MC Fireside Chats – September 16th, 2026

 [00:00:45] Brian Searl: Welcome everybody to another episode of MC Fireside Chats. My name’s Brian Searl with Insider Perks and Modern Campground. I’m doing the show standing up today for a little bit, till my feet hurt anyway, ’cause it’s a little chilly out here in BC, so I gotta walk around with my sweatshirt. It’s not super cold.

It’s about 19, 20 degrees out here. Uh, so excited to be here with you guys again for another episode, uh, of MC Fireside Chats. We got a recurring guest here, uh, Casey Cochran, Robert Preston, uh, Jeff Hoffman, and then we got some insurance experts, John McMahon, one of our newest recurring guests here, uh, that’s gonna be on the show once a month with us.

So let’s let everybody go around the room and briefly introduce themselves, and then we’ll kinda kick it off here. Robert, you wanna start? 

[00:01:20] Robert Preston: Good afternoon. Thank you. Uh, Rob Preston, CEO of Unhitched and Climb Capital based out of Pensacola, Florida. We own and operate RV parks 

[00:01:32] Brian Searl: Feels like you’re underselling yourself, Robert, but okay.

[00:01:35] Robert Preston: That’s all I got today, man. 

[00:01:36] Brian Searl: All right. Casey? 

[00:01:38] Casey Cochran: Uh, yeah. Casey Cochran, our VP of, uh, partnerships and business development at Campspot. We’re a campground specific PMS and a marketplace, uh, for campgrounds. 

[00:01:51] Brian Searl: Thanks for being here, Casey. Ro- uh, John? 

[00:01:54] John McMahon: Yeah, John McMahon, uh, vice president of operations for Camp Door County.

We’re a high-end, uh, glamping type resort, uh, focused on nature. 

[00:02:03] Brian Searl: Welcome back, John, glad to have you here. Jeff Hoffman. 

[00:02:07] Jeff Hoffman: Uh, Jeff Hoffman from Camp Strategy. We’re located in, uh, Sandusky, Ohio, and, uh, we pretty much, uh, have years of experience in the campground business and would love to work with all campgrounds.

[00:02:24] Brian Searl: And you’re rocking social media too, Jeff. You got some good content you’re putting out there. 

[00:02:28] Jeff Hoffman: Well, I’m trying, you know. If, if, if I don’t move forward, I just get old, and you keep reminding me how old I am. 

[00:02:35] Brian Searl: I don’t know how you… I still, I get old whether I move forward or not, so I don’t know how you figured that out, but and to our insurance guys, who would like to go first?

[00:02:43] Peter Lovering: Well, I’ll go first. I, uh, my name’s Peter Lovering. I’m, uh, head of business development for Signa- Signature Park, and we specialize specifically in customized insurance for RV parks, campgrounds, glamping resorts, and lodges. 

[00:03:00] James Grant: And my name is James Grant. I’m the president and CEO of Signature Risk Partners.

We are based in Toronto, Ontario, uh, and a specialist in the commercial insurance space. We insure golf courses, uh, craft breweries, wineries, city social athletic clubs, and of course RV parks and campgrounds right across Canada. And I have the pleasure of working with Pete Lovering every day. 

[00:03:24] Brian Searl: Awesome.

Welcome, guys. Appreciate you all being here. So we were having a good discussion, I think, uh, backstage before the show started, uh, about talking about, a little about the insurance market, and I think where I wanna start here is, is maybe from the perspective of Robert or Jeff or even Casey, who talks to a lot of people, or John for his glamping resort, whoever wants to start, kind of like what, what is your view of, as an owner/operator or as someone who’s talking to these properties, the current state of the insurance market?

Is it hurting you? Is it worse than it was a few years ago? Is it better? Is it different? What’s changed? Like, kind of the, the, the perspective of that before we get into the tangible behind it. So is there anybody who wants to volunteer to start?

[00:04:06] Robert Preston: Sure, I’ll jump in there. Um, so certainly we, we still have some multi-family assets as well, uh, that we looked at. And we, in the Gulf Coast, Florida, a lot of the hurricane-affected states, we got crushed, you know, from an insurance premium perspective. ’23, ’24, and you see a lot of the, the global, more of the global commercial real estate issues that are happening right now, insurance is a, is a big driver of the credit crunch on a much larger level than RV parks.

Um, so certainly we saw the same type of rates that came in there. And then last year, frankly, ’25 was, uh… It felt like, it felt good because the rates came down a decent amount. Um- … 10, 15% generally across the board from what we saw in the portfolio. And ’26 held, uh, with even, uh, for most of our parks actually, a slight discount from ’25 to ’26.

And now of course we’re in the process of, of looking at renewals and stuff across the board. Um, so certainly it’s, we’re, my opinion is holding our, holding our breath to see when the rates will start going up again, the premiums will start going up again, which we’re hoping it doesn’t. Um, it’s becoming more challenging to find carriers from our perspective that are willing to be in this space.

So that in itself, I think is causing some pricing. And the other part is, you know, when the policies come with a lot more exclusions that are a lot more, I hate to say the word tricky, right? But essentially you’re paying more and there’s a lot less coverage, uh, that’s being offered unless you’re really, really thorough in digging into those, those policies.

[00:05:55] Brian Searl: Do we have a sense of why, why the insurance rates dropped so much over the last two years? Because I wouldn’t have thought that. That kind of surprised me when you said that. 

[00:06:03] Jeff Hoffman: Well, my, uh, my theory is, uh, insurance companies make some of their revenue off of our, our rates and insuring us, but a good majority of their income comes from holding lots of cash and investing that cash.

Well, they’ve done pretty well over the last couple of years, and that has afforded them to maybe discount rates a little bit. 

[00:06:34] Brian Searl: Because of the market, you’re talking about their investments? 

[00:06:35] Jeff Hoffman: Yes. 

[00:06:36] Brian Searl: Okay. 

[00:06:37] Jeff Hoffman: Yep. But what makes me worried is- what’s coming, uh, in the markets could affect our longer term insurance rates going forward a couple years.

So we may have to- 

[00:06:51] Brian Searl: What’s coming, Jeff? I can trade with one hand while I’m in the show. 

[00:06:55] James Grant: Can I jump in here? I, I mean, I think-

[00:06:57] Brian Searl: Yeah, please …

[00:06:57] James Grant: you make a great point, Jeff, you’re right. Um, but at the end of the day, uh, insurers are always working towards, you know, an underwriting profit. They don’t look for a lot, but you’re right, there’s a lot of volume there.

And so excess premium while we’re waiting for a claim, waiting for that phone call to find out that a park got blown away or there was a fire or a theft, uh, they invest those assets. Yeah. And the markets have been very strong. That’s helped. I think what’s happened recently though is more of, um, is sort of the hangover from COVID.

You know, recall a couple of years ago, uh, everybody sort of panicked. We didn’t know what COVID was gonna look like. We didn’t know what it meant to the travel and hospitality industry. We didn’t know if people were ever gonna leave their homes again. Um, and so a lot of insurers raised rates or they just simply exited places where they didn’t, they didn’t f- feel like they had a particular expertise.

So, you know, if your, if, if your bread and butter was writing home and auto policies, you were focused on that during COVID and maybe pulling away from dabbling in a campground or dabbling in an RV park policy or a golf course. And so as a result, rates went up, um, for a, you know, a number of different factors as I just mentioned through COVID.

And then as we came out of COVID and realized that hey, that, that , you know, that really was just a giant psyop, um, and we’re back to normal again, um, you know, there’s room in there for rates to come back down. So there’s, part of that has been that repricing as that risk has been kind of eliminated from the exposure.

The other part I think, um, you know, in w- in, in this sort of lower rate environment that we’re in today, they call it a soft market, has to do with just a flood of excess capital. Um, people are looking for alternatives to just buying one of the big six stocks, you know? They, there’s only so much Amazon or OpenAI or whatever that you can own, and so as they look to diversify, insurance has been, uh, an interesting place for a lot of people who typically wouldn’t invest in that space.

