Leading Transformation Through Systems, Strategy, and People

the Insure Tech Geek podcast. We explore leadership, transformation, and the involving role of workers. with Holly Odell, president and CEO of Montana. Your Tech Geek Podcast is all about technology. Transforming The insurance world. We'll be interviewing guests and doing deep dives into specific tech. We see changes. We're taking you on a journey through insurance technology. So enjoy the ride. This week's episode sponsor is revolutionizing the world of workers competition.

Tara's cutting edge platform empowers insurers with comprehensive benchmark Yeah. ancillary services marketplace. how Terra is WorkersComp at Terra.insure. And we are back with another great episode. I am your host, the Insure Tech Geek, James Benham. With me, my illustrious co host. The most interesting man in insurance, Rob Galbraith. Rob, how's it going? It's going, James. Uh we've uh survived the winter weather and I know everyone's had some winter weather down here.

Uh, in the States. So ours is not. I'm not comparing it, but uh we did get a little ice, a little sleet. So but we're back into the normal Sixties and seventies, so uh all the bread is still gone from the grocery stores, all the water's been bought out. Uh as yeah, yeah temp temperatures drop below thirty two for two days in a row and uh We're having a nice freak out. That's right. We ha we do have a guest with us that's uh in

uh Montana. So I don't think she's gonna have any sympathy at all. Uh with us today is our illustrious guest, the president and CEO of Montana State Fund, Holly Odell. Holly, how are you? Well it's so great to be with you too. You know, I was in San Antonio last week on Thursday and um It's something's wrong when the Montanans are uh fleeing Texas for snow, right? Like that's not the way the world usually spins. Yeah it's

It's not like a fun cold down here because we don't have snow, like real snow. So you can't like cross country ski or downhill ski or like we don't have outdoor ice skating. We don't have all the fun stuff. You can't snowmobile. Uh all the roads shut down. We don't have s ice equipment. We don't have de ice. We don't have snow equipment.

So everything shuts down. Yeah, you can't go out to eat. You can't find anything at the grocery store'cause everybody freaks out and buys all the food out. So yeah, it's uh It's a little bit of a problem, Texan, to we're a little gun shy from twenty twenty one. We had that Grace Ice pocalypse and those of us who lived through that five years ago did not forget. So

It's a little challenging. So sorry sorry you had to witness our crazy. Right, just a bit. It's always good to see you down there. Yeah, exactly. I mean San Antonio is fun though. Rob lives in a super fun town. And usually and I think too in San Antonio the riverwalk has been drained right now and it's undergoing a whole bunch of rework. So it's it's not even a good time to go to San Antonio'cause there's no river walk and it's shut down and you need to come back.

Couple months, everything will be back to normal. We'll have a great time. Excellent. Sounds good. How how is it? Is it uh super cold and uh windy and uh w wintry warm winter. Uh but when it snows it's gorgeous. You know, they open the golf courses for cross country skiing. And people take their kiddos on a trailer and it looks like Santa is skiing outside your front door and there's deer that fit right in with it. I mean, it's gorgeous and it's dry and fluffy, so come on up.

Wow. Wow. Amazing. I really enjoy Montana. Um gr I have a a soft spot in my heart for Great Falls, uh, because that was one of my early, early, early clients was the Great Falls Ad Club or Ad Federation of Great Falls. They They do this annual C M. Russell art auction up there in Great Falls and uh Western art. It just it was amazing, you know. Uh I got to got to go prairie dog hunting when I was there. That was that was cool.

They pipe in Christmas music in the winter downtown and it's snowing and like it's totally romantic. Yeah. It's amazing. It's a really nice place. And that was you know, even without the You know, Yellowstone Factor. Still really cool. Still really cool. We were the OG cool Yeah. Super super O super OG cool.

So uh thank you for joining us today. We're gonna talk about insurance because it is an insurance technology and insurance show. And Rob and I are both kind of insurance slash tech people, so Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna talk about that, but first we're gonna talk about you um and your your background. Um you uh went to Wharton for your MBA. Uh, Lewis and Clark for your J D. So you you got a law degree, got an MBA, went to Oregon, uh, for a nursing degree.

