Discover how your business can stay ahead of risks, from cyberattacks to evolving contract liabilities, in this episode of Missing Half. Our guest, insurance expert Michael Barbarita, shares over five decades of industry insights tailored for small and mid-size manufacturers and B2B companies. Gain practical advice on protecting your business, minimizing liability, and navigating complex insurance and contractual challenges. Don’t wait for disaster—be prepared.
Michael Barbarita is a seasoned insurance consultant with O'Connor Insurance Group, helping small to mid-size local companies manage risk and safeguard their assets. Michael has a deep understanding of comprehensive coverage strategies, encompassing home, auto, life, and business insurance. His passion for building strong client relationships and delivering effective risk management solutions continues to make him a trusted advisor in the industry as a consultant through his own firm, Barbarita & Sons.
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Bill: So Mike, when we look at cybersecurity and cyber incidences, and we think about the amount of money that companies are investing in cybersecurity teams, in IT professionals, and really trying to avoid those incidences, we also have to recognize that, you know, hopefully nothing ever happens, but hope is not a plan. We have to, as business owners, manufacturers, B2B companies, have to prepare for incidences that could be very, very damaging and very, very costly. And that's where cyber policies come into play and need to be talked about more and explored more and probably secured by more companies in order to really give them the peace of mind they need to continue to operate.
Michael: Yeah, it is a very complex area. And unfortunately, it's not the only area, but the, I'll probably come off throughout this whole thing, giving the impression that insurance is the answer to everything. But there are what I think clients take too lightly, especially the clients that I hope to work with, which are the smaller local clients, that they're immune to this, that it can't happen to them. They're privately held and they talk to their IT guy who they outsource to and he said everything's buttoned down, don't worry about it. But that's not the case. These criminals that are phishing the web all the time, there is no specific, well, they do like to target hospitals, of course, and financial institutions where there's a lot of data that they can grab. The thing that, you know, the target case, for example, that everyone knows about, that happened because of a local HVAC contractor was doing work for Target. And unfortunately, he's right in our backyard. And so they, Target, allowed him into their system to bill or bring them up to date on the project they were working on. Well, and it wasn't, they weren't a target, pardon the target, target, but they weren't a target. And probably neither was Target the store. They were just phishing and boom, they saw this opening with this company and they hit the mother load with that one.
Bill: Mike, we had two clients in the past 24 months that had cyber incidences. One client, a professional service firm does anywhere from $4 to $6 million in revenue a year, and they were absolutely crippled for two weeks. They did not have insurance. It was devastating. It brought their business to a halt. All the things you can imagine, cash flow, it was just a very disruptive. They ended up paying these folks off, these ransomware folks to get it back, but that took a while. And it was just, it was very problematic. We have another client who, much larger, they do about $35 million a year in revenue. And they were exposed to a cyber incident, had good cyber policy, insurance policy. In 24 hours. There were professionals from that insurance company on site. Advising them, walking. I'm not aware of the processes or understand how it all worked because we had nothing to do with it after the audit and we went through and supported it. It had nothing to do with our services or our input allowing the vulnerabilities. But the reality was, that company was well-prepared. It was still very difficult to navigate the waters and to come out of that. However, they had the support they needed so that they could control as much of that situation as possible. And then financially, that second firm got a large check at the end of it because of the business disruption and loss of revenue and those types of things. So that's two stories from our little slice of the world and our experience where we've seen companies with and without a proper plan to deal with these things and relatively modest size company to larger companies. And this, I think the thing, if there's a takeaway for our audience is if you're a Fortune 500 company, you're not the only ones who are going to be targeted.
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Bill: Thank you for joining the Missing Half podcast where we're discovering what's missing in manufacturing and B2B marketing. Today I have a very special guest, a friend and a colleague for a long, long time, Mike Barbarita. Mike, how are you doing today?
Michael: I'm good, Bill, how about you?
Bill: Great. Well, Mike, want to let you introduce yourself, talk about what you're doing now and also about your background. But let's start with what you're doing now and then we'll go back and see how we build up to that moment and how you've started your business and your consulting business and your new venture.
