Managing Risk & Insurance Insights Featuring Taylor George, Founder of CareGuard Risk Partners

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
Hey Taylor, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast. How are you doing today?

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
Doing great, Danny. Thanks so much for having me.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
So, you know, how did CareGuard risk partners even come into existence?

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
Yeah, sure. So I have been a licensed insurance agent for over 10 years and kind of by accident, as most things do, I would say. Certainly wasn’t the… The kid wishing to grow up to be an insurance agent, maybe something like a baseball player or a firefighter, but sometimes insurance chooses you. I bounced around to a lot of different organizations over my insurance career, one of which was a health care and human services practice team at a at a regional brokerage. And some cool home health opportunities kind of came into the team and I was given the task to run with them. Kind of did a deep dive on market research of how do we cover home health agencies properly? What are the best markets to do so? How do we get best pricing? What are their best risk practices that they need to have in place? And did a great job with those few. So was kind of assigned on that team as the home health hospice medical staffing expert. Very, very specialized and niche area to be. From there, I kind of realized, hey, I might be one of five or 10 people with this type of experience in the country, right? And certainly care agencies are underserved in the specialized knowledge that they need for risk and insurance. So we started CareGuard Risk Partners, which is an independent insurance brokerage and risk consulting practice, different from other insurance agencies in that we focus. solely on home health, hospice, and medical staffing.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
So what is a brokerage? Really, I hear it a lot, but I have no idea what it is. I have a feeling a lot of people are not sure where they go. I think people, when they need insurance, they go and they call wherever commercial makes them laugh the most. They go from there. So what is a brokerage? Why should people go to one?

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
Yep, absolutely. And not to get too technical here, I guess, on my background, that brokerage I was at previously, there’s kind of two different types. There’s a brokerage for insurance brokerages, so kind of double brokerages where agents like you’re used to, insurance agents like, say, like your local State Farm agent or something gets an opportunity to write a home health agency and State Farm doesn’t write home health agencies and they need an expert to help. They would go to somebody like my old team to help with the placement and how do we do this and what’s the coverages that we need. So I was even the expert for the insurance experts previously. On the front end, I’m completely consumer facing. So working directly with with agency owners and admins. What we are is I have access to hundreds, if not thousands of different insurance companies. uh i meet with with business owners take their information understand their challenges try to help make their account and their business look as pretty as possible and then present it to all of those companies have them fight over pricing and coverage terms and things like that for insurance and bring back the best possible recommendation to to the business owner so an independent insurance brokerage always has the client’s needs first, which is why I love it. I’ve been on the insurance company side where I had the insurance company’s needs first. I didn’t last long there, right? Because I think my heart was probably more with the business owners.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
That’s amazing because now I’m going like, oh, wow. I don’t know. It just seems like a really great service. probably are like at a super disadvantage when you call up like the commercial people make you laugh commercials but like like that’s a huge disadvantage then because like you have people that are actually fighting over it and then we’re the one that like is an expert in this really guiding me like this is a really good policy this one is a great price but like they’re really not going to help you like with the things that i know you need most am i kind of getting this right

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
You have it exactly right. And I think that’s one of the major points and misconceptions I run into when I’m meeting with agency owners is I’ll often get, oh, I already have medical professional liability insurance, so I’m fine. But what they don’t understand and what you kind of just hit on is there’s 30 or 40 different companies that write professional liability. And not a single one of them is the same as the other. And each have their own coverage advantages and disadvantages. There could be something on page 143 of your policy that you’ve never read that’s going to exclude half the things that you’re doing. And we run into those things all the time. And so when you’re not working with an expert who really understands the language or perhaps even just a general insurance expert that doesn’t understand health care or home health specifically, You can get into trouble with that because it’s complicated, the types of insurances that agency owners need specifically. It’s not like insuring a flower shop. It’s a very specialized set of knowledge that you need to be able to advise correctly. So that’s where we come in is we’re the experts to know what’s on page 143 and make sure it’s not going to harm you and give you the correct advice.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
So like, what are those things that people, they go in probably pretty confident after they got the insurance, probably like, I’m totally set now. What is it like usually that they’re actually missing or just like, didn’t know because like, they’re not the expert. And then it turns out the insurance agency is not really maybe the expert either, or like just did something probably not even maliciously, just probably like under kind of thought through what this.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
of thought through what this. you know this company actually needs some of those like balls yeah there are many of them uh one one of the first things that that we do when we’re engaging with new potential clients is i have my running list about 50 of those that i found in real life examples and i kind of show them that that one cheater of my running list and and say you you probably have at least seven to eight of these and

