can we talk about insurance, something that we talked about way back when and only a few times in between, but something that’s becoming more and more important as the world changes a little bit? 

David Bright  02:57

The insurance landscape is really shifting, you know, I’m in Michigan, so we didn’t get a lot of hurricanes up here. You know, like, we’re I’m not, I don’t know why it’s really happening here. Our guest today does go into some of the some of the details there. But we’re seeing a lot of those shifts, we had a major carrier pull out, I had a friend call me, he said his rates went up $3,000 a year on his one duplex unit, and he was trying to figure out what to do. Because changes like that in the insurance world that can be a big hit to your cash flow. And it can produce just a lot of instability and what we all hope is a really stable investment. And so yeah, this seemed like a great time to bring in an insurance expert to say this markets getting wild. What do you do as an investor to protect yourself and protect your property and have insurance work for you? 

Nate Hedrick  03:46

So that’s why we decided to bring back a long time ago guest Bryan Neal, he was back with us way back in season one, episode 14, if you can believe it. And just an excellent individual really well educated in the space, runs his own insurance business, and just has a great pulse on on what’s going on in the world of insurance right now.

David Bright  04:06

Yeah, I think there’s still some value, we reference back to these prior episodes, because a lot of the a lot of the content that’s shared in those is still valuable today. So for instance, in Episode 14, Brian had some tips in there about how to shop for insurance and how to get your rates down. And that was the push I needed. Not a lot of people really get excited about digging into insurance shopping and all that kind of stuff. But it was it was the nudge that I needed to do that. And in shopping around for insurance. I was stunned by how much I saved in doing that with the tips that he shared in that episode. So it was a great interview then, and he shared a lot of great tips this time around as well. 

Nate Hedrick  04:47

He has some really good stuff about how to look at the current market and the things that have changed. And especially if you’ve been holding a property for a while and what does it look like for you going forward? Do you have enough insurance to cover a catastrophic loss? Do you have, you know, replacement cost actually built into what you’re doing and some really good tips to look at that I haven’t thought about in a while. And so it was a really good reminder to have Bryan kind of walk through those things. Yeah.

David Bright  05:12

So I think this is a good reminder for everybody that whether you’ve had the policy for a long time or a short time, it’s a good thing just to get your head above water every once in a while, look around, make sure that you’re dotting your I’s and crossing your T’s. So this would be a good one. After you finish listening to episode, set up an appointment with your insurance agent, make sure you have the right coverage for you. 

Nate Hedrick  05:33

I like it. Alright, with that, we’ll take you to the episode. Hope you guys enjoy. Hey, Brian, welcome back to the show.

Bryan Neal  05:41

Hey, Nate, I appreciate appreciate you guys having me back on. 

Nate Hedrick  05:45

Heck yeah, man, we were looking, just David and I before we started hitting record here that we had you way back on episode 14. So it’s been it’s been a minute, I would say over two years now. So we’re excited to have you back and talk more things insurance and hear about what you’ve been up to. So for those listeners that might have missed that early episode way back in season one, maybe give us a little bit about yourself, and just a few things that might have transpired since that last time you’re with us. Yeah,

Bryan Neal  06:11

So, my name is Bryan Neal. I am an insurance agent by trade, which ultimately has evolved into being a business owner, so got into the industry with honestly, just the more I learned about the industry, had a passion for it. And then it’s just evolved over time into business ownership. And that’s honestly has become my passion. Obviously, love insurance, it’s a always evolving game, always something to learn, it’s challenging on that front. And because it’s always changing, and there’s always something else to tackle, learn about. But yeah, so I live in Central Arkansas, been a captive agent. So worked for State Farm, have worked for Farm Bureau. And essentially, you know, realized that that model was just not great for the customer. From my point of view, nothing wrong with the carriers at all, or the companies, both very good, very good companies. Just not a great business model for the customer. And so, in 2018, me and another gentleman decided to start an independent agency, which just means we essentially go out, create those relationships with carriers. And then when a customer comes to us, we have multiple options, as opposed to just one option. And so we started that in 2018, focused primarily on small investors working with small real estate investors and a lot heavy personal on so home, auto, and then the guy who owned maybe one or two rental properties made up a lot of our book of business, at first, and a lot of fun. And great agency had some goals for wanting to try to scale something and try honestly, as I fell in love with the business side of it, the idea of scaling and just people. And that led me to just started another agency, two and a half hours away from where we’re two hours away from where I live, and try to tackle scaling that thing while I don’t even live there. And so that that started in 2021. I sold the agency in Conway in 2021, as well, towards the end of 2021 to my business partner, and have been focused on this one ever since I guess the end of 2021.