Michael: Oh great. And thanks for that intro. I'm sure the audience will be just thrilled. Yeah, what I'm doing now is after 52 years in the insurance business, I've come to realize that, okay, enough's enough kind of, and let's move on. And fortunately, I hooked up with a friend of mine who happens to write my homeowner's insurance, Jeff O'Connor with the O'Connor Insurance Group. And when I moved on from my last large brokerage job, Jeff says, why don't you come work for me? And I said, well, hey, that sounds like a good idea because Erie focuses on obviously homeowners, auto, life and those kinds of things. But they also focus very heavily on local artisan companies and manufacturing companies and things like that and that always intrigued me anyway. Throughout my career, I typically dealt with the larger corporations. And there's different dynamics when you do that. But what I've come to learn over the past couple of years is that the local industry, I'll just call it in generic terms, really doesn't have a clear, not everyone obviously, but doesn't have a good clear understanding of insurance. And I know the whole world, to me, it always seems like it evolves around insurance. Anything you do, it's insurance. But that's obviously not the case. But the, but people, who reads their insurance policy? Give me a break. Nobody reads their insurance policy. They don't read their auto or their homeowners, let alone their nice little company they've spent 20 years building. And a lot of times when they find out what their insurance does or doesn't cover is when there's a loss. And of course by then the horse is out of the barn and so they're scrambling. So I think as an industry, our industry, which I've been a part of, as I said, for over 50 years, we probably can always do a better job in helping people understand what is involved, how it works, what's it mean, and fight off the urge to use insurance jargon and lose people. You know you see their heads go back and their eyes roll back. You know, you know you lost them at that point, but it's a very obvious, obviously, since because I've done it for so long, people question my mental capability by saying that, but it still interests me and I still learn every day. So, you know, I looked at it this way when I formed, actually, I formed my agency, Barbarita and Sons in 2012, because that was on my bucket list, you know, one of these days I'm gonna have my own agency. Well, it came to be and Jeff O'Connor gave me that opportunity to start that. And so what I focus on are three areas. There is number one, working with Erie, which is a fine company. I gotta tell you, I'm shocked at the information they have available to their agents and clients online. And it's fun to help my friends, a lot of which are my clients now, understand what a homeowners is and what the additional endorsements are and things like. Same with auto and even life insurance. I've always been a proponent of that. And if I say that in a public setting, it just vacates the space around me really quick.
Bill: Yeah, you could probably talk about politics more easily, Mike, in some cases, right?
Michael: Yeah, yeah. So I mean, that's, course, main thrust of what I'm doing today is working with Jeff, the agency, and Erie. And that's been really a lot of fun. The other two segments are a bit off of that, you know, sort of off-Broadway kind of thing. And that is offering that same kind of advice and my experience that I have gained with these corporate clients over the years to help small local companies. Because it's the same thing. It's the same thing. And they have the same risks that the large guys have. And you know, you want to make sure they understand it. I had a meeting just this morning and sat down for over an hour with a small company down the street and they build decks, wooden decks, or the new fiberboard stuff. And we went through this whole thing and the owner stood up and shook my hand. said, you know, thanks, that's, I get it. He's not an expert obviously, and he admitted that, but he said, now I see why you've been hounding me all this time. So it was really rewarding that way. And then the third area is I can help behind the scenes other agents, local regional agents, because the end of the insurance industry isn't being flooded with young kids coming out of college who are just dying to get in the insurance business. I got into it because it was the only job around and I had a connection. So I can do the backroom work, so to speak, and I'm not in it to steal somebody's client. I'm in there to advise and to consult. So those are the sort of the three prongs that if you check out my website, that's what I talk about. And it's the, my connection with Erie and Jeff and what I can do for local companies. And maybe that leads to an Erie possibility or prospect, who knows. But that's not the intent of that second leg. And then the third one is to provide, I have a lot of friends in the business after 50 some years, of course, and they're still active. And so I can offer some backroom help there if need be.