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
there are many of them uh one one of the first things that that we do when we’re engaging with new potential clients is i have my running list about 50 of those that i found in real life examples and i kind of show them that that one cheater of my running list and and say you you probably have at least seven to eight of these and Sometimes I find 22 to 23, unfortunately. But high level, some ones would be within professional liability. If you’re doing any skilled services, there’s providers that can be excluded. There’s specific services that can be excluded. Live -in care can be excluded. Any physical abuse might be excluded. So unfortunately, we’ve had instances with caregivers. interacting negatively with patients and those sort of things. If you’re doing any sort of transport, you need specialized auto coverage. And beyond even just having the coverage for it to work, you have to meet certain requirements that the insurance carrier asks of you, which almost kind of gets into the risk side of things, right? So for those listening who do transport patients or especially those that have caregivers, transport patients in the caregiver’s vehicles. Your insurance company almost certainly requires that you keep proof of the caregiver’s personal insurance policy, all of them on record at your office, which many agency owners I find aren’t doing. Number two, that that insurance meets certain requirements and that it’s it’s for business use and not personal because they’re transporting people uh for for funds and number three that you run their motor vehicle records every six to 12 months which you want to do anyways right because you don’t want to put somebody behind the wheel transporting grandma who’s who’s had five speeding tickets in the past two years it does not look good you know once once an accident happens so there’s other things that we get into outside of just the coverage. So one thing I’ll hear is I already have hired a non -Odotto coverage. It’s like, yes, but do you have the MBRs, the proof of insurance and all the other things that your policy requires you to do for it to respond correctly? So I could go on for a very long time, right? And every new client’s different and we find different things and gaps and uncover things that that weren’t discussed or found previously just because it’s what we do every day and we thought really intentionally and detailed about it. And I’ve seen the cases where it hasn’t gone right or heard about the cases where it hasn’t gone right either. So we’ve seen the practical application of the consequences, unfortunately.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
Yeah, well, this is why I love talking to you because your company doesn’t even have insurance in the title it’s care guard risk partners like the emphasis is on the risk management side of it so like if like on the bad side of things if somebody has like a policy and then they’re like not following all like they don’t have all of those records you know with them and then something happens how bad like does can it just the insurance of this goes hey can’t help you out here because you didn’t actually have it on hand like how bad does this stuff go does it go pretty bad pretty quickly or like what happens here i’m already nervous about it yeah i know uh and and you know sometimes people like having conversations with me other times not right because it gets pretty doom and gloom pretty fast sometimes but it is about important protections that we’re talking about here and yes it’s exactly what you just described

