Building the Favorable Plan Underwriters Want to See with Palomar's Brett Cohrs

What if your hen house burned tonight—would your plan hold? We sit down with Brett Cohrs, CRM and Senior Vice President at Palomar Insurance, to unpack what’s really changing in poultry insurance and how leaders can turn risk management into a competitive edge. From rate softening for large layered property programs to tighter appetites for smaller growers, Brett explains why deductibles are climbing, which choices actually move premiums, and how to prepare your balance sheet for higher retention without jeopardizing growth.

We get specific about fire risk in modern barns. Annual infrared scanning, true 100‑foot separation, and two‑hour fire doors in corridors and processing areas now sit at the center of underwriting scrutiny. Cage‑free has multiplied exposure: bigger single‑site values, more motors and controls, and dust acting as fine fuel. We talk through why control systems built to protect birds can unintentionally feed a blaze, and how purpose‑built barn technology can detect abnormal heat, trigger early response, and keep a local incident from becoming a total loss.

Beyond property, Brett maps the risk terrain producers often overlook: product recall in decentralized models, employment practices liability as regulations shift, cyber exposures to connected controls, and the market shocks that turn a covered loss into a larger business interruption claim. He shares practical guidance for building a winning submission—accurate valuations, defensible BI calculations, documented maintenance, and clear contingencies for parts, graders, and egg sourcing—plus scenario exercises every manager should run before renewal.

If you lead an egg or poultry operation, this conversation will help you decide where to invest first, which practices underwriters reward, and how to design a program that survives bad days and funds growth on good ones. Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a review with the one change you’ll make next week to improve your farm’s risk posture.

Hosted by Brandon Mulnix - Director of Commercial Accounts - Prism Controls
The Poultry Leadership Podcast is only possible because of its sponsor, Prism Controls
Find out more about them at www.prismcontrols.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Ground Rules And Disclaimer
• 1:15 Meet Brett Cohrs And His Path
• 3:48 What’s Shifting In Insurance Markets
• 7:30 Why Risk Management Builds Durable Businesses
• 12:10 Fire Prevention Non‑Negotiables
• 16:10 Building A Strong Insurance Submission
• 20:10 Managing Higher Deductibles
• 23:00 Beyond Property: Emerging Risks
• 26:20 Cage‑Free Scale And Fire Exposure
• 31:20 Controls, Dust, And Rapid Fire Spread
• 34:30 Advice For New Farm Leaders
• 37:00 How To Reach Brett And Sponsor Thanks
• 40:10 Closing Takeaways And Listener CTA

Transcript

Brandon Mulnix: 0:00

Hey, Poultry Leadership Podcast. Before we dive into this episode, I want to make sure that it's very, very clear. At no point are we going to be talking about actual insurance rates. We're not going to be talking about actual this will get you this or anything like that. So I have to be a disclaimer there because this topic we're talking about today is very, very sensitive to your specific farm, your specific needs. And if you have any questions about that, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. If we say something that you question or anything like that, please reach out to me and I'll make sure we correct it. But yeah, this is for general advice and general knowledge because every farm is different. If there's one thing every poultry business leader is grappling with right now, it's the rising cost and complexity of risk and insurance. Today, we have one of the most definitive experts in the field. He is Brett Cohrs, CRM, Senior Vice President with Palomar Insurance, the endorsed broker for the United Egg Producers. Brett works every day at the intersection of operational risk and financial protection, helping producers navigate a challenging market. Brett, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Before we dive into the nuts and bolts of the market, could you briefly share your background and how you came to specialize in this unique risk challenges of the poultry and egg section?

