Lightning like Steve McQueen I'm in a fast lane when the light turns green And I built tough Find nothing but grit Cause I made rugged blood sweat and spit yeah, like a horse I fly for a bumpy ride I like to play hard but I work harder and I weather the storm Because I'm built stronger.
What is up, ladies and gentlemen? We are back. We are live. It is the Freight Coach podcast, the top podcast in transportation coming to you guys every single weekday, 8:30am Pacific, 10:30 Central, to break down some industry headlines. But most importantly, you guys provide some actual insight into what you can do with all of this information. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome. This is the real side of freight, ladies and gentlemen. And I say that before every single show. And what I mean by that is I only speak with transportation professionals because at the end of the day, you guys, I want to talk to the right individuals who have done what you're looking to do or who are currently doing what you're trying to achieve.
So you can take that information, apply it, utilize it, and see a meaningful difference in your business and your life. We're going to jump right in. I will address all of the election tomorrow. It's a solo show. We won't talk about any of that today because, you know, we got to give it some time. And I'm not going to jump on all that bandwagon stuff and mainly because I have an attorney here who's going to break down some stuff on cargo claims. And as always, you guys, every single time I have an attorney on, none of this is legal advice. You do not take this. As you heard this out there, if you are in need of an attorney, contact one and speak with one. But with that being said, I got the best dressed guy in freight, Mr.
Brian Nelson here on the show. Brian, thank you so much for joining me.
Hey, I appreciate it. All I can say is that when you have your own podcast, you're able to have your own walkout music, right? So I don't have that. And if I ever did, I have given this thought. I think everyone has. If I had my own walkout music, like I'm coming up to bat. Yeah, there is a song by a band down in South Florida. This is not necessarily a promotion for them, but they have a song. It's called Damaged Goods. It's by Mayday. It's like a hip hop reggae group, Damaged Goods. And we're talking about cargo claims. So perhaps that should be our song, our theme for today.
Dude, I agree with that and, you know, I'm getting enough traction now, Brian, where I'm hoping to be able to get like some real legit custom intro music instead of the stuff that I've purchased on like, SoundCloud. I want to get that because, you know, same thing, man. Like, I'm a kid of the 90s and I was a massive Jay Z fan growing up. And there's some of his songs on the Hard Knock album that I really want to use. But, you know, I got. I gotta increase the street cred a little bit more out there.
Awesome, awesome. We're looking forward to it. Looking forward to it. So.
So, Brian, what, man? How'd you get your start? Like, what brought you into transportation law? I feel like there's, you know, a bunch of stuff that can kind of go on out there. So kind of like, what brought you into all this, man?
So it's your standard boy meets girl kind of situation. In law school, I had got a group of guys together to go play softball one night a week. Thought, hey, this will be a great thing. Fast forward come to get the money. Everyone's like, oh, super busy. Can't, can't get out there. Can't do it. So I go to the field to get picked up by a team. I'm out there for a couple hours team. Some kid kind of runs up to me and says, hey, I heard you're looking for a team. We need somebody. Last week, some got one guy on our team got thrown out of the league for throwing a bat at an umpire. That was a trucking company that sponsored the team. I played with them all through law school.
I get out of law school, like, hey, we're looking to spruce up our compliance. Are you interested in being general counsel? And so that, honestly, it was just softball. Softball got me into transportation. I've been in it ever since.
That is the most slow pitch softball story ever too, that a guy got thrown out for throwing a bat at an ump. And if anybody, like, if you've never played men's league slow pitch softball, it is such a hodgepodge of individuals that are in there, man, because, like, you got the dudes who clearly played baseball and then played at a high level. They don't treat it as anything other than just a good time. And then you have the dudes who like, clearly just were never good enough and this is kind of like their thing, and then they just go apeshit on some of these umps.
Yeah. So that got my start. Honestly, if that guy had not thrown a bat at an umpire, I would not be here today. So thanks. Thank goodness we have a history, a rich history of contesting calls with officials.
So, dude, I love it. And speaking of contesting calls with officials, that's kind of like our topic of conversation today. Because, you know, I, I really reached out because as you know, I saw we've been connected on LinkedIn for a minute now and you know, I saw your post the other day about cargo claims and I'm like, I, I still feel like this is the most important topic that never gets talked about in this industry for as much claims and damages and everything that happens out there. Most people don't know what to do in that situation. They don't know if they like, did they sign something in their initial onboarding document? Because everybody gets super excited when they onboard a shipper and then they're like, they don't think that anything can go wrong.