Bill: Well, Mike, think the second leg is really what led to the genesis of us having this discussion on the podcast, which is looking at advising those small companies, not necessarily that you're there to sell them insurance, but like you're there to look at their policies, help them review their risk, help them understand what's available. And I think it would be valuable to maybe take a step back and say, okay, that's what you're offering, but what gives you the authority and the experience to do this? So let's go back to those 50 years and talk about, because I think one of the things when you talk about small companies, like from my understanding, it could be anybody from a million dollar a year business up to a hundred million dollar a year business is kind of in your mind in that mid market small arena because the companies that you represented and worked with in your earlier career were the multi-billion dollar multinationals. Maybe talk about your experience going back to like Marsh and those types of things that gave you that experience working with really, really large companies and understanding risk and the complexity of policies. And then now you're bringing that experience and knowledge to, you know, from Wall Street down to Main Street. If we want to use that kind of analogy, could you maybe talk about that and maybe talk about some of the clients you had to kind of give that perspective?
Michael: Sure. It, it, a lot of it started with just how I got into the business and where I ended up with, with Chubb. And that is what they call inland marine. And people say, well, you were in Pittsburgh and inland marine, well, we have rivers, but now that's a whole different meaning in the insurance world. It's it mostly initially it, it means mobile equipment and construction equipment and things like that. And we had, when I first joined the brokerage world in 1976, we had a large Caterpillar dealer and it was in the middle of the first energy crisis. And so every guy was going to the Caterpillar dealers and leasing a big cat 90, 80 front end loader and, start to dig up the backyard looking for coal. I always loved trucks and, you know, grew up, I love, you know, watching construction sites. And so that really took me off into a whole other area of coal mining. And I know you know that and it, it really, in a way it was kind of funny. I mean, of course, didn't start out thinking through this whole strategy. But what I learned throughout those years, whether it was a coal company or a steel company or a manufacturing company was the importance of visiting the site, visiting their plant, what they do and how they do it. Because in a weird way, and I know people chuckle about this one, but it brings the insurance lingo to life a little bit because then you see the words and what property deductible, whatever it is in the insurance policy, you wanna be able to relate it to the operation. And the other part of that too is not only watching, but what are the industry issues that that company faces? How do they deal with regulations? Do they have to deal with government, whether it's state or federal authorities, and making sure that their processes continue to go smoothly or that they're licensed or approved to do certain things. And it really, fortunately, I had the time and worked for a company back then, Johnson & Higgins, which is no longer around, that allowed me to do that. They were into the technicality of any of their clients. And it gave me that opportunity to go in and dig deep into the industry, regardless of what it was. Could have been a slag company or like I keep mentioning coal, but you know, that was the one that dominated the first couple, three years of my brokerage experience with Johnson & Higgins. But, you know, I also learned what these guys have to go through to use that, the coal industry, what they have to do to permit the site, which, by the way, takes two years lead time. And so, and what they have to put together for the Department of Environmental Resources, or protection, what it's called now, and, you know, get approval to start mining. So those are the things that I was able to and had the privilege to be able to dig into and really learn deep, which fast forwarding to where I am today, I think, to me anyway, it seems it helps me even with the guy building decks down the street. He's a professional contractor, I don’t mean that he’s just down the street building decks, anyway, that to me ended up being sort of one of the foundation blocks that I was able to grab onto.