So we’ve seen a lot of new capacity come into the marketplace, uh, which I think is a little bit dangerous. I think that’s really a, it’s a red flag for all of you guys because it’s easy to get lured in by a discounted offer on your insurance renewal- … only to find out a year from now that the people that, you know, put the money up just have decided they don’t like that space and they’re leaving and you gotta go somewhere else.

So, um, you know, I, I think th- there are a lot of topics to, to touch on here. Um- But largely, I think, you know, the market is kind of finding a, sort of a new floor, a new balance in here. Um, fortunately, there haven’t been any cat losses in North America over the last 16 months or so, maybe even longer than that.

Um, so that’s gonna work in everybody’s favor as well.

[00:09:42] Brian Searl: John, any perspective from your side?

[00:09:48] John McMahon: Yeah. Um, being a newer campground, one of the issues that we faced when we were building was the, the insurance cost and how is that gonna affect our ability to be competitive and- 

[00:09:58] James Grant: Mm-hmm … 

[00:09:59] John McMahon: uh, what amenities we could offer. And one of the biggest examples is something as simple as a swimming pool. Um, what it would take just to have liability on that pool made it, uh, nonsensical.

I mean, we, we just immediately said, “No, we, we can’t do that,” because of the risk and the high cost. And for us to remain competitive, even though we are a higher end, we still have to remain competitive, and with the initial cost being so high, we really worried about what the future costs were gonna be, and so we decided that we wouldn’t touch the swimming pool side of it.

[00:10:32] James Grant: Yeah. 

[00:10:32] John McMahon: Even, even minor things. I mean, uh, we have Swedish saunas, and, uh, that’s really jacked our rates up, and it, and it’s just seems like the insurance industry is getting more sensitive, um, to these kind of amenities that, you know, have a very minor influence on people’s health and safety. 

[00:10:52] James Grant: Well, again, can I jump in here again?

Uh, y- I mean, you raise another excellent point, and, um, and it points back not to the insurance industry, but to personal injury lawyers and where these lawsuits are going. I mean, you cannot drive by a bus shelter or a billboard today without seeing an advertisement for a personal injury lawyer. You know, and basically the, what they’re telling the world is that there’s no such thing as bad luck anymore.

If you get hurt, it’s someone else’s fault, and they’re gonna pay for it. And so, you know, we’ve seen massive, massive settlements. I, I mean, I could take you through dozens that Pete and I have seen just in our portfolio of parks across Canada, um, you know, where a, a seasonal guest jumps in the pool, they land in the middle of the pool, uh, and you know, the shallow end’s marked and the deep end’s marked, but there’s no marking at the middle of the pool, and therefore it’s the park operator’s fault that this person hurt their leg when they jumped into the, you know, it was only five feet deep and it, and there wasn’t a five-foot sign there.

Whatever. Um, and so we’re seeing a massive, massive increase in those, uh, slip and fall claims, and of course, those have to be absorbed by everybody. Uh, and so there’s two ways to do it. One, you can raise rates, uh, with the anticipation that there’s a claim coming, um, or you can just exclude that activity.

And a lot of the insurers have sort of fallen on the latter side and decided, well, we don’t really understand what a steam sauna is. It sounds dangerous. It’s probably hot in there. What if there’s someone gets, a kid gets locked inside, right? What’s that gonna look like? Is that a $5 million lawsuit? Is it $10 million?

Um, and so the easiest, the path of least resistance for insurers is just to exclude the activities 

[00:12:39] John McMahon: Yeah, that’s exactly what we’ve seen 

[00:12:43] Casey Cochran: Is there, I guess my, my question I guess maybe probably to, to James in this is- 

[00:12:48] James Grant: Mm-hmm … 

[00:12:49] Casey Cochran: at scale and understanding the campground space, I mean, I, I feel like we’ve been, we’ve had a thing on the software side where there’s so many people from either storage or the hotel space kind of coming into the campground space and for good reason, and for all the right reasons, and we’ve always kind of explained some of the main differences between a campground and a hotel, and a lot of it’s just, um, you know, just industry understanding and whatnot.

Um, it seems like from an insurance side of things, understanding the industry and understanding the risk is, is, is, is the most important-

[00:13:24] James Grant: Paramount …

[00:13:25] Casey Cochran: at scale, right? And so, um, but then there’s also, is that a double-edged sword? Because the more you understand some of that risk, you might understand the, the, the industry better than anybody, but that might make your rates more because you do understand.

Or is, I mean, is there a lack of understanding that is, you know, hindering because y- does that make sense? Like, what, what- 

[00:13:46] James Grant: Yeah, it, it- 

[00:13:47] Casey Cochran: What side- 

[00:13:48] James Grant: That’s exactly what we’re going through right now in this soft market, right? There are a bunch of new entrants who are like, “How do we grow our insurance business overall?

Oh, campgrounds, those, you know, they’re growing across the country. Maybe we should start insuring them.” And of course, they’re going into them blind. They don’t really know how to rate them, and they may be taking on risk that they’re not pricing properly. And so yeah, you get a good deal on your renewal.

Um, but then when one of your guests trips playing volleyball out on a grass field and the claim comes in and the, the claim is based on the fact that there was a divot in the grass that they weren’t aware of, or that you didn’t mark off, and there’s a, you know, a $250,000 claim, that insurer is gonna walk away.

Um, we’ve seen enough of them and we work with, you know, hundreds of them across the country, and so I think we have a fairly good understanding of where the risk needs to be priced. Um, but you know, from an owner’s perspective, if a broker shows up with a quote from a new insurance company that you’ve never heard of, but it’s 15% less than you’re currently paying, you’re probably gonna take that 15% discount at least for the year and hope everything goes right.

Um, and that’s something that the industry, I mean, all industries are always sort of up against. Um, but you’re right, it’s, it’s, you wanna make sure that you’re working with a company who has experience in the space so that hopefully those kind of wild price swings can be smoothed out a little bit and you, you, you know, you see a 2 or 3% increase assuming you haven’t got, um, got any claims.

[00:15:18] Jeff Hoffman: Hmm

[00:15:20] Brian Searl: Is there 

[00:15:20] James Grant: I think the, the other part, I think, Brian, sorry to interrupt you, is, is, um-

[00:15:24] Brian Searl: No go ahead …

[00:15:25] James Grant: is the use of waivers and the risk management piece, right? At the end of the day, uh, nobody’s gonna be, um, you know, protected if they were negligent, right? If the lights are burned out by the staircase, if the railing fall, has fallen off, uh, if there isn’t a sign that there’s no lifeguard by the pool and something happens, then you’re gonna get hit with a claim, with a loss.

Um, but if you’re keeping up with all of those things in the park, and particularly there’s a, there’s a very powerful tool called a waiver, and, um, you know, I think every owner and operator should be using waivers, uh, making sure that every single person that steps on the property has signed a waiver, uh, because there are inherent risks that come along with staying at an RV park, right?

Even if it is just a friendly volleyball game out on the, on a piece of grass, uh, in between sites, um, or it’s a swimming pool, or it’s a canoe or a paddle boat or whatever, I think it’s a really important process for all of the guests to go through, to read through that waiver, to be reminded that they are taking some risks by camping in the out- outdoors.

Um, and that has, has worked to really protect a lot of owners against some of these frivolous claims

[00:16:38] Robert Preston: That’s a great point 

[00:16:39] Brian Searl: So kind of the, the acknowledgement that there’s risk in what they’re doing around the campground helps. 

[00:16:44] James Grant: That’s exactly right. And a reminder, right, that we are, I am bringing my kids out into the wild, and I do need to be extra careful, and I do need to keep my wits about me out here.

