Elevating Standards in Private Risk: A Chat with PRMA’s Diane Delaney

Welcome to The Accelerator, a podcast for insurance agents and brokers who know there's more to

life than bundling home and auto.

Yeah, we're talking collector cars, better sales strategies, and ideas to grow your business

without boring you to death.

This isn't just another industry podcast.

It's the one you're actually going to want to listen to.

Welcome to The Accelerator, a podcast by Hagerty where we spotlight the people, ideas, and partnerships

moving the insurance and risk management industry forward.

This is the place for professionals who want to stay ahead of the curve, from emerging trends

and evolving client expectations to the tools and strategies that help agencies, advisors,

and carriers grow.

I'm your host, John Gessner.

And I'm your other host, Brian Colley.

And today, I am so excited to bring one of my favorite people on our podcast, Diane Delaney,

the executive director and CEO of the Private Risk Management Association.

PRMA has become a driving force in the high net worth, private risk management space,

creating standards and building a huge professional community.

Diane's going to share insights with us today on where the industry's headed,

how PRMA is shaping that growth, and why collaboration across this ecosystem matters

more now than ever.

We're in for a treat, like I said, one of my favorite people I get to work with.

Yeah, you're right, Brian.

In this episode, Diane is going to pull back the curtain on where high net worth personal

risk is headed, how PRMA is elevating professional standards through education and community,

and why collaboration beats competition when you're solving complex client problems.

We get to talk about PRMA's newest research on affluent clients, like the confidence

versus concern gap on coverage and exclusions.

Why cyber and social inflation are top of mind for these affluent clients, and how to use

passion assets.

Hello, collector cars, as the perfect on-ramp to the bigger risk conversations and the

mindset shifts that separate order takers from trusted advisors.

That's right.

And this episode would not be complete without the hot button topic of AI.

We're going to talk about how agents and brokers can scale their sales skills

with AI sales coaching.

So there's a lot to learn and plenty that you can put to work this quarter.

Let's dive in.

Let's do it.

Diane Delaney is the CEO and Executive Director of the Privacy Management Association.

Now over 6,000 risk management professionals strong.

We're definitely dedicated to serving the high net worth families and individuals.

Under her leadership, PRMA also delivers world-class education, thought leadership,

industry standards, essential events, and bringing together insurance carriers,

agents, brokers, providers, and anyone else in the high net worth space.

A recognized thought leader in the high net worth insurance sector,

Diane has been featured in over 60 articles, podcasts, and interviews.

Now it's 61 with this podcast, including the insurance journal,

MarketWatch, Forbes, CBS MoneyWatch, The Claims Journal,

Rough Notes, and so many more.

Before joining PRMA, she spent nearly two decades at AIG Private Client,

where she played a pivotal role in developing and launching

the Private Client Group University,

the industry's leading high net worth sales training program.

Her innovative approach to education sales development

has helped countless independent agencies and insurance professionals enhance their skills.

Beyond those many accomplishments,

Diane is a proud mom to her two daughters, Capri and Sienna.

And when she's not serving as their unofficial Uber driver,

she enjoys working out mostly to justify her love for baking cupcakes.

In spoiler alert, she might like doing yoga now too.

Thanks for joining us, Diane.

And I did type Diane this year to her first yoga class, and she loved it.

You did. That was my first and currently my last,

but doesn't mean that there won't be any more in my future.

You know, Brian does that to me too.

He's always trying to drag me to some 5 a.m. yoga class.

And I'd say on maybe like 30% attendance record.

Yeah, he did. And he took me to like an advanced yoga class,

which I have to say, I think my skills were better than yours, Brian.

I did not get corrected once.

No, I mean, she's sitting over there like never taken yoga class before.

And I'm the one that's getting corrected by the yoga teacher.

And she's like a natural.

She's just like doing the poses. No big deal.

So what can you say?

So Diane, as Brian just rattled off your list of accomplishments

and your current position with PRMA as the CEO and executive director.

That's a very exciting and really sounds like a big role to take on.

I've been in insurance really only for about six years

since joining Hagerty.

And in that time, and I've had the privilege of meeting a lot of our partners,

everyone's got a really good how'd you get into insurance story.

And so I'm just curious, you know, if you could take us back in time

just a little bit and share with us, like, you know,

how'd you get into the insurance and risk management space?

And, you know, what's that journey looked like for you?

Sure. And agree.

That's not like many of us, you know, we graduate school

or move on from wherever prior education was and says,

I'm going to go into insurance.

So same with me. I graduated college and was fortunate enough.

My brother was an underwriter at AIG at the time,

and I asked him to submit my resume.

I did want to go into a field of training.

I just knew I didn't want to be like an elementary school teacher.

I was better with adults.

And two weeks after graduating college,

I was working in the financial district at AIG headquarters.

But in their general department, which serviced like leadership training

and presentation skills training.

So that's where I started and I was this training admin

where I would help the trainers get set up for their classes.

And I used to sit in the back of the room

and I would listen to the different training courses that they offered.

And I would say, like, that's what I want to be when I grow up.

I want to teach this class.

And I was fortunate.

I think it was like all of 21 years old.

The woman who led our presentation skills training course

had a skiing accident.

She was fine, but needed knee surgery.

And my boss at the time was like,

you can have this course and teach it if you want.

So I was learning alongside the participants

on what presentation skills was and how to teach it.

But I had a lot of mentors in that department

that really helped shape my presentation skills.

So I was able to teach it.

But really fortunate in your young 20s

to be able to travel the country,

I would go to as many offices as I could

and I would work with staff members on how to train.

And lo and behold, I came across this department

known as Private Client Group,

which at that time I only knew them

as what I would consider the sexy side of insurance.

It was the first real introduction to insurance.

And this department ensured very wealthy individuals.