Brett Cohrs: 2:00

Uh yeah, it's an interesting journey, I would, I would say, by education, English major, uh, went into ministry seminary degree, and then somehow found myself as an insurance agent in a uh agency here in the Atlanta area. Spent about 10 to 15 years as a generalist till uh Palomar found me. I came to work for them working on the with the UEP team of uh some of the old poultry guys, might remember Des Jan and Carolyn Grubal, my predecessors, who really are the second generation of the work in the egg industry that Palomar has been a part of. So I I came on as their what we call a marketer in the insurance world, which basically means the person who helps place the coverage for our clients. And uh, so I really got a quick education on how to put some of these programs together and what the facilities were like. But I didn't have a farm background or anything like that. I was just a a uh a curious mind and um and an insurance guy who just enjoyed learning a new industry, and it's it's been a blast. Well, you've lived in the Atlanta area for a while. Tell us a little bit about your family. Sure. I uh just celebrated our 20th uh wedding anniversary in May. I have two kids, 17-year-old twin boys and uh 18-year-old daughter. They're about you know Irish riplets, I suppose, about 18 months apart, close to it. Uh my daughter's uh her first year in college this year, so we're uh pretty soon we'll be empty nesters, I suppose. So just been here really my whole life, grew up in the Atlanta area, metro area when I went away for college and some jobs, but I've been back here since uh about 2020. Excellent.

Brandon Mulnix: 3:48

Well, let's dive right into some things here, Brett. What are two to three major shifts that you've seen in the insurance market lately, like rising rates, limited carrier options, or increasing deductibles that should keep an up-and-coming leader up at night? Sure.

Brett Cohrs: 4:06

It's been a crazy 10 years since I've been in here. We've I've I've seen what feels like a full insurance cycle, which in our world might mean rates that were sort of low. And over the really what most people have experienced the last probably seven or eight years, probably since 2017, 2018, is uh steadily increasing rates for a variety of reasons. At this very juncture, the rates, the trend right now is for rates to be going down for our larger egg producers, the ones who have found themselves in those layered property program structures, have multiple carriers from anywhere from 10 to 40 carriers on their program. For those types of insureds, rates should be going down, barring a very recent claim, even if the very recent claim be mitigated by the whole macroeconomic forces that are causing insurance rates to go down for everybody in the large property sector. That being said, rates are still going up for smaller producers, contract farmers, anybody who has maybe less than 100 million in values, who might have been with a nationwide agribusiness or a Westfield or one of those types of carriers. Those carriers are still tightening their appetite. So those, a lot of those operations are finding themselves in those Lloyd programs or what we call the excess and surplus lines markets. So for them, rates are going up. And everybody still would probably say, even if rates come down a little bit this year, their percentage of spend on their insurance is much higher than it was seven, eight years ago, three years ago, even four years ago. And it's, you know, maybe a little bit like the egg market, probably never going to go back down to 88 cents for a dozen. But um some relief is in sight right now, as long as folks have been keeping up with the risk management commitments and their uh lock protocols. Um, so that's the biggest one. I mean, softening rates have been going up steadily for five years, a little softening right now. Deductibles, part of that, at deductibles, some of these uh clients that when I started, they might have had a $50,000 or $100,000 deductible. Now they have a $5 million deductible. So there's a lot of risk retention and these just choices that folks have to make. You know, that could be a swing in three or four hundred thousand dollars in premium, um, which is a guaranteed cash in the pocket or ability to buy higher limits due to the increased scale. So a lot of some of these choices have to be made when they want to make sure we we cover the big loss. So those deductible choices, even some coverage choices. Some insureds are deciding, you know, we're just not going to cover this group of buildings anymore. They're we've depreciated them off our balance sheet, no big deal. We wouldn't build back the same anyway. We're just gonna leave those off as a cost-saving technique. So a lot of deductible choices versus back in the day when you just buy a policy and you assume everything's covered really easily. You really have to look at what you're getting. I would say the third big trend right now, especially it relates to poultry, is technology, the increased importance of using technology as a risk management tool from infrared scanning and other things that we can we can talk about uh a little bit later. But just the there's a good need for whether it's construction materials, fire, fire mitigation, both from uh availability of water and building wells and things like that to have that on site to other things. So just being aware of technology, just a just a greater, I feel like it's a much smarter technologically minded risk manager now that are that are starting to uh run these programs.

Brandon Mulnix: 7:56

You mentioned a lot of different, what I'm gonna say, high-level people or high-level topics that, you know, in a typical farm, it's owner, it's less likely going to be the operator that has to worry about these things. But when it comes to rich management stewardship, why is that important as a core leadership competency to understand risk? And I guess that extends outside of just the layer industry, too, to any business. Why is it important for leaders to understand risk?

