High-Risk Class

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Larry Harb:    Auctioneers are considered a high-risk class. And the answer is—people say, well, how come? And it’s easy. And I use this example of a person in Arkansas who’s not sitting here at the moment. But one of our insured who, in the morning, is selling box lots, at noon, he’s selling the real estate, in the evening, he’s selling the airplane. And my carriers say, what are we on? What does this guy do? And I say, a little bit of everything. And therein lies the problem. You know, if I insured McDonald’s restaurant—fast food places, right—let’s take McDonald’s. And I’m in Hot Springs, Arkansas, or I’m in Sarasota, Florida, or I’m in Okemos, Michigan, a McDonald’s all looks the same. They all use the same equipment. They all have the same procedures manual. They all have all of the same policies and procedures in place. But when you take auctioneers in those different venues and—hell, you don’t even have to change venues, you just have to take different auctioneers—there’s nothing similar.

The only thing homogenous about auction businesses is, you all use the auction method of marketing to establish price. So, from an insurance company’s perspective, they look at this and say, we don’t get it. We don’t understand it. And that’s why I’ll put the plugin to tell you to use somebody who understands your business. And I don’t care whether you use myself or use my competitor—I would rather you use one of us, than your local insurance guy. And the reason is, is we get and understand what you do. I went to auction school, not to bid call—you’ll hear my do that later tonight—I didn’t go to auction school to bid call, I went to auction school to learn what you do and to understand what they teach you, so I could better help you manage your business and understand risks and exposures that you have. So, my job is to help keep the money in the pocket where it belongs. And we’ll keep the liability where that belongs, also. Alright?