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
i know uh and and you know sometimes people like having conversations with me other times not right because it gets pretty doom and gloom pretty fast sometimes but it is about important protections that we’re talking about here and yes it’s exactly what you just described in my experience in number one working at a big insurance carrier and number two working with them or in conjunction with them or opt in against them uh really they don’t have your best interests at heart i think a lot of people listening might know that from personal experience if you’ve ever been through a claims process with an insurance company they would rather not pay your claim, right? So giving them any reason to do so, they’re going to utilize the contract language that they have to get out of paying it completely. So in the instance where you’re saying, oh, we’re not meeting all the requirements set by the contract, absolutely, they’re going to go, no, we’re not paying for any of this because you didn’t do. this this and this that’s in the contract and they would have every right to unfortunately um and then it’s scrambling to figure out how you’re going to pay for your own lawyer and how you’re going to pay settlement costs and get out of this and hopefully you know use cash flow in the future to pay off damages and things and that’s ultimately what what we’re trying to prevent it’s It’s sad to hear all the stories, but I’ve heard many claim denial stories. It’s not a place I want any agency owner or administrator to ever be. And it’s why we fight so hard for our clients and are so detailed, because the consequences of not being detailed and thorough are catastrophic, unfortunately.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
Yeah, well, you mentioned right early when we started that it’s a really underserved.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
industry kind of why is that is just like the risk is really high or yeah like why is that uh not exactly sure why it is i if if i had to pinpoint to anything it’s it’s because it’s difficult it’s because it requires a specialized level of knowledge i think um

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
exactly sure why it is i if if i had to pinpoint to anything it’s it’s because it’s difficult it’s because it requires a specialized level of knowledge i think um the number of people who have just had my experience like if i hadn’t had my experience of being on a team and uh having those sort of accounts assigned to me and having over 200 or 300 repetitions i don’t know that i would be comfortable as an insurance agent advising on a home health agency or if i was i certainly know that i wouldn’t be doing a great job at it unfortunately so i think Not necessarily that it’s underserved or that there’s a lack of agents that are willing to try to help out home health agency owners. It’s just the number of agents that are capable of doing so, right? And when you have a less than capable agent for the industry, I think it can get you into trouble.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
Yeah, I keep learning that I’m a pretty naive. person like i think like through a lot of things but i really honestly think the best in people so i’m just kind of finding out like oh wow i’m naive to like a certain amount of things and i’m thinking like if i went and i called like big box insurance for to like insure me they probably would they just probably wouldn’t know all of the things that they should be doing or like probably wouldn’t like point me in the right direction of like, like, am I kind of getting this right? Like, guess what I’m saying is like, it would be really easy to call someone and be like, can you insure me? And they would probably say yes, instead of being like, talk to someone that really knows what they were doing.

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, that’s, I think the, the epidemic that we’re kind of finding is, you know, Insurance agents operate based on if they get new clients, they get paid. If they don’t get new clients, they do not. So it takes a lot of pride and integrity to be able to turn away new business. If you call me and ask me to be my client to go, no, I don’t really know enough. You should go call my competitor, you know, is is unfortunately in our industry not a common response. Whereas. It is with me. If you’re a trucking company and you call me, I know home health. I’m not going to pretend like I understand trucking and all of the motor carrier federal rules and all of this stuff that I need to know to properly protect your business. It’s just not the same everywhere for that, I would say.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
a home care agency or home health agency or hospice agency or any of these things like how much should I know about the insurance I’m carrying or like like you know on page 143 like we’re saying like how deep do I need to really know this before I sign on the dotted line or could I like just trust you more I’m thinking about how overwhelming all of this really is in running every aspect of the business. This is like one where you probably have a lot less insight on and it’s, you know, it’s your career. It’s a whole part, you know, it’s built around this. How smart am I supposed to be? Yeah. Very, yeah,