Brett Cohrs: 8:27

It's a good question. And I wish more businesses would ask it because risk management or insurance, especially, is typically seen as an expense. It is an expense. It's not something that that improves the bottom line necessarily. It steals from the bottom line in a lot of minds. But my experience over my last 23 or 24 years in the insurance industry overall has been the best run businesses from a risk management standpoint seem to be the businesses that have the best overtime profitability. I've worked with a lot of nonprofits, the best run from a risk management, the ones who have all the background checks in place and the vehicle checks in place, and the you know how they allow people to work with the kids in their nonprofit and things like that. The ones who have the best practices always have the best donor relationships, and you'll slowly find them taking over, not taking over, but maybe absorbing another nonprofit that might not be as well run from some of those standpoints. And I think we sometimes see that in the egg industry. So, as a risk management, as the stewardship of being on the cutting edge from a risk management standpoint, checking into materials, experimenting with technologies, doing all of these things. The ones who seem to be doing things like that are also the producers that we often see growing one way or the other. So I think it it's a it's a cultural thing. So from a leadership standpoint, I mean, that's sort of what I see, the symptoms, but internally I feel like the ones that are monitoring these things, I think it gives employees more confidence that this place is going to be here for the long haul, that they're spending money that they're not directly seeing a return on for safety and for the protection of the animals, or just to honor commitments they've made, maybe to an insurer or to the community around them. So it could, it can fit in a number of different categories. You know, in uh installing a sprinkler system is not just good to convince a carrier, but it also is life safety for employees if if something happens. So there's all, you know, in a processing facility, I don't expect a whole lot of sprinklers in uh layer barns or anything like that. But so I think from a from from that standpoint, uh it seems to build a long-term successful organization if risk management is at least considered a priority and not a annoyance. Hopefully that answered the question.

Brandon Mulnix: 11:07

But I think it's that's really well said because I think risk management is part of a company's sustainability plan. Are they gonna be around? Are they gonna not just for themselves, but are they gonna be around for their community? Are they around for their employees? Are they gonna be contributing to the welfare of that community? I know a lot of these producers in the industry are probably the largest employer in their area, sometimes in their county. And so when they have an issue, it affects jobs, it affects the local grocery store if people don't have money to spend. And it really does, and I I love the way our our industry gives back to their communities, but this is one of those things that if they have a fire, it really does tax the community a lot. If they have to build infrastructure, let's say, for water, uh, a water tower or something, that's something that some producers end up utilizing for the community as well. It's it's not just a, hey, we're building it for us, but we're actually building it for our community. So the money is well spent in that area. It's just hard to spend because it's not an emergency. You're building on your future. And and how many of us like to spend that money that says, hey, this might happen. Let's let's just take, you know, let's just kind of put Murphy as in Murphy's Law out of business, or they're gonna they're gonna come and it's gonna be a bad day when I don't do it.

Brett Cohrs: 12:33

Yeah, same principle of, you know, you're building a building a house, you know, you you can you can make the most gorgeous, beautiful house with the beautiful interior layout and fixtures and all that. And if the if the if the foundation is bad, not up to code, and then all of a sudden you see that crack happen in the wall, you know, it it renders everything else you're doing a little futile at a certain point.

Brandon Mulnix: 12:58

But well, as I've learned from you and the complexity of getting insurance, you've mentioned Lloyd's, Lloyd's of London, you've mentioned I mean we've talked about Bermuda in the past and all of the different markets that you have to shop a farm to basically to get insurance because you said authority carriers might carry a plan. I'm glad there's administrators that can handle how to navigate all that. But in your time, you've seen some best practices come to light. Your time on UEP, your time in the industry, being down on the farms. From your experience, what are some of the non-negotiable best practices for fire prevention in the poultry houses that underwriters are demanding to see today?