Um, and things can go wrong sometimes. And the first question, I’ll tell you, the first question that a personal injury lawyer asks anytime the phone rings, the very first question is, “Did you sign a waiver?” And if the answer is yes, they’re gonna think twice about even taking the case on because they’ve gotta be out of pocket for all the expenses until there’s a, until there’s a settlement, if there is a settlement.

Um, and so they’ll, they’ll go with someone who didn’t have a waiver versus someone who did. 

[00:17:20] Brian Searl: So the way out of this long-term- … is for like us all to have humanoid robots that stop the guests at the door. Say like, “Please confirm verbally for me on video-

[00:17:29] James Grant: Yeah …

[00:17:29] Brian Searl: you understand there could be a divot in the volleyball court before you-” 

[00:17:32] James Grant: That, I mean, that’s it.

Unfortunately, uh, we’ve gotten to that point in society now where, as I said, there is no such thing as bad luck anymore. If I fall down, someone else is gonna pay for it 

[00:17:45] Robert Preston: Yeah. But Brian, you know, in es- in essence that’s where you know this and like Casey knows this, right? You build a lot of that into the reservation itself.

You know, there’s a lot of automation that already exists that helps us preempt this by it’s in, it’s in your booking essentially. That is your waiver. 

[00:18:02] James Grant: Yeah. 

[00:18:02] Robert Preston: Um, so- 

[00:18:02] Peter Lovering: Well, we hear that, we hear that one all the time too from, from owners is that, “Oh no, my seasonals, my seasonals. We, it’s in our wa- it’s in our booking system.”

But it’s all the, it’s all the son-in-laws and daughter-in-laws and their three, and the three grandchildren that are coming on site for the visitor’s day. Those are, those are the ones you really have to worry about as well ’cause yeah, the booking, the booking person, but they bring five guests on every week for the whole summer.

Yeah. And guess what? They’ve, they’ve brought probably 30, 40 people on, on the property with no waiver whatsoever. So having something at the front desk that visitors, or at the gate that visitors can QR code scan as a waiver is a very useful tool. 

[00:18:44] James Grant: I think the other- 

[00:18:45] Brian Searl: There was something we used to use… sorry, just one second.

[00:18:48] James Grant: Yeah, yeah.

[00:18:48] Brian Searl: There’s something we used to use a long time ago we used to recommend to people. We didn’t really use it at our company, but called Smart Waiver.

[00:18:53] James Grant: Yeah.

[00:18:54] Brian Searl: It was electronic and you could, you know, sign it as the guest but then also say, “I’m adding a dependent and three people,” and enter their age and then they, the parent would sign for that. And so yeah, there’s a place for that. 

[00:19:04] James Grant: Yeah, absolutely. I think the other problem, uh, or the other challenge that a lot of owners have these days is that they feel like their regular seasonal renters are their family, right? That, that we all know each other, and Joe on site number 22, he’d never sue me. You know, he’s a little crazy, but he’d never sue me.

And unfortunately in this environment, Joe probably will, you know? And, and it’s, and it’s heartbreaking to the owner and the operator because they take it personally, as they probably should. Um, but the reality of the environment again, is that you, you gotta get a waiver signed by absolutely everybody 

[00:19:39] Brian Searl: So are there other ways that an owner can, like unorthodox ways-

[00:19:44] James Grant: Yeah

[00:19:44] Brian Searl: besides like adding the jumping pillow, right? Are there other ways that owners and operators outside of waivers can look to lower their insurance costs? Like twofold, like one, that, that question, and then two, on the back of it-

[00:19:54] James Grant: Yeah …

[00:19:55] Brian Searl: is there data that people in the industry could collect for insurance companies like you?

Yeah. Like maybe on a scale of KC with Campspot or something. I’m not saying Campspot wants to go get KC.

[00:20:05] James Grant: Yeah.

[00:20:05] Brian Searl: I’m just saying like on the level of that many parks, that would help you understand and price risk better to help lower premiums. 

[00:20:11] James Grant: Yeah. The, you know, the pro- there’s an old saying in the industry that a risk is only properly priced until there’s a loss, right?

So if I charge you five grand for the year and you don’t make a claim, then maybe I overcharged you by $4,999. Um, but if I charged you five grand for the year and someone fell down or something was stolen or something burned down, heaven forbid, and there’s a 30 or $40,000 loss, then all of a sudden I gotta adjust my rate.

And so the, you know, the number one thing of course any owner or operator can do is really be focused on that risk management piece, which includes more than just a waiver, which includes, uh, probably getting outside eyes on the park, having a health and safety specialist come through once every three or five years.

These, those are the people… You gotta be outside the box to see what’s in it, right? You, you drive into your park the same way every day. You park in the same spot. You know, your office is in the same location. You might walk around a little bit, but until you bring in an outside health and safety specialist to do a, an informal kinda audit for you, you may not realize that the fire extinguisher behind building number four has been expired for two years, you know, or that a light’s burned out on, on a pathway that you never walk down, et cetera.

So I think there are, you know, a bunch of things that you need to be vigilint- vigilant on, um, in terms of day-to-day operations. And then most importantly, it’s your track record. Um, every insurer on the planet will offer you a discount the longer you go claims free. So the longer you can protect yourself and protect everybody else, the bigger that decrease is, um, as you go through your renewals.

[00:21:47] Brian Searl: Is there a, is there a place for technology here? And here’s why I ask. I’ll give you an example, right? We’re, we’re building, like, we’re big into data research at Insider Perks, but one of the products we’re building right now is something we call, we’re gonna call Photo Intelligence, that looks at all the campground photos on their website, social media reviews, user-generated photos from guests, analyzes it, gives a ton of stuff back.

But one of the things that we noticed it was doing unprompted when we were building this is it was saying like, “Hey, there’s a picture of your pool. We notice that you don’t have, like, a life raft,” or whatever that thing is, right?

[00:22:18] James Grant: Yes.

[00:22:18] Brian Searl: Whatever you call it. 

[00:22:19] James Grant: Yeah, a life ring. That ring. Sure. 

[00:22:20] Brian Searl: Yeah. Is there a place for that to, like-

[00:22:26] James Grant: Absolutely …

[00:22:27] Brian Searl: have AI do more audits that independently verify things that would help you lower premiums? 

[00:22:28] James Grant: I, I think it, I think it works twofold, right? It works, um, in advance of your renewal as part of the submission to your insurance company to show that everything’s there, and it probably works to protect you if you’ve got that kind of video evidence, uh, in the event that something does go wrong and you can actually prove that, you know, here’s a photo with a date stamp and the time showing that there was a ring or there was a sign there, or there, you know, the light was on.

Um, it’s, it… You know, you can’t argue with video. It’s absolutely the best protection. 

[00:22:58] Brian Searl: Well, yet, you can’t. 

[00:23:00] James Grant: Yeah, true. Right, right. 

[00:23:02] Peter Lovering: It’s funny you say that, but I, I can’t tell you how many websites and social media sites I’ve been on where there’s a guy, Christmas in July-

[00:23:11] James Grant: Right …

[00:23:11] Peter Lovering: with a bottle of liquor-

[00:23:13] James Grant: Yeah

[00:23:13] Peter Lovering: driving his, uh- 

[00:23:15] James Grant: And a campfire in the- … 

[00:23:16] Peter Lovering: driving his golf cart- …

[00:23:17] James Grant: in the, in the bucket of the… …

[00:23:18] Peter Lovering: with a Santa hat on.

[00:23:20] James Grant: Yeah.

[00:23:20] Peter Lovering: And kids all sitting off the back of the, uh, of the golf cart, and, uh, it’s on their, it’s on their social media page. It, it- And guess what if, guess, guess what if there’s a claim?

[00:23:29] James Grant: Yeah.