So, you know, kind of walk us through what was that post and kind of like what inspired that.
Yeah, so what I find is that there is a, is a lack of information, both on attorney websites as well as on LinkedIn that just details real life experiences of what you've gone through. I was in House for 12 years, we had with a brokerage and a motor carrier, so I played on both teams there. And what you find is that when you go out to information, go out to find information, you can get books and treatises. I have access to legal cases. Right. That, you know, a lot of people, the general public doesn't know how to look, how to pull and decipher the information.
But I find that, you know, there were cases out there that I wish I knew of or that have since been determined now that there's little tidbits of information, maybe the whole case doesn't go in my favor, but there's tidbits of information that nobody out there is going to read entire case law about. They're going to come over and say, hey, this happened to me. What do I do? And if I can give them. It's the same thing with identifying things, right? If they know, hey, listen, I don't know the answer to this, but I know that this is an issue that people face.
If they know that they're not going through it alone and that they're not facing something for the first time and they know that there's a resource out there, it allows them to come to me and say, hey, listen, this is what happened. Now there's a Lot of if then statements. Right. We can walk through. And your customer relationship is going to govern a lot of this, whether it's in contract or just your business decisions. There will be times where, hey, this is how mad they're going to get when we respond. Is it worth losing this customer over? Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes the answer is no. And you just try to use that to the best of their ability to say, hey, listen, I'll take the hit now, but in the future just know I'm not going to.
But we also need to make sure when you take a hit that you're protecting yourself against future as opposed to creating some sort of course of dealing with. With that customer.
Yeah, I think that a lot of individuals, and I mean, I'm guilty of this as well.
Right.
Because the reality is, you know, contrary to what social media shows, it takes a very long time to get business and then let alone sustainable business. When you're out there building a book of business or your own, you know, freight brokerage or whatever that looks like, and you are sometimes so intoxicated and enamored by the revenue and the money, you don't actually take a deep breath and like look over the terms and conditions of everything and make that decision. And that's why it's like, I feel like even as a small business you need to have an attorney on like that you can send over.
And again, this is, I'm not using this as this is what Brian charges or this is what I pay my attorney, but spend four to five hundred bucks to have a professional look that document over to make sure you are not pigeonholing yourself.
Yeah. And I think when it comes to it, there's a law of the land and there's a law of the jungle. Right. There's what customers can do and what customers will ultimately do. There's a lot of times I read agreements and I know shippers because I was, when I was in house, I dealt with them on a regular basis, both contractually cargo claims. Operationally, we would go through those contracts and I know in practice they don't hold to the letter of that contract. And I know they're going to be fair and reasonable. But then I know other shippers who, the contract looks favorable, but you know what, 10 months down the road they're going to just deduct you and you're like, wait, especially if you're a broker, you're like, I've already paid the carrier. Now where did this come from?
I sent it to you. You didn't say anything. There was no issues. You took it in. And now 10 months later, I can't inspect the cargo. I can't do anything. Like, I can't, you know, retrieve the money. The carrier perhaps is either in the wind or has closed down or has grown to the point where they're like, listen, I'm. It's not worth fighting them, or they're a good part of my business and I don't want to piss them off because they're a really good carrier for me. And you know what? I'm going to take this for them. There are situations like that where when you're reviewing a contract, there are some times where I just get contracts and my customer, my client says, the customer says no modifications, which is never true.
I will say almost with certainty that there will be opportunities to make small changes. If you are a company of a substantial, of a significant size or a good size, you have better opportunity to make modification. Now, if you're one truck, one trailer motor carrier, a lot of times there are difficulties you'll have in making changes to contracts.
So let's go to, like, what is the first thing you would recommend? And again, none of this is legal advice, you guys, but this is like, this is Chris Jolly asking Brian, who. I've never brokered a load before. I got a new customer and then I have a claim. I have my first claim, my first damaged product. What is something you think people should implement in that moment as opposed to what you've kind of dealt with?
So when I operated internally and I kind of, I was fortunate because I was chief administrative officer also of my companies and I was able to move, you know, kind of move the needle in terms of what our process was. So this is something that I would do anyways. This is something I did in the past. And we'll talk. Historically, I would get my insurance company, either my cargo or my contingent cargo insurer notified. I don't necessarily provide them all the information right up front because I don't know if a cargo claim is necessarily 100% coming. And I don't want that to hit my loss runs. So maybe I withhold the value or I keep a little bit of information back because I don't know all the facts right when it occurs.