Nate Hedrick  08:45

That’s great recap. And I think it gives some perspective of how much you’ve been up to I think for those that are listening that might not even know the difference, right? Just to kind of get to like, insurance 101. Can you briefly explain the difference between single carrier agent and an agent that helps multiple carriers? I think I think that might be clear to some but not to everyone?

Bryan Neal  09:03

Great question. So there are a lot of different you know, you call it single carrier like on our end of the business, we call it a captive, a captive agent or captive agency. So as someone that works for State Farm, and used to, Nationwide and All State, there are a lot of captive agents or captive carriers which had captive agents. And over time, like Nationwide, they’re no longer a captive agency, so anyone that was captive with them was forced to go independent at some point in time. But someone who works for a State Farm and when a customer comes to them, they can only offer State Farm products. And when I was an agent with Farm Bureau, great, you know, great carrier, they’re all run state by state and for the most part. But when a customer would come to me, you know, all I could offer was a Farm Bureau product and so, what I found a lot of times was trying to, you know, squeeze a, like a square, you know, square peg into a round hole. And I just didn’t really enjoy it, to be honest with you. Didn’t enjoy the, from a customer standpoint, it just didn’t seem right. And not that anything like unethical was happening, I just wanted to be able to offer the best option for the type of person that I wanted to work with, which was, you know, real estate investors and somebody, you know, people that were more like me. And so anyways, on the independent side, we’ll go out and obtain multiple contracts with Progressive or Nationwide or All State. And when a and then a lot of other carriers that have no national advertising or local advertising. And sometimes those are the best. But we’ll go out and get a contract with all of those. And when a customer does come to us, we will potentially have something that helps them out. And so really what you want to do as an agency is pick a lane. And so some things that you want to specialize in, and be good at. And then align your carrier relationships with carriers that also want that type of business and maybe specialize in that type of business. And so you can really be a specialist for people who you know, own hotels, per se, or are in the home healthcare industry. And so you have more options, which you can be super flexible with, or you have more options that you can honestly line up five or six great carrier relationships, and worked specifically with people in certain verticals or niches.

David Bright  11:55

Now, I think that’s a super helpful distinction. Yeah. And you, I remember, you walk us through that back on episode 14. And it was a few weeks after that, that I got on the phone and started hunting around because I was with a captive agent. And that tip that you gave us in, in Episode 14, I have to thank you for that one. Because I quite literally have saved 1000s of dollars a year in reducing insurance premiums I got with a new agent that booked me with five different carriers for different things that we’re doing. Really a huge saving. So I think the people that are looking into that discount shopping around that there is a lot of value at shopping and having that nuance in their in their insurance plan. So I appreciate that. 

Bryan Neal  12:38

Awesome, man. Yeah, and I think one of the bigger benefits too, is that as you create that relationship with, you know, whoever your agent is, if they have more than one carrier, as the economy changes, as the market changes, like we’ve seen over the past couple of years in the insurance industry, they have different options to take you to so you can maintain that relationship with that adviser, or insurance agent, and not have to swap to somebody else just because he doesn’t have another option for you. So I think that’s one of the huge benefits. But I will say this too, on the captive side, or carriers like State Farm, great carriers, and sometimes they are the best fit depending on what the you know, what you’re looking at, you know, what type of business or type of building it is, you know, so that not that they don’t have their place. They definitely do.

David Bright  13:34

Yeah, one of the things you touched on as well is is that insurance rates have been changing. And they’ve certainly been going up in recent years. Nate and I are big into spreadsheets. And we do all our deal analysis that way. And as I look back at the rules of thumb that I had for insurance in the spreadsheet, three or four years ago, it just doesn’t seem to apply anymore. I need to bake more into my analysis for reserves for insurance. So can you help us with what’s been going on in the market for the past few years that’s caused insurance rates to go up so much?