And I used to work with their executive team

on how to get ready for some of their larger conferences

and how to kind of present fluently at them.

Fast forward, they asked me to join their team

and build out a producer school,

which at that time, in my understanding of producers,

I really just thought it was people making movies.

I had no idea they were gonna ask me

to train people who sell and service insurance,

which at quite frankly at 25,

I had no business trying to do either.

But it was trial by fire

and I just have had this fortunate career path

where again, I would travel the country and to Canada

and have the ability to work with brokers

all over the globe on getting an understanding

where their challenges exist

in selling and servicing clients.

And I've really over the course of 20 years

gotten to see that evolve

based on how the industry is really evolving as well.

So I would say my career in insurance

was just a bunch of happy accidents.

I love that.

It's really neat to hear stories like this.

And I've got to say we've heard a couple,

I wouldn't say similar,

but that shares certain themes to yours,

which is kind of like opening yourself up to opportunities,

putting yourself out there,

and then trying them,

being taken that risk to say yes and trying that.

Yeah, it's scary.

I'm not a person that enjoys change,

but it's really just that fear of failing,

but I have learned along the way

is that there's so many learning lessons

that come from that.

So really glad I took those leads.

Speaking of scary and stories,

you have to tell one of my favorite stories you have

around the trainer was like Uncle,

I'm afraid it was like Uncle someone.

Oh, Uncle Bob.

Uncle Bob, yes.

That's the best story.

If we back up into,

I kind of gave the Cliff Note version

into me joining the private client group team,

but I really had no interview

in joining private client group.

It was basically,

we want this producer school being built

in the back of my mind.

Like I said,

I thought I was gonna be working with like movie stars

on how to present on set.

And my first day with them

was March 17th and I flew out to Chicago.

And in my mind, I was thinking to myself,

this is great.

They died of river green.

Maybe they're filming something by the water,

but instead I reported to an office there

where, you know, the marshes, the aeons,

the willises were in the room

and we go around the room

and I'm learning that producers

are people who sell insurance.

And my boss at the time

saw the sheer look of panic on my face.

What did I get myself into?

I have no idea.

How am I gonna train these people?

I've never sold a thing in my life,

but she told me like,

don't worry, you're gonna have some help.

You're not gonna be on your own.

You are gonna have Uncle Bob.

I was like, who is Uncle Bob?

Well, Uncle Bob is truly the uncle

of one of our product managers

who was on the team.

And I said, okay, well, Uncle Bob worked for us.

Like they said, well, no.

I said, does he understand insurance?

Not at all.

He retired from AT&T

as a national sales vice president.

He built the national sales school

that's probably still in existence

to train their sales reps today.

They said he's phenomenal at sales,

but no, it's nothing about insurance.

So between the both of you, you'll figure this out.

And I did.

I mean, Uncle, what we learned along the way is,

yeah, Uncle Bob knew nothing about insurance.

He actually knew nothing about

how to legally present in corporate settings

at this time.

But him and I, we made a fantastic team.

He taught me a lot about presenting,

about sales, about selling on value.

But we also learned

as he was a high net worth client

who didn't know what he didn't know.

And using his background of sales,

we built a phenomenal school together.

But I still call him and I call him Uncle Bob.

He was at my wedding.

He's great.

Love that story.

Just dive right in.

Yeah, here you go.

For those that are listening

that don't know much about PRMA,

we have a really big summit coming up

in a couple of months.

And I say we, because I get to work with Diane

almost weekly, I'm heavily involved in PRMA.

Could you just talk about our summit coming up

and then how people can get involved?

And I think we're technically sold out

for the summit this year.

Is that right?

So it's depending at the time,

maybe when this airs, we will be sold out.

But as of today, we have 20 seats left at the summit.

So we're just shy of 800 people registered for the event,

which is, as of today, our largest event on record.

And this event is really focused

on education and networking.

And those are two components.

We're really focused on making sure

we're bringing to the membership.

And we say it's about two and a half days.

We're really all together.

It's probably two full days.

So this year we're starting

on the evening of October 19th

and we'll wrap up mid-afternoon on Tuesday, October 21st.

And this year we are in New Orleans.

We've historically have been, we say Chicago,

but it was like the airport hotel.

But we do try and move to different central locations.

So this is our first time going to New Orleans.

And there's a lot that goes into making this event

as successful as it is.

We start almost a year out,

well, even years out and finding the location.

So this location was booked years ago,

but we get to this point in planning 2025.

And what we do is we bring together

a summit planning committee,

which is made up of volunteers

that have raised their hand in the industry

from all parts of the country.

They're usually sitting on the broker side,

service provider and carrier.

And a good 2025 of us would meet every other week.

And we start to take a look at previous year surveys

from participants saying what they want more of.

We look at surveys that PRMA has done

to see what education are people looking for.

And we really have, I guess you would call it a debate

on the initial summit planning committee calls months out

where we say, we only have so much education to cover

and a ton of subject matter experts

that are not even in the industry,

but maybe outside of it.

What are these core topics?

Then we try to not make it the same every single year

where we're discussing the same topics.

And it kind of helps us narrow down what the education is.

And through these discussions, we see a theme unfolds.

And this year's theme is really around

where insight meets opportunity

with the thought process

that so much has been happening so quickly in our industry

and we're learning a lot.

Like even if we look at the California wildfires this year,

and this is the chance to bring together experts

to share with one another.

It doesn't mean we leave this conference

with all the answers,

but it's just a way to learn from experts

that are studying our industry in a different way.

So this year, we'll have a couple of different topics

around what happened with the California wildfires

to battling the elements when we look at things

with roofing and hail claims

and other catastrophic events

that are hitting the industry.

We'll talk about clients who are traveling abroad

or maybe their children are studying abroad.

What are things that we have to prepare them for

based on what's happening?