Bill: Well, I know earlier in your career, Mike, you were able to be part of what, you know, I guess you'd call it that industrial revolution that was kind of peaking in Pittsburgh. There was a lot of coal. Steel was still king. Right. Those were the big players. But not only do you have that foundation and that background in like the traditional Rust Belt businesses, you also recently have spent time with an, you spend a little bit of time with an AI startup. So you're seeing the worlds collide of like that industrial foundation and then the new AI revolution. So you've kept current. And I think that's what really has given you, I think that's really what's given you the perspective of seeing how so many of these companies are, traditional companies are exposed to this technology problem or this technology risk. And I think that's a perspective that I'll be honest, you know, I don't hear a lot about other than from, like if you're talking to a cybersecurity professional about like your actual hardware, software, networks and all of that, they're talking about it, but they're just talking about the actual like system. They're not talking about incidents. They're not talking about risk mitigation. They're not talking about, exposure and what happens if, when. And it shouldn't be if, it's when this happens. So I really feel like that perspective is valuable and you're going to be able to bring a lot of perspective and peace of mind to people. And I think you said it earlier, you have people, especially in Western Pennsylvania, the Ohio Valley, the Rust Belt here, West Virginia, Maryland, who have built great family businesses. Privately held companies that do 20, $30 million that really successful have been around for a long time. And what got them here isn't going to be what gets them there. Times are changing and if they want to protect that asset, the value they've created for future generations, this is something, especially in this like cybersecurity and in looking at cyber policies and looking at other risks, the risks are new and different. And the policy you had from 20 years ago rewritten every year by the same agent and they never look at it and they never consider it isn't good enough. At least that's maybe because full disclosure, Mike has represented my family's interests for I don't want to say how long, but forever. And we have always been able to. We have been very fortunate in that we have had many incidences over the years, many occurrences through all the businesses we've had. We had a truck get hit by a train once. We had fires, we had floods, we had all of it. It was like, don't know if we were the worst client you ever had, Mike, because of all the claims. The point is we were always well covered and well secured in knowing that we had our bases covered and a phone call away. And I know of other colleagues who own other businesses who have not had that experience with their insurance provider and whoever's consulting them on that. So yeah, so I mean, Mike, you know I'm a fan. And I think one of the things that we talked about in that second bucket of services is this really this review of like your consulting practice or you'll come in and review people's policies and really give them the peace of mind. And when you think about the millions of dollars that could be at stake and then the premiums they're paying to invest a portion of money to just review that is from someone who knows not like you just reading it while you're drinking your coffee before you leave in the morning. And we all know none of us read that. And even if I think the reason we don't read it is because we don't understand it. Right. It's not written in plain plain English.
Michael: Yeah, you know, a lot of them are written poorly in that sense because, you know, you'll be reading down a paragraph first off, they're like this and the verbiage and it's small, the font small and they said, you know, refer to page 10, section 3 BI, you know, and it's like, well geez, you know. So it becomes a where's Waldo kind of thing in a way. But you hit on something though a minute ago, Bill. It's not just the policy and I hate to keep harping on that. I worked with an old friend and he had a couple of restaurants and I said to him, well, let me, we were sitting in one of them and I said, let me see the lease for those restaurants. He said, what do you want to see that for? I said, well, the lease, like most any contract has insurance provisions in it. I need to make sure the lease and your insurance policy match. So he gave it to me and I said, you know, by the way, this lease holds you liable for up to $3 million of water damage. Now water is a real pain in the neck when it comes to insurance policies. People think water coming out of it, no, it has so many different meanings and how it can damage things, it's unbelievable. And he said, well, they never said anything. I said, well, they're not gonna say anything, you signed it. So we went on and on about that. It had to be three, four, five months later, he and his group looked to expand into Lawrenceville. And so they went to the bank. Asked for a loan and the loan officer came back and they said, you know, in your current lease, you have this water terminology in here. Do you have that covered? You know, and he said, I can't believe it. He picked up on what you picked up on. And it's not only a lease, it's a contract too. I talked to another large company and they said, yeah, we have about 500 contracts. And I said, well, who keeps track of them? And they said, well, we kind of have them over there in the file drawer. And, and, it was like, he said, I don't know if half of them expire or what happens. He said, we only pull them out whenever something goes wrong. And I said, well, let me ask you something. What do you think is the oldest one in there? He said, well, it's probably six or seven years old. I said, well, you know, reverting to my insurance world, that, the terminology or the limits of liability that were common then are way inadequate now. So it was probably, we never did look at it, but it was probably $100,000, $300,000 of general liability limit, which the standard today is a million, two million, or certainly it's going to two million, four million. So, you know, guess who's on the hook after that 100,000, 300,000 is exhausted? So his head went back a little bit on that one. the, aside from the cyber thing, which we talked about a bit ago, the other thing that I picked up on throughout the years is, what's the contract say and who's liable for what? And you mentioned my time in the IT world and there's no way I ever claimed to be an expert in any of that. It was amazing to me to see how this kind of, these programs are programmed, you know, what these engineers have to go through. But the issue today is how can we as a company assess our liability? The overall liability. Companies have hundreds of contracts with, could be the landscaper or could be a big service provider, who knows. But they all have contracts and they all say somebody's liable for this or that. So that to me too, in addition is where the second leg of the practice comes into play. I'm not an attorney. But I know what the insurance clause says. Well, know, been there, done it, and I've read it thousands of times. And you know, it's a variant that can come out of the blue and really wreak havoc to a company. And in some cases, if it's a privately held company, could really injure them severely. So.