Bryan Neal  14:04

Yeah, so really, there’s been a lot of play. You kind of have to go back to 2020 and COVID. And during that time, nobody was driving. A lot of your carriers came out and started taking right decreases on the auto front for that reason. And what they didn’t account for was the hyperinflation that everything was about to go through on the back end. So they went into a climate where typically your insurance rates should increase every year about the same rate as inflation. And so that not only took a decrease, then on a lot of products, but then you had inflation and then they tried to play catch up and along with inflation, you know, was also paired with supply chain issues. So yeah, the ability to get a product, let’s say to build a home was that all of a sudden, a two by four was twice as much as it was the year prior. And so, price of wood went through the roof. And then labor started going up. And so it was really, it’s kind of been one of those things across the board there as far as the cost. And then you pair that with unheard of catastrophic losses in bad weather, at coast to coast. And it was just really a perfect storm. And so they’ve been trying to play catch up, you know, you have a lot of carriers that have either gone bankrupt, especially, you know, some smaller regional carriers who also, you know, fit a perfect role. You’ve had some carriers pull out of states, large national carriers that say, Hey, we’re not going to do business in California anymore, or we’re just not going to write homeowners policies at all, you know, coast to coast. And that simply comes down to the profitability. And so they a lot of them haven’t been able to catch up. And then when those storms, you know, year after year, have continued to hit, it’s just put a huge financial strain on him. And so they’ve tried to raise rates fast. But some of them haven’t even been able to do it fast enough, because it is all regulated still by, you know, the state and government. And they can only have a rate increase that is approved by that state’s insurance department. And so some of them weren’t able to get rate approved fast enough. And so it’s just honestly, it’s created a massive mess. And then on the consumer side, all you see are all in me, but I’m a consumer as well. And I have an Airbnb here in town. For three years, we paid $2,500 a year, and this year, we got a renewal and it was $6,500 a year and there’s literally nowhere else to go with it. Yeah. And so, as a consumer, that’s all we see, you know, and I’m, I am on the I’m on the insurance side of things, you would think I have control over it being an agent, but I do not. I do not.

Nate Hedrick  17:19

It’s crazy. And you’re talking about the carriers pulling out. And I’ve heard more and more stories about that, especially in areas that that are hit by storms more frequently, or earthquakes or things like that. And it just, it’s astounding. And then you couple that with the inflation and that rising property values that we’ve seen, it just feels like everything’s going up with no like, good, good story to be had from there. I mean, like, what, what are some things that you’re saying to clients in those locations, like stock buying there? Or here’s a way to mitigate that? Or like, like, what’s the give us the good news in this? Right, right?

Bryan Neal  17:53

Ah, well, the good news is, I don’t know. It’s, it is it is or has been a constant conversation. I mean, every day you have the same conversation with somebody. And it hasn’t gotten easier. And it’s not a fun conversation to have. And it is, you know, hard to explain. But no, I mean, there’s nothing that we’ve done as far as advising people not to buy in a certain area. Now has it slowed things down? Or have I seen insurance become the roadblock to somebody purchasing a home? Most definitely. Which is honestly mind blowing. Because I have not experienced that to this point in my career. But there’s, you know, I’ve seen several, several instances where, you know, the health just wasn’t even insurable due to the how tight everyone has gotten in their underwriting and so literally these individuals, either they couldn’t get the proper coverage that they needed to close on the loan is just wasn’t even an option to buy it unless the person that was selling it did a lot of updating. Which in every scenario there is there is always, typically a way to solve it. Which once again, that’s why I like being on the independent side because I say if it can be written by anyone, we can find somebody that will do it. So it’s just those really rare scenarios that it can’t be, but sometimes you just have to get creative and find somebody that is okay. You know, riding that home with a 30 year old roof that has a ton of algae on it and moss growing on it and the person buying it has no plan on updating it you know.

Nate Hedrick  19:44

What about the people that are holding on to a property they’ve had for a while and the value has gone up? I mean, is there is this something where I should be going back to my agent and saying hey, I’ve had this house for five years now right, I’m it’s worth double what I bought it for maybe like we’ve seen that in some areas. Should I be going back to that and trying to get, you know, higher insurance coverage to cover that increase market value? Is that something that’s happening automatically? What do I look at there?