But it's important to get my insurance company involved because I don't want them to deny coverage because I failed to notify them in a timely manner. I can't tell you I get cargo claims from clients 3 4, five months down the road. And I ask them, have you notified your insurance company? Like, well, we didn't want them to. We don't want to alert them yet. Well, we may have waived something. Now, a lot of times when something is not definitive, you have some arguments with your insurance company to say, hey, listen, I wasn't sure if something was going to happen. But putting them on notice, it doesn't hurt you, especially if you don't give a value. Because the issue is with reserves. They keep money back, essentially.
They earmark money and say, hey, when you go for renewal, if we have a reserve, this is what's going to happen. If you don't give them a value or full information at that point, but you just kind of note your place in line, hey, something might be coming. That's the first thing I always did. That's just. I felt it protected me in the case I needed to go back. Insurance. Now, I'm still going to fight, you know, if it's something I think is borderline based on all the facts, I'll push back. But I will notify insurance company first and then really pull out the contract. I will go immediately to the contract.
So I want to talk about a situation because, you know, in a perfect world, you get notified, it gets marked on the bill of lading. You can go through. Tell the driver. Here's something that I always recommend and I always tell people. Anytime that a driver reports damage to a load, I always get the name of the person who is saying that there is damage at the receiver. Photographs immediately, if you can.
Photos.
Yeah, photos.
Photos, photos. I can't tell you how many times we get. Oh, well, they say the temperature was high. Well, they had a thermometer. Did you take a photo of thermometer? Did you take photos of what it looked like when it was delivered? Because sometimes we all know forklift damage, it occurs, it happens, right? They plow right into it. That's weird that there's two marks exactly this distance apart from each other. How on earth would I have done that? Especially if I'm not responsible for the loading and unloading, you know, of a dry van or a reefer trailer.
No, and that's the thing is, you know, because like, we move a lot of flatbed freight. So if, like, if there's a storm out and then somebody at the receiver instructs you to take the tarps off the load and the rain, and then they claim damage, that it was at the rain, it's like, document all of this. Stuff out there. Because ultimately in the real world something's going to happen where nobody's going to notify you of anything. But then 30 days after the fact, you're going to get a notification that hey, there's damage to this load. We're not paying this invoice. You know, there's a claim and you're like, wait a second, what? There's nothing marked on the bill of lading that there was damages and all of this stuff that happens.
So like what are somebody's, you know, like is this an avoidable situation, Brian? Or is this something that is common out there and this is why you need to have a contract with your shipper.
So I would say that the Carmack amendment is a, is a wonderful thing because we have 100 year plus of history of cases interpreting the Carmack amendment. And it's, and it seems to all go in the same direction. And you have some sort of reliability on how it's interpreted. That being said, if you are a motor carrier, you're governed by Carmack whether you have a contract or not. Most times contracts, either they'll incorporate Carmack or they're going to specifically modify Carmack in a certain way. And I can promise you, if you're a motor carrier, the modification of Carmack is not going to be in your favor. Right? So you have Carmack as the baseline.
If you go, if you have a customer who is going to modify that, it's going to because they're trying to limit their ability or sorry, expand their ability to hold you liable while limiting your ability to defend it. And so if you don't have a contract as a motor carrier, you still have liability and insurance and everything else applies appropriately. If you start modifying Carmack because insurance kind of takes the baseline of Carmack and most cargo policies, you start modifying Carmack and taking on liability beyond what's in Carmack, you're going to find yourself a little bit out on a limb in a lot of situations. Now there are some really good policies out there that allow you to kind of, you know, expand your liability or your coverage as well. Get with the good insurance agent.
If you just have an insurance agent that's just somebody who typically does your property, find someone that's transportation specific and get an insurance agent. I can't tell you also, when you notify your insurance company when were talking about earlier, what are some of the things I would do, I can't tell you how many times I get within with a client. And I'm like, where's your insurance agent? Your insurance agent should be an advocate for you. They don't represent the insurance company. You're their client the same way you're my client. They should be promoting your claim. If you're trying to get coverage, your insurance agent should be fighting for you. If you have an insurance agent that sits on the sidelines, what job are they doing for you?