And and which w which is really amazing. I I th I thought that was like a a fantastic resume for being in workers' compensation to have a nursing degree, a law degree, and an MBA. Like, I'm not sure I've seen a more complete educational resume for someone for an executive and workers' compensation.

But why don't you tell me like where'd you where were you born and raised? Like where'd you grow up? Was it out in Oregon or where where was it? And let's just stick to your childhood. Wh where where were you born and raised and what'd you dream of being when you when you were a kid? Awesome. Uh born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and I went to the

Health Occupations Magnet School and uh an hour on the public bus each way. And I dreamed of being a doctor, right? So something to do with medical initially and uh Got to be a CPR instructor in high school and a dental assistant, uh, and you know, design teeth. Nice. I went to the engineering professions magnet school when I was a kid, middle like high school really. And so I it was like a bunch of nerds. It was like uh

It was like fame. You know you remember'cause you're you're about my age, so you gra we graduated college about the almost the exact same time. Rem remember the remember fame, right? Absolutely. You're gonna live forever. Okay. So my high school was fame for nerds. We didn't sing in the hallways. We just compared Pocket protectors and calculators and it was super nerdy. We all did computer science. I mean, it was really nerdy.

Being a nerd is cool. We have fake plastic babies that we did C PR on and we diapered them for fun at break time. Exactly. Exactly. Super nerdy. So then you You know, y you actually got a degree in nursing. Did you did you actually go uh practice nursing before you went to law school? Was that the two years between nursing school and law school? Yeah, I worked in public health and uh

No doctors on site and so I had all kinds of protocols that we could order meds and measure babies. I w w women's health specifically. So prenatal and family planning and um people m came to me until the day they were ready to deliver and it was mostly in Spanish and uh I liked the education bit, right? So like partnering with somebody about what's going on with their

body and what they are up to. Um, and I think that led into the law a little maybe like just being curious about what's around us and what we can know about it. Yeah, it's great. I mean absolutely. That's really cool. Was that was that an an organ where you were nursing? Yeah, yeah. That was in Salem and um Great Public Health is a fun field. So what led you to go into the law? A as a hobby. So I wasn't gonna go into the law. I was gonna go to law school at night.

just for kicks to learn more. And uh you know, at the time it was ACA and there's rumors like, well, Obamacare's illegal. what even makes the law illegal? And I don't think I read the constitution and it's like, yeah, let's find out what these things are so I can participate in these discussions a little bit more fully and

And then once I went, I'm like, Yeah, we could try this out and uh hence insurance. It's a really cool cross of medical and law, I think, and many other aspects as you both know. It yeah, like it's like it's got it's like uh you know, my my youngest daughter's in the Dungeons and Dragons and It's like her twenty sided dice, you know? Like that's what I feel like insurance is. It's like, are you gonna be a lawyer today, a technologist? Are you gonna be a risk manager? Are you gonna be

a nurse, you know, what do you what are you dealing with today?'Cause it's uh you you have to deal with everything, right? Yeah. And you can make a huge difference. Like uh all of those fields are people who wanna contribute. and make change in their community. And insurance, you just have this huge influence to make change in your community. I mean, these businesses that we're partnering with They want to be reassured and confident that their risks are handled and

Um, and their employees wanna be assured that they're going home safely and healthy at the end of the day. And like you need all twenty uh careers on that dice to take care of those folks and what I like is that we don't have to put people in a box based on that career. They can try on all c all all pieces of insurance'cause they did something cool and they're ready to contribute. So let's talk about Safe Corporation S A I F. What what what did you do there? Yeah, lots of roles. So um

Started as a legal intern, go interns and then uh trial attorney, appellate attorney, led the appellate attorneys, uh led the legal team. I think it's one of the biggest law firms in Oregon. Um in house law for workers com. uh did um strategy and Bizdev started the first strategy team there, led government relations. So It's kinda all that back end stuff that is really important and doesn't always get to be totally customer facing.