Bryan Neal  20:07

Yeah, great question. So depending on the policy, and depending on the carrier, some of them will increase annually. Every year they’ll have an automatic 2%, 4%, 6% something increase. Now, with the way we’ve seen things, sometimes that still isn’t enough. But some carriers will do that, they’ll automatically increase somewhat. And so what we try to tell our customers, one, we try to review it every year at renewal for them. So we want to make sure that everything is, you know, up to date as far as the coverages and that it is keeping pace with current replacement cost. Because if it’s not, not only, you know, let’s say that it cost $380,000 to rebuild the house, and it’s insured for $280. And they would still get the $280, your, let me take that back, you may think that, hey, they would still get the $280 if something were to happen. But if there’s like a partial claim, the real problem would be like a partial claim, they could find themselves in a co-insurance clause deal, and it would just be, which is a whole other…we could get rabbit trail down that, but there’s a lot of problems with it. So I realistically what needs to happen is make sure I guess, one, that ultimately insurance is insuring it for the reconstruction costs. So that typically is not going to be the same as the market value. So we, you know, like us insuring homes in Nashville, the market value of homes, sometimes it may be double or triple what it actually would cost to just rebuild that home right there on the lot, because a lot of the value is in the land. So that is, if it’s just the market value going up and not the construction costs, then that’s one thing. But construction costs have gone up. And it is something I would revisit or make sure that my agent is just keeping an eye on.

Nate Hedrick  22:16

Yeah, I think that’s super important. Especially we’re talking about all this catastrophe out there, right? Like, I mean, you don’t want to think about what it would cost to replace that home. But it’s even worse if your $500,000 house gets blown over by a storm and your insurance carrier gives you a $200,000 to rebuild it. And it’s half of what you need. Right? I mean, that’s, that’s about as bad then why even have insurance? Right? So I think it’s worth bringing that up just to make sure people are keeping it on the radar.

Bryan Neal  22:42

Exactly, exactly. And then as it increases, obviously, you know that the premium is going to increase as well. And so just one of those things, you as an investor, you kind of have to just weigh it out. And make sure that’s gonna make sense, which I think you’ve seen a lot of turnover, honestly, in our area, in some instances, just due to situations, prices, getting hard to insure it and expensive to insure it and it squeezes cash flows, because rents haven’t gone up as fast as the insurance has in in our era. 

David Bright  23:25

It seems like one of those other problems that kind of comes with this, that’s, that’s I hate to call it a problem. Because as you grow in your investing career, your portfolio will hopefully expand as you pay down properties. And they appreciate. Hopefully, that means your net worth is expanding. So it’s a great problem to have. But the problem becomes like then that can change your insurance needs over time, right? Whether that’s liability coverage, or an umbrella policy, are there things that someone should think about as they move through their investing career and gain more properties and gain more complexity in their investing? How does that impact their insurance needs?

Bryan Neal  24:04

Yeah. We always say, you know, hey, in this scenario that you talked about $500,000 house, it has a $200,000 payout. That’s a bad day, you lose 300,000. That’s a bad day. But if you get sued for something, and you don’t have enough coverage to pay for that lawsuit, and they max out your liability limits, and then they come for your assets are the assets that are in that LLC, then that’s that could honestly be a really, it could ruin your life. I say ruin your life, that’s strong! But it could make it’d be it’d be tough. So one is a bad day. Liability could really ruin your financial future, depending on the lawsuit. There’s a lot of different ways To protect against that, other than just insurance, it is one layer to it. I would always suggest, and we work with the local attorneys that we can pair, you know, our newer investors with to help them do things, you know, such as creating a different LLC, etc. But yeah, as revenues increase, cash increases, and your equity in those properties increased, you always want to make sure that your liability is at least equal to your assets. On the, you know, on the personal line side, we always say, hey, five years of income, five years of your household income, plus your net worth because typically, you find yourself in a lawsuit where that is what an attorney could come after. Because if your assets aren’t enough to pay for it, then they can garnish wages. And so as an investor, a lot of it, you know, is going to be about equity and cash flow. And so, as that increases, you definitely need to visit with your agent and make sure that everything is adequate.