Bill: Well, think one of the things that we did with our relationship was whenever we were doing M&A and we were doing contract work, we would have our attorney and you look at the deals and look at those things. And I think that's one of the keys as to why we had less exposure and ran into fewer problems than some of the other folks I know who do work like that. Because I couldn't agree with you more Mike, that that contract side of it. It's not just an insurance policy if you've signed and agreed to a contract, that then creates exposure. And some of these, we had a business that had a number of leases of properties in four different states. And the, the challenge of dealing with some of those were owned by national companies, right? Those, that real estate, some were owned by locals. So the variability and what they were asking for was dramatic. Right. And some of them were, you know, a hundred pages and some of them were a napkin that you’d signed at the diner that you were kind of scratching it in as you went along. Right. Because that's it's Western Pennsylvania. But I think that contract evaluation and I think the if there's a takeaway for business owners, it is when we look at contracts, if the first time you're pulling it out of that filing cabinet that you referenced is when you're handing it to your attorney because there's pending litigation or a problem, or you're calling your insurance company to make a claim, that isn't the first time you want to have looked at it because that's when it's a problem. And then the question is, is it going to, it isn't, the question isn't, is it going to cost you money? The question is how much. And that's never a good spot to be in.
Michael: No. No. Now, you just sparked the memory. I talked to a client of mine who was very frugal with his budget. And we were talking about directors and officers liability, cyber insurance, employee dishonesty, and employment practices liability. Those are typically bundled together and a lot of companies offer a very nice product that covers all of that. So I put a deal together, I got a quote from a company and it was $9,000. Now this is four or five, six years ago. And he said, I can't afford it. I said, let me ask you something. How much do you pay the attorney you kind of have on, not on staff, but who's your go-to guy and how much do they charge an hour? He said, well, $300, $400. I said, well, that $9,000 premium is 30 hours of work. And trust me, he'll burn through that in no time. If you have an issue, it's going to burn up in two minutes. And the policy, by the way, those types of policies provide defense costs. Well, right then and there and, I just tried calling him the other day. I think he's retired, dead, gone and buried. But you know, I just wanted to sort of bring that back up and ask him if he ever did that.
Bill: Sure. No, but that's a great point, Mike, because when we had an issue where we had the insurance company come to the defense and do the legal work for us in a product liability issue with John Deere, and they were amazing. They just took care of it. And the amount of hours that were incurred in the legal process of that, I don't know who lost all the money. We didn't. So that's like whatever. We paid the insurance there it was and they took care of it. But somebody lost a lot of money on those hours because it went on for a long, long time and it was settled or whatever. But no, having that peace of mind, and knowing that you have kind of like that stop gap because litigation, as we know, there's a of lawyers graduating every day, they got to eat. So somebody's got to be sued. There's that old saying, there was that that lawyer that moved into a Midwest town. There were no other lawyers in town and for like five years he starved. And then one day another lawyer moved into town. And before you know it, they're both at a country club driving Mercedes Benz and like living the life because then there were two guys, two attorneys to fight it out. So that's my attorney joke. So Mike, whenever you look at the second set of eyes approach on contracts, on insurance, when you look at how you can come into a company, I know you have number of clients right now that you're working with. Some are relatively smaller in size. Some are much, much larger. How do you approach that second set of eyes and what do you see as some of those outcomes and how are you helping these clients move forward?