Um, and I think that's fun of of connecting the dots and I mean, people who are lawyers or nurses can contribute to projects or new functions or things we've never thought of doing. Nice. Well I mean after seventeen years at Safe Corp, um what led you to move to Helena, Montana and take over as presidency of Montana State? Yeah, I got a call and um you know the recruiter called my boss, uh uh immediate prior boss and

And he called me, he's like, Well, you know, I recommended them to you, but you'd have to wear a really big belt buckle. I was like, Bring it on. Um, because you know, it's um you pick up all these uh tools in your toolkit, uh I'm I'm a Gen X and we pick up tools. So if you uh can do different things and contribute, let's go. Um Montana is an amazing place full of incredible people and uh passionate about doing things well. Yeah, has it been a a transition for you to to get used to the

I mean, Montana's a very different place than Oregon. I mean it's it's beautiful, amazing, great people, but it is very, you know, different geographically, culturally, temperature, climate. Has that been a has that been an adjustment in addition to having to just being being the chief at uh the Montana State Fund? It's so different. Um

Culturally weather. I Googled so many times, you know, how to figure out the snow and I bought a I bought a castle built in eighteen seventy, sight unseen. It has turrets. Uh and it came with geese living inside and chickens in the yard. So um it's really, really different. And you know, my family, half of my family is from the the side of Oregon that would like to be absorbed by Idaho. So I feel like I can straddle cultures and that was really helpful and um

People everywhere are passionate about making their communities' lives better. But Montanans, like, Montana special people dedicate their time, their energy. I think it's the most generous group of humans that I've ever met. Um, most engaged with like everything in our community and um And when you do stuff like home school your kids or whatever, it's it's to a very specific end of making the world better. And so I think it's starting with that shared sense and then we

Then we do. We do things differently out here and it's it's great. Yeah. Well you're edging up on four years in the job. Tell us about Montana State Fund, what it does, how it's different than other other insurance organizations and uh Uh just tell us about it. You've been you've been there uh l long enough to definitely have your hands around it. Yeah, so we um we offer work comp uh coverage to employers in Montana and and beyond.

uh when they're Montana centered and um and we ensure the majority of the market. There's about twenty six thousand employers who choose us as their carrier of choice in a really competitive environment. And uh we think we have the most amazing claims experience. Uh we are the only folks who have on the ground safety services all across Montana.

um that cover the whole state that come in person and it's a big state. Sometimes I have to drive twelve hours for my job, you know, one way to get somewhere. Uh which is beautiful. Um, and um, you know, we do it in a special way. We're mission driven and we are not for profit. So when we do well, which we do, uh, we drive down rates to their lowest levels ever right now. Um Put dividends back in the pockets of our customers so that Montana can prosper.

And we're really proud of being Montanan's favors. So if you call us, you're gonna get a real Montanan um right here on the ground to partner. And that's still important in Montana is um having that like direct connection and things are going amazing. Yeah, you've you have over sixty percent of your state's work comp market. You know, so that's a really really good market share. I mean you obviously can be self insured in Montana, you can have private insurance.

But the state funds a guaranteed market, right? So you you uh you have to write the business. Uh you're you yeah. We do, we cover everybody and um and we're excited to be competitive with uh those who have a choice. There's more than two hundred carriers filed for selling insurance in Montana. And we're out there to compete with the best of'em on price and on experience and on like this special model of being part of the Montana solutions. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's really great. Rob?

So Holly, I think for our audience, you know, the that combination that James talked about, the in the insurance and technology piece. when they think about a state fund and they think about the nonprofit aspect and and, you know, doing your best to drive rates down. uh, you know, provide dividends, et cetera. They may question like, well, what does the innovation side look like? What does the investment in technology look like? So

From your perspective, like where was it when you first came to the job? And then from the last four years, where would you say some of those um biggest investments have been made? Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I would say that insurance carriers are like often uh legacy focused or um maybe focused on delivering in a traditional way. And I personally am not into norming. I'm into storming. And so I hope that I hit organizations at the life cycle where what we want to do is change it up a little bit.

And I think what we had established well here is uh delivering consistently with integrity, with our values in a way that is very transparent and um aligns financially with where we're headed and in a way that's sustainable. And I think the piece that I intend and inserted is uh doing that with a real um you know not nonprofit is not a business model, right? Um

a nonprofit is a a glorious way of uh delivering uh results that you've done with a private industry mindset. And I think the key piece to do that To drive innovation in technology is actually around risk. Um, it's bringing an understanding and a comfort with risk. Um risk is an opportunity, right? For gain or for a loss. And that's what I think is beautiful about insurance. Our and our our customers have risk and they do a risk transfer over to us.