Yeah, yeah, no, I, I agree with that. Now, is there a specific time frame based on your knowledge that somebody can actually initiate a claim? So it's like say we got a load. I had a load deliver back in August, and then now it's November. And I'm getting notification that, hey, they're. They're claiming that there's damage to this product. And we're, you know, 90 days after the fact. Is that something where you're like, no, absolutely not. There's. There's been too much time that's passed. Or do they actually have a claim that they can make in those instances?
So I love this rhetorical question because I assume you know the answer to this. The issue here is that under Carmack, under, like, under most standard statute of limitations, right? You have two years, you have three years, you have whatever that is to bring either a breach of contract or any other type of claim or personal injury matter. Right. States govern that. Carmack governs the time period for making a cargo claim. And it only gives a minimum, it does not give a maximum. You have to look back in history. When the Carmack amendment was created, motor carriers were in charge. Right. Because I had the truck, I can kind of the way ltl carriers kind of operate, Right?
Yeah.
Trucking companies were in charge. You wanted to ship something, you had to go to somebody. Their rules and pub. And. And tariffs were public. If you wanted to hire someone, they had strict requirements that you had to abide by. And so as a way to protect the public, because most of the public, we didn't have corporations the way they are now, where most shippers and customers govern the terms of transit. Yeah, back when Carmack was established, they were worried about the motor carriers having too much power. So they said, hey, motor carriers, you cannot provide a time period of less than nine months. So most of the time, people use nine months as the time period. But nine months is not a limitation period. It is a minimum period. Meaning that someone could file a claim two years from now.
They could file a claim a year from now. So if you don't have it in your contract that limits it to the nine months, which is the shortest time period you can prescribe for providing a claim, you are leaving yourself open to potential liability. Now, also, if you're a company that's looking to sell to eventually get out, have an exit plan and your contracts leave open the potential of cargo claims going on in perpetuity, you may have unknown risks that you are, may have to indemnify a future purchaser on because you could have put something in your contract says, hey, listen, after nine months, I'm no longer liable for claims.
Yeah, I think that right there is probably some of the best advice that people need to immediately go in and look at right away. And to answer your earlier statement, yes, I did know the answer to that. And it, but it is one of those things, though. Again, it's like it's back to the whole. People get so blinded by the business, the opportunity that they, you know, everybody's my friend, they don't think that somebody is going to actually do this, right? And then on top of it, you're going to be sitting there spinning your wheels like, this happened nine months ago. What do you mean that this, like, how is this coming back on me?
And, and then we're talking 30, $40,000 worth of damages and all of this stuff that comes along with this, you guys, in the real world, which is where we operate on this show, these are very real examples that I hope nobody goes through, Brian, ultimately. But the reality is the more freight you move, the higher the likelihood that something's going to. There's going to be damage. You know, there's going to be something that happens. And again, if you're not thinking about this right now, and I think most people would be fairly shocked that there are probably some pretty large organizations out there that don't think about this at all. They just kind of fly by the seat of their pants, they stroke the $50,000 check, they move on. And then they're like, I don't want to piss the customer off or whatever that is.
That's like the mentality for a lot of people. But it's like at some point, like, when's enough, right? Like, when are you going to start treating your business as a business and have these policies and procedures in place? And, you know, you spent a lot of time in compliance, you said as well, Brian, at your first job. So it's like having this stuff, you guys, is part of it. Just because you started an llc, like, you're not Protected as much as you think you are.
Yeah. And I would add to that, I've had conversations with numerous shippers and they're more forthright since I've been in private practice than when I was one of their, you know, vendors. Yeah. They have essentially told me, they're like, why do I want to go and do business with one of your clients when I can do business with some of the larger, you know, look at the top 50 and transport topics. Right. Top 50 carriers. Because when I give them a claim, they're not going to. I know they're just going to pay me. To your point. And so when I'm reviewing a contract or any of my partners are reviewing contract. And just by the way, just a little information about my firm. All of my partners have either been general counsels of a transportation company or have worked in government in transportation.
So we're not just, hey, we read this in a book. We think this is what you should do. We're giving you advice that we would have done ourselves because we actually did it, hey, don't do it this way because I did it that way and it screwed up, or I did it this way and we had good results. And so when we're modifying contracts, your point about risk is extremely important because I could mark up a contract and eliminate all of your risk. You will get no business. You will absolutely get no business. Transportation is inherently has opportunities to be risky, and we have opportunities to divest ourselves of some of that risk. But it's a balance of business and what your willingness for risk tolerance is.
