Double R Flo-Town
The Double R Flo-Town Podcast is where two Florence, SC locals—Reeves and Robert—pull together community stories, real talk, and a behind-the-scenes look at life in the Pee Dee. Born and raised in Florence, they’ve chosen to raise their families here and are passionate about highlighting what makes the city special—while also having honest conversations about what could make it better. With a mix of local updates, guest interviews, real estate insights, and plenty of banter, this podcast is about more than just where you live—it’s about why you choose to stay. Whether you're a longtime local, new to town, or just curious about the people shaping Florence, this is your spot for connection, conversation, and community.
Double R Flo-Town
Double R Flo-Town: With Richie Skipper
Reeves & Robert connect with Richie Skipper on understanding the hurricane of change in todays insurance market, and along way touch on local spending, relationships, and Richies DJ past.
Double R Flowtown. Izzy, what episode is this? We're number four, number four. How many do you have to have before you've made it?
Speaker 2:Well, the smart guys are telling us we have eight episodes. Once you've done eight, we make it. So are we?
Speaker 1:hey, we're halfway home. We're gonna get to eight and then we'll see. Maybe we just quit yeah, we could quit.
Speaker 2:You know, that's the thing. It's beautiful, that's no. We're not quitting this is fun.
Speaker 1:We're not. This is awesome. So you made it back from the Bahamas.
Speaker 2:Barely Going over was easy. It was awesome. The trip was phenomenal. Coming home was a different story. I heard the ocean was a little oceany.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then pulling a boat trailer, however many daggone miles it was, was not worth it.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, somebody's trailer has to mess up on the way home.
Speaker 2:Of course, I think I might sell my boat, oh, oh.
Speaker 1:I think that would be genius. We're talking about it. You did the blowout trip.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sell it. We're talking about it, but we had a phenomenal time. That's awesome. So thankful we were able to do it. That's awesome, do it. The hummus was cool and, uh, now it's time for you to have a baby whoo yeah, monday, so do we have a name monday, so daily we have different names?
Speaker 1:yeah, I know daily and I can tell you're frustrated with it because you're like that's good, robert, kind of getting ticked off with you.
Speaker 2:Come on, robert, figure it out yesterday and probably today is rutledge. Okay Well, last week was Robert Thomas or Robert Lamar Thomas IV, and you're going to call him Ford, but I liked that. That was the one that kind of finally stuck with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But Reeves? Why does that stick with you? What is your full name? Well, I am Fred Reeves. Cannon III and Rebecca refused to allow us to have a fourth. Yeah, and so me and Tal and my firstborn are ticked that he's not the fourth still to this day, 19 years later.
Speaker 1:So I got a question Can you tweak the middle name and keep the fourth? So Robert, rutledge, thomas, and keep the fourth, because Lamar's, I'd like to go. It's a beautiful place to live. I love Lamar because Lamar's I'd like to go in. It's a beautiful place to live. I love Lamar. I love Lamar, but I'd like to we believe Lamar is where Florence is growing.
Speaker 2:Come on, true, true hey.
Speaker 1:But the name, I'd like to tweak it a little tweak. So the name from yesterday afternoon is Charles.
Speaker 2:Ooh Charles, a little patriarchal kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Robert Charles Thomas. Call him Charles, maybe Charlie for short.
Speaker 2:I think Charlie's a cute boy name, but here's the reality. Every day I have to go home and report to Rebecca the new name, and you know she gives me.
Speaker 1:Is she frustrated yet?
Speaker 2:No, I think this is fun for her, okay, okay, okay, you know she gives me, is she?
Speaker 1:frustrated, yet no, I think this is fun for her.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, okay you know, but for me not so much. Take a daggum name.
Speaker 1:If they would let us leave the hospital without a name. We probably would.
Speaker 2:I don't think they do that. I don't think so. Do they do that, izzy? I don't think so. You're the one with like eight kids Four but we didn't change our daughter's name in the hospital. Like you told them one name and then, and then the nurses got it wrong. For like the whole time you were in the hospital and were like this is not going to work.
Speaker 1:Can you?
Speaker 2:sue the nurses for that If they call your name.
Speaker 3:So Audrey was going to be Verity, but nobody could get Verity, verity.