Um and now we're in the business of risk mitigation and we've gotta be amazing at this and effective in how we manage our risk. It can be about pricing, it can be about claims and um And what we're doing is driving that deep understanding of risks. So in my mind, what I'm inserting first is a comfort with taking risk, a comfort with making mistakes. uh comfort with questioning the status quo, um an understanding that like we must stop chat

challenge the status quo to compete and to be the very best. Um and we're doing it in a special way. We're doing it with people at the very center. Um we're doing it with mission at the very center. We're doing something incredible that no one else offers and a competitor who is in it for profit wouldn't.

Um, but I I guess I feel like all these experiences puts me in a spot to put risk front and center. And I think only then we look at innovation. So um we spend a ton of time around here talking about intention. And what we're trying to achieve. Um

I guess I think that uh technology could be flipped sometimes. We're at risk of having a solution in search of a problem or looking at the shiny thing and following the shiny thing and um I don't wanna go slow, I wanna go fast and I wanna do it with a very tight understanding of what we're solving for. And we call that being strategic. Um

Uh and being strategic is super fun. So we talk a ton about it. We talk about how strategy is an integrated set of choices and strategy is about where we're gonna play and how we're gonna win, which in our world is delivering on mission and vision. That's a win. Um, and then we are incisive about what We are going to choose at the expense of others.

that's going to get us there. And um I guess that's how we've been tackling problems recently is like deeply understanding this thing. And then we get at it and we've experienced some really cool innovation wins recently based on um Give c can you provide any examples on some cool innovation wins? You know, one um recent application I would say is um is our we were dealing with payroll and our customers, when you buy WorkComp, you know, you have to tell us how much you paid your phone.

Uh because that lets us produce a bill for you. So how much you paid your folks uh is how much you pay for your insurance.

And um if you're not able to tell us how much you paid your folks, we can't issue you a bill. And then unfortunately what was happening is our customers were getting canceled. We were canceling our customers' insurance for not submitting their payroll. And this is a really big deal in workers' comp, right? So you get canceled, you can't.

go on the job site. Uh basically are completely shut down. These are small businesses. And um And so, you know, an a potential technology solution, I'll bet you've talked about it r uh recently. uh seen it significantly is pay as you go. Um so a technology solution is that our small businesses could when they submit their payroll to their payroll carrier, they could pay their work comp bill.

Well, that'd be an awesome solution, um, maybe if we were starting with solutions in mind. Um, but what we want to do is look at gaps and opportunities first and deeply understand current state and future state. So you look at that particular solution and it turns out at its very best it has like a nine percent adoption rate. Um and that's not for the small businesses that we were canceling. And so uh what we did instead

is cancel cancellations. Uh and so we're not requiring midterm reporting. If people don't do it, we estimate it for them based on the analytics about how much they're likely paying their people. Send them an estimated bill. They wanna send us their payroll, we can fix it and we move forward. Um and so we cut our cancellations to like a third of what we had.

Um, we were canceling twenty-seven thousand customers in a year. We were canceling more customers than we have and uh and dramatically limited that. And I think that's an example of like fitting it to what your customer's specific need is. Um And we got to do the same thing during COVID. So I think another really cool aspect of insurance is the upside opportunity. Um, when you're in insurance, you can see what's coming and absolutely jump on it. And um

With COVID, you know, we had customers who were scrambling. These policy holders were trying to figure out how to keep their people safe. Um and uh, you know, if you're a dentist and you're drilling on people and this is airborne and these are minute particles and these folks might have COVID, but You gotta work on their teeth. You can't shut down entirely. What do you do? And so Um, simil I think it's similar is to tightly focus on what the problem we were solving.

um is but we had an upside opportunity. We had a bunch of people that were available'cause there were fewer claims than usual. Um and this huge key safety need. So was able to jump on that and um deliver a twenty five million dollar safety fund. So we had thousands of applicants. Um each one was partnered with an actual safety person who deeply understood their needs. Uh we found out what they would have to buy and what they would have to do new and different. Um

And then we paid for all of these things to uh happen to protect folks. And this included mass hospitals or a tiny front end office. Um, and I think it's cool to be there as the carrier. So to be the actual partner jumping alongside that customer. Um and I think What's new about what we're doing is being really incisive about where we're doing it and what problem that we're solving.

