Onsite Insight Podcast by RV Housing Group

Streamlining Housing Claims: The RV Housing Group Difference

• RV Housing Group

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RV Housing Group CEO Brad discusses how his company removes the burden of RV placements from insurance representatives, allowing them to focus on other claims while trusting that policyholders are receiving excellent care.

• Brad begins by sharing personal insights about his 60-hour fast challenge
• Housing representatives often struggle with understanding RV options and pricing structures
• Once a placement is approved, reps can "drop it in our lap" and know it's being handled properly
• RV Housing Group employs more staff than competitors to ensure consistent service quality
• The company encourages policyholders to contact them directly rather than burdening insurance reps
• Communication philosophy: handle issues proactively then update reps with resolution details
• Success defined by transparent relationships and willingness to evolve processes
• Company constantly evaluates business practices to improve service delivery
• Focus on long-term partnerships over short-term profits

Contact us directly to learn how we can simplify your RV placement process and provide exceptional care for your policyholders.


Speaker 1:

Brad, what's up man? Hey buddy, how are you? Good, we were just talking about your fast that you're on, man, tell us about that.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm about 24 hours in Went to bed starving last night. I know that much.

Speaker 1:

Well, and you're such a foodie I mean you're not an overeater by any chance, but you love good food and right now you've got both your freezers stocked full of fish and meat. I mean you just like. So this is brutal unbelievable.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's brutal at this point. Yeah, I do love good food. At this point, I think I'd love any food dude, it's tough, so you're gonna go.

Speaker 1:

You tell me you're gonna go like almost 60 hours, 50 something yeah, yeah, correct, yeah, it'll be. It'll be like 55 to 60 hours when I'm done I'm glad we're getting this in at the beginning of the fast, because maybe by tomorrow you might be on fumes oh for sure I'm gonna be angry, angry.

Speaker 2:

All of the above, yeah what?

Speaker 1:

was your final. What was your, your, your last supper?

Speaker 2:

oh, it was a, it was a lunch. It was my lunch yesterday, which is some really good barbecue alabama barbecue yeah so you went out.

Speaker 1:

You went out strong with some barbecue to hold you over until yeah, tomorrow night, yeah yeah, I've been watching what I eat.

Speaker 2:

You know, I've been on this little health kick or whatever but uh drinking more water.

Speaker 2:

You know eating more whole foods um healthier things and stuff, but uh, just did a. You know I was more whole foods um healthier things and stuff, but uh, instead of. You know I was looking online yesterday reading some articles and I was just like, oh man, fasting, like I want to try it. Let's see, see what happens. You know just a will of the mind. See if I can, uh, see if I can conquer this thing, dude, I'll tell you what not to do.

Speaker 1:

I did a week-long fast but at the end of just liquids and protein shake and smoothies, that kind of thing. But it was like a Sunday to Sunday. On Friday of that week, one of my best friends his birthday and for his birthday he only invited a few of us to go on the bourbon trail in Kentucky. And so I'm like, all right, well I, I'm not gonna drink a lot because I'm on this fast, having anything in my stomach, and I'll just do the because a little taste testing, whatever, dude, yeah, oh yeah, bad idea. Yeah, so I didn't even drink that much, but just drinking. You know doing all the bourbon tasting and you know they add up over time.

Speaker 2:

We did we hit like four or five different uh distilleries and, dude, yeah, that was not good oh, listen, you don't realize it because you're like oh, I'll just take a sip here, a sip there.

Speaker 1:

Well, you know, 24 sips later you're like oh gosh that's exactly right, and Jamie would have one she didn't like, and so I would take a sip of hers. And you know, you know me, I'm not great at like controlling the uh you gotta know.

Speaker 2:

You gotta know when to when to uh to not. You know if you don't love it, you don't drink it on those deals, man yeah, that was a bad idea.

Speaker 1:

Well, I'm proud of you, man. It's great, it's good for your health and I love that it's awesome.

Speaker 1:

well, today we're talking about um. This stuff we've referenced before, but we talk about it because it's really important to us is how to make insurance reps' jobs and lives easier. Their job is hard enough as it is. They've got a very demanding job and a big part of your vision and what we want to do as a company is to try to take all the pressure off when it comes to placing RVs and these housing placements. And I'll just say one thing that deters housing agencies a lot of time is the hassle that goes into RV placements, and that's why we want to speak to that. So what are some of the biggest pain points that you've seen for these housing reps that they face every day when it comes to placing RVs?