Speaker 1:That's why they changed it.
Speaker 2:Because that's one of those names you're like what you like really think about your name. Yeah, you guys went deep on names, but you and Andrea are doing the same thing.
Speaker 1:Y'all were trying to get deep but they're not quite as out there as Izzy, but Izzy can pull that off. Anyway, nice hat, by the way.
Speaker 2:Hey, I love it Nice hat, by the way. Hey, I love it Nice hat. That is a really good hat with a great story.
Speaker 1:It's coming.
Speaker 2:Could we become more of just like an outfitter? I think you could.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if I could bring the power with you. I don't know if I'd get any money with that. I just like giving them away. I like giving them away, you give way too much away anyway. True.
Speaker 2:We could talk about that. You kind of quit giving stuff away, hey, hey hey, hey, guess what, what?
Speaker 1:So pulling back to episode two or three, can't remember. Yeah, we started talking about the concert series. Yeah, I get a text last night with Justin Osborne on it.
Speaker 2:Local Florence guy, musician, phenomenal guy.
Speaker 1:I think we can make it happen. I think we can make it happen. At the amphitheater I've had several people reach out and tell me they thought that was a cool idea. Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2:I think we can get him. So you mean this podcast isn't just talk. We're actually creating ideas and beginning to execute on ideas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That makes me happy, because the last thing I want to do is just talk about stuff. Right, we want to see things come to fruition, and that's really cool that we're beginning to put the wheels in motion to see this happen.
Speaker 1:We need it. We probably need to find like a secretary Okay, that kind of help fully execute these ideas.
Speaker 2:So now the Double R podcast is producing jobs, yeah that's right, that's right. Good.
Speaker 1:Golly, we're good, this thing's growing, it's growing flow, growing flow. So yeah, all right, growing flow, man. So yeah, all right, we're gaining traction, we'll get it done. It's probably too hot to do it right now. Anyway, maybe fall If we start really hammering it now. Maybe by early fall.
Speaker 2:Mid-October is a beautiful time, that'd be perfect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that'd be perfect. Yeah, that'd be perfect. All right, and here's the vision. Okay, all right, we're not doing food trucks, because you go out to eat at the restaurants that are already downtown. You go out to eat, you hang out and you walk to that, you do the concert, there'll be drinks there, there'll be some of that, and then go back out after and hang out.
Speaker 2:Dessert. There's some really killer dessert spots in downtown. Rebecca and I love to come eat at any of the various restaurants in downtown and then go get some dessert in several of the different spots.
Speaker 1:So will this be a sell ticket thing?
Speaker 2:I think we can find some local businesses that help sponsor the thing, and I wonder if we can just at least make the first one free. Okay, all right, you know, just a fun place to gather for people to come and see each other enjoy the community.
Speaker 1:I think there'll be a crowd. Yeah, I wonder. I don't know how many people that place will sit. I don't know. You know, like I don't know, we need to go walk over there and check it out.
Speaker 2:Maybe we can take the podcast on the road and do a little Do a little Do. That is it. Let's go check it out.
Speaker 1:All right, but I like that. It'll also be kind of quaint also, you know, yeah, I mean it's not too big. Yeah, it's not too big, so that I'm excited.
Speaker 2:So Justin's on board.
Speaker 1:He's thinking in that direction. Well, justin, let's talk a little more. I think he is. I think he'll end up moving back to Florence. I think he's gonna be like man, this is the place for me to live and then just shoot all over the country. Man, but live here. Yeah, okay, we got a special guest. This is, this is more of an, this is an uncle to me. Honestly, richie is beyond friend. He's more family uncle, uncle Skip, and he's got an unfair advantage in this today because he was a DJ. How many years ago? Just a few.
Speaker 3:I bet he had a different 70, 78, 79.
Speaker 1:But I think his juices are flowing. I can see it. We're back in nighttime oh, my goodness I grew up in georgetown. Grew up in georgetown?
Speaker 3:yeah, that's where you were, djing djing at uh gosh, can you of it? It's the call sign of the station W-A-Z-X, w-a-z-x, right across in a steel mill. So you were a legit DJ, a legit DJ. What kind of music did y'all play? We played basically two kinds of music Classic and rock, and I like right back.