Holly, I'm uh w we were talking uh a little bit off camera before we started recording. I had the opportunity to to be in Montana to uh at Big Sky and and to speak at Askif uh which is a big uh conference with all the uh state

uh work comp funds. And one of the biggest issues that they were having at that time, I'm sure it's it's no different now, um, was uh kind of a workforce transformation and transition. Uh and you had mentioned earlier, uh kind of the old way of doing things. So No, I'm just curious, you know, it's great that you are finding these innovation opportunities and you're doing so with that that strategic purpose, that intentionality in mind.

Um, maybe you can just talk a little bit about from a leadership perspective, like how are your employees embracing Change, maybe some of the challenge that you've brought? Do they see technology, AI as a threat? Do they see Opportunity kind of where do you think you stand vis-a-vis, you know, your workers and and and your colleagues at at other state funds?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's um it's so exciting to be here right now and it's an amazing time and um the organization that I inherited is just super focused on learning and growth and all we had to do is get out of our own way. So um you know, you're talking about putting people at the center

Sometimes it's just that. It's the shared principle that we put people at the center. That's why we're in insurance and that's why we're hanging out with each other as employees. When I got here We had had forty percent turnover in our claims area. And um and it was continuing. And of course, you know, some of that's covet related.

And it was really, really dramatic. And I think it had to do with this risk tolerance. So we were tightly focused on QA. We were doing an excellent, very consistent job with delivery. and coaching each other on things like making sure the plan of action was well documented and um And I think opening that risk door to say we are people focused and sometimes that looks different in the short term. And we can say yes to these solutions that my staff knew already that they needed to step into.

It's just we needed the permission to do them. And so uh, you know, we did things like having we authorized a bunch of rovers and so, you know, we have if you go on if you are on leave'cause you're sick or you are on vacation, your desk isn't building up. Um, there are rovers covering your desk and covering those daily activities and you lit you come back and your desk is just as clean as you thought. Um, you know, part time roles. Um

people who were here before that wanna come back or who wanna switch it up or they wanna do something slightly different. We have claims folks who were in claims, you know, previously working in IT, doing IT projects or working in underwriting, doing underwriting projects. And um We got our turnover down to like four and a half percent um and have maintained that and um it's been incredible.

obviously boosts morale. And um so it kicked our, you know, uh our um Gallup Q twelve percentile um up to to one of the top in the Uh, you know, I think we're in the ninetieth percentile of financial firms with more than a hundred folks now. And I think we were many points below that um before people focused. So we still have a lot of work to do.

And what we're doing now is focusing on the people of insurance. So we're storytelling. Um, and we're doing it in CEO webinars, we're doing it at all employee meetings. Um, we have every single leader got on the phone. with frontline employees to listen to customer calls. So one leader told me yesterday, you know, they got on to learn about somebody who lost their leg.

and their prosthetic's not working. So they're partnering with their claims person and, you know, that leader who doesn't usually get to hear about claims is on the phone hearing, like remembering what it's like to be someone who's injured and you have to sort that out. Um

Uh, we have uh, you know, somebody injured from fifty years ago. They pulled someone out of a fire, their hero, but their arm is burned and they're still dealing with that. And um So we had this whole integrated effort for customer mindset to put that first. We got out of the way of being kind to each other and putting people first. And then I think um we got out of the way of having our customers check boxes for us and um put the customer at the center.