Nate Hedrick  26:11

You mentioned the LLC, I kinda want to jump there really quickly. Is that something that if I’m making that change, it sounds like the answer is yes. But I’ll ask it anyway, just to be clear, if I’m making that change, like let’s say I bought a property years ago, and now I’m rolling it into an LLC. You know, years later, I’ve had insurance policy with you for three years, and now I’m ready to roll it into an LLC. Do I need to change that policy with my insurance carrier? Or just like, let it float and figure it out the rest later? Like, it sounds like we should be having that conversation across the board? Yeah, yes,

Bryan Neal  26:40

Please don’t let it float. Please don’t. No, you definitely need to. You know, because an LLC, in it, it’s its own entity, you know. that’s what separating that entity from Nate being sued. And so if that, you know, this other entity owns the property, it’s the one that needs to be listed. Now, there are depending on who you know, who your agent is, and what type of policy so that it could be like on a personal lines form policy. And it would be as simple as honestly, adding the LLC as an additional insured. Or if it’s on a commercial forms policy, the LLC would be the named insured. And that is, you know, as you grow, that is the preferred method of writing the policies, the correct method of doing it, or insuring the, you know, rental properties, is doing it on a commercial forum with the LLC as the named insured. And, and, yeah, definitely update somebody, if you’ve got a couple of them sitting out there, Nate, you got to tell somebody,

Nate Hedrick  27:44

I got you. I’m good. I’m just I feel like it’s worth clarifying. And I want someone else to get burned in a space where it, it feels like one more thing to do, but it’s one more thing you absolutely should be doing. So just just a point of clarification.

Bryan Neal  27:58

OK good. Good, good. 

David Bright  27:59

I guess one other question that often comes up is, so if I’m an investor, I’m going to be hiring contractors to do this work. Because I’m a pharmacist, and I’m not an electrician, right? I’m not a plumber, you don’t want me doing that kind of work. I’m going to need to hire professionals in order to to maintain properties over time. As as you hire folks like that, what are the things you should look for from an insurance standpoint? Like years ago, I hired someone to take down a tree, and this tree was like feet away from the house, and I thought this is gonna be a really bad day, if that tree comes down and goes through this house. Right. So what are the things that I should be looking for, from an insurance standpoint that a contractor would have? Or do I need to insure against those kinds of things? Or how does that work?

Bryan Neal  28:48

Yeah, that’s a great question. So ideally, you’re hiring a contractor who is insured, so you do want to make sure that they are insured. That’s step one, and make sure that they have insurance, and that they’re licensed and probably bonded as well. So you know, the three basics like, hey, licensed, bonded and insured, want to make sure those things are there. And if you want to take it a step further, let’s say you’re hiring a team to build a back porch on a house or whatever it is. Have them you can have them provide you a certificate of insurance. So they would it’s something that contractors do on a regular basis, depending on the job. Their agent would actually send you a certificate of insurance showing that they do have active insurance. And then if you want to take it a step further, you can even get a waiver of subrogation or you could be a named additional insured on their policy. And so basics, you know, licensed, insured and bonded. They love to advertise that and then I would practical, make sure that you get a certificate of insurance, and you know that their insurance is active. So, because what their insurance is going to do, let’s say in that they build the back porch, your tenants walk out there and they immediately fall through the back porch, they break their leg, instead of you being sued, it’s going to fall against the liability policy of that contractor as completed operations. So make sure those things are in place, and you should be good.

Nate Hedrick  30:34

I love it. And I think it’s something  that, you know, we’re often not going to do, right, I just I know the people that are out in this business, and a lot of times you’re gonna say, oh, man, I heard this guy. And I asked him if he’s insured. And he said, yep. And that was kind of all I did. But I think, you know, it’s really good to check that actual paperwork, right, and actually see if their policy is active. And, and I mean, he’s telling where I can call the insurance agent and say, Hey, I’m hiring David. He says he’s licensed with you, like, is he still insured as a solo policy?  Is that a reasonable thing to do? Or is that is that getting too crazy? 