[00:23:29] Peter Lovering: If something goes wrong, it’s like, well, look, you clearly, uh… so it, it works also in reverse, is- 

[00:23:34] James Grant: We, we had a large one. We, we had a large submission from a park in Quebec, and, uh, and on paper the application looked great. Um, they were, they had been claims free, et cetera, et cetera, and it was a very thorough application. And because of the size of it, we had to send it off to our insurance partners to get their participation and their okay.

And one of them, to our surprise, came back really quickly and said, “No way. Not going near this thing. I’m out.” And we said, “Well, what’s the problem?” And they said, “Well, these guys are offering helicopter rides.” Well, it turned out that they had one of the guys who was a seasonal renter was also a helicopter pilot, and on Canada Day brought his helicopter to the park.

I’m not sure if he gave a ride to anybody or not, but of course the park proudly posted photos of the helicopter sitting on the site. And so when the insurers were doing their, you know, their, their 30,000-foot view risk assessment based on Google searches, they just decided, um, that this park was giving helicopter rides and said no ’cause it wasn’t disclosed.

Um, so yeah, it’s, I mean, it’s a really good point that, that parks, you know, you’re constantly trying to show how much fun it is and to post photos about all the great events and all the great things that happen at the park, uh, without probably ever thinking that an insurance underwriter from downtown Toronto might start combing through your website and uncover a photo like that and decide that either they don’t wanna write it or that you need to pay a premium because of all these crazy activities.

[00:25:06] Peter Lovering: Even, even on the s- most more simple one is the big water park, you know, the water park bouncy type, uh, features that people have in their ponds and whatever. Well, the pictures on the website, nobody wears a life jacket. 

[00:25:20] James Grant: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

[00:25:21] Peter Lovering: But the, in the, in the, in the stipulation of the underwriters, they’ve said, “Oh, well, life jackets are required.”

[00:25:28] James Grant: Right. Yeah. 

[00:25:29] Peter Lovering: Are life jackets required? Yes, they’re, they’re required.

[00:25:32] James Grant: Yeah.

[00:25:32] Peter Lovering: That’s what they’ll say, but they ha- th- they c- they have that on their website with, oh, kids flying off from 15 feet, uh, in the air with no life jacket. So what you put out there is what people see.

[00:25:45] James Grant: Yeah. Exactly.

[00:25:46] Brian Searl: I wanna change subjects just for a second slightly, because we already have enough trouble, 15 years as a marketing agency, getting people to send us pictures for their website, and you’re just gonna make it even more difficult for us to do that thing.

Um, but I know, I know Casey has to go here in a few minutes. So Casey, is there anything you wanted to add, like, uh, maybe… I know, I know Campspot has a partnership with Sensible, for example, which isn’t technically insurance, but a similar product. Is there anything that… Or, or take it in any direction you want.

[00:26:12] Casey Cochran: Yeah. 

[00:26:12] Brian Searl: Just to give you the floor. 

[00:26:13] Casey Cochran: No, I, I mean, the insurance thing is such a, it’s a wild space. We, we, we did a pretty big deep dive into insurance at one point as, as, as something just to observe or to, to wonder if we wanted to, to touch on and, uh, we, we decided no, a resounding no. But, uh, no, I mean, I think the, the, the weather guarantee, the weather insurance aspect of things-

[00:26:33] James Grant: Yeah

[00:26:33] Casey Cochran: um, we’ve had really good success with it, to be honest. It’s, it’s helped cancellation rates go down, um, because people know that they have that. If it does end up raining a certain amount of time, they’ll, they’ll get the refund. The park isn’t, isn’t responsible for it. 

[00:26:46] James Grant: Yeah. 

[00:26:47] Casey Cochran: Um, but again, some people view it as, you know, tacking on an additional fee, but s- some people view it as, “Well, we’re gonna book. It might rain. If it does, we get our money back. If it doesn’t, we enjoy our, we enjoy our time.”

So I think parks are protecting themselves well, better now with better cancellation policies and better rules to, to avoid kind of the- you know, the un- unavoidable world of weather. Um, but as we know, the, the weather people get it wrong a lot, and so it’s better to just show up and see what happens.

[00:27:15] James Grant: Mm-hmm. 

[00:27:16] Casey Cochran: And if you have a, you know, a $15, $20 policy that’s gonna protect your, you know, four or five, $600 weekend or whatnot or whatever that is, um, we’ve seen good success with that, you know, kind of little weather insurance policy. And again, that’s all metrics. I think that’s, you know, a much easier, uh, game to tackle than- 

[00:27:33] James Grant: Yeah

[00:27:34] Casey Cochran: than the one where you can have, you know, multimillion dollar claims on a property where there’s, you know… Um, it’s just hard to, it’s hard to come, you know, it’s hard to come back from those, right? It’s hard to have those that ma- make any sense. It’s the same thing with here. We just had, uh, a hail damage come, came through here a couple months ago and, I mean, every single house down the, the block is just getting their roof replaced, and you’re-

and you’re going… and it’s the same roofing company saying, “Hey, I just need to see five dents. If you c- if I can find five dents on these shingles, you get a whole new roof,” and that’s their pitch. And you’re going, “Well, this is fundamentally gonna cost everybody more money.” Um, I had a, you know, an ethical dilemma with it ’cause I’m like, I, I don’t think our roof has any issues.

If there are singles, if there are shingles off of it or if it actually needs it, otherwise, I, it, it just doesn’t, doesn’t feel right to just take a, a claim on a new roof. Um, so I think we’re probably one of two houses on the whole street that didn’t get a new roof, but, um, but then you think of how much that costs, um, you know, from, from, you know, a, a storm that went through that wasn’t crazy.

I mean, it was, there was a little bit of hail but, you know, everyone’s cars are fine. No, no one’s getting hurt. There’s no broken windows. But I can’t imagine how many, you know, in the hundreds of millions of dollars of roofs that got replaced just because a claim, claim area took advantage of it. So the insurance game is, uh, it’s, it’s an interesting one.

That’s all I got s- that’s all I got to say about that. 

[00:28:56] Brian Searl: Yeah, and we’ll kinda get into the nitty-gritty behind it, and thanks, Casey. Like, I know you need to jump off in a second. Appreciate you being here for the first half. 

[00:29:02] Casey Cochran: Yeah, cheers. 

[00:29:02] Brian Searl: Um, I, I think it’s interesting, Jeff, like when you’re, when you’re working with Camp Strategy, when you’re consulting on properties either to develop or renovate or all the different things that you do, you know, what comes into your mind is the first question to you, and then, uh, but what comes into your mind as you’re consulting on them, advising on them what to do, how to do it, how to build, how to prepare, that kinda thing?

And then after you’re done, Robert, uh, when you’re going in to acquire a property or manage a property, what goes through your team’s mind and processes as you’re looking at, like, is this too much risk, too little risk? Would I adjust this when I take over? Would I not? Those kinds of things. So Jeff first.

[00:29:39] Jeff Hoffman: Okay. When we walk an existing park, we’ll go through and analyze what we think are liabilities that could be issues on, one, operations, and two, getting insurance. Um, a lot of little stupid things that you wouldn’t think

of are things that are gonna pop up if they send out an actual inspector to your property to walk around. Whether you ha- you know, you gotta make sure that your covers are on your electric boxes, you don’t have trip hazards, your lights are all working. Very simple stuff. But then when you get into the pools, you wanna make sure that everything is up to code, your numbering on depths, uh, you have all the safety equipment.

All of that is, uh, needed. Um, what we’ve actually started doing is, uh, we’re going, we’re working with a retired insurance person, and we’ll be bringing them on to audit insurance policies and risk before we ask for, send it out for policies. We kinda wanna do a deep dive to see where we had, may have some liabilities.

[00:30:58] James Grant: Mm. 