Brett Cohrs: 13:44

Yeah. The things that they want to see are electrical maintenance. So infrared scanning has been a requirement since I've been in the industry. So for at least 10 years, I don't know that it predates me by quite a few years. So annual infrared scanning of uh all your electrical boxes. A lot of insurers would prefer scanning of other motors and um anything that could potentially cause a uh spark, cause a fire. So infrared scanning separation now is moved from 50 feet to 100 feet. They will make some allowance if there's no other way to do it except for 80 feet, 75 feet, but pricing will sometimes be reflected in that. So at least 100 feet, firewalls in the egg corridors between the houses. Um, we've anecdotally heard and seen that fires, if they've spread a lot of times from building to building, it's wind-driven. It doesn't make it through the corridors when the fire doors, two hours, fire doors, and the uh firewalls are there. Firewalls in the processing facility, this one is one that's kind of gotten lost in the shuffle, I think. Um, but a new processing facility needs to have firewalls between the processing area, the packing area, the cleaning, grading area, and the uh dry storage. Those are fire separation, the infrared scanning and electrical maintenance. A lot of times we'll they will ask about electrical updates or if there's been electrical inspection. So typically electrical fires are the source of most of our incidences. So those are those are the main ones. I know that wasn't a long list. Underwriting, we'll go into other details, but those are the ones that have been the classic requirements.

Brandon Mulnix: 15:31

Leaders have to kind of put all this together in a submittal. What are some of the best practices when it comes to that submittal that leaders should be aware of?

Brett Cohrs: 15:43

The markets really look at three or four things in a submission. One of the main ones is valuation. Um, the the value of the real property needs to somewhat stay in line with inflation and expectation there. Uh, the last thing, some policies in the past, and there's a chance it might be moving back in this direction, there have been blanket coverages for all the buildings at a site, or possibly even all the buildings across the whole operation, blanket coverage for everything. And if you know you have a $15 million building that you insure for $8 million because you know you have a, you know, $100 million blanket or whatever, you figure your worst loss will be covered. In the past, when that has happened, that has caused a lot of heartache in the industry, which is could be one of the reasons get folks like Nationwide left the business. They weren't getting the premium for the values that they had insured. Having some sort of story and backup for your valuation of your real property is is a very important piece. And having a pretty good story for your business interruption value, which we all know how difficult that is to pin down for egg producers given the volatility of the egg market. But it is something that needs to be addressed clearly with a decent score. And really, from a risk management standpoint, if you know how your coverage is, that's one of the most important things because somebody who's been through a fire needs to go buy eggs to replace them, that's uh that can be a heavy expense if the market's going haywire on you. So that's one thing, valuation, all your this fire separation piece is important. So um, from the standpoint of what the separation is and what your contingency plan is, where you it might not be ideal. So, how would you help keep fire from spreading on your farm? So loft control items and housekeeping that gets lost in the shuffle a lot of times. We'll be talking to an insured and then also they'll offhandedly say something like, our motor protectors do that. Like, what is what's a motor protector? You know, when we're talking about, you know, maybe an electrical system that monitors the, you know, the current draw by a particular motor. And then, well, our motor protectors, oh, yeah, motor protectors, tell me how those work. So sometimes producers don't think about the things that are actual risk mitigation components to their operation. So I think one of the biggest things is to do a thorough review of anything you're doing that could touch risk management. If you have a preventative maintenance program, um, maybe some software that with reminders that you can put in things like fire extinguisher checks and things like that. So stuff like that, that you just gotta mine your operation from the standpoint of dig for the information that that helps them see that you have a lot of these practices in place already. It could be just the water you swim in, the air you breathe. You don't even realize that it's a compelling story for underwriters. So find where you're doing some of those basic housekeeping things. And then um right now with the technologies that are out there, it's very important that a producer is investigating and researching those things and having conversations with folks like Prism, you know, with Therm and some of the other technologies that are out there that have different uses from a risk management standpoint. So to be able to share that story because electrical, long-winded answer here, but I would say that we we always want to touch on how you're handling your electrical, how you're monitoring and and and managing your maintenance on your electrical, um, and how new it is, how you're managing your manure because spontaneous combustion, where where's that? So we always want to address electrical practices, manure practices, separation, contingent response. So, what kind of water availability is there? Have you talked to your um Volature fire departments or other fire departments? And what are your contingencies? So, how do you handle a all the way from spare parts to how quickly can you get a new grader? How long will you have to be out if you do have a loss? So all those things are important to think through when you're putting together your submission. So that was a lot. I could bullet point it if somebody wanted to ask me, but uh it's evaluation, loss control practices, technology, and response.