Speaker 1:That's cool, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:This is when you actually had records. You didn't disappoint you, just we play out and cut.
Speaker 2:You kind of have that radio voice, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, some people say I got the radio face. I take that as a compliment.
Speaker 1:We can tell he's comfortable in this situation here. Well, I'm comfortable around you guys, you guys are.
Speaker 3:You know we've been friends. I've been good friends with your dad for since we came to Florida, since 95. Yeah, I've been friends with him. And then, you know, adopted you, brought you to Windsor, that's right, trained me, Trained you, you know, Taught me how to surf. Taught you how to surf and took you on your trip to Costa Rica. Taught me about the window. Taught me about how to open a window.
Speaker 1:Here's the one thing he always told me. He's told me this the window.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, he's given me that story.
Speaker 1:So you know, when you're in that dating phase and you're thinking you want to get married and get locked down Richie's like, so that window is open right now. You go surf, you go do whatever, at a certain point that window will close.
Speaker 2:I think we know a guy or two that might need to be sitting with Richie.
Speaker 3:Hey, and listen, not only will that window close, there are some in the relationship that will ping it and nail it shut.
Speaker 1:Mm, true, man, true, so you get the right one and that window can still crack open and that can slip out and both of you need to crack it.
Speaker 3:Both of you need some, a lot of freedom.
Speaker 1:Who knew we were getting marriage counseling for Rich. Yeah, hey, he's giving it all to me. I mean, I've honestly thought a lot about that. That window has stuck with me my whole life. So thank you, it's true life so thank you, this is true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. Did you develop that talking as a dj, those those late nights?
Speaker 3:you know, you dj and you were developing this window talk is that where I know that I was mature enough to develop any window talk as a, as a dj at midnight, at night? I, I was, I was the Velen beats of habits, but I don't think. So this it was from midnight to Sometimes, midnight to six, six to midnight. So yeah, just different, different late night A couple of years. So yeah, that's awesome, yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:So why is he here today?
Speaker 1:Okay, so I love your billboard, live here, work here, play here, which is true. I mean, that's kind of what this podcast is about and that's what your billboard says. Tell us a little bit about your thought process there.
Speaker 3:So my billboard says we work here, we live here, we give here, oh, push, play, that's right. So we work here, we live here, we give here, play, that's right. So we work here, live here, give here. And I think that is true for any small business in any community. It's particularly true for me in trying to differentiate my business and my brand in this community. I want people to know I do work here, I employ people here, I have a payroll here. I've read that a dollar spent a local business turns over about seven times in a community. Wow, and I think that's important for people to know.
Speaker 3:I came to Florence in 1995, and I would tell you there has been more progress made, particularly downtown. There had been more progress made probably in the last five to six years than had been made in the prior 20-plus years that we had been here. Tim Norwood, those other guys that invested time and energy and effort and labor and love to bring this downtown community back up, they've done a phenomenal job and it has been. It's been tough, but they have invested a lot down here and their local business people. They work here, they live here and they're giving back back tremendously here in investment and trying to bring this community forward. Kudos to them for doing that, but I hope that people in this community think about doing business with local business.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's the backbone of every economy. Y'all need local business to thrive. I need local business to thrive. I need local business to thrive. I would also say that large corporations don't support the charities that you and I care about. They don't. Large corporations don't generally support House of Hope, the Crisis Pregnancy Center, the local baseball team, my Krispy Kreme donuts. Those are things that local businesses do and continually do in a community to give back to that community. So when you're making a buying decision, think about that local business and that local guy that works here, lives here and gets here. He stays in your community.
Speaker 2:We were having that conversation in the office this week about you know, we we Draystone always supports South Florence and West Florence athletics, and we were getting ready to write those checks. And, and you're right, big corporations don't do that, yeah, and so that's a.
Speaker 3:I'm not saying that big corporations give, but they get into big national causes. They get the larger things. We support the schools and the PTOs and the baseball teams and the crisis pregnancy centers and all of the charitable causes that are important to the community. Small business is a huge support for those things in our community to make it special, that make it unique, and I hope people will take that to heart when they make a buying decision.
Speaker 2:So you're an insurance guy in State Farm, which is a national, maybe international, I don't know. Just national Okay, just national company, but you're a local owner of the State Farm.