[00:30:59] Jeff Hoffman: And then when we get the policies back, we have this guy re- review to compare apples to apples so that, uh, we make sure all coverages are the same. Because if you go just by price- … you, I d- I don’t think in the 40 years I’ve been in business I’ve ever actually read an insurance policy. That’s where the trust factor comes in- 

[00:31:24] James Grant: Yeah

[00:31:24] Jeff Hoffman: on your agent. But not all agents are trustworthy There are some goofy little things in campground insurance policies, like if you don’t have your individual boxes listed and you have a lightning strike that melts the wire, that’s not covered on all the boxes unless it’s spec- specified in the policy.

There, um, fire damage, one of my friends found out, uh, through the California wildfires that a lot of the stuff in the ground, his pool, a lot of things were not covered for fire damage. 

[00:32:09] James Grant: Mm-hmm. 

[00:32:09] Jeff Hoffman: It came as a very, very big shock to him- 

[00:32:12] James Grant: Mm-hmm … 

[00:32:12] Jeff Hoffman: because he was thinking he was covered. Well, that shock was to the tune of 1.5 million that wasn’t covered.

So, you know, it, it … I’m not an expert in insurance. Never have been, never will be. I know that you have to have certain coverages, but I’m not, as I say, an expert, and I think when it comes to looking at insurance to make sure you’re covered, you’re, you should at least once in a lifetime have somebody review your policies.

As- attorneys are good, but if you go by them, you’ll never get insurance- … because they’ll look at every, every issue in that policy. 

[00:33:00] Brian Searl: Well, and at the bare, at the very bare minimum- 

[00:33:02] Jeff Hoffman: My son-in-law works for an insurance company, so I know how he thinks. 

[00:33:07] Brian Searl: And at a very bare minimum, you as a campground owner, everything’s getting more expensive, right?

But at the very least, this does not replace a lawyer, as you’re saying, right?

[00:33:15] Jeff Hoffman: Right.

[00:33:15] Brian Searl: But at the very least, just upload your insurance policy to ChatGPT and say, “How is this gonna …” me or something, right? Like I mean- … at the very least, then you have a direction to take and ask the lawyer, and that’s all kind of- 

[00:33:26] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah, and-

[00:33:27] Brian Searl: at the very minimum … 

[00:33:28] Jeff Hoffman: you have to- Also … you would have to train ChatGPT on the specifics of the campground industry or the RV industry, travel, your games, your inflatables. But- 

[00:33:40] Brian Searl: Right, which is why- … a lawyer ultimately, like a Christine Taylor, is better, but at least it gives you a starting point where ChatGPT’s like, “Hmm, maybe you wanna consider this type thing,” right?

[00:33:48] Jeff Hoffman: Right, and that’s the same thing we look at with an insurance consultant is- 

[00:33:52] James Grant: Yeah … 

[00:33:52] Jeff Hoffman: they’re gonna be doing the same thing, only we’re, our rate is a lot less than your attorney. 

[00:33:58] James Grant: That’s right. 

[00:33:59] Peter Lovering: That, that’s generally the role of your broker though, right? 

[00:34:02] Jeff Hoffman: It, it- So- I, I agree … it should be Brokers miss stuff.

Uh, I’ve, and I’ve found that over the years. Um, the first one was when my wife got pregnant, and back in the day, pregnancy coverage in an insurance policy was optional. 

[00:34:21] James Grant: Mm-hmm. 

[00:34:21] Jeff Hoffman: And we did not have it. 

[00:34:23] James Grant: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I, I think you raise a couple of great points there. One, you probably wanna find an insurance broker who has experience with other RV parks.

[00:34:33] Jeff Hoffman: Yes. 

[00:34:33] James Grant: Right? Not, not just your neighbor, not the local guy, not the guy that rents a site from you, but someone who’s actually worked with other parks before and knows what to look for. The, the policy wordings are very difficult. They’re 110 to 150 pages. Um, and typically, the first 75 pages talk about all the great things they’re gonna cover, and then the last 75 pages take out coverage for most of those things they’ve advertised in the beginning.

Um, and that, you know, that also comes with buying from a generalist. Um, you know, because if you go to an Intact in Canada or an Aviva, um, they will try and tack on, they’ll try and bolt on some extensions to a general commercial policy, uh, to make it fit, uh, uh, uh, your risk profile, and essentially they’re just smashing a square peg through a round hole.

Um, and a lot of those endorsements are, are not gonna cover things, as you mentioned, um, the hydro lines that are buried, the, all of those good things that cost real money and are gonna be expensive to repair. So I think the other lesson is that you wanna find a, a policy that’s been written from scratch specifically for your industry, because they will have addressed all of those things very clearly in writing, um, and not, you don’t, you don’t have to look for some sort of bolt-on endorsement.

[00:35:51] Jeff Hoffman: Well, uh, to that point, um, for the first time in, you know, 30, 40 years, we split our insurance coverages between different, uh, agent, not agencies, but different policies to cover specific risk instead of getting a full package-

[00:36:13] James Grant: Yeah …

[00:36:13] Jeff Hoffman: from one company. And it saved us a ton of money because some companies were willing to write insurance on a jump pad, some weren’t.

[00:36:24] James Grant: Mm-hmm. 

[00:36:24] Jeff Hoffman: Uh, we took our, you know, general liability, uh, and that to a different company. Um, and our, uh, what is it? I can’t think of the name of the insurance that’s over top of everything else. Our umbrella. 

[00:36:40] James Grant: Umbrella. Umbrella. 

[00:36:41] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah. Yeah, we farmed that out to a different company. So- 

[00:36:44] James Grant: Mm-hmm … 

[00:36:45] Jeff Hoffman: um, you know, we’re trying to mitigate the risk across companies, but also find the best insurer for each one of those specific categories.

[00:36:54] James Grant: Yeah, and that’s a s- that’s a, it’s a very s- 

[00:36:57] Jeff Hoffman: You know that. 

[00:36:58] James Grant: Sorry. It’s a, it’s a very smart approach. I mean, we, we’ve built a policy for RV parks and campgrounds, but we don’t know a lot about the marina side of operations. And so for someone who’s got a lot of boats with motors on the back, and they may have water taxis, et cetera, that’s not something that we understand properly, so we can’t quote it properly for you.

Um, and in those cases, we’ll ask the broker to go find a marine specialist, and you can pull, and then you’re, then you can be sure that you’ve properly protected both components to your park, and that’s absolutely the right way to do it. 

[00:37:32] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah. Hmm.

[00:37:34] Brian Searl: Uh, Rob- 

[00:37:37] Robert Preston: Um, yeah. So as we, as we’re looking at a new property, you know, on the due diligence side, it’s pretty simple.

You know, get the loss runs for at least the typically five years. We look at those loss runs and see what’s on there. We look at the P&L and see what their interest premiums have been. You can correlate the two there and kind of get a backstory and history of it. And then for us then, you know, there’s the, the decision tree matrix is based off those loss runs and the property and, you know, general assessment.

Do we want to add that to our master policy or do we set up a new, you know, a new policy for this property? Typically, we were kind of leaning towards a defaulting to a new policy for the first couple years to sort of protect the master policy premiums and stuff that’s in place. Um, you know, our agencies and brokers, they, you know, as you guys mentioned, they provide those services, so they’ll come out, do a walkthrough, give us suggestions.

You know, some things are not suggestions to fix and work through that. And then, um, almost all the providers now have some type of online training portal too that has, you know, training for your team and staff. I think that’s an important part of this too, is like training and teaching the onsite staff of things to look for and/or just general, you know, don’t stand on top of ladders, right?

So there’s the insurance side of it that, that comes in from the workman’s comp and the actual team member getting hurt as well, where that’s, that’s probably more of the larger amount of the risk in, in there ’cause they’re there all the time and they’re doing stuff and they wanna, you know, make the pro-proper there.