Michael: Well, I do, you know, ask for either insurance policies or contracts that relate to their business. And, you know, what is it that drives their business? So in other words, that they have 50 contracts with suppliers or not. And here again, I'm not an attorney. So but the the other thing, too, is to dig deep into a good session almost like this and find out what they do, why they do it, how they got there, and what did they think are their pressing issues. I don't want to give them the answers and I don't intend to, but what I want to do is hear where their pain points are because they've been doing or built a company for years and years. And so those pain points more often than not have a bearing on how a policy might be structured, what endorsements should you add to the policy to cover their risk, to make them feel more comfortable. So those are the things that it's digging deep and having a good two-way conversation. And I like to make sure that, look I'm not out to say that your current agent doesn't know a thing about what he's doing or she is doing. That's not the point of this. The point is to help you understand what you have, what you could get if there's an issue and you have a need and what is available. And then here's sort of a blueprint of what we discovered as we went through this process. You know, and looking at leases or contracts or insurance policies, you know, here's what I would do if I were you and map that out so that he or she can take it to their current agent or broker and that's the way I would like to approach it in the sense that they have a relationship for a reason with whomever it is they're dealing with. And that's part of it too. How long has that relationship been? What have been the issues? Have there been any issues that have come up business-wise that put a strain on that? How involved are your attorneys and your accountants in on the decision with whatever it is that you instruct the agent or broker to do? So it's a three-way situation because there's a lot of times where, particularly on insurance policies, a lot of people don't know they have business interruption insurance. So if something happens to the facility, the office, the plant, and there goes their income stream because they've had a fire, what do they have? What kind of protection do they have? And even if they are back up and running in two, three months, does that insurance continue on until they get back to where they were before the loss occurred? So there's things like that that an accountant can help with. Of course, on the contract side, an attorney can help with and bounce things off back and forth. Those are things that you want to be able to offer good, solid, common sense solutions that aren't beyond someone just hitting them with a bunch of insurance jargon that by the time you walk out the door, they'd forgotten everything you said.
Bill: Well and Mike, one of the things I've appreciated about you over the years and even in recent conversations, I mean, you're of the mindset that you got to get your hands dirty. Right. I think one of the problems with a lot of business today is we've focused so much on technology. We don't go. We don't see the clients. I know that you've, you know, walk, you walk the buildings, you go to the facilities, you really try and understand some of these people's businesses. You know, do a ride along, whatever it takes to make sure you're there and present and understand that risk. And I think that is a differentiator for, as opposed to someone on the phone says, okay, what's your policy? Okay, I have these five buttons to click. You have to tell me which one is you, right? And then, you know, it's like Amazon, buy now. Well, that might work for very simple things. But when we're talking about business insurance, when we're talking about mitigating risks and liabilities, I think, you know, your approach to that is refreshing and is, really important.
Michael: Yeah, two weeks ago, I'm doing some work for a trucking company. And I had never been in a tractor trailer. And so, you sometimes it's the kid that comes out in me that kind of asks for these things halfway. I've been on drag lines and I've been underground and I've walked through steel mills and things like that. So they said, yeah, I said, just want to see what that means. And I tell you, I stop at stop signs now. These guys are, we went through a plan, they put a steel coil on the back and, by the way, it weighed 40,000 pounds. You know and it was like, you can't stop this truck on a dime. So, you know, people cutting in and out and things like that, used to ride motorcycles and it was kind of the same thing, but a whole, whole different dynamic because you can't stop the vehicle that quick. And, I have a whole other appreciation for these truck drivers. This is not easy. It is not easy. They got to have eyes on the back of their head and, so it really helped in that side of things for me, probably more personally, but it just made me appreciate that world. And you know, there's nothing that none of us touch or have in our house or consume that a truck hasn't delivered. So you know, it was a special day for me.