And I know having gone in that, having to bite some of the bullets, right, to understand, hey, I'm going to take some risk here for the business opportunities. But signing blindly never works out. Because to understand your risk, you can change your practice. You can change what you're doing for that one customer. Right. If you know that your risk is higher for this customer than it is for this customer, you're going to plan differently, you're going to operate differently with respect to that as opposed to just. I have no idea. I just assume I have risk everywhere. It's not really an approach that I took. I was in house.
So what if the D. Like this question just literally came to mind and it's kind off topic, but kind of on topic at the exact same time. You know, again, you brought up the forklift driver damaging the product. What if, what if a driver is gets hit, right? And then there's cargo damage to that is the. Is it the other carrier's responsibility in that moment. Or, you know, again, it's like. Or is everybody out there protected? Is the broker going to get brought in to a lot of this? Because I think that a lot of brokers in, you know, in my opinion, Brian. Think they're immune to a lot of this stuff. Because they're not technically required by a law to have insurance and everything else. But it's like. I feel like another really big thing to point out here is.
Is literally everybody gets brought into a lawsuit. You guys like every. If you sneeze down the driver's truck, you're getting brought into that lawsuit. If they. If there could be money to be made off of that sneeze.
Yep. And I will. I will preface this by saying plaintiff's counsel is not rational. They are not. They will go through. If we're talking personal injury, when it comes to the cargo side of it, this is where we have that business aspect. If you're a broker, generally you're not liable for freight loss or damage unless you have a contract with the shipper accepting liability. Or you hold yourself out as a broker to be a motor carrier, which is against federal regulations. But under Carmack, that's how you will kind of get roped into liability. And that's on a shipment by shipment basis. Right? So use of the words like my driver as a broker or hey, I'll be there to pick it up, or signing contracts as a carrier. Right. Opens you up to potential Carmack liability or liability for cargo loss or damage.
In terms of your question. And really focusing on the elements of Carmack. The elements for establishing a Carmack claim are pretty easy for a shipper. Right. I gave it to you, the carrier, in good condition. Well, how do we prove that? Well, you signed the bill of lading without notation of damage. And we can. There's a presumption that can be overcome with that. But we give it to you in good condition, you deliver it in bad condition. And I give you a value to that. That's it. The three things. Now, we can attack each one of those in kind. And we have in each separate instance. Right? But then we have to go to the defenses. So if we can't push back against any one of these three things to establish. You never establish an actual Carmack claim.
We have five defenses available to us. But first we have to prove we are free from negligence. Right? And one of the other requirements. This goes to the post. I had one of the. One of the exceptions is shipper negligence or fault or act or default of the shipper. If you get rear ended and you're a motor carrier, you get rear ended by another motor carrier. That's not fault of the shipper, that's some other motor carrier. So you are still primarily liable for that under Carmack, possibly under your contract as well. You may have a right to go after that other carrier, but your customer is going to sit there with their handout and go after 60 days. I don't care what's happening with that other carrier. I hired you, I want you to pay me. Same thing with the broker.
At some point they're going to say, hey listen, I don't care that you don't have a contract with me, pay me. That's great, that's great that you're not liable. I'm happy for you. But if you want the rest of this bid to the rest of the term of this bid that you just submitted an RFP for, if you want the rest of this, give me money or you're out. And we face that real world situation all the time. So how do you affect that? As a broker? You try to get a contract in place and limit your liability because then you can turn to your insurance and say, hey, insurance pay. Because if you don't have legal liability, your insurance isn't going to come in. So all of that money is going to be out of pocket if you don't have insurance.
Yeah. And you know, you brought up, you know, another key point and lots of key points but like this one still stuck out to me. But you talked about a broker accepting liability and that being in shipper contracts. Right. And that's one of those. And again, you guys, I want you the next time, you know, you onboard a new customer or maybe you should use this as an opportunity to go through your existence existing customers, shipper agreements in C. Because I don't know if enough people understand how many shippers push all the liability onto the broker and the broker is just unaware of that. They just, they signed the document. They didn't have anybody look over it.
And essentially, from what I've been told, essentially what that means is the shipper can damage the product in some instances in the loading process claim that it wasn't that way. But you accepted the liability. Like you're essentially accepting the cargo as soon as they, like they deem necessary that. Oh yeah, well that happened. It's the broker's fault.