What are some other solutions

outside the emitted products that exist?

Because we're finding obviously

not just the non-emitted space,

but what is parametrics, what is captives?

And then paired to all of this,

what we're trying to weave in

is a lot of the opportunity to network.

And that's the biggest feedback we get on this event

is you have several hundred from the industry

that are coming.

I want the chance to talk to them

and meet the service providers.

So every year you'll see us kind of just switch up

how we're doing the networking,

but there'll be a lot of different networking opportunities

within our exhibitor halls or just events

in the evening that will be taking place.

Sazarak House, let's call it my name.

Yeah, it is calling it.

And I will say the Sazarak House is sold out.

So our after-party did sell out at this point.

We can only allow 600 into that party.

So I'm sure there'll be no shortages

of things for people to do

that don't get into the Sazarak House.

Sounds amazing.

And I love the focus on networking and connectivity.

I feel like that's a huge opportunity

for these types of conferences.

And I'd love to maybe get back onto that,

but first, just as someone who doesn't work with you

as closely or work with PRMA as closely as, say, Brian does,

like, can we just take a minute to take a step back?

Like, you know, we heard what PRMA is,

but like, who does it serve?

Like, why does it exist?

You know, what's kind of like the main function

of the organization?

Absolutely.

That's a great question, John, to let's take a step back.

PRMA is a nonprofit association

that was built as a location for anyone

who is servicing successful individuals and families,

had a place to go to collaborate, network,

and essentially uplift the category

so that we are all doing our jobs better

and efficiently to protect these individuals and families.

So, and that really encompasses a couple of things.

And you've heard me mention it for the summit,

but it carries over to the organization as a whole.

One is the education.

So it's offering a variety of different education

in a variety of different formats

for the industry to learn.

And the other part of that is the networking and collaboration.

So one of my favorite tools that we offer at PRMA

is what's called our All Member Forum or Thrive Community,

which on any given day, a broker or a carrier,

somebody can go and you could post a question

under your own name or anonymously,

but let's say you're struggling to find placement

for just a unique situation for one of your insurance,

you obviously leave all the sensitive information out,

but then our community can see that question out there

and you help one another.

And I think that's the most incredible thing about PRMA

and what I've been impressed with over the years

running this organization

is every day I am in committee meetings or calls

where while, yes, we are competitors,

there's plenty of business to go around

and we need each other to advance ourselves

in this industry.

So it's incredible to see

not the competitiveness goes out the window,

but it's in check when you come to these meetings

and you start to see individuals work together

for the advancement of each of us on an individual basis.

And I think that's what makes it so unique.

I do feel and what I've learned

is that associations tend to thrive during times of stress

and we can probably all agree

that our industry has gone through a lot of stress

over the last several years.

So I think having this association for all of us

has been a sense of hope

as opposed to a place where people go to to complain.

And I think that's a big difference

and it's been nice at the vibe

even at the summit you'll see.

And I remember my first summit that I ran in 2022,

I was so nervous that that year was a really tough year

and I was so concerned if we put all of us together

in a room, was it just gonna be this whole session

where everyone's complaining?

But in fact, like the vibe in that room was incredible.

So that's what's also nice is like,

we can take that time when we're all together

and complain about lack of markets

or what's happening or what's not happening.

But the general feel is no,

we have to come out of this better together.

And I think that's what makes the association

so unique and so special.

Thank you for taking a minute to educate us on that.

I can definitely start to draw a line from your education,

your passion for education

and that background and experience you have

to kind of where that led you today

with that education and advocacy.

And yeah, it's just so important.

Then you just get so much more out of those experiences

when the focus is on positivity and on hope

and connectivity and learning from one another

versus somewhere where people just go and complain.

The energy is so much stronger and greater.

You get a lot more out of that experience

as just someone as a participant.

Exactly.

So with the event coming up,

you mentioned several times about networking

and about education.

So I'm just wondering,

and with one of the PRMA goals

being to help advisors better

serve their high net worth clients,

like from your perspective

and from the perspective of the organization,

what skills or mindsets are really most critical

for professionals working in this space today

and will those be areas of focus for the upcoming event?

We can answer that question in a number of different ways,

but I think the people who are gonna be most successful

in our industry are those that are eager to learn

regardless of how long they have been in this industry.

And I've spoken to plenty of people

that have been in this industry for over 30 years

and I've said I have never seen anything like this.

So even for themselves,

they have to learn enough to be open and willing to do that.

And I think, and we just said it before,

is that positivity,

I think anyone going into

any of sort of these conferences or events,

and I'll always say this when I'm teaching,

Uncle Bob taught me this,

I'll usually lead a class

and I challenge the industry to think about this

when you go to a conference like this,

that none of it is the acronym FM.

The second word being magic,

the first word is not nice to say,

but none of it's FM, right?

Where you can't expect to go to any of these things

and say to yourself, like,

oh, there's gonna be a secret phrase

or they're gonna say something and that's it.

Everything's gonna become easy

and I'm gonna have the markets to go to,

that's not gonna happen.

So you have to be open with,

there won't always be a solution,

but we are trying to learn from one another.

And if you can go with that mindset,

it reduces that negativity of,

you can't expect it to be perfect

and you're gonna get everything that you wanted

and your whole life will be easy.

We don't wake up and go to easy every day,

we wake up and go to work.

And this is one part of,

that I think is really important for us to realize

is it won't be FM,

but I promise you we'll walk out of there

with a connection or knowing who to go to

when you're running into a challenge.

Dan, I like talking to brokers

that do high net worth in their office,

but it's not something to do every day.

And on this podcast, we have such a variety,

we have people that do high net worth every day,

but brokers that do it occasionally.

And I think PRMA gives them a lot of resources, both groups.

My question for you is,

there's definitely a gap between normal personal lines

and complex needs of affluent families.