Brandon Mulnix: 20:17

It's a lot of work to prepare those. I mean, there's no real easy way to explain to the underwriters exactly what you have unless you have a well thought out plan. And it's like anything else, you're selling, you're selling your business. All of the work that you put in, and you can imagine the underwriters have to look at that farm and say, man, you really do value your farm. You take care of things. You're probably less of a risk than somebody that is less prepared, even in giving their presentation of who they are, what their farm is doing, and the technology and the mitigation, you know, steps that they're doing. And some of that's historical as well. I mean, how have they taken care of their farm in the past? Are they improving on those things? Do they see that investment? Because it's you got to be attractive to the underwriters, otherwise, you know, they they have a job to do and a business to run and risk to buy into and not. It is, it is very interesting. I I've learned the onion layer.

Brett Cohrs: 21:17

It's funny, being on my side, they dealing with the various clients we've dealt with over the years. Most everybody does a few things really, really well. So we like to hone in on the things we they do really well and say, listen, you know, you have a five-year plan, have a couple years that you're thinking about kind of rolling out this, that, the other thing. Like some do really good job. I didn't mention this materials. Like, what kind of materials are you are you using to build your newer buildings? Are you using the manure belts that are uh fire retardant and um the lighting systems and things like that? So there's a lot that can go into it for sure.

Brandon Mulnix: 21:50

Let's talk dollars and cents. With deductibles continuing to rise for some, as we talked about in the way the market is, what strategies or mechanisms can producers and farm managers implement to handle that increased financial retention without stressing the balance sheet?

Brett Cohrs: 22:10

Well, just make sure next time the uh market gets up to $8, uh be long in your production and sell a bunch on that market and save to cover that $5 million deductible. That's one option. Um I think the that's it's a tough question, honestly, because it there is uh talking through it with some producers, there's the I mentioned earlier, choices need to be made. So some insureds prefer to have their business interruption maybe higher than necessary just to make sure they keep clients happy if they have a loss so they can continue to pay those things. And they trust that they have good relationships with financial institutions, that they could cash flow any undervaluation or the deductible issue with their um rebuilds. You know, a lot of this is, I think, uh the cash-heavy nature of cash flow-heavy nature, I believe, of an egg production facility kind of helps lend itself to being able to make your way through uh one of these incidents. And goodness knows with avian flu, so many people have more experience dealing with uninsured incidents than they ever would have wanted to and have come out pretty strong on the other side. So that's not a lot of advice. And sometimes I think maybe the the CFO and the and they count it, they they need to sit down and really think through it as opposed to just saying, okay, we're saving $400,000 off our insurance on one of these large programs by upping our deductible another million dollars. We need to sit down and really where is that going to come from in the event of a of a loss and make sure there's that, whether it's a a line of credit or a rainy day fund, a la day Ramsey or something like that, then you then you'll uh be able to handle it. The biggest concern there is on my side is that the the right people who are smart in that way know that they are making that decision to take on that risk and can think through how they will handle it should it come uh come down to it.

Brandon Mulnix: 24:15

So I'm gonna just simplify this a little bit in layman's terms, the way I understand it. Farmers have a choice in the deductible or the amount of risk that they're wanting to take on themselves. No different than, I guess, car insurance. You know, you pay a higher deductible. It means if something happens, you got a little lot more money out of pocket to manage that risk. For fire, for business interruptions, other than natural events. I mean, you there's been a lot of wind events that affect farms. There's been a lot of different types of events that really affect farms that are insurable. I mean, what are some of the other types of events that you've seen in your time that farmers need to be aware of to protect their farms from?