Yeah. And there's. Now there are opportunities, there's A lot of shippers that will acknowledge that and say, hey, listen, you're right, that was. That was on us. So I don't want to vilify all shippers for sure. But there are. But there are shippers, right. And one thing that. Or there are receivers and shippers that will try to hide their. Damn it. Well, I don't want to be. I'm gonna get fired. Right. We're not necessarily dealing with a huge entity. We're dealing with individuals on the loading docks. Right. Well, I don't want to be caught having damaged this. And what's.
What.
Carmack also applies that. That is interesting is receivers are supposed to take the cargo unless it's completely worthless.
Yeah.
And so you have a lot of times where the cargo is just placed back on the carrier and they're saying, we just don't want it in our dock and you have to deal with that. So there's a lot of things where they don't necessarily comply. But you're trying to now deal with and trying to mitigate. But getting back to your specific point about, you know, hey, them causing damage to the cargo and you. There are defenses there. And as a broker, because you're not present at any of this, it makes your defense a lot harder. And so if you're sitting there saying, hey, listen, I'm. I'm going to be liable as a carrier for Carmack, what happens if your contract went a little bit further and said you are actually a carrier and you're signing as a carrier?
I know many of you are like, to your point, I just need the business, I'm going to get it. Signing as a carrier is something that most shippers will acknowledge. Unless you're truly holding yourself out as a carrier because you're like, oh, they're not onboarding brokers. I'll just tell them I'm a carrier. That will create so much headaches in the event of an accident. Not to mention your insurance likely will have issues with compliance. And if you have an exit plan, and I always say this, I know none of this is the topic of what we're talking about in terms of exit plans, but if you have an exit plan as a broker, when you go to sell, my firm and myself, I'm involved in three diligence or three acquisitions right now.
And when I go through contracts, if I see a broker that has all of their business as a carrier and I gave you some price to buy your brokerage, I'm not viewing the revenue that you have at listed as a carrier, as revenue that will be ongoing unless I can confirm that I can transition that contract to a brokerage contract. And if I can't, then I'm not going to give you credit for that revenue.
I love that, Brian. Like, I honestly. And yeah, I'll have you back on. I try and keep these shows to 30 minutes because most people who watch at least say they have a day job. I know I have a day job, as do you. But, you know, this is all phenomenal information, man. And again, like, I just want people to think a little bit differently because, like, ultimately, you know, as you go out there and experience the real world, you will realize very quickly nobody's going to protect, like, you have to protect yourself. You have to have an attorney. Like, I've been telling people that the smartest things I did in business was hire the right attorney early on and a cpa that right there. Those are like the first two things. But how does anybody reach out to you, though, man?
Because I got a large audience inside of this industry. How does anybody reach out to you to find out more? Like, they're like listening to this. They're like, I got to get my shit in line.
Absolutely. So, Mike, you could certainly email me B. Nelson. You can also reach out to me on LinkedIn. Brian Nelson. I know that's a very generic name. Brian Nelson, Taylor Nelson Pl. But the email address again is B. Nelson@taylor lawpl.com and when it comes to contracts, I take a very, you know, I just take the approach that I'm not trying. I always view it as a seesaw. When you get a customer contract, you're up here, your legs are dangling right on top of the seesaw. I'm not trying to get you back to the ground. I'm trying to get you to level. Right? So that way it's fair for you. Because I can't go to your customer and say, hey, no, you need to make. You need to bend over backwards for my client. You guys aren't going to get that business.
So I need to look at it practically. And you need someone who says, hey, listen, I'm not trying to get you in the in favor here. I'm trying to get you to industry standards to make certain that you have a level playing field. Your insurance is going to provide coverage. If you have an exit plan, you're going to sell your company and no one's going to bat an eye at your contracts. Not to mention, you know what your risks are and you're able to mitigate that and know with certainty, hey, I can put reserves aside because I know this is where my liability is going to be.
No, Brian, I love it. And if you guys can't find Brian Nelson out there on LinkedIn, hit me up. You guys, DM me, I will gladly put you guys in contact with them over there. But, Brian, thank you so much for joining. And I know you guys got value in this one, but if you did and you're not subscribed, subscribe to the show. You guys share it out there to your network. This is how we grow, but this is how we help more and more people is because if you see value, your network's going to see value as well. I appreciate you guys. I love you guys. And we'll be talking to you soon. See, I don't have any cool like.