How is PRMA helping close the gap

for maybe that traditional personal lines agency

that does affluent families,

but it's not every day that they see it?

Yeah, and Brian, that's a really good question

because like you said,

even a lot of the brokers we've trained over the years,

maybe the majority of the individuals they're working with

are not in the high net worth space.

So it's hard to make that transition.

And there's a couple of things PRMA

has within its educational platform

and things we're excited to bring forward

in the future to help close that gap.

But one is since joining,

we brought over our sales program at PRMA,

which we will be growing over the next couple of years.

But it's in some cases,

when we're working with clients,

it's a lot more transactional,

and it does become around the cost and the time.

But when we're playing in the high net worth space,

there is that ability to customize the solution

and the conversations that we have

will start to become less transactional.

But you don't just wake up and know how to do that

when you have spent most of your career

working with the mass market space,

which don't get me wrong,

even if they're in a mass market space,

you should be learning about the individual's lifestyle

and what's important for them to protect,

but there's a lot more market

so it does become more of a cost play.

In the high net worth space,

the lifestyles are complicated

and each risk is unique

and each insured could afford to take on

a different level of risk.

So we have to know that.

We can't just go into the conversation

with every single individual the same way.

And that's one of the skillsets we have at PRMA

is in our sales program,

it's how are we changing the way we have conversations

with our prospects or clients

to uncover what's most important for them to protect

and what's keeping them up at night.

All the way to our CPA designation courses,

which is more of this self-learning course,

which talks about all the different aspects

within an affluent individual's life that can impact them.

And even soon we'll be ready for a refresh

of our CPRIA course

because when the course was written,

cyber looked a lot different than it does today.

But point being is that there's courses and content there

for you to say, I didn't grow up in wealth

so I don't know all of the challenges

that exist in these individuals' life,

but I could take these self-paced courses

that teaches me very high-level what we're looking at.

I love that.

I think that you hit on a couple of things I want to unpack.

I completed my CPRA last year for the left and right.

You should definitely do it.

Even though I thought I was done

and I was devastated, I messaged and I'm like, I'm done.

And she's like, I think you need to do one more.

You need a whole year later to graduate.

Yeah, exactly.

But I think from my seat, Ray,

we do collector cars every day.

It really helped me to see the broader industry

what brokers and carriers are working on and crossed.

But I think you kind of touched on it

and the trend we're seeing coming out

is PRMA recently did a high-netware survey.

I think it's going to be released very soon

so listeners, you're getting cutting-edge information here,

but Diane, you want to talk about some of the surprising

insights that came out of that research that we've done?

Really excited about this survey

and I do think that this is one of the things

for the listeners.

When you think about what value could PRMA bring to me,

we want to be able to do some of the research.

You can't just do in your regular job.

So one of the goals we put forward this year

and we've successfully completed it

is to survey affluent individuals and families

about things that concern them, what they're seeing,

what they think about in the future

and what they want to protect.

And we worked with them,

we researched several survey platform companies

that can give us access to these clients.

They obviously double-checked their kind of background.

They had to have own a home.

They had to have a net worth of $5 million and above.

So we wanted to get the information as accurate as we could.

And we also requested that at least 30% of the respondents

were from catastrophe-prone states,

which we could probably arguably agree

that whatever state you're living in is cat-prone

but we gave them Florida, Texas, California

and we got the survey back

and we spliced these results back

in so many different ways.

And there was a number of things that stood out,

but one I would say is really the contradiction

or the disparity between confidence versus concern

with these individuals,

meaning 95% of the respondents,

when they were asked if they feel

their insurance coverage is enough,

they said yes, right?

So 95% confident, but yet further down

when we re-asked the question in a different way,

65% of those people then said

they're concerned about exclusions

when it comes time to submitting a claim.

That's a huge difference.

So we're saying yes, almost everyone said

I am confident in my insurance coverage

and then more than half said,

but I also don't know about exclusions.

And I think what that is telling us as an industry,

which probably isn't that much of a surprise,

but I think most people affluent or not

view insurance as insurance.

I pay a premium and I hope I never have to use it

so I have coverage because I have home insurance in place

but they're watching the news

and the news is not gonna report

the good insurance claims stories,

they're gonna report the negative.

And I think what's going through people's minds is

these catastrophes are happening

and I'm hearing these stories

where coverage wasn't exactly there,

like you have home insurance,

it doesn't mean you have flood coverage.

So I think that's a kind of an eye-opening thing

for the industry of why are they saying

they're so confident,

but now they're not actually fully aware

of what their policy covers.

So that was really eye-opening.

Another was we picked apart

how the different generations responded to questions.

And when we looked at the liability concerns,

the millennials were significantly more concerned

about lawsuits and being sued for their net worth.

So that was the high eighties

where you looked back to the baby boomers

that the concern was barely there.

Like I'm not gonna get sued,

it's not gonna happen to me.

And I think that's interesting in our conversations

that we're having with clients

when we're looking at protecting someone's liability insurance,

with the boomers we're looking at protecting their legacy

versus the millennials,

we grew up in social media

and seeing how lawsuits were coming about.

And lastly, and Brian,

you and I recently spoke about this,

but of those respondents,

70% of them had private collections.

Majority of them planned to pass it down to the children.

And when we look at that,

I mean, knowing the podcasts were on,

about 40% of them had classic cars,

which was a high number,

thinking about the pool of individuals that we insured.

And if they're saying,

I wanna pass these down to the children,

well, do the children want them?

And do they have comprehensive coverage in place

to protect them to do so?

So there was a number of different areas

that we've kind of found interesting

that we could spend hours just picking a part.

I think the parts that I think were surprising to me

was the millennials.

But you're right, we grew up all,

I think everyone on this call is similar age

in the 40s range,

but we all grew up wanting to be a lawyer.