So, so we’ve started to really put an emphasis on at least getting the training available and saying, “Hey, here’s, here’s how you, you know, here’s how you trim the bushes,” type of stuff. So inevitably someone unfortunately gets hurt, but at least going back to being kind of like the, the waiver, at least you’ve got something to point back to and say, “No, we did, we did have training.

We do have a policy for that.” You know, accidents do actually happen despite what attorneys think. And so there’s, there’s at least a, a case there. Um, I think I rambled a little bit on how we look at it, but, but initially, basically we’re seeing, you know, what claims have happened at this property, obviously assessing the property itself, which risks might be there, and then we gotta decide whether we wanna sort of, uh, quarantine this property for the first couple years to see how it goes before we roll it into the larger risk of the portfolio

[00:40:17] Brian Searl: Is there ever a situation where you would look at a property and say, “This is too risky or too much has to change here and I want to walk away?” 

[00:40:26] Robert Preston: Oh, for sure. Yeah, so I’ll try not to give too much information because it’s not hard to figure out this property. Sure. There’s a property in the, in the southeast, um, uh, that has a private well system, and unfortunately in the past, you know, five years, they’ve had some serious major claims with I think it’s E.

coli or something, right? Um, I don’t think there’s a death. There may have been a death, but something significant. Um, you know, their premiums are running like $600,000 $700,000 for, for one property for the premium, you know, because of the, of the loss run there, which is significant, and the severity of, of the, the risk that’s possible and the frequency.

There was two, you know, two outbreaks of this over a period of three or four years, and the probability that it will happen again. Okay. And so, uh, from an investment perspective, they were effectively given the property away, but there still is no… It’s either no insurance or it just was not feasible from an investment perspective.

[00:41:36] James Grant: Nothing scares an insurance company more than frequency, right? Yeah. L- losses happen and, and that’s a f- that’s a part of life for sure. But when the same thing happens again and again, everybody runs for the hills. 

[00:41:50] Robert Preston: Yeah. And, and from, from my perspective as an owner, right, people, it’s always com- one of the major risks is the utilities, the water and the, and the sewage, and typically the risk on the sewage side is more of a maintenance, upkeep costs, you know.

That’s a CapEx thing. 

[00:42:06] Casey Cochran: Mm-hmm. 

[00:42:07] Robert Preston: Um, but the water coming in is something that almost, uh, probably very few owners think about from a risk mitigation if it’s not on city water. Because that’s something 100% of your guests and staff will use every day, all day. 

[00:42:22] James Grant: Mm-hmm. 

[00:42:22] Robert Preston: And so if something were to happen there, then you’re also affecting not only frequency, but you’re affecting, you know- 

[00:42:28] James Grant: Mm

[00:42:29] Robert Preston: what’s the word? Scale, scope, right? Sure. You’re affecting a lot of people. And so that’s, that’s one of the things that from an ownership perspective that we are very cautious about, anything that’s not on city water. 

[00:42:45] Brian Searl: John, does building a new resort or, or, you know, even Jeff considering renovating it, how do you, how do you…

Like, are there things that you wanna do that you can’t do because of insurance, I guess, is the question I wanna ask. 

[00:42:58] John McMahon: Yeah. Um, just like I mentioned before, um, we had planned on a pool. Uh, we had planned on renting, um, kayaks and, and, uh, SUPs. And the SUPs and the kayaks would have to be taken off property to be used, and so we don’t have any control over, um, the usage, whether they put on their life vest or they’ve done something without, uh, one of our guides around them.

And it just, it just eliminated the opportunity for us to offer those offerings, uh, because the risk that was involved. And, and to me, um, those are basics. Those are basic offerings. Yeah. Those aren’t high-end offerings. They’re kind of low-end offerings, yet the cost benefits just, they just aren’t there because of the liability.

[00:43:50] Brian Searl: Is, to the insurance guys, is this the way it has to work? Like, w- we’ve seen how this has changed societally, right? I’m not saying it’s an insurance company fault. Uh, as we’ve talked about on this show, we, we, you know, we, how claims have increased and how everything is people’s faults and how society goes, and if you trip and you jump in the middle of the pool, and- 

all the stuff that probably didn’t exist, I don’t know for sure, but didn’t exist 20, 40 years ago. Feels like it’s stacking on top of owners as we keep moving forward for various reasons. So is this the only thing that we have to look forward to? Is there another model that works better or differently, or is insurance just gonna keep going up every single year and there’s nothing we can do about it because that’s the way society is gonna allow people to make frivolous claims and all that stuff? Is there hope?

[00:44:43] James Grant: I sure hope so. I, I sure hope so, but I, it doesn’t seem like it these days. Um-

[00:44:53] Robert Preston: Brian, sorry to jump in there. I mean, there is some hope, right? So it, it’s legislative at some point, so the state of Florida has put some great legislation in over the last couple years to, in general, cut back on the frivolous lawsuit side of it. But also, you know, there’s initiatives in place where, like, an equestrian center in Florida, by default, is essentially, outside of, you know, absolute negligence, unsuable.

Like, that’s part of the Florida component of an equestrian center. Now, it has to be marked, and it has to be an equestrian center, but the nature of riding horses is inherently dangerous, and so the state of Florida says, “Sorry, you don’t get to use that excuse anymore.” Yeah. And so there is, you know, there’s some efforts and, and we’re making some progress, I think, at the, some of the state level to say, “Well, camping and RVing is, is a recreation activity,” and so that is hopeful and, and probably one of the better solutions that I’ve seen out there to help, help get us to where we need to be.

[00:45:51] James Grant: But I, I think you’re right, though- 

[00:45:53] Brian Searl: But in, but in the meantime, you can just have guests, like, you can escort guests to their site on a horse, and that solves the problem. 

[00:46:00] Robert Preston: Now you’re getting creative. I like it. 

[00:46:02] James Grant: But, but you’re right, Robert. Unfortunately, we’re, we’re now at the point where the government has to step in and has to put some sort of guardrails around these personal injury lawyers that the, you know, the, if we just, to take a step back, the personal injury law piece, um, was developed to protect workers during the Industrial Revolution, and the, the thinking at the time was that, you know, these, these industrial tycoons were taking advantage of people and making them work for, you know, pennies an hour and exposing them to horrible fumes and chemicals and all of these things, and these poor people- 

[00:46:39] Brian Searl: Which, to be fair, to be fair, they were probably doing.

[00:46:41] James Grant: But thank you. Uh, 1,000%. I, I, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely, 1,000%. And so, and so they, they carved out this kinda little niche in the law where if it’s a, if you’re l- seeking representation because you’re, you’ve been taken advantage of, you don’t have to pay a retainer It’s the only segment of the law where it looks like that.

Um, you know, if you, unfortunately, if you, you go to get divorced or you wanna sue your neighbor, the first thing your lawyer’s gonna ask for is a retainer, and you gotta write them a big check for 10,000 bucks, and then you get going, and everybody makes statements, and you gotta show up in court. Well, for, on the personal injury side, you don’t have to do that, which is why all of those advertisements say, “You don’t pay if we don’t win.”

Um, and so I think, you know, if you had to, if an accident did happen while you were at an RV park and you did have to pay a retainer first, you might think twice before you actually went ahead with it. Um, and they’ve found that, you know, the lawyers have found this loophole, and they know… I mean, the, the reality for us is that it costs us between 80 and $100,000 to defend a slip and fall claim if we decide we wanna challenge it.

The alternative, of course, is from the lawyer, the lawyers always offer, “Well, for 40 or $50,000, we can make this go away.” And so the insurers have always been inclined, the thinking is, “Well, if I’d rather pay the 40 grand now, see if we can get them down to 38, and be done with it.” And then the law firm keeps half of it, and 15,000 goes to the claimant, and away everybody goes.