Bryan Neal  31:07

Not crazy at all, I would feel you feel completely comfortable doing it. Like I said, Most contractors, if they are doing, you know, they’re doing things right, they’ve, they’ve had to offer a certificate of insurance numerous times. And so it is nothing that they shouldn’t get upset about. And it’s something that they have to provide all the time. So you could simply just ask them, Hey, would you be able to provide me a certificate of insurance? So I have it during, you know, while you’re, while you’re working on XYZ to nothing that I’d be afraid to ask him.

Nate Hedrick  31:42

Perfect. I appreciate that.

David Bright  31:46

And I guess one other thing is someone continue continues to their investing careers, as they get more and more properties. Hopefully, that means they’re expanding their cash reserves. Hopefully, that means they’re expanding their insurance. One of the things that I’ve heard recommended over time, and I’m curious your take is, could it make sense to increase the deductible on each property over time where someone’s effectively self insuring against the small stuff, and relying on insurance only for the really big, more catastrophic things?

Bryan Neal  32:16

Most definitely. You guys love spreadsheets. And you and honestly, that’s what it’s about. And so plug it in, and the more that you can self insure, and the more that you’re comfortable doing that it obviously, it’s going to lower your insurance premiums. And you can, you can decide to do that. I typically will advise even on small stuff, there’s no need to have a $100 deductible on your vehicle, if you have a lot of cash sitting in the bank, or even cash that’s easily accessible, to cover small things, because you’re just paying for insurance that you may or may not use, and you’re paying a higher premium for it because of the low deductible. So as your cash reserves and financial situation improve, that is something that we have, we always want to sit down and discuss that with each of our customers and make sure that I give them the scenario, hey, what does it look like if you bumped this to a $5,000 deductible a $10,000 deductible, and I’m not going to make that decision for them. And only they truly know their financial situation. But if it looks, you know, it works out on the spreadsheet and you know, the nobody knows if it’s gonna storm or not. But at the end of the day, if you have the money in reserves, I would not hesitate to raise deductibles.

Nate Hedrick  33:48

Brian, these are awesome tips. I’m glad we’re hitting all this stuff. I think there’s a lot in here that hopefully is is hopefully old news people but if not a good like jolt to say, okay, good. I gotta look at this stuff. Which is, which is exactly what we’re having you on is so great. You know, you mentioned at the very top that you’ve obviously been growing a business while doing this. It’s not just about the insurance side of it. It’s the business side. So I want to roll to our final infusion questions, because I think it’ll give you more insight about some of that business business mindset that you have. So these are three questions we ask every guest on the show. And the first one is what’s one tangible strategy that you use to make sure that you’re effectively working on your business rather than being stuck in your business? 

Bryan Neal  34:32

Very hard thing to do. I said earlier, it is it’s a that is a constant battle. It’s easy to get sucked into the whirlwind of the day. And so what we have are one tangible thing that we’ve started recently, we picked it up from somebody wiser than us. But I have a weekly activity dashboard. And so it’s in Excel and I have six quadrants and in those six quadrants I’m putting the things that are most important to move the business forward. So not things that I’m going to do in the business, but things that I’m going to do on the business to move the business forward. And so as I go through my week, I, that is something I’m gonna going to, hey, scheduled time for every morning is to look at that and go, hey, what can I get knocked out? Or what can I give my whole day to make sure that these items are done, because I know, at the end of the week, these are the six items that are going to actually move the business forward. Where sometimes you just doing showing up getting doing the day to day, it feels like you’re moving the business forward, but you it’s kind of false. And so I have to, I have to constantly check on the, if anytime I find myself doing something, I’m like, Hey, why am I? Why Why? Why am I doing this, like, we have somebody way more skilled at this than I am. And they love it. And I they literally are paid to do this. So hey, I hand it off to them, they’re gonna be way better at it than I am, they’re gonna have a whole lot more joy in their heart doing it, depending on the task anyways, and I gotta fight to get back to a knocking out the that activity dashboard. It’s kind of my  North Star during the week. 

Nate Hedrick  36:19

I like that a lot.

David Bright  36:22

Yeah, second question is what’s one resource that has been most helpful to you in your business journey? Or your real estate journey? Whether that’s a book, a podcast, a person, author, website, whatever that would be?