I think at one point everyone wanted to be a lawyer

in the 90s, right?

It's interesting when we look at the responses,

you know, you have the boomers that are saying like,

well, people are gonna get sued,

it's just not gonna be May.

And the millennials are saying,

people are gonna get sued, it's probably gonna be May.

So it's like a big difference,

but the millennials were obviously more open

to cyber coverage, talking about over 60% that were saying,

yes, I'd be willing to purchase cyber coverage

where we compare that to the boomers

that were saying only 13% felt like,

no, maybe I could have a product, maybe not.

But in fact, for any of us with our grandparents

still around, how many times have you heard of them

picking up a phone call and giving out information

they should have given out?

Oh yeah, we were just talking about that

at breakfast yesterday, I was with my mother-in-law

and my brother-in-law and his family.

And my mother-in-law will even come with like a list

of the types of emails that she received recently

to ask if we thought they were valid emails or not.

Getting an email from such and such place

about such and such thing.

And it wants me to, you know, send them my,

you know, whatever information.

It's like, no, just delete that one, just delete it.

But it's tough.

I'll just say phishing attempts,

the cyber attacks are getting more and more sophisticated

and they're probably likely only to continue

to get more sophisticated.

And so every day, and so that's just a big watch out

in general, I guess for that type of activity

and you know, what can we do

to help protect our clients?

You mentioned a number of kind of key concerns

coming out of the survey around

what types of exclusions they have on their policy

to being worried about potential lawsuits

and things like that.

So how can we translate those concerns?

How can we use these insights and these opportunities

to go and take good care of our customers

and drive more business?

And I think that's a two-fold answer there, John,

of one part of that is, and that's why

the association exists, is you can't be expected

to know everything, right?

Because we just said, cyber is changing so much

every single day.

So it's impossible for you to wake up each day

and then know how to have the conversation

with your client, like, here's new cyber measures

you're gonna put in place.

But I think when we look at our roles

and when we look at the responses of this survey,

these individuals are seeking support.

Like they're saying, I wanna do more

to protect my lifestyle.

I wanna do more to protect myself from a cyber standpoint,

but I just don't know what.

And historically, our roles and insurance

has been to provide a coverage.

But the coverage doesn't always give people

the tools or tips to prevent, like, we're very reactive.

So our roles have to evolve to be more proactive.

Like we wanna eliminate the chance

of that claim ever happening.

And that's why that education is key.

So I think one part of it is,

you're expanding your network in this space

to know who do you call or how are you learning

about what to teach your clients or prospects

about their risk management program.

But then the second part of that is never rushing the process.

Like I'll have plenty of producers that have said to me,

well, my clients just don't have time.

They're very busy.

But to me, it's such an oxymoron to what we do.

Like a wealth advisor is never gonna tell a client,

like, I know you're super busy,

but I'd really like to spend a few minutes of your time

to talk about where we're investing

the $50 million that you have.

I think it just, that doesn't make sense.

Like you're not gonna do that in a few minutes.

That's gonna be over the course of several polls.

And we have to realize in this industry,

we sit at that same table.

We are an extension.

Where a wealth advisor can grow a client's portfolio

all day long, but who's gonna protect it

from the liability lawsuit?

Who's gonna protect one of their largest assets

burning down in a fire?

That's our role.

And you can't do that in a few minutes.

So it's being able to also take a step back

and find out the client's tolerance for risk

and having conversations with them,

getting them on the phone or meeting them

and learning about what's most important

for them to protect or maintain,

what are they concerned about?

And learning how to carry on those conversations

so you become this insurance advisor in their life.

Granted, I know in some states in the New England area,

you can't call yourself an advisor,

but in your mindset, you have to realize that

as opposed to an insurance agent,

because we're so much more than that.

And I think in order for us to be successful

with where this industry is going

and the world is going,

we have to be that in our clients' lives.

You have to get yourself up to speed

on how to educate yourself to do that better.

There's a story that comes to mind

as you were talking that I wanna share.

And we're working with a partner that was not insuring,

they were insuring higher end cars

and they decided not to,

they're getting all these non-renewals

for vehicles over 200,000.

And the lesson for the agencies

and the brokers on this project

was I think in the high 40s,

I was like 48, almost 50% of those clients

had other cars that they did not know

that they insured with other places,

like they insured with some online company.

And those policies calling on the one car,

the one Porsche 911 for like 200,000

turned into six cars or five cars

with a Lamborghini or a Ferrari

or maybe three other Porsches.

It turned into all these high opportunities.

They were insuring them,

but they just didn't know they existed

because they were not having

the right conversations, right?

Exactly right.

Diane, I've got a question.

It's a little bit selfish,

but again, referencing the name of the podcast

and kind of what we generally talk

and think a lot about here.

I'm just curious from all of your experience

in the high net worth space and your position now,

how would you recommend agents and brokers in this space

think about passion assets,

specifically thinking collector cars

as like an entry point

to start a bigger dialogue with clients

or as a prospecting tool,

is that an avenue that folks can take

as a great entry point?

I'd just be really curious to hear your perspective

on these passion assets

and then again, leading towards collector car

as a potential entry point to develop a relationship

and have those bigger risk management conversations.

It's fantastic.

It's something we absolutely should be doing.

Why?

If we think about myself, right?

We live, eat and breathe insurance,

but if my insurance advisor calls me to do my renewal,

I'm not psyched about it.

Like, oh, yay, we're discussing insurance,

but most people,

these avid individuals that have passions or collections,

they're willing to talk about that.

And a lot of the times that's are in,

and I grew up in this industry

with homeowners being the lead line.

So you go after the home first,

but that might not be the thing

they're most concerned about protecting, preserving

or talking about.

And I do agree,

and I've had a lot of producers say to me,

my clients don't want to talk

because they're in a rush, right?