And so the question now is how many of those $40,000 checks do you wanna write? Um, because we’ve really just trained, the industry has trained the personal injury lawyers that it’s a free lunch. Um, and so, but without some sort of change or legislation, it’s gonna continue like this forever. I mean, you know, these guys are onto a gravy train here, uh, and we need someone to protect, um- Well-

the small business owners who are truly are the victims ’cause at the, you know, the thinking always was, well, it’s a victimless crime. The, the big insurance company who has billions of dollars in the bank, they’re the ones writing the check. It’s no big deal. No harm, no foul. But the reality is that those, those settlements get reflected in the insurance premiums, and they keep, rates keep going up, which is why we’re having this conversation today.

So I think, you know, without being able to lobby the government and get them to put some sort of guardrails in there, um, it’s just gonna continue the way it is. 

[00:49:05] Robert Preston: Yeah, James, you’re right. And then, you know, the, the, the first couple steps that happen before that cycle, which is now a negative cycle that’s never going to stop is, is then on the debt side You know, if you want to borrow money, then you have…

The bank requires you to carry insurance. Of course. So therefore you have to have insurance, so therefore most, if not almost all places have insurance. So if I’m an attorney, I know that they’re going to settle whether I’m right or wrong, so there’s zero risk of filing a claim. So it’s a perpetual- 

[00:49:37] James Grant: Yep

[00:49:37] Robert Preston: opponent. And then of course, lenders get, um, more stringent in the coverage they would like to- us to carry because they want to feel more protected, which then of course increases the payout possible.

[00:49:50] James Grant: Yep.

[00:49:50] Robert Preston: Or the… So it’s this, it’s this ridiculous cycle. I, I know, you know, I know certain wealthy individuals who their insurance policy is to have no insurance, and they’re almost guaranteed to never get a lawsuit unless there’s-

[00:50:02] James Grant: Right

[00:50:02] Robert Preston: something catastrophic. But if you don’t have insurance, you won’t get sued for the most part. 

[00:50:09] Brian Searl: All right, so two things I wanted to wrap up the kind of show. We’ve got about 10 minutes left. One is we, we started the conversation backstage before we came on here about other reasons that insurance might go up in the future.

So can you guys- … just touch briefly on that for the owners and operators? Because it feels like everything is going up for reasons-

[00:50:26] James Grant: Yeah …

[00:50:26] Brian Searl: that we could probably speculate on, but might be political, so we’ll stay away from those. Um, but, you know, so like e- everything in the grocery store is going up.

Everything from nails to roof repair to paint to… A- and so at what point, you know, we already covered personal injury, but at what point does that impact the cost of your insurance? 

[00:50:45] James Grant: Now. Right now. I mean, that’s a, it’s a great point, Brian, and, and, uh, and again, post-COVID, inflation has been rising at almost double-digit rates annually.

And so what that means is if you have a claim, if a building gets blown over, uh, and it was worth $20,000 on your, on your property schedule, on your insurance policy because you… It was always valued at $20,000. That’s just like what it costs, and every year I just keep the same numbers. The reality is now that your…

the cost of the materials to rebuild that structure and the labor costs have all gone up by 2

or 300%. So that $20,000 claim now is probably 50, um, to replace that building. And so, you know, owners and operators need to be doing fresh evaluations every year, um, on the limits of all of their buildings to make sure that they do have proper coverage

[00:51:40] Brian Searl: So can they, can, can we as an industry expect insurance rates generally to go up in 2027? And, and is the, is the inflationary pressures a reason why, or we don’t know yet, or? 

[00:51:53] James Grant: Well, I, I mean, look, the, the reality is that everything’s more expensive, as you said. So when something goes wrong or burns down or blows over, it costs everybody a lot more money to replace it, and so that’s gonna get worked into the calculation at renewal.

Um, the important thing from the owner or the operator perspective is to make sure they’ve got the right limits on all of their buildings and all of their equipment. Um, I think, you know- 

[00:52:16] Brian Searl: I mean, the reason, the reason I ask, just for clarity, is like because we- Yeah … we talked about, like Robert talked about how insurance went down for a couple years.

[00:52:23] James Grant: Yeah.

[00:52:23] Brian Searl: But that was also after they printed all the money in 2021 and we had all the inflation that was crazy skyrocketing.

[00:52:28] James Grant: Yeah.

[00:52:28] Brian Searl: And so, like, it… That’s why I’m asking. Like, is it always a con- consequence of cause and effect, or can it be other? 

[00:52:33] James Grant: Well, it’s- It, it, yeah, I was gonna s- I mean, insurers tend to be very myopic, right?

If there was a, there was a hailstorm in Ontario two weeks ago, and so that will be top of mind for everybody as they’re quoting new risk and, and, and renewing new policies, right? They’re gonna think. “Oh no, there’s another hailstorm coming.” Um, and when we go through a long period where there haven’t been big weather events, then everybody thinks, “Oh, well, I don’t have to worry about weather again.”

Earthquake is probably the best example of that. Um, you know, there hasn’t been a meaningful tremor anywhere in North America for a very long time, and as a result, earthquake rates have trended down to where they’re almost negligible. You get full earthquake coverage for nothing these days. Um, I can tell you, as soon as there’s a big earthquake, all of those numbers are gonna go through the roof again and they’re gonna restart.

Um, so you know, unfortunately, there, there are those kinds of ebbs and flows that are a reality of, of the market environment that we live in. The, the best thing, again, um, that any owner or operator can do to try and keep a handle on it is just to be super focused on risk management, to use waivers, to use outside consultants, to make sure they’re doing everything in their power to avoid something happening before it does.

[00:53:46] Brian Searl: So if you have a, if you have a property and let’s say, let’s say you’re just, pretend you’re Robert and you’ve acquired a new property, right? Or anybody, right, who bought a new property or you’ve just been, you’re paying high insurance rates for a while. We talked about waivers. 

[00:53:59] James Grant: Yeah. 

[00:53:59] Brian Searl: Uh, if you, if you deploy waivers and the best practices that we’ve talked about on this show today, what could you reasonably expect a percentage-wise decrease in your previous year insurance if you, if you d- went from doing nothing to doing-

[00:54:12] James Grant: Yeah

[00:54:12] Brian Searl: all the things that we’ve talked about? 

[00:54:14] James Grant: I, I think probably the best thing you could hope for is that your insurance rates remain stable. I think that’s the best win you could hope for.

[00:54:21] Brian Searl: Okay.

[00:54:22] James Grant: Um, because, because the flip side is that you didn’t have a waiver, someone did trip playing volleyball, and they do sue you for a million bucks and it is settled, uh, beyond your control and then that will, that loss, as Robert mentioned earlier, hangs on to your profile for at least the next five to seven years and it’s factored into all of your insurance renewals going forward. So, um, you know, it really- 

[00:54:46] Brian Searl: Is it just you though? Because if we look at, like, we talked about how the-

[00:54:49] James Grant: Yeah …

[00:54:49] Brian Searl: the number of companies that are willing to insure campgrounds-

[00:54:52] James Grant: Yeah …

[00:54:52] Brian Searl: is going down. So if the campground next, in the state over or the next street down isn’t doing what you’re doing, doesn’t that also impact your rate?

[00:55:01] James Grant: I, I think, yeah. I think the other, the other lesson in there, and good for you for pushing it, um, is that the, the campground owner and operator, they have a, their broker at least is incumbent to go out to market and what that means is that every couple of years they canvas the marketplace. Are there any new providers?

Are there any new programs out there? Uh, and you know, they submit your details around to three or four different insurance companies to make sure that you are paying a super competitive rate at the time. Um, so many people kind of get trapped in this thinking that once they’ve got insurance, if they haven’t made a claim they better not get a quote from somebody else ’cause their rates might go up and that’s the wrong way to think about it, ’cause the landscape is always changing.

So I think that’s one more thing that they probably should add to the list, that they are out kind of canvassing the market. Not every year, um, but every couple for sure. 