Speaker 3:I'm an independent contractor AGIF legally and I represent State Farm and the products and services that they and their affiliates offer. So I'm an independent business owner. My employees are my employees. They work for me, not for State Farm, but I have an exclusive contractual relationship that I would only represent State Farm in or its affiliates in this market. So I own a small business like a cpa, a dentist, a doctor, anybody else, yeah.
Speaker 2:so and one of the other reasons we wanted to have you here because with real estate, we do a ton with insurance, yeah, and the insurance environment is changing rapid, moment by moment yeah and I think last week we just heard State Farm and many other carriers are looking for you know they're not insuring anything older than 2006. Just tell us a little bit about the insurance environment. That may or may not even be accurate.
Speaker 3:In my almost 30 years in the insurance business I have never seen I had the same conversation with another insurance agent, an independent agent, because we're all friends, we know each other, we talk, we work together, we try to help each other as best as we can. We're competitors but we try to work together as well. And we were all collectively saying that in all of our time in this business we have never seen such a dynamic, tightening, changing, difficult homeowners insurance market, like I said in my home for almost 30 years. And so why is that? There's a lot behind that and I'll kind of bring that to local root state to local root state A big thing coming out of COVID and I don't really understand the direct correlation but coming out of COVID, the cost of reinsurance.
Speaker 3:Believe it or not, insurance companies buy insurance. So, for example, if we had a I'll go back to Hurricane Hugo if we had a Hurricane Hugo that swept through here and an insurance company paid out $8 billion in losses, they may have an insurance company that picks up the next $8 billion and then the $8 billion beside that they're back on the other side. So insurance companies buy reinsurance from Swiss Re, from Munich Re, from huge, huge multinational conglomerates sell reinsurance as an investment.
Speaker 1:The State Farm. I think most people don't understand that point. State Farm has insurance.
Speaker 3:State Farm buys reinsurance, Reinsurance. State Farm buys reinsurance. I don't know a large insurance company that doesn't buy reinsurance. So just like you buy it. We got a deductible and then we got a stock cap.
Speaker 3:So the cost of reinsurance coming out of COVID skyrocketed, skyrocketed. Some larger companies are able to negotiate that somewhat with these groups based on experience and size of things. Other companies are not in a position to maybe negotiate as much. Some companies will pass that full cost down to its consumers. They don't have anything else to do but pass that cost directly to you. Larger companies maybe can absorb that cost or spread it out. So that's part of it. What's that done to some companies in this part of South Carolina is they have pushed that cost. I've seen renewal notices where somebody's homeowner's insurance has practically doubled. It's doubled and I relate that to the cost that they pay for reinsurance chosen to pull back from the market to not insure anything. So you've got fewer people selling the product on the street. So they've said we can't pay that cost of reinsurance, we're not going to operate in that market.
Speaker 3:That's why we're seeing people pull out. That's one reason. That's one reason that you're seeing some companies pull out is the cost of reinsurance and not wanting to pay that price to operate in a particular market. So what that means in the marketplace is the more people you're not selling the product, the more that risk is spread out, the more competitive that price is.
Speaker 3:From an insurance company standpoint like mine that is still here, we don't want 50% of the market being a catastrophe. You don't want it. You don't want that much exposure. So if you two insurance companies pulled out and that's opened up a lot of market availability, we now can afford to be very particular and say, hey, we want to take on some more exposure, but we only want to take on really good exposure. We want to take on risks that we really really feel good about. Again, no company wants to be the largest holder of the insurance market during a catastrophe that have chosen to stay and remain. This made them a little more pickier with who and what they're insured and we can get into roofs, because that's a big part of this.
Speaker 2:Well, I just think it's fascinating because it's almost an anti-business. Like, for example, robert and I and maybe Robert doesn't want to say this, but I'll say we wouldn't mind if every other real estate agent in Florence went out of business and we were the only two guys here. Everybody came to us. But you're saying insurance companies because of the liability, the exposure to risk.
Speaker 3:Potential for risk yeah.
Speaker 2:You've got to give some of that risk to other people, so you don't have all of it and it makes sense. It makes perfect sense, but it's a little bit different than the other businesses.