And actually that is what drove our interest in change. and AI and technology. And so now there's this huge FOMO where every, you know, I do CEO listening sessions every year and folks get to come in small groups of ten to talk with me over and over and over all kinds of groups in person and virtual. And there's FOMO. Everybody wants to be on a project. Everybody wants to be on something new and different. Everybody wants to be on something um with technology. Uh, you know, the nurses are gonna

practice using AI to sort through medical records and find insights about the experiences that aren't matching up with our expected outcomes and everybody wants to do it. Um so I think it's like In my mind, it's reminding people why we're in this business and our connection to mission and getting people who don't always used to be connected connected. And then we show these wins, like we're getting huge wins when we step into these projects. And then everybody wants to do it. And um

For us there's a system leadership piece too, because like you're talking about market share. We do, we have a huge piece of the market. Um, we have a very special mission driven model and so we also need to bring folks, uh other partners um with us on this journey and listen to their needs. Uh you know, the regulator, for example, we built with our legislature, I think the first uh work comp sandbox in the world, or at least I think it was.

uh and got that passed and then did some innovation experim experiments within that. And I think it's my role, um, to help make sure that everybody's like excited about stepping into technology. Mm-hmm. That's fantastic. I mean you covered a lot of topics that I'm very interested in. Uh certainly pay as you go is an area I think is really, really efficient and effective in WorkComp.

Um, unfortunately tends to be underutilized. You know, they they just tend to want annual billing and audits, and of course the nice thing about pay as you go is You don't have to do that. You just receive the payroll data feed. I'm curious, like on an innovation front there, have you integrated with payroll systems or are PEOs that you can just receive the payroll payroll feed from them directly and then it streamlines all the reporting for your members.

Yeah, so our first projects have been with our largest customers. Um, we have a lot of brand new cities and counties. uh that came over uh to be insured with us and they had a proprietary system. One of them's called Blackstone and there's another one that starts with an L um where they're doing a lot of their HR work on this proprietary system. And so yes, we stepped into that and did an integration. And that was our first project with something like Pay as you go.

And we learned exactly what you're talking about. So we learned that there has to be decision makers ready to change all our processes to accept the outputs from that or to have the outputs from that be acceptable. So

You know, it looks a little different and I'll tell you, we even had one customer where it was different by a penny and um, you know, there was a moment where they almost got told that wasn't gonna work because it wasn't gonna match our by a penny. So There had to be a decision maker in the room. from billing about that um premium and there had to be a decision maker in the room, like you said, from audit.

And then that's kicking out all these decisions that have to be made and the technology's fine, but our processes aren't ready to receive that decision. And so we're even talking about things like You know, our largest customers that have really strong and um understandable payroll reporting systems, even if it's a standoff one, if they're a large enough customer that that's vetted strongly.

why do we need to do an audit? And um, you know, if we do need to do an audit, is it more like a pre um policy, we're calling it an account survey? Or an account review where we make sure that the class codes are something that we've all

we're all happy with and now we're even doing it before we write the account. So it's not even like you're new, hey, let's change your class codes. It's hey, you're thinking of coming on board. Let's have a conversation about how your class codes look, where you are, or self insured and how they would look when they're coming over. So

We're learning that we need a lot of folks in the room who are ready to make decisions with a risk tolerance that's focused on the customer. Yeah. That's that's really amazing. Uh I appreciate the fact that you did the integration, but you're also focusing on all the there's just so much other change that has to take place for anything to be successful. Um I'm also interested just kind of in our last couple of minutes here, um my final question before I hand it over to Rob.

Yeah, you you you're starting to use some AI. You you mentioned nurses using it to to call out and highlight items in the uh In the in the in the medical records that m they might have missed or might not have noticed before.'Cause sometimes medical records on a comp claim can be five hundred pages per record, you know.

parsing through that and producing a med record summary and then calling out important items can be mind numbing work and very challenging for even the best nurses, right, when they're doing it all day. So are y'all are y'all doing this on your own? Are you partnering with other other groups? And then like did y'all build your own claims and policy software or are you using off the shelf software and then just

bolting on some of these technologies or are you just using Copilot? Like what's what's the strategy that's so far? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So The places that we've actually all the way used AI um are for our trainings and customized trainings. So when we have bad phishing events, we have immediate customized trainings that are based on that type of phishing event.

And we have some AI that helps us make the training. Um, we've actually used AI for coding. We've actually used AI for a bunch of our analytics and data work. We're starting to talk about it. with medical file review. And we are starting to talk about it with our vendors. So um Rob, you mentioned our Ask If partners and those are my peers across all the other states that do mission driven work. And I've talked to a bunch of them about this. And

Uh we use GuideWire for our claim system. We were one of the first customers we just completed. A very successful on scope schedule budget migration to the cloud. So proud of my team. And other ASCII state funds are you're they're either layering it on top of the claim system. with something like a gradient or sometimes they're layering it on top of the documents with something like a wise do. Sometimes we're putting it on top of the course system with something like a Salesforce.