Bryan Neal 36:34

That’s a great question. I wouldn’t say that it’s been any particular person, I think I’ve been or resource. I kind of drink from a lot of different faucets. But I do, uh, you know, try to make sure that the content is, is good. And it’s not, you know, it aligns with my, what I’m trying to accomplish as far as. But I think at the end of the day, like, it’s just been people in my life. So the Lord has blessed me with awesome relationships and people that I’ve learned a ton from, you know, because back when we first started, I was just getting into, you know, the investment property game and really was still new into owning a business. And a lot of that started just due to people that I was introduced to or met, and how they influenced my life and opened my eyes to why am I not buying investment properties? Like, it kind of only makes sense? I don’t know. And then they made it, you know, they explained everything to me. And so it’s just been a lot of awesome relationships, not one particular area.

Nate Hedrick  37:52

I love that. And what’s one piece of advice, if you can go back and look back at when you got started? What’s one piece of advice you give to somebody that’s contemplating a start in real estate investing? 

Bryan Neal  38:01

I would have bought like 10 years ago.

Nate Hedrick  38:06

Make a time machine, that’s my advice. 

Bryan Neal  38:07

Exactly. Like, when I didn’t think I could have went when I literally couldn’t have bought anything, I would have tried. Like, I would go back and tell my college self, hey, you’ve got you and a bunch of buddies are paying rent. So why are they all not paying rent to you, like y’all can easily cover something? Would have bought sooner. And I think too, it’s like, I know this is more than one piece. But I think a lot of times, like, depending on the personality, we can, you know, we analyze way too much and all the what if this or what if that? And I think sometimes, you know, depending on our trade, we may be more naturally analytical, you know, like an accountant or an engineer. And so sometimes you just talk yourself out of ever doing it because you’re always thinking of the what ifs. And I was also in that boat of well, what about this? What about that? And ultimately, like, once you get into it, it’s just it’s not as scary as I thought it was gonna be. Yeah, I don’t have you know, nobody’s burning my houses down or throwing crazy parties or, well, I’ve had a couple of it, but overall, it’s been fine.

Nate Hedrick  39:22

That’s what we’re looking for. It’s just mostly fine.

Bryan Neal  39:25

Exactly, exactly. Mostly fine.

David Bright  39:27

Last question, is I know that you’ve with a with selling the agency starting the new agency that the work that you’ve been doing, you cover certain states with with your work and so if people are looking for for good insurance advice, and to learn more from you, where can people find you?

Bryan Neal  39:45

Yeah, that can honestly our website is easiest way: treblestone.com It’s T-R-E-B-L-E-S-T-O-N-E.com. And, right now we are focused on Arkansas and Tennessee. And hope to expand in the future as far as you know, to other states. It’s not a real hard process. It’s just more about, you know, allocating marketing to make it worth, you know, expanding. So that’s how they can find us. 

Nate Hedrick  40:21

Awesome, Bryan. We’ll make sure to put that in the show notes. And again, thank you so much for joining us giving us some awesome insights and and great stuff to think about and just appreciate your time and expertise. It’s been great having you.

David Bright  40:32

Thanks for listening to the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast. If you liked what you heard in today’s show, please leave us a review or subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. If you have a question, know someone that would make a good guest or want to connect with us, head on over to yfprealestate.com and join the growing YFP Real Estate Investing Facebook group. 

Nate Hedrick  40:51

[DISCLAIMER] As we conclude this week’s episode of the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast, an important reminder that the content of this podcast is provided to you for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for investment or any other advice. Information in this podcast and corresponding materials should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any investment or related financial products. We urge listeners to consult with a financial advisor with respect to any investment. Furthermore, the information contained in our archive newsletters, blog posts and podcasts is not updated and therefore may not be accurate at the time you listen to it. Opinions and analyses expressed herein are solely those of Your Financial Pharmacist unless otherwise noted and constitute judgments as of the date is published. Such information may contain forward looking statements, which are not intended to be guarantees of future events. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward looking statements. For more information, please visit yourfinancialpharmacist.com/disclaimer.

David Bright  41:44

Thank you for your support of the YFP Real Estate Investing Podcast. Have a great rest of your week.

[END]

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