Speaker 3:It's very different, very. For example, most people that walk into a store here, florence, and they want to buy this mug, they can buy that mug. Yeah, it's a lot of people that I talk to you to come into my place of business and I can't sure I can't get for some reason. I have to tell them that and there's a there's a lot behind that. Okay, another thing that's impacting the cost of reinsurance is really big.
Speaker 3:The other thing that's impacting insurance is AI and for power industry, how we used to determine rates is we look to the past. We look back at the claims we paid over a period of time. We look at the severity how severe was it, how frequent frequency of the claims, severity of the claim and we look at past experience to make a future prediction. Ai has totally changed that. So now not only do we have the past experience, but a sophisticated AI algorithm can tell us well, with a fairly high degree of certainty, if you have this much market share and this zip code and this neighborhood and this part of the country here, this is what you can expect your losses to be. So it is an incredibly effective predictive modeling tool. Looking forward. So we predicted forward, but now we can look forward with a lot more accuracy and a lot more insight in developing a pricing model.
Speaker 3:And, of course, after COVID too, I mean the price of everything. You guys saw that. What did construction price do coming out of COVID? How much did a nail and a tack and tar paper go up? And when you have a claim, insurance has to pay that, so that building materials cost, labor costs, all of those things go up. And when you have a claim, insurance has to pay that, so that building materials costs, labor costs, all of those things shot up. And when those costs go up they don't come back down, they don't. So a lot of things go into that and that's what's impacted rakes in our area. If you guys would agree, if you lived in Greenville, south Carolina, and you had the same house that you have here, your insurance would probably be 40% to 50% less. Wow, that much, yep.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's that old movie Greenville, Don't stop.
Speaker 2:Everybody already moved.
Speaker 3:But why is that yeah and that catastrophe exposure?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're in a hurricane. We're all disowned. We're in a potential hurricane.
Speaker 2:How much of that is socioeconomic exposure, or is it all close to the coast?
Speaker 3:It's mostly close to the coast. Yeah, and every company has their rates wind-loaded. I mean that's proprietary. But in general for this part of South Carolina, but in general for this part of South Carolina, 40 to 50 percent is probably attributed to collecting premium to pay for that next big storm that we know of in this country.
Speaker 2:I think I've heard that would it be? East of 17 is the highest, and then you get, you know, west of 17, up to around maybe Sumter, and you've got a set.
Speaker 3:Well, 17 is an easy line because we can see that. We a picture, but it's not really east to west of 17 or east to west of 95. Okay, ai models constantly run predictive modeling maps and each company has its own predicted modeling, proprietary data that they use to make determinations. So those models and those lines are constantly shifting and moving from time to time. So it's, and again, every company's, every company is different. I give you a couple examples how it plays out in a marketplace. I give you a couple examples how it plays out in a marketplace.
Speaker 3:There's a large carrier in South Carolina, in this part of the state, very well known, and they depreciate your roof. So part of their approach to mitigating what they are predicting to be a future wall is we're just going to fully depreciate your roof based on the age of um. Some companies say don't have a problem with the age of the roof, we're going to look more the age of the house, we believe the age of the home. Um, if, if the home for us right now, if the home is built 2006 forward, we don't have a problem with insuring out with our state farm. If it's beyond that, we have an affiliate carrier, we could still insure you with, so we can help you get insurance again. But roofs are the number one thing that you could probably suspect that you're going to have trouble with. So what you've seen happen in this part of South Carolina is a separate deductible for wind and hail. Carolina is a separate deductible for wind and hail, a separate deductible for a named storm and then a final, all-parallel deductible for theft or fire. People need to understand there is a difference in a deductible or a difference in a wind-hail deductible and a named storm deductible.
Speaker 3:Okay, so you look at your insurance fee. You have three different deductibles. You need to know that you have three different deductibles. And is your roof going to be depreciated? You need to know that now so that you can have a discussion with a local agent about what do I want to? Can I keep this? Can I mitigate this some? Can we do something differently in this space? Let me tell you how that works out.
Speaker 3:You're with a company to appreciate your roof. Your roof was put on in 2017. So it's getting close to 10 years old. We have a storm, we have a hurricane and your roof's got to be replaced. Let's say it's $18,000 to replace. Your roof got to be replaced. Let's say it's $18,000 to replace your roof. Insurance company says Reeves, you put your roof on in 2017. It's eight to 10 years old. We're going to depreciate. You got a 20% depreciation on that roof and these are I'm making these numbers up. So you got $18,000 claim. So we're going to take 20% off of that. So what's 20% of 18,000? So we're going to take 20% off of that.