Bill: One of the other things I want to talk to you about, specifically, so our audience is a lot of manufacturing companies. And in 1994, I still remember it as if it was yesterday. I was in a library at college. This is back, this is going to show how old I am. This was back before we had cell phones. And there was a phone that we could use in the library, like vestibule. And I spent a lot of time in the library. And, often I would just go take a study break and I'd call home for like five minutes once a week and just say, to the folks and see what was going on. Well, I still clearly remember I was prepping for finals 1994 and I called home and, my dad said, yeah, it was Sunday night. He's like, yeah, we just got a word that there was a tornado in Myersdale right by the furniture factory. We're getting ready to head down. We have no idea what we're up against. Talked to him later on Monday, the furniture factory had been destroyed. There were two walls left in that facility. The patterns for the upholstered fabric were found 15 miles away in trees. Supplies were scattered over several counties from that tornado. Unfortunately, there was a fatality in town. A young girl lost her life, which makes our loss pale in comparison. But I remember going through that process and then I called my parents like three days later, I was getting ready to finish up my finals and that they were down working on cleaning things up and getting things sorted and they were chased under a bridge by another tornado. So like just I said, I'm not going to call home anymore until I'm there because like this is progressing very poorly. It was like a country music song. But I remember the value of the business interruption insurance. I think it was 23 days later, they manufactured furniture again at our warehouse that was six miles away. So the team of employees and our business partners and support services were amazing in recovering that factory and getting it going. But I do clearly remember how important that business interruption insurance was because we lost so much in that tornado. So when we think about manufacturing and we think about those events, it's so important that we know the details of these policies and what could happen because the, and I'm sure it was, you I'm sure it seemed expensive at the time when we bought that policy. But whenever that tornado occurred, that was so critical to that business operation continuing. And there were a lot of, you know, this is a small Pennsylvania town. For those of you who don't know, it's in Southwestern Pennsylvania, right close to the Maryland border. It's a very tiny town. I don't know what percentage of that town's population we employed down there, but it was very large. That business was very important and so to a lot of people's lives. So, yeah, I just can't express how much we've valued your opinion and those type of consultations that have kept us from experiencing undue hardship. I mean, life is full of hardship. We're just trying to get the undue part of it out, right? And minimize that.
Michael: Well, that, you know, that the tornado thing, who knows where, what, how those things happen and when they come about. It, what you, something you just said reminded me of another incident where I talked about this Cat dealer early on. And so I visited one of their facilities in Murraysville. So we're walking around. And there's the back door to the plant. I opened the back door and I said, well, what, and there's, you know, gravel and, you know, service roadway and there's just a line of trees. And I said, what's beyond the line of trees there? And so we walked over and he said, well, that's, that's a little creek. I said, what's the name of that little creek? And he said, that's Abers Creek. Well, I grew up in that area. Well, Abers Creek is a major tributary to the Allegheny River. And I said, well, does that ever flood? I mean, did you get back up and things like that? Says, no, I don't think. It's kind of like you calling home and finding out tornadoes are landing all around. It had to be, I guess, next spring. I can't remember exactly when it was. He called me, he said, you remember we walked through the belt? Yeah, he said, well, that water was right at the threshold of the door. You know, because we it was springtime, we had a lot of rain. And I said, geez, you know, so we made sure we had flood coverage on that building. So anyhow, those kinds of things happen. And it's just being aware. A lot of times, insurance people were pessimists and Mr. Doom and gloom, you know, fight it, but it comes out of you. But I think it helps people in a long run.
Bill: Absolutely. Mike, let's go to a little bit of a lightning round. What do you think is the most impactful piece of advice you give your clients? Just like, these are kind of like throw some softballs up and whatever you think of first.
Michael: Well, I think the misconception there is an insurance covers everything's good. Don't worry about it. And I'm paying too much. And so those are things that I always hear. Or somebody will say to me, I have life insurance and you gave me a quote and it's $1,000 a year. Is that the cheapest there is? Well, in our business, there's this repertoire, this book, this bible, it's about this thick, and it's called AM Best. And it has financially rated every insurance company in the world. And to say that what I just gave you is the cheapest one, there's no way I can say that because there's thousands of these things in here. So a lot of times it's very difficult to explain the premium versus the risk versus the, you know, not only the risk, but the coverage and what could it do in the event you did not buy this little thing or that little thing. So those are the misconceptions. You know, here again, you don't need to be an expert to take a good look at what you have. Just, you know, nine times out of 10 insurance agencies give you a summary of things. And you know, those are typically easy to read, but, you know, take the meeting and have them explain it. I think you'd be a heck of lot better off if you did that. Kind of like just what I did today. And, you know, it made a lot of sense and it made things, made the relationship a lot easier to be consultative going forward because you're not trying to pull wool over anyone's eyes. That, you know, just today here again, to use this as an example, I said, well, I don't think you need this coverage. It was, you know, big $230, but it's $230. He doesn't need this. He said, I said, you know, you have it. I don't think you need it. It's up to you, of course. It's not my company. It's yours. He said, no, I don't need that. And then I had explained to what it meant. And so I did. And he said, that's not me. And so anyway, those are the kinds of things I just encourage people to do is to really take a little bit of time and and take a look at what you have. I'm not saying go and try to read the insurance policy. If you're having trouble sleeping, do that. But it's to pick the brain of the experts who've been around for a while and no question's dumb. So I think you'll get a lot out of it.