Brett Cohrs: 24:57

We do with the price increase of property insurance and and all the volatility of all that, and you know, the headline generating events that have happened, we forget things like product recall, which seem to have had an uptick in the last couple of years, especially in the increase of the types of farms that are that are more um offline uh uh contract-based models of organic or free range and things like that with less control. As I've my wife, my wife's a big believer in conventional eggs because she likes the idea that they leave the chicken and basically touch wire or plastic until they're washed and put in a package, and there's no as clean as you can get. But the more these different models of production sort of go back to old school ways, but in a newer version, more hands are touching those things. Uh there's there's more opportunities for situations that potentially it could uh end up in a recall. I know there was one just the other day.

Brandon Mulnix: 26:05

Well, let me interrupt you a second there, Brett, because one of the things that why farms have gone to these dispersed farms is because they're trying to reduce their risk from other types of farms, uh, you know, from HPAI and other things. And so it's like they make a decision to diversify, and then some other risk like you know, comes up. But no, I just I had to say that because I've seen that from the outside, you know, looking in as man, they're doing such a great job reducing the risk. Well, then HPAI or Solomon comes in and all of these other factors start coming in. So yeah, well no, you're you're right.

Brett Cohrs: 26:42

And luckily, the the I mean, I still think that product recall at risk is relatively low in comparison and probably not as devastating as having a three million hen facility have to depopulate for three months. So I think I think it definitely serves a purpose. And I think even some of the some of the larger uh egg producers are seeing some wisdom in in reducing their for any new site, maybe not having three, five million, but maybe a million or five hundred thousand or something along those lines. So I think uh recall and just basic management things. I mean, I would say with a lot of the changes going on politically, I think uh strong management liability that includes things like employment practices liability. I mean, you don't typically that's not super expensive. And if you have an EEOC type claim, that's something that a lot of producers might or might not worry about, but it's a it's a um it's it is a risk. Obviously, avian flu, not typically insurable these days, but the effects of avian flu on things like business interruption for another farm, if they did have an insurable loss, can exacerbate it. You know, if you have a a lot of birds gone and the in the and the market goes back up to three or four or five dollars, then all of a sudden business interruption loss will um spike. So even cyber liability is kind of becoming a thing to be concerned about the more connected we are. Again, we don't have a lot of you know, the traditional loss of a bank and all the informate customer information that might not be as big of an issue, but uh cyber extortion or taking over the fact that maybe a system is yeah, I don't know, in the cloud, however it's set up, but if can somebody can access your uh your production system or your processing, you know, your your your software there that way, that could be a major issue. Those are the main kind of insurable types of risks that we see out there. But I'm amazed by this industry, honestly, with what they've had to bob and weave with and and be flexible about, you know, from the cage-free requirements to uh maybe we don't care that much. And and people don't realize the the millions or even billions of dollars that those laws put into motion of expense for producers, and then then having that, you know, all the different decisions that have to be made. It's a it's a it's a tough landscape. Um it's a lot more complex than people realize.

Brandon Mulnix: 29:11

Speaking of cage-free and someone that sits on the risk side, how has cage-free affected the fire risk for producers?

Brett Cohrs: 29:24

I think two big things is the scale of the cage-free operations are, you know, I mentioned earlier, going from 80 to 120,000 bird hen houses. And I know even when they were when I started back in 2015, I was sort of on the cusp of that, these larger 300 to 500,000 hen facilities. But the the scale, so the expense just so one loss now is not going to be $5 million. Typically, if it's a hen house, it's gonna be at least $20 million for one uh one loss, 300,000 birds or so. And that might be Low. The greater requirements of the livestock management in a cage-free facility, both from a um human standpoint and from a technological standpoint, and the amount of electrical stuff in those facilities to keep the birds alive, to keep them fed and watered. There's just a lot more uh dust or litter. Um, there's just more there that can go sideways if if um if things aren't set up exactly right. There was those are the two main, I mean, the scale and the and the more technology that's required in them, I think is a is a big deal.