Speaker 2:So what's 20% of $18,000?
Speaker 3:Well, that's $16,000. All right, so now we're at $16,000. Now you have a 2% deductible. 2% of what? 2% of the value of my house? You got a $350,000 deductible. I had to set me $200 of it. So I'm $16,000 claim and a $7,200 deductible. How much am I getting for my roof? How about 11,000? Yeah, that's $10,000. Yes, you need to know that up front now so that that's not a surprise to you later and you need to make a decision about can I assume this risk? Am I okay with that? Am I going to have to save some additional money? What do I need to do if this happens? So I can be prepared if this comes up, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Well I was going to ask. So, robert, we bring a client to you. They're buying a house. Say, hey, call Richie, see what you can do for insurance. What practical steps. One I just heard you say have a good, honest conversation with a local agent, with Richie. But what else can?
Speaker 3:that consumer do to help lower their insurance costs every month or to get the right insurance. Good questions, good practical questions. Number one when you start out early in life, buy renter's insurance. Start out early in life. You rent an apartment, you rent a condo, you rent somewhere. Establish a relationship with an insurance company and renter's insurance is very, very inexpensive and it is, in essence, like homeowner's insurance. There's just no coverage on the building, there's no coverage on the door, but all your stuff is covered. Establish a relationship early by getting some renter's insurance. That's going to help you build a relationship with that company. You come to me, got renter's insurance. Now we're transitioning to homeowner's insurance. There's going to be some benefit built into that because you've been a customer or stock with renter's insurance. For that New construction home today in this market is going to be less expensive than an older construction home. Okay, a $350,000 house built in 22, 23, 24, brick could be as low as $900 a year. That same $325,000 house built in 1998 could be $1,800 a year. $2,000 a year Okay.
Speaker 1:New construction. We can help them with that. We can help them with that.
Speaker 3:So if you're looking at buying, give new, just be informed that a home. Well, building codes have changed. You guys know about building codes and homes are built stronger, better, to higher standards. Different plumbing is now used that was used 20 years ago. So new home construction is going to be less expensive.
Speaker 3:Look at deductibles. Do I save enough money increasing my deductible from $1,000 to $2,500? Do I have a 1% wind and hail? Do I have a 2% hurricane, a wind and hail? Is any wind and hail loss? We could have a bad thunderstorm blow through here this afternoon and have some bad weather that blew some shingles up and had a little bit of hail down. That's a separate deductible than your regular're ready to fire a theft deduct and then you could have a separate hurricane deductible. It could be even higher.
Speaker 3:So being informed about that, alarm systems having a local alarm system monitor to local police and five is a is a good way to save on your homeowner's insurance. Uh, the other way is to visit and make sure that your home is insured to its proper value. I see this mistake made regularly. Somebody buys a house. They call our office and say, hey, I'm buying this house. It's $386,000. Well, that may be the price of the house and the lot. You want to back that lot value out of there because you don't insure the value of your lot or your land. So you want to sit down with someone and help calculate the replacement cost of that structure, that building, and not insure the fact that a lot of companies will give you a quote mold arena or 80,000.
Speaker 1:I bet that's happened to us. We need to start helping people look at that and make sure that lot's not in there. I've done a lot of times.
Speaker 3:I've done. A lot of times. I've seen some people that bought a house and the replacement costs on the house come back greater than what they're paying for the house and the lot. And I go Robert, good for you, man. You know how much it would cost to build this house. You're paying $380 for this house. It's going to cost you $425 to build it back. And that's kind of a difficult conversation to have with someone, because market value and insurance build-back value are two separate things. Market value is what somebody's willing to pay in the marketplace. The insurance build-back value is what it costs to build that back. Yes, making sure that that number is correct, looking at deductibles, alarm systems, building a relationship with an insurance company and making sure that your house is insured for its insurance to value. Thanks, good stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So here's what I do. Here's what I say do I use Richie? Because I know him, I trust him and he's going to do your job, give here, give here and play here. So just I use Richie and not you know, and that's what you go back to using local people that you know and trust. And you know, we've had so many conversations about insurance and you, just you know what's going on, I don't need to worry about it. And when I have problems, which I've had and we all, you were there for me, you were there for my sister, you were there for Reeves, you were there for me. So one thing before, as we finish up we need a funny insurance story. I know you've got a million of. We need a good, funny insurance story. It probably goes back to another reason why insurance is so high is because everybody, all the people that try to scam.