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
it’s, it’s very difficult. And, and that’s, that’s where we try to come in is I always feel in a great insurance. relationship between agent and business owner, that there has to be some level of trust. If a new prospective client or a client doesn’t have trust in working with me, I feel that we’re not going to work well together or that it’s not in their best interest to work with us because I think you need that. It’s incredibly difficult. I would say not much, Danny. You trying to read page 143 of an insurance policy without having a license or doing a bunch of training, first of all, you’re going to fall asleep at your desk. And secondly, it’s going to look like Chinese. So I would say the best risk management practice against what we’re talking about of getting into a product that’s not going to work for you is to be diligent about who you select as your insurance agent. Even if it’s not us, there’s other insurance agencies and brokerages that at least specialize in healthcare or understand medical malpractice and things of that nature that you could choose. I think there’s a lot of rural agencies that like to use their local insurance agency and things like that for their coverage. I would at least always caution to get a second opinion or even just have a second insurance professional do a free review for you because usually that’s kind of the industry standard is if you bring your policy to a competitor, they’ll read page 143 for you and let you know if they have any concerns. That could be a good way, one, not to fall asleep at your desk or two, to kind of find out and get a second opinion. We kind of call that process at our practice due diligence. And it’s what we always start with. So oftentimes other our our competitors will just try and grab some quick information and start quoting a business or something like that. I always say that’s a yellow to a red flag. First, you kind of have to dive into. What do you currently have? What are you currently getting? Where are the gaps? What do you want to accomplish before taking that step? So for anybody listening too, yeah, happy to be that person to do that free review and read pages 100 to 400 for you. I do it constantly. I am a true insurance nerd and love to do it. So happy to help. I will read as many of those as you would like. too so that’s amazing i’m like i was as you’re saying that i was thinking like wow that’s like a pretty amazing service to offer and then it’s super easy for anyone to go yeah great like i feel comfortable with this person that’s providing my comb and car insurance and all of that other stuff but i can take this policy and i could ask someone that’s like truly an expert and they can tell me like hey yeah this is good enough for you know what you’re doing

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
amazing i’m like i was as you’re saying that i was thinking like wow that’s like a pretty amazing service to offer and then it’s super easy for anyone to go yeah great like i feel comfortable with this person that’s providing my comb and car insurance and all of that other stuff but i can take this policy and i could ask someone that’s like truly an expert and they can tell me like hey yeah this is good enough for you know what you’re doing In my imagination, it probably is not. But you can say, hey, we should be looking into these things or something else like that. I’m thinking, what kind of relationship should a business owner have with their insurance agent?

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
a business owner have with their insurance agent? How often should I be calling? Or at what point do I feel comfortable enough to call because something seems… off? What kind of relationship is this? Is it just that you pick up the phone when you’re really scared because something has happened? When do you do it?

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
That’s a great question. I think it’s the basis of why we’re founded and why we’re set up the way that we are. My opinion on this topic I think is different from what a lot of other business owners are getting or what a lot of other agents are. providing I would say in 90 plus percent of situations it’s hey here’s your policy renewal which comes up once a year the price changed to this did you have any changes how are the kids and here it is you know and uh and that’s that’s about the extent of it um we talked a lot about insurance on the podcast so far but we always think about insurance last so uh what you get with our practice and this is for no additional cost or fees if we’re your insurance agent just use the commissions we receive from the insurance policy as the funding for these types of services but we feel like you should get a risk partner almost like having another part -time employee on your staff who’s who’s effectively a risk manager helping with things like can we draft company policies or trainings that are going to help people who are transporting to meet all the wrecks that we need. Can I get plugged in and meet with all of your HR departments so that we can talk about what exactly to do when a caregiver gets injured on the job and how to manage that employee injury correctly? How are we going to make up for scheduling for downtime? How do we ease that employee back to work, maybe with medical restrictions? Those sort of questions and answers, we like to get into that level of detail and solve for those questions that are often just kind of, you know, ran with as situations when agency owners get punched in the face for the first time and somebody gets injured for the first time. There’s usually kind of no policy procedure and everybody’s running around like a chicken with their head cut off. We like to get in first, be a true partner and consultant. Work alongside an employee injury, for instance, or help implement, you know, transportation guidelines or help modify abuse training and policies, those sort of things. And that’s what I feel agency owners should get with an insurance agent. And I think how we differentiate ourselves in the market, because most of what agency owners get is here’s your renewal. It went up 10 percent. See you next year. And that’s about it. So. Yeah.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
It sounds incredible that you do that, and that’s the level of support that you give businesses.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
Why is that not the standard? Just because it’s too hard?

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
I think there is an effort idea.