Brandon Mulnix: 30:39

You mentioned the that electrical is, you know, the number one source of fire. Mechanical is basically the second. And the fact that most of the mechanical are probably caused by electrical issues, you know, or if the electricity is not there, it doesn't exist. But there's so much more technology, so many more fans and belts, um, motors, circuits, LED lighting is been introduced into these houses as well. And and just because it's low voltage doesn't mean it reduces the risk because now you actually have lights inside the equipment with the birds, and that was not a a thing when it came to conventional housing. So there's so much more that you've introduced, and then you also introduce dust, dust that gets into all those motors, all of those connections, all everywhere. And so the and then you have what's the problem with dust is it's flammable, it's so much more flammable than it was when it's you know taken out you know high-rise houses where it all went to the ground underneath, and it wasn't just kind of a wet pile, or they tried to get it dry and they you know move it out pretty pretty regularly. And now you have compares doing that so much more. And so it's so interesting because you know, we've we've witnessed these fires that you're talking about, and and so many of them, so many of them are in cage-free facilities, which is unexpected byproduct of the laws that were placed and more burdensome on farmers. And so, for all the pros that you know, cage free brings, it also, you know, again, risk management. Here's another risk that shows its ugly heads. Yeah, every once in a while.

Brett Cohrs: 32:21

It's these old houses, and I'm like, I recent memory, there's only been one semi-older house that I've and it was sort of an outside force that caused the fire that to happen. But it's also required, you know, the scale, because we try to keep commodities at a relatively decent price for our customers, right? And for the end consumers, it's hard to have a reasonably small or scale page-free site because you kind of need that the efficiencies. So uh it's a trade-off.

Brandon Mulnix: 32:54

Yeah. And I think one thing listeners may not understand is you know, these buildings are built to keep the birds alive. All of the fail safes are always there to keep the birds alive. And from a control's perspective, you know, putting redundancy and making sure the fans turn on if the temperature gets too high and the controller fails, or air inlets open when the temperature gets too high, or it fails open so that way the birds have air. That's the most interesting part, is because what happens in a fire, if it heats up in that space, more fans turn on, more oxygen's added. So in the event of a conventional house where the manure wasn't the problem because there wasn't this fine flammable material spread through evenly throughout the house over everything, the fans turning on, you know, it it increased the fires by a percentage because you got more air coming in, but it didn't cause basically an explosion of that house and the fire spread so quickly. That's one of the interesting things from a controls perspective we've seen. And that's where technology advances are coming from many, many different providers are trying to figure out how we can you know keep this from happening. But I guess as we as we start to um land the plane here, if you could give one piece of advice for a new farm manager, uh emerging leader about insurance and risk risk strategy, what would it be?

Brett Cohrs: 34:31

That is a tough one. I mean, I my first response would be to try really hard to look at risk management as a potential business building practice, you know, as we talked about earlier, that you know, just from an attitude about risk management to have a positive attitude about risk management, which sounds crazy because you because most people go, hey, we need to bottom line, improve efficiency, have more market share, that kind of thing. But looking at it as the foundation of the operation. And so, you know, if you're a new manager of a larger operation and you have, you know, sort of like you want that financial nerd to be running your your your uh financial part of your operation, you want the risk management nerd to be sort of looking through your operation to make sure that any kind of best practices are are researched and discovered and at least considered, even if they can't be implemented. And and so I would I would just say mine your operation for what are we doing well already and what can we do better at? And um, you know, from there I would just straight say get your valuation right because it will happen. Pretend it will happen, especially even if you're talking that you don't want to talk to a guy like me about this stuff, um, internally say what would happen if we lost houses seven and eight in our operation right now or in this past year, if we lost that back 12 months ago, what would have been the financial consequences to us on that? Do those kinds of scenarios because I think it'll help you kind of open your eyes to say, oh, we would have had to buy eggs for the last six months to make up for our XYZ contract. Oh crap, it would have cost us X to produce those eggs, it would have cost us X to buy. That's a three, four dollar difference. Could we have muddled through with what we have currently in place? So stuff like that, I think, is um you know, I know that was one wasn't one piece of advice, but prioritize it, mind your organization, and um, I would say do some do some thoughtful scenario playing out.