It goes to the conversation I just said before.

I agree with that.

And it's not FM,

but if you give them the opportunity

to talk about something they're passionate about,

then that you're in.

And it doesn't mean you have to be an expert

in collector cars.

What you have to do is have several sets of questions

at your fingertips that are open-ended

that allows that individual to just talk.

And you go into that conversation,

not thinking about ensuring that car yet

or ensuring that fine arts

or thinking about a solution you have,

but learning from them.

Why cars?

How did they get into it?

What's their future plans for it?

What excites them most about it?

Being able to just have those quick, easy discussions

allows them to build that trust.

This is a relationship business above all else.

And it's such an easy way when we go in on the passions

to be able to build relationships with others.

You said it so well.

I couldn't agree more.

People collect these cars

because they want to talk about them, share them.

They're really actually a pain in the butt

to take care of from a parts finding.

You're scared driving it

because you're always worried about someone hitting it.

If something does happen to it,

finding a person to work on it.

These aren't because people find these things easy to own.

It's because they want to own them and talk about them.

Shifting gears a little bit.

We've talked about the summit.

We've talked about PRMA currently.

What is offered for members?

Let's look forward.

I know we have some vision

of what the PRMA is gonna be in the next couple of years.

Do you wanna share kind of what you're,

and you kind of already touched on some of these things,

but you wanna share on what you're looking forward to

and what PRMA is gonna be talking about

the next couple of years?

Yeah, so just looking back in 2022

when I stepped into this role in the association

and you too, Bryant, we were 3,000 members.

So we've doubled in the last three years,

which is fantastic and it's showing us there's a need.

But for us, what we're also saying is

we have to grow with the membership

and we have to continually provide value

to our membership as well.

And there's a couple of things that we're looking at

in bringing the association over the couple of years

to help get us into a position

where we're like this well-oiled machine

where I'd love PRMA to be a compliment

to each of the brokerages and companies

and service providers training that they already offer.

Meaning, if at Hagry or another carrier or company,

you onboard an employee

and they have maybe come from an insurance background,

but not high net worth.

And maybe you do your own training in-house

but you wanna send them to PRMA

and have these different avenues or tracks that they can take.

And maybe it's how to expand their expertise

in risk management.

Maybe it's how to expand their expertise

in additional products or tools that are available.

Maybe it's the sales expertise.

So PRMA will grow into an association

where we'll have kind of a different,

I'm calling it towers for now,

but towers of training that will allow a company

to easily say or a broker to say

I need more in contracts, let me go there to learn.

So that's one aspect of it.

You'll always see our events

or in-person events expanding,

so our chapters are exploding.

We talked about the summit before

and the summit is our national event,

but that gets closed out.

Like we started this call saying, is it sold out yet?

But what we have are these smaller regional events.

So in the state of Texas,

now, Grant, Texas is a big state,

so probably a bad example,

but if we look at Houston, May decide,

we have chapter leaders,

let's run an in-person event

just for those in the state of Texas,

and they have a chance to get together and learn.

So we're gonna be investing a lot more into our chapters

to be able to expand those regional level events

beyond our national event,

but also AI and tech is coming into play.

And it's kind of a leading at the insurance space.

We could say we are archaic

when it comes to AI and tech,

but we're designed to be a risk management business.

So we're not gonna adopt AI and tech

at the same speed as other companies,

but from the association standpoint,

what we are aware of is there are things

we could probably put in place for the association

that it's harder, it takes longer for the company to do.

Meaning, one of the things we're exploring here at PRMA

is these AI sales coaches.

So that when we teach you a sales skill,

what we don't have time to do

is to train all 6,000 on how to do a teach back.

When I say teach back,

it's allowing you to change behavior.

If you listen to a course that I teach

on asking open-ended questions,

that's only one part of your skillset.

You have to be able to try it

because when you go back to work

after listening to the webinar,

it is much easier to do things

the way you were doing it before.

But there are a lot of AI tools that are coming in place

that will allow us to build a coach for you

based on the skills that was learned.

But again, not everyone will take advantage of that,

but those are things of we wanna move as quickly as

we need to so the industry could be more proactive

than reactive in their learning.

Thanks for sharing that.

It sounds like a great vision for PRMA

and almost like you're creating that producer school

but bigger and more comprehensive,

but that anyone that works in the space

could take advantage of.

It's not gonna be just for one company.

So I think that sounds like a fantastic vision

with a lot of exciting future ahead.

A quick story and just to say

for those on the fence about trying the AI sales tool,

I would just say, give it a shot.

So Brian's been testing a tool, also an AI sales tool,

and we were driving to a meeting

with one of our partners a couple of weeks ago

and Brian wanted to give it a try.

And so he put a couple on and I was sitting shotgun

just working and listening to him

and I just couldn't help myself.

I wanted to try and so he was in the middle,

I think of his third AI call

and the AI responded in a certain way

and I couldn't help myself, I just had to jump in.

And then the two of us end up spending over 30 minutes

on this AI call.

And I think they said what Brian,

the average calls like five to eight minutes or something.

Yeah, we had the record right now with this company,

33 minutes with John and I.

We would not give up, we would not give up.

But why?

What I think is just so great about this tool

is that in a lot of situations in real life,

in my experience working in sales

and doing a lot of public speaking and presentations

is when you're in those face-to-face meetings,

a lot of times you may get an objection, right,

that you need to kind of address.

And a lot of times if you come in with a stock,

kind of one of your stock answers

or something at surface level,

the person on the other side of the table

is gonna kind of nod their head and agree, right?

They don't, most people are not gonna really dig in

and get into it with you,

but you're not necessarily hitting the mark

in the way that you really need to advance your goal.

The person is kind of abusing you.

And so what's great about the AI tool

was that it didn't do that.