Speaker 2:

Well, I think, first, it's just understanding. You know RVs, right, and I think that the longer that they're in the industry, they they start to learn. But you know, we deal with some, um, some kind of, uh, green reps at times, right, that are just new to the industry and, um, they're just not sure. They're just not sure, uh, how to answer the policyholders questions, you know, and so you know, that's why, that's why we like to get involved and it's it's really just to to be helpful. It's not for any other reason, right. So, yeah, I think it's certainly understanding that. I think it's also knowing that from a pricing standpoint, this is actually pretty affordable compared to a home, you know, or an apartment, and so it's just really kind of understanding pricing, understanding how it all works. You know the nuances of on-site housing, and those are probably the two top pain points that I see.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we were talking to a rep at a big conference recently and one thing that they said which I appreciated because it reflects just the values of our company is man, whenever we do a placement with you guys, we, once it's placed, we don't really have to think about it anymore, which is often not the case with RV places. They're dealing with so many issues and this broke down or what do I do with this, so they're getting hit up constantly. But we really try to take that pressure off the reps, like, once they call us and once we get involved, our vision is that they don't really have to do a whole lot else, that we're fielding the calls. And so talk a little bit about how you've structured the company to really reduce stress and streamline the process for these reps.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I think you have to back up a little bit, because you know you said once it's placed and really it's more once more.

Speaker 2:

So once it's approved, okay, you know so. So we send over the quote to them and and they're going to send it off to the adjuster and the adjuster, you know, approves it, and at that point they can drop it in our lap and know that we're going to take care of it. You know, and just like they would, it's not, we're just going to. You know, we're going to half-heartedly take care of it. We're going to take care of it with as much detail as they would. So, and that's what you know, I was talking to another rep at the conference and they were saying that's basically what they were saying. I love that we can, once we get approval, we can basically just drop the claim into your lap and know that you're going to see it through and that we're not going to have to deal with any problems and that if there is any information that we need to know, you're going to let us know that stuff.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, why is that important to you, that whole the idea of ease of placement? Why is that one of the most most important value propositions that we offer as a company?

Speaker 2:

Well, because they're so busy, they have so many files that they're working on so many claims. You know, I mean they can be working on, you know, gosh man, 30, 40 claims at a time. And so if the ones that are interested in onsite can be taken off of their plate but not taken off their radar, right, but we're going to let them know, we're going to give them all the information that they need and keep them, you know, keep them up to date on anything. All of the details, man, all of the details are going to be in their email right when they need to know. And obviously we're just a phone call away. But I built this company to bring the absolute most value to these reps, so they can know that with RV Housing Group, they can just kind of hand it over and we are working just like they would to take care of their policyholders.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, and I'll say this on your behalf but you've invested a lot into that part of the business, right? There's different things that a lot of vendors RV vendors don't have because it's costly. It's costly to have additional team members and to all that kind of stuff, because it would be easier for the RV vendor just to set it and forget it and place it and be like okay, now it's your issue to talk to, but we don't do that. We really like to come alongside and partner. What does that look like practically when we take ownership and help remove some of that friction for the rep?

Speaker 2:

Give some examples of what that would look like that friction for the rep, like give some examples of what that would look like. Well, let me first say that there is no, um, there's no company, any of our competitors, that have this, the staff that we have, right, the amount of staff that we have and obviously that's overhead. So it's important for everyone to know that. You know, money is not the most important thing here. Taking care of people is the most important thing, right? Because, quite frankly, I could do this, probably with myself and one other person, like so many of our competitors do.

Speaker 2:

However, I believe that that's not. That's just not putting our best foot forward, right? You get so much in the weeds and you get busy, and you know you're always going to say, yes, yeah, we can do it. Yeah, we can do it. Well, really, probably the answer should be no at some point, because you got so many potentially that you're working on and you only have so many hours in a day, right? So for me, it's all about having the absolute best service we can possibly have, and I realized pretty quickly that I was not able to accomplish that with just myself and maybe myself and one other person. So do me a favor, because I got off on that tangent? What was the question?

Speaker 1:

Well, I just that's funny. No, that's a good point. I'm glad you brought it up, but I was just looking for some practical examples for the reps that are listening or watching this, as far as what that looks like. So an issue comes up how do we help remove that friction for the rep?

Speaker 2:

Well, I guess excuse me, I'm assuming you're talking about once it's placed right.

Speaker 1:

That's right, that's right.

Speaker 2:

So we have it set up to where they can contact us directly, right? So we want the policyholder to always reach out to us first, not because we don't want anyone to know what's going on we're going to tell them what's going on but we just want them to not have to worry about this stuff, right? I think that that's the best case scenario and that's the biggest value add from our standpoint to our partners is that when something happens, they don't have to worry about it, right? They just know that we're going to take care of it. Obviously, that's built on trust and trust over time, but they know we're going to take care of it and once we take care of those things, we're going to communicate what happened, right? So they can put it in their file. So that's that's. You know, that's pretty much it, man. It's just we are going to handle it when things arise, and they just know that RV housing group is going to do what we say we're going to do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, would you go as far as to encourage a rep to kind of divert people back to us, to us so? So sometimes you can't help it, sometimes they, because a lot of times they establish a relationship with the rep first before we get involved, so they have that information. And sometimes people you know may not work the process perfectly and still call the rep and get a hold of them. What is your encouragement on that? Do you tell the reps, hey, send them our way and just kind of you know how would you handle that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and we check in. You know, we, we stay, we stay connected with the policy holders. So, you know, by doing that, we're hoping that we can have the type of relationship that allows them to just come to us directly, right, because they're dealing with so many people. I mean they could potentially call their adjuster, they could potentially call their rep. We're hoping that we would be their first phone call when it comes to anything that they need during their stay in one of our units. So, yeah, I mean we would absolutely want the rep to send them our way right and say RV housing group will take great care of you.