Speaker 3:Oh listen, fraud is rampant and we could spend a whole episode talking about insurance fraud. From asking the car repair guy hey look, man, I got $1,000 to do. Can you increase your labor? Can you help me soften? Oh, man, it's wrong.
Speaker 3:Or an accident happens and suddenly 35 people end up in the car, yeah, so there's lots of things and there's a big push now in South Carolina. There's a big legislative push to be in combating insurance fraud. Yeah, and listen, that cost is passed on to us, it's passed on to you and I you mentioned me and helping I think all the local insurance people in the community here want to help educate our customers to make good decisions and I want to help educate you guys and your listeners to make a good decision. If I can help you with your insurance, I want to. If you end up being a customer, that's great. But my job and the job of my staff is obviously to promote our company, take care of as many customers as we can, but we want to help educate you to make a good decision. We do that, then we've done our job well. That, we believe, will come back to us in some way, shape or form. Funny insurance story. I had one. I got a recent shot of a new customer. No names, no names.
Speaker 3:New customer calls me up and says, hey man, I got a problem. I'm like, well, no, let me back it. Existing customer downtown business I want to use Reeves.
Speaker 2:Don't get worse.
Speaker 3:I'll use Reeves, existing customer calls. And it was Friday, a couple of Fridays ago, and I had a storm that blew through and I remember a lightning had hit their business downtown and I have their business insured, I have the building and their business insured, and the lightning had hit a tree something near around. But it and pow Friday, know pay how Friday, electronics, acac, goes off, the arms off, computers aren't working. They look around outside there's some shingles swapped up, you know here. So he calls me up. He says hey, man, I hate to bother you on a late Friday afternoon, so-and-so. He said I think lightning just hit and we got all this damage going on. I said well, when did it happen? He said today. I said today, friday. He said yeah, today, just about 45 minutes ago. I said today, friday the 13th. He said yeah, today, friday the 13th. I said man, buddy, there's a clause in all insurance policies that if lightning strikes your business or house on Friday the 13th, there's no coverage. 13th, there's no coverage. So he's like, oh, that's why you're kidding. I said no, any customers. I got him for about five, six, six seconds. Are you kidding me? So, anyway, but I. So there are, there are a lot of funny insurance stories, crazy things that people think and that people do, and and there's some serious ones too.
Speaker 3:I'll touch on one more thing, if you, maybe a lot of people ask me related to your world, that's trees. My true, I got a tree. My neighbor has a tree on his property, is leaning over my fence, is leaning over my house, is leaning over my car. Can I make and cut it down? No, if that tree is alive, thriving, green, growing, he's not liable for whichever way that tree might fall. Same thing's true for you. If you have a living, thriving tree that's on your property and it's leaning one way or the other, you can't be liable for the way that living, thriving tree may fall.
Speaker 2:So then it falls on my car, my neighbor's tree. Who pays?
Speaker 3:My tip. So if your tree falls on your neighbor's car, your neighbor's insurance is going to pay for that if he's got comp coverage on the car. But if that tree is dead, it's decay, the pine beetles are working on it and it's dead. It's been hit by lightning. You know it's dead. You're liable for that. Tree's alive and living. It really can't be liable. You don't know that the wind's going to blow it this way, that way or which way. So just like if Robert lived four streets down and a storm came to knock the top out of a pine tree and it landed on your house, robert wouldn't be responsible or alive for that. She had a lot of questions about that. We do get that question too.
Speaker 1:It didn't make sense. That makes sense that one comes up a lot. Well, Skip Richards, please come back.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me on your show. What you guys do is important. I remember, hey, we work here, we live here, we give here. Thank you, skip. Guys do is important. I remember, hey, work here, we live here, we give here. Thank you, skip. Thank you appreciate it, man. Thank you.