We found that we were really digging deep,

trying to reframe things, asking more clarifying questions,

trying to get deeper and really honing in

on what was this kind of AI persona stuck on

and how could we overcome those objections

to really get the resolution that we wanted?

And so it was really powerful because it was not easy

and it really pushed you to think and try a little bit harder

and reach a little bit deeper in your skill set.

That's awesome.

Yeah, and those are, I think,

are such exciting tools that exist today

that allow us to become better at our jobs.

Because like you said,

one of my biggest pet peeves in sales training courses

is like partner up and work on the skills we just learned.

And like you said, you turn to your partner

and they're not trained to listen to what you're saying.

They're gonna appease you and agree with you.

So you trying the skills just, it wasn't challenging.

And I think this challenges us

and it's better to me to practice on the AI

than it is the millionaire.

Exactly, yeah.

You gotta take a lot of swings and batting practice

before you're ready to step up to the plate

in the World Series, so to speak.

And so yeah, just found a lot of value in that tool.

Again, thinking towards the future,

we talked a lot about how you and the organization

are positioning PRMA for future success

and what that looks like.

I'm curious if we could talk a little bit more

because we did touch on them,

but some of these emerging risks

and how you see some of those emerging risks

kind of in the high net worth space

alongside PRMA's growth and the future there

and the support you're gonna be developing.

But if we could talk a little bit about

what's top of your mind

or what is coming through in the survey results

around climate, we talked about cyber a little bit,

shifts we're seeing socially that are happening.

We talked about a transfer of wealth that is expected.

So if we could talk a little bit about

some of those emerging risks and opportunities as well.

Yeah, so you just basically hit them all, John,

but when we looked even at the survey,

although not surprising, we could agree to this

of what's happening macro in our world

is trickling down to impact each of us on a personal level.

And there were very strong responses around macro economics

really impacting people from their concerns

and it varied from like what's happening

with regulation and the political environment

to climate change.

You know, a lot of things that are out of our control.

And then looking at it on the other end,

the highest concern was around cyber

and what that was gonna do to their financial net worth.

And I think this is an opportunity for us

to knock us over the fact

that there are some real things happening in the world

that people are so overwhelmed and concerned with.

And while we may not have the solution

particularly for like regulation or what might be having,

what we do in our everyday does allow us to grow

upon the macro concern and look at it

on an individual level, right?

So if we say people are concerned

about political environment and regulation

and we start to see cyber pick up,

well there we have a solution for that.

I think what we've done a good job on in the industry

and I think it'll have to trickle over more into cyber

is if you think about conversations we had

from a risk management standpoint years ago,

they were good, right?

But not everyone had a leak detection system in their home

and now a majority of that just becomes

an everyday conversation.

And there's started to be more conversations

because we've had no choice with our clients

on how to protect their home

from these catastrophic weather events

so we prevent that claim.

That has to now trickle over into other areas

like cyber and liability

because a lot of that is becoming out of our control

as well.

And what we have to do as an industry

is think beyond the coverages, right?

How are we becoming more proactive?

So coverage is only one piece and protect their clients.

The other part is preparing them

before that event ever happens

and what are things that we can do today?

So you will see and as cyber keeps coming up

and probably always keep coming up

but social inflation is a real thing in liability

and what we're seeing happen there.

That's gonna be something we have to pay closer attention

to in our industry of I think getting access

to the liability limits to protect people today

are getting harder.

So what does that mean in terms of protecting

their lifestyle and their net worth

so that we are differentiating ourselves

in the high network space versus the mass market?

And then it's also, it's paying attention

to obviously collections is a big piece of it

but the way families or individuals are collecting today

may look different in years to come

especially with the younger generation

and what they're into.

So it's always staying on top of how that's evolving

as well and how our process is changing

when we are ensuring those that are in the boomer's error

down to the Gen Z's.

All right, we're gonna switch to the rapid fire.

Diane, best piece of career advice you've ever received.

I share this on another podcast

but it's just the thing that hit me when you send this.

Uncle Bob taught me this, stop chewing gum

when I'm in a meeting or teaching a class.

And I never thought about that

but it's so unprofessional.

We are operating in an environment

and I've had brokers admit this to me

that they would go into a client meeting

chewing gum, not even thinking about the professionalism

and how that looks.

And I think there's so much that was beyond

like just us knowing our jobs

but it's how we're portraying ourselves professionally.

That's a solid one.

Yeah, that's great.

And even just to take that as you did at the end

how we present ourselves professionally

can extend beyond whether it's gum or a mint

or looking at your phone

just thinking about being conscious

of how you present yourself.

That's great advice.

What about something like if someone, you know

came up to you if you had 30 seconds with someone

they're like I'm really trying to grow up my expertise

or my success or my kind of knowledge in this space.

What is like a book or a podcast you'd recommend

for professionals in this space

to kind of get them on the right track

or to kind of put them in the right trajectory?

Bryant, you gave me this one

which was at Atomic Habits.

And I think that that's a really good,

we can like spend a whole other podcast on them

but on this.

But I think we are creatures of habit

in our own right.

And as we get older it gets harder

but we can't always be that

throughout every aspect of our life or career

because we won't be as successful.

So I think that is, it's separate from again

and I said this before in the last question

it's not just about what we know in the industry

it's not about our like that actual knowledge

but it's how we're portraying ourselves

and kind of taking steps outside

of just the coverages and understanding that.

I mean besides the Accelerator podcast

you should also listen to Diane's podcast

that her and Spencer have at PRMA.

Yeah, I should call her out, I was trying not to

but yeah we do have a PRMA risk-ready podcast.

We have another recording that'll come out

probably be out by the time this one comes out

that we just interviewed an individual

who's a roofing expert on fortified roofs.

But that's just an example of it's like

we know we have to know more about roofs

but what there's apparently an expert in that.