Um and then we're all pinging it back to like benchmarks of somebody that's maybe telling us what is expected for TTD duration um or for medical outcomes. Nobody's nailed it yet. And the interesting thing that my peers are telling me as we step into it is that Sometimes it'll tell us that it's off, but it's actually just because you haven't entered all the comorbidities, and if you do enter them, it's not off.

So um still looking for insights and what I'm hoping to do actually is tie it to a bunch of the best practices. for like particular procedures because I'm thinking if we narrow the insights we're looking for, we're more likely to get'em or I guess if we're looking for targeted or incisive insights. So the jury's out, we're sh we're stepping into thinking about it, but no big wins yet.

That's great. Well you you have the right mindset and certainly as someone who spends all day every day with system implementations, customizations, AI uh implementations, you're you're a uh You're you're a technology's dream for for for CEO'cause you're you've got the you've got the right mindset and you're thinking about the the knock on steps, not just the first one. So appreciate that. Rob, what's your uh your final question?

Yeah, Holly, my uh final question is just um I don't know if you've uh uh dabbled in in some of this already or not, but kind of the future of technology as it relates to um moving towards a more of a predict and prevent model, right? So the best way to take care of a worker is to make sure that the injury never takes place in the the you know never happens in the first place. So, you know, it could be

uh wearable type technology, it could be safety equipment, uh smart safety equipment, it could be any number of things. But I don't know if there's any um technologies that you've seen or experimented with that you uh have hopes for I guess in the future as it results to helping um drive down the incidence of

uh workplace accidents. Absolutely. So important. We've had a couple of cool wins recently with pilot programs. So um one of them, uh the city of Bozeman, we're able to partner with funding a grant.

for preventing injuries in trainees to do fire fighting. So uh fifty percent of the trainees were usually injured in each class and did a thing with targeted uh wellness like nutrition and PT and this was all preventive medicine um kind of at the first niggle of something because you know you're not fit, you haven't been training for a while and now you're here doing this fire training.

um and reduce the injuries to zero in those training classes. Um and uh it's really, really cool. And the other uh that I'm kind of thinking about is I'm thinking about the the learning mindset of um after action reviews and just how to get those uh to be things that people are excited about. And one of my customers has the front facing cameras in all of their vehicles. They do a lot of fleet work.

And um what we're working on is the leadership behaviors around um uh around uh adjust myths and reporting. So, you know, my customer's telling me that that the each driver has a minimum of I think it's one time per hour or per four hours that they push the button and that sends the hey, look at look at this minute of film because something almost happened and I'm interested in the culture uh for here and for there of after action review.

and how we drive those pieces to I guess integrate culturally these findings and make it cool to be safe. Um, so we're seeing we're seeing some really nice wins. And also there's a lot of technology on the return to work side. Like we're seeing some very creative pieces on the Return a workside about matching roles that people can do with their injuries. Awesome. Well thank you so much. Uh we're we're at time, but we really appreciate your insights, your thoughts.

Talking about how great Montana is. Obviously talking about the um yeah, this organization you've come to to lead and love uh so much. We appreciate that. And as someone who's heavy in work comp, I appreciate your passion for the uh the industry I've been in now for I've been a work count guy for almost twenty years now, so I Really appreciate that a whole lot. Uh, thank you for your time and um appreciate you being on the show today, Holly.

Appreciate it. Great to chat with you both. This is uh an industry worth hanging out in. I agree completely. And for all those out in listener land, again you can find out more information at insure techgeek.com. This has been your host, James Benham, SureTech Geek with me, my co-host Rob Galbraith, most interesting man in insurance. For that, enjoy the ride. We'll see you next time. The Insert Geek podcast is all about technology that's transforming and disrupting the insurance world.

Hosted by James Benham at JamesBenham.com with co-host Sofinsurance.com listeners on a journey through insurance tech.