Brandon Mulnix: 36:46

Brett, I really want to thank you. This has been very insightful to me. I love having conversations about this topic. It's it's one of those areas that you know people take for granted, but uh the the better you handle and manage your risk, the the more sustainable you will be in the future as a farm. And so just helping us understand is the topic has been great.

Brett Cohrs: 37:13

Um, how can people reach out to you to for more information regarding this, whether it's from the UEP guidelines and standards or um I do want to mention really quick, Brandon, just not to not to uh your horn on your behalf, but I I actually you came up in a conversation the other day with somebody and I and and I said, what I love about Brandon is he has a heart for this industry. And regardless, um, I appreciate the fact that you know, just everything you do in, you know, and then it's the technology uh therm. Again, I it's one of those technologies that I encourage all my clients to look into, um, at least research, have those conversations because you're trying to figure out uh ways to help protect a house, help protect a barn, uh location, you know, in that in that order to try to uh so I appreciate everything you do for the industry, that is my point there. To find me, Brett. Uh if you look, if you Google my name, I think I'm the only one in the world. So C-O-H-R-S, Brett Kors, you'll you'll find me um LinkedIn. Um I'm I pop in there most days, but our uh website is palomarins.com, P-A-L-O-M-A-R-I-N S.com. And it's just my first name and last initial for my email address. But yeah, just uh if you've been in the industry very long, you probably know somebody who knows me, if nothing else. So be happy to chat with anybody. And I love talking to people who aren't my clients because I can not that I don't shoot straight with the other ones, but I can we can have a real frank early conversation and be happy to give you my most obnoxious advice to help you uh help you out with these things.

Brandon Mulnix: 38:55

I'm sure the listeners really appreciate that. And thank you for your your kind words as well. So, listeners, um, yeah, we learned a lot about insurance today. How important it is to have a commitment towards risk mitigation stewardship. What are you gonna take from this that you can take back to your business, your your crew, and start looking at risk differently? And if you don't have an answer to that, don't hesitate. Reach out to me, reach out to Brett. We'd love to be able to help you, help guide you. It's amazing the amount of knowledge and experience that we've gained. Um, at least I can speak for myself, as be going around the different farms and seeing the mitigation strategies that are in place that make sense. There are a lot of things that just don't make sense in the world that we that is done to mitigate risk. And I'd love to help save you some money on um not spending money on things that are just snake oil in the industry when it comes to that. So, anyways, I have to I have to give a huge shout out to Prism Controls on this one. This episode of the Poultry Leadership Podcast it would not be possible without them. I mean, we've been talking about fire risk, and that's where Prism Controls, therm, detect, and respond come in. This is a product that was developed in this industry for this industry. There's a lot of science that went into it from outside industries and what worked, but we understand what goes on in the chicken barn. And so, as Brett told us about the best operations, demonstrate, you know, the superior risk management. Therm Detect is going to help you become the hero by providing that sensor that helps make those early decisions inside the house before you ever get a chance to make them. Things that would save your barn immediately upon detecting such an event and just allow you to have a future. And who doesn't want to make sure that they can sleep at night knowing that their house is protected, that their farmers have a place to come back to tomorrow? Thank you, Prism Controls. Um, you can reach out to me about that product. It is one of my favorite, absolute favorite products that I've ever been part of. I never want to see another chicken house burn down in my lifetime. I've happened to see a number of them. And it just tears my heart when knowing that there's technology that can can absolutely um protect your flocks. Um, so with that, thank you, Prism Controls, um, for sponsoring this podcast. And like I say every week, thank you for tuning in. This podcast is not possible without you. It's not possible without you. Thanking me from sending me emails, showing up at trade shows, and just telling me all about the um what information that you're gleaning from. So please subscribe to this podcast if you're not. Share this podcast with you with with your team. If you're not the guy making insurance decisions, share it with your insurance guy. Um, I'm sure he would appreciate it because there's still a lot of people that don't know about the technology that's out there or what goes into making a good a good plan to save money on insurance or mitigate your your cost of insurance in a rising market. So yeah, catch you next time on the Poultry Leadership Podcast.