So we have a podcast coming out with on him soon.

And then Diane I'm gonna guess on this one

but if you weren't insurance

you would be in a bakery or a little food, right?

Yeah, so Brian's used to getting my videos during holidays

or even non-holidays of the dessert table.

Our family typically decides on the desserts

that will be served at a holiday

before we do the actual meal

but that's because it's in our blood.

So my real name is Diane Buonpane

and Buonpane means good bread.

I come from a family of bakers in Italy

but apparently we made some really good bread

but I just found that natural mac is in my blood.

So I'm big into baking but this would be my rule.

If I was a baker I would not be open on holidays or weekends.

So I don't know how successful I'd be.

Wonderful.

Well Diane before we end our time together today

can you maybe just remind our listeners

of a couple of things.

The upcoming PRMA summit,

when and where is that happening

and where can folks get more info

and then where could interested folks

just learn more about the PRMA in general?

So the main website for you to go to

is privateriskmanagement.org

and that website brings you to our main page.

Now if you're not a member you're kind of locked out

from several sections of that page

but you will see where our upcoming event is happening

in New Orleans, October 19th to the 21st.

You'll also see our upcoming podcast

that we just launched or recorded.

That's free regardless of being a member

because we're just kind of out there

on the podcast platforms.

But then you'll see some of the educational courses

or webinars that we're doing or live events

in different parts of the country.

Those are typically only open to non-member

so you can read more about become a member page.

There's also an about us section

and it says meet the team

and you'll see my contact information in there

along with my staff as well.

You can reach out to any of us at any time.

I'm really big and before someone becomes a member

I love just hopping on the phone with them

and talking about like why do they wanna join?

For me to be able to explain

this is where I think you'll find the most value

in these sections of PRMA.

So highly encourage that.

Just don't call me October 19th to the 21st

because I'll be a little busy.

Or on any weekends or holidays.

Right, right.

Because I'm not running the bakery then either.

All right.

Yeah, highly encourage anyone that's on the fence

to join.

It's been incredible for me the last few years

being involved with PRMA.

And I think it'll be incredible for you as well.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much Dan for coming on

and for all your time sharing your stories

and expertise.

Thanks for having me.

This was fun.

What a conversation.

Diane's career arc from training rooms

to building producer schools to now leading PRMA

it maps right onto what our industry needs now.

Better skills, better community

and a better way to translate macro risk

into client level action.

Totally agree, John.

Let's lay on this plane.

Diane's story and PRMA's momentum

really boiled down to a few things.

Agents and brokers can act on right now.

Couple thoughts, mindset over magic tricks.

So what we heard is that industry vets

are even relearning.

There's no shortcut.

Progress is process.

Slow down to speed up your discovery.

Before we talk price or limits,

what matters most to protect

over the next three to five years?

Talk like that.

Don't just go to price.

We're not selling a commodity.

We're actually selling our service and our expertise.

Number two, I talked to my team

about this all the time.

Use PRMA to compress your learning curve.

The education tracks they offer,

the designations I got my CPRA last year

and all the member forum conversations,

the local chapters, the annual summit.

It's the fastest way to level up,

especially if you're not doing high net worth

every single day, every single client.

So pick one PRMA course.

Take a CPRA, go onto one of the chapters

either virtually or in person

and place anonymized challenge in our forums.

And the last thought is,

aim at the real risks clients feel.

So what we heard from the PRMA survey

is confidence versus exclusions.

So the clients think they're covered,

but worry about fine print at claim time.

Liability, millennials like myself and John

are far more lawsuit aware than baby boomers.

So umbrella policy conversations

need to shift by generation.

Cyber, the interest is extremely high.

Attacks are literally daily.

So pair the coverage conversations

with those simple controls, collections.

Many plan to pass their assets,

including cars to their kids.

So coverage, storage, titling,

and valuation to be part of the plan.

Integrity is uniquely, uniquely suited in this space

with our broad arrow auction company to help.

That's right, Brian.

And a couple more things that we learned from Diane.

It really was an insight rich conversation

is that it is possible and even great strategy

to lead with passion assets to open the door.

At Haggerty, we like to say that the garage

is the largest entry point into the home.

And that sentiment really resonated with Diane.

And she sees that being a great strategy for brokers

and agents looking to break into the high network space.

Collector cars and other love it assets,

they're just the easiest way into a deeper risk dialogue.

People want to talk about them.

Some simple prompts you could consider

working into your dialogue with clients and prospects.

What pulled you into this car or this collection?

Five years from now, do you see yourself driving more,

restoring or passing these down?

And from there, you can bridge from cars

to home resiliency, umbrella, cyber travel kids,

all sorts of things.

Next one, be proactive, not just reactive.

Probably advice we've all heard before.

Prevention belongs next to policy.

So beyond helping them with the right policy,

how can you help them prevent some of these claim events

from occurring in the first place,

whether it's at home, water leak detection,

halo roof resilience, fortified standards,

going back to cyber, multi-factor authentication,

password management, device hygiene, family fishing,

things like that to make your customers aware of.

And lastly, practice the reps.

And with AI, you can get sharper faster.

What we heard from Diane is that AI sales coaches,

and Brian and I have a lot of experience with this also,

testing them here at Hagerty,

they really force better questioning

and object handling than friendly role-place.

It will really challenge you to think outside the box

and find creative ways to explore conversations

and get over objections with your customers and prospects.

So as an action, consider taking some AI sessions

this week or learn more about the available tools

to see if there's one that fits for you

or your broader team.

So big thanks for Diane for coming on the show.

Make sure to check out the show notes

for all the relevant info and links.

If you found this podcast helpful,

please rate and subscribe it, share it with a teammate,

and until next time, never stop driving.

Elevating Standards in Private Risk: A Chat with PRMA’s Diane Delaney

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