Speaker 2:

Just reach back out to them and you know what I mean, but yeah really and you know this right I'm always trying to figure out ways to like really make it clear that when you have an issue, you need to reach out to us first yeah, how does that?

Speaker 1:

how does that work as far as keeping, uh, our housing reps informed without just burdening them with a bunch of unnecessary back and forth? You know what is kind of your philosophy on that? And while you're thinking about that, I mean shout out to Chris Groen, who's on our team, who is amazing at communication. I mean, he's been on both sides. We've shouted him out before. He's been on both sides, so he knows what people want to know and when they want to know it. And what I've seen is that there's very few partners that we work with that they want a lot of communication. I mean, a lot of communication is good, but talk a little bit about how that works with us.

Speaker 2:

And just on the communication side of things, but talk a little bit about how that works with us. And just on the communication side of things, yeah, I mean, as issues arise, right, we're going to deal with them and we're going to then shoot an email over to the rep letting them know exactly what happened, letting them know that they've been taken care of, or, if it's not something easy, right, we're still going to let them know. Hey, they reached out to us. Here's what's going on. We have a tech going out there today to handle this issue and get it resolved, and as soon as they do, we'll update you again to let you know that it's taken care of.

Speaker 2:

But we just wanted to let you know that this is going on right, because it's twofold. Number one, they really are detailed in their files. They want to have all the information that they can. But number two, we just want to be transparent. You know what I mean. So we're not hiding the fact that maybe some of our units may have an issue from time to time. I mean it doesn't matter if they're brand new. I mean it's just the RV business, fortunately, and how they're made. But it's just like a house man. No different Houses can have issues too. So we just want to be transparent and say, hey, we had an issue, here's what happened, here's how we're handling it, and now it's taken care of. Just wanted this, you know. Just wanted you guys to know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that. I just have a couple more questions for you and more just on the higher level, like philosophical side of things. But how do you, how do you define personally as the owner and CEO of our company, how do you define success between the vendor rep relationship?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think just making sure that they are content right, making sure that they really believe that we are doing what we tell them we're going to do and that when an issue arise, just because it's not our fault, that doesn't mean it's not our problem and so we're going to take care of it, and that they really trust us. You know what I mean. Like to me to have a rep to go to a conference, right, and hear, hear the reps say, hear the hear the different reps talk about you know just how how well we work and and how good our service is and all that stuff, right? I mean, at the end of the day, man, that's how I define success is that people are extremely happy with our service and the value that we bring to them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that. Well, last question for you, just looking forward um, you know what are, what are some of the things that you can. You can commit or even promise to housing reps moving forward as far as how we want to continue to improve the way we do do business with them well, I think it's important for them to know that we never are complacent.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you know this because you've known me for so long I am always looking at how we do business, right. What do we need to change? Like, just because something was working yesterday doesn't mean it's the best way moving forward, right, right, so what you know, let's look at how. How we are doing business in all aspects it doesn't really matter, like everything is always on the table, because I'm a change agent, right, and you know that if there's something that can be done better, I want to figure out how to do that, right, and so I'm always looking at how we're doing business. And then I'm always looking at how we're doing business, and then I'm listening. We go to these conferences, right, we talk to change or, you know, or tweak a little bit to offer the absolute best service that we possibly can. And so it's just, you know, it's just knowing that we're willing.

Speaker 2:

We're willing to do things differently, right, I mean, looking back from inception to now, the the way we're doing business compared to how we were doing business at the beginning is unbelievably different, you know, and I think, and I think, five years from now, right, you look another five years, I think it'll be different still. You know, maybe not quite as different, but because I've, you know, really started to understand the industry. But I think that you know, just looking at how we do business on a regular basis and being willing to change things up for the better is is, is has has brought us our success. Honestly, you know what I mean. That's that's why we're, that's why we continue to to have regular business, and that's why we continue to grow every single year is because we're willing to do things differently than we have in the past.

Speaker 1:

That's one thing I love about our company, because I love change as well. And one thing I love about our company is exactly what you just said is that your vision is really for the long play, the long term, and I've seen you lose money sometimes to be able to ensure a longer term partnership or client and you know nothing. You're not really married to anything in the company outside of serving our partners well so, whatever that means, and so I've seen you, on a dime, change a policy or a procedure or anything just because it's what best serves the the partner and the client there.

Speaker 1:

So I love that about our company and I love that. That's part of the vision moving forward. Brad, anything else you want to say on this topic before we sign off today?

Speaker 2:

No, not really. I mean, we're just really appreciative of the business. I say not really and then I start talking, but we're super thankful for the business that we have and we're just going to continue to be an innovator in this industry and hope that people see it Right and that we stick out in a good way and that we continue to grow relationships with with new partners as well. So I'm excited man. I'm excited for this year and what's to come, for sure.