Bill: No, that's great. Mike, what's a trend you're seeing or trends you're seeing in the insurance industry for businesses that you're excited about or worried about? Like what's something that's up and coming that kind of gives you pause or gets you excited?
Michael: Well, I think what's happening now, and it has been, is jury awards that are getting higher and higher and higher. You know you hate to think the worst and you hate to what if this and what if that. But I would say contractual liability, and that's where it all stems from. And it's no big deal, we'll sue them. Let's sue them. And it's a lot easier, I think, for an owner of a company to, if he has a fire or something, he can control the fix, the remedy of those kinds of things to some extent. And to, I think the other thing is to take a session with your key people and play the what-if game. What if this happens? What are we going to do? Try to put together, it doesn't have to be an elaborate kind of thing, but think through what you would do if this happens. Who do you call? What do you button down first? Those are the preventive kind of things that that I think are very, important. Back in my Marsh days, we had one guy who became sort of a self-made expert in catastrophe planning and evacuation for stadiums. He did the Pirates and the Steelers, the Penguins, and he was all over doing this and what do you do and having desktop exercises. Those were the big things. I haven't heard many people not in that arena much anymore, but a desktop exercise. I know one of the universities, and this is years ago when we were talking about this kind of exercise, they were having a desktop exercise and it was a large university out west. I don't know if it was whoever it was, the president maybe, secretly planned a bomb explosion in one corner of the campus. You know, a small explosion, but here's the whole group. They're in a conference room doing what ifs and it happened. You know, now they didn't know, you know, that it was a planned thing and, you know, no one was hurt, of course, and that kind of thing. Let me tell you, they all took a deep breath when that happened. And it became real, real fast. So it's the preventiveness, it's the preparation, it's the backup, those kinds of things to try to mitigate your loss. You're never going to eradicate it. You want to minimize things. I just think from the legal side and from the AI, IT, whatever you want to call it, cyber side and the litigious side is where I'm focused.
Bill: That's great. Mike, if someone wants to find out more about you and your services, where can they find you?
Michael: Well, they can go on to www.barbaritaandsons.com. My two boys are not in the business. I just named it that in 2012. Anyway, it's Barbarita and Sons. So that'll be cool. My wife and I did the website with help from some other expert whom I know very well. And I appreciated all that help and guidance, of course, Bill. But that's where they can go and check me out.
Bill: Great. So we'll provide those links in the episode details. Also, Mike, I know you're on LinkedIn, so they can find you on LinkedIn. We'll provide that link in the episode details. And yeah, I'd really encourage if there's a listener out there who is thinking about their insurance and they need someone to come in on a kind of a fractional basis to look at what they're doing and really assess what's going on. I couldn't recommend Mike more. So Mike, this has just been a great conversation. I know this is kind of like a snapshot of years and years of conversations that we've had and will continue to have. But I really appreciate this. I think there's a tremendous value in what you're doing and the expertise you're bringing to the market that is going to help people minimize their risk, minimize loss and help them, which ultimately we all want to do, which is sleep at night knowing we have a plan and that if that inevitable crisis or situation occurs, that we have some help and support that's already established, specifically through insurance vehicles. So Mike, really appreciate you joining us today.
Michael: Well, thank you, Bill. Thank you, Johanna. This has been fun. I appreciate it allowing me to ramble on about such an exciting topic.
Bill: No, thanks, Mike. Well, thank you for joining the Missing Half podcast where we're discovering what's missing in manufacturing and B2B marketing. Like, share, comment and have a great day.