[00:55:55] Brian Searl: All right. Let’s spend the last few minutes, uh, asking questions of each other. Robert, do you have any questions for anybody?

[00:56:03] Robert Preston: Mm. Yeah. Wow. Maybe. Uh, I’m sure I do. I always get stumped on this. Um The insurance industry is heavily influenced by investments, therefore they are supply and demand, you know, capitalists. So I guess for the insurance guys’ questions, you know, we see– we, we saw it come down for the last couple years, which is because of the massive rates that we were paying and obviously it, it would seem to me that then…

I guess the question is, is that, that when we– those premiums doubled, then providers said, “Hey, here’s an opportunity. Let’s cut in there,” and that’s why our competition is driving us down. To some extent, competition is driving us back down, right?

I guess that’s the question. So d- how much does competition play this? 

[00:56:59] Peter Lovering: Well, I, I 

spend, I spend most of my day talking to owners and operators and, and literally, I, I, I can’t tell them what they should insure or how much they can insure just by certain laws ’cause we’re not the broker. But we talk to them all the time about having options.

And so to your point about, yeah, the prices came down, but you know, other people come in with other options that… And then guess what happens when you’ve had a broker for 40 years who, who’s, who’s been writing the same policy for 40 years and rolling it over? Well, he sits up straight and starts, uh, sharpening his pencil a little more, and it gets- uh, it gets your- 

[00:57:36] Robert Preston: Mm-hmm … 

[00:57:36] Peter Lovering: gets your… Getting everybody competing is, uh, is healthy, I do think. It doesn’t mean less coverage 

[00:57:45] Brian Searl: Jeff, any questions? 

[00:57:47] Jeff Hoffman: Um, I guess, and it’s hard for them to, uh, predict the future as far as where rates are going. But I, I would guess that if nothing else, they’re gonna start following inflation.

We’ve, we’ve kind of knocked out what happened with COVID, all of that, so now it’s just basically you’re gonna have to look at building in the expense models for replacement cost if you have events, and somewhat what’s going on with financial markets, um, to, to bring that revenue either up or down. ‘Cause, you know, if markets bank, insurance is gonna go up, I think 

[00:58:34] James Grant: It won’t help, that’s for sure.

[00:58:35] Jeff Hoffman: Yeah.

[00:58:39] John McMahon: I’ve got a question. 

Um, what is, what, what do you look at as a healthy percentage of revenue or expenses should go to insurance in the overall budget?

[00:58:52] Peter Lovering: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:52] John McMahon: So that you can determine if you’re in line or out of line or, you know, it’s just, it’s a decision. It’s a, it’s a point you have to have to make decisions

[00:59:05] James Grant: That’s a tough one, um, you know, because the risk profile is so varied. Um, some parks refill propane tanks and rent fishing boats, and others have bouncy castles and playgrounds and other, and swim- you know. So it’s a re- it’s a tough one. I think, I think the most important thing is that you’re, you’re making sure that you’re keeping everybody honest by, again, going to market, getting quotes from two or three different providers or programs every couple of years.

Um, and then, you know, sort of keeping track in where those, those prices tend to be trending

[00:59:43] Brian Searl: All right, uh, to the insurance guys. Do you guys have any questions for Jeff or John before we wrap up the show? 

[00:59:49] James Grant: I wanna know where you are, Brian. 

[00:59:51] Brian Searl: Uh, right now, or- 

[00:59:52] James Grant: Yeah. 

[00:59:54] Brian Searl: I’m in, I’m in British Columbia on Lake Shuswap. 

[00:59:56] James Grant: It looks beautiful. 

[00:59:58] Brian Searl: It is. I’m definitely spoiled. 

[01:00:00] Peter Lovering: No fires? 

[01:00:02] Brian Searl: No. Nah, not, not- 

[01:00:03] Peter Lovering: Oh, good. 

[01:00:04] Brian Searl: There have been, like quite a bit across the town-

[01:00:06] Peter Lovering: I know. We know. 

Yeah. Oh, we know. Uh, no, I, I think, I think, uh, I think it’s been great, so thank you very much and it was nice to meet everybody. Sorry I didn’t get to say… I’ll send a note to everybody separately, but, uh, but I think it was We’re happy to come back any time if you wanna keep, uh, keep us on the roster.

[01:00:28] Brian Searl: All right, and where can they learn more about your insurance offerings for tho- those who are in Canada? 

[01:00:33] Peter Lovering: It would be at, uh, signaturerisk.com. 

[01:00:37] Brian Searl: And is there somebody that you partner with in the United States that you’d recommend? 

[01:00:41] James Grant: S- signaturespecialty.com. Sigspecialty.com. 

[01:00:46] Peter Lovering: Okay. 

[01:00:48] Brian Searl: Jeff, any final thoughts? Or, sorry, I guess I didn’t ask the insurance k- k- both of you.

Is there any final thoughts you guys have, and then we’ll go to Jeff. 

[01:00:55] James Grant: Uh, I mean, from, from my perspective, we always welcome participating in these kinds of events, ’cause it’s great to be able to speak with the actual insureds and understand, you know, what your frustrations are, uh, and what your challenges are.

And, and I think also to be able to explain more about the mechanics of how the industry works and, you know, how the underwriting process works and all of that good stuff. So I think it’s all very, very positive. Um, so thank you for the opportunity. 

[01:01:23] Brian Searl: Peter, anything to add? 

[01:01:24] Peter Lovering: No, I’ve, I’ve, uh, I’ve been a long-time, uh, viewer, first-time, uh, attendee, but, uh- Caller.

so, uh, so I’ve, I’ve enjoyed being part of the, uh, celebrity, being a celebrity guest, so it’s, uh, a treat for me. So, thank you. 

[01:01:39] Brian Searl: Thanks for being here, sir. Jeff, final thoughts, and where can they learn more about Camp Strategy? 

[01:01:43] Jeff Hoffman: Uh, you can go to Ca- uh, campstrategy.com. We’ve updated our, uh, website, and, uh, we’d like you to take a look at us and give us comments as to how it looks.

[01:01:55] Brian Searl: Any final thoughts on the insurance discussion here? 

[01:01:58] Jeff Hoffman: I’m glad you, uh, invited the two guys t- today, Peter and, uh, James. I think it was a very interesting discussion, and one that, uh, may, we may wanna carry on every once in a while.

[01:02:10] Brian Searl: Mm-hmm. 

[01:02:10] Peter Lovering: Well, it is, it, thank you, and it is one of the biggest, most influential long-term decisions you’ll make at a park.

We spend a lot of time talking about marketing. We spend a lot of time talking about dog parks and- … you know, uh, EV hookups and things like that. But insurance, uh, lasts a lifetime, so that’s, uh, so I, uh, we’d be happy to join any other, uh, any other time. 

[01:02:36] Brian Searl: Okay. Last but not least, John, any final thoughts? And where can they learn more about what you got, uh, for your- 

[01:02:42] John McMahon: Yeah. Well, uh, camp-door.com is our website. Um, but I really appreciate having, uh, this as a topic, because it’s really, um, top of mind for us right now as we grow and, and look at the other amenities that we’re considering adding. And, uh, it’s, this has just been really helpful to have that insight. 

[01:03:01] Brian Searl: Awesome. Well, thank you guys for being here for another episode of MC Fireside Chats.

If you’re not sick and tired of hearing from me, I will be with the esteemed Scott Bahr in about an hour. We’ll be doing another episode of Outwired. Otherwise, we will see you next week for another episode of MC Fireside Chats. Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.

[01:03:16] Jeff Hoffman: Thank you, Brian.

[01:03:16] James Grant: Thank you, guys. Thank you.

[01:03:17] Peter Lovering: Thanks.

[01:03:17] James Grant: Thanks, Brian.

[01:03:18] John McMahon: All right, bye.