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
I think maybe… Because it’s taken a lot of effort to get to where I’m at. It’s taken a lot of repetition, a lot of reading to get comfortable advising on an abuse policy or a transportation policy. Right. If I’m that other insurance agent that’s also writing flower shops and plumbers and things, maybe I’m not comfortable advising on transportation policies for a home health agency because I don’t have that level of expertise. So I think. One, there’s an effort component to it, but two, maybe a lack of expertise in being able to go to that level of detail with agency owners. I’m sure there’s tons of great professionals who are trying their best out there to really provide service to owners. We just try and go above and beyond. That’s the way that we’re different.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
That’s amazing. So I’m thinking, I’m listening to this podcast. I’m going, I have an insurance policy. It’s coming up. Time for me to renew. What should I be thinking about? And what are my next steps?

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
Yeah, great, great question. I would say. If you already are comfortable with your insurance agent, you shouldn’t even have to be asking yourself that, right? So if that is a question that you’re asking, maybe it is time to reach out and do some due diligence. Ask your current insurance agent what they expect, what their strategy is. Are they going to quote your account to other markets? What have they seen as far as price and coverage changes that might be coming? And if you’re not getting a ton of guidance on that, perhaps it’s time to do some due diligence and talk to somebody else who can give you that sort of opinion, right? Because really, the way our process works is we’re reaching out to you first about 90 to 120 days in advance and saying, here’s what’s coming up. Here’s the information we need. Let’s talk strategy. Let’s hop on a phone call and ask, hey, what’s changed over the course of the past six to nine months? Are you doing anything different? Have you grown? Have you reduced in size? Are you considering a sale or an exit or two or three years? What has to come with that? Are you trying to acquire other agencies? What are some considerations with those things? And then put together a clear -cut strategy of exactly what we’re going to do and then meet with that client about 30 days before just to show them. the results of our exact plan. So I think if you don’t have a clear cut direction and you’re like, what do I do with my insurance renewal? It’s, it’s, it’s maybe a sign of, you know, maybe your agent should be, should be helping you with that already. Right. So that’s awesome.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
awesome. So I have to ask,

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
have to ask, how did you get like this nerdy about insurance?

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
I think I’ve always had it in me. I’ve loved spreadsheets. I’ve always been a little bit of a nerd. But really what it boils down to, and this will get back to doom and gloom again a little bit, is just I’ve seen when it hasn’t worked out and how important it is to be very knowledgeable about this stuff. And just with the way that you can. protect people in their worst of times. I mean, a large liability claim or a big auto accident or an employee being seriously injured is going to be one of the worst days for a home health agency owner or admin, right? Just being able to be there and knowing that I was detailed and could help to make sure that they were protected on that to give them that little bit of reassurance. and make sure that their business can continue to operate is incredibly important to me just because i’ve seen when it when it hasn’t gone that way so to me there is no other option you you you have to be detailed you have to be thorough um and it does take a special sort of uh you know uh nerdiness i would say to to to you know become super interested in insurance policy language and read and study as much as I do. Certainly isn’t the industry for everybody. Caring for others probably sounds a lot more exciting, right? But it’s just what I enjoy to do.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
Well, I really love that you mentioned that every business is different and looking for different things. I think it really takes to know that that insurance is all the same, that there’s differences that everybody needs. So with all of that, where can people go to learn more about CareGuard Risk Partners?

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
CareGuard Risk Partners, we are online at www .careguardrisk .com. I’m also on LinkedIn, Taylor George for CareGuard Risk Partners. Happy to connect with anybody. There’s spots on our website to reach out, to schedule phone calls with me. We have an office line as well. Even if you just have a simple question, I am so happy just to be a resource. I do this all day, every day, whether it’s insurance, risk, or otherwise. I’m happy to be of any help that I can.

DANNY ROSENTHAL – ENGINEHIRE
Amazing. Taylor, thank you so much for joining us and sharing all of your wisdom. This has been a pleasure.

TAYLOR GEORGE – CAREGUARD RISK PARTNERS
Appreciate it, Danny. Yeah, it was great as well. Thank you.