Sherry Branson: 0:00

The training is really important. And consulting the experts and the professionals, like attorneys, your insurance agent, your broker, risk management professionals, you know, people who have our policy, our DNO policy, have access to a risk management helpline, which is free, one hour free of legal advice. So that's a great resource, a great tool. So if you have access to risk management professionals, or you want to hire one, I highly recommend it. I think it's well worth the money and the investment and the time.

Announcer: 0:31

HOA Insights is brought to you by five companies that care about board

members: 0:34

Association Insights and Marketplace, Association Reserves, Community Financials, Kevin Davis Insurance Services, and the Inspectors of Election. You'll find links to their website and social media in the show notes.

Kevin Davis: 0:47

Hi, I'm Kevin Davis of Kevin Davis Insurance Services,

Sherry Branson: 0:50

and I'm Sherry Branson of Kevin Davis Insurance Services, and this is HOA Insights, where we promote common sense

Kevin Davis: 0:57

for common areas. Welcome to Episode 158 where we're again speaking with Sherry Branson, my co host for my own monthly webinars at Kevin Davis Insurance Services. Hi sherry.

Sherry Branson: 1:08

Hi Kevin. Thanks for having me today.

Kevin Davis: 1:10

Yeah. Welcome back. Welcome back. This is actually a follow up episode of 153 where we talk about no decisions, and we discussed the dangers of not making the decision, and how no decision is actually a decision. Today we're discussing the costs associated with no decision or a poor decision. Now, if you missed that

Sherry Branson: 1:30

decision, a simple claim can be episode or any other prior episode, take a moment after today's program to listen from our podcast. Website www.hoainsights.org or watch on our YouTube channel. Buddy up, SUBSCRIBE from any of our major podcast platforms so you don't miss any future episodes. Now, those of you watching from our YouTube channel can see that our HOA Insights mug, I hear from our merch store. Yes, we have a merch store, visit our hoainsights.org website, or link to any show notes, and you too can get one of these things. Sherry, have you gotten yours yet? very costly.

Kevin Davis: 3:07

and that's the key thing that's we're gonna talk about today. We talked about last, last time, a month ago, how just there's dangers between not making this make a decision, in terms of just the overall appearance of the Community Association the way it looks, the maintenance of it, collecting assessments, but today is a cost associated with it. And we're talking about the simplest of simplest claims. Okay, not complicated claims. We're talking about me as a unit owner or Sherry you as a unit owner, saying, "I don't like what the board has done. They treated me unfairly. They're inconsistent. They didn't hear me." And they take a simple thing, and guess how much the cost of a simple claim is? 17,800 so less than$20,000.

Sherry Branson: 3:54

Yeah. And Kevin, you know, we've talked about the fact before that. You know claims, most of the claims that you see in community associations are not about money, but they do end up costing money in the end. But they're very emotional. You know, it's regarding the flag, flying the flag, or parking in a spot, or I want to paint my house in unusual color, or plant a special tree in the front yard, and they don't approve of the tree, that kind of a thing. So the very emotional claims,

Kevin Davis: 4:21

that's a great point you're saying, because most of these claims are procedural claims, meaning that, guess what? "The board did not allow me to do something I wanted to do." In other words,"I want to paint my house a certain color, and they didn't allow me to do it." Okay?"They didn't. They didn't say no. They made no decision at all, so I went and started painting my house." Now, eventually, what happens, they come back to me and say, well, guess what? It was not approved. Now, I did the work, you know, so the delay that they made ended up costing me. Now I get a lawyer because they made no decision. And I'm upset with them, and now sudden, the judge has got to come back and say, yes, what? Yes or no, and I get to keep my painted house, or have to repaint it or do something else. So these are kind of decisions, you know, pets, parking, you know, these are the simple decisions that the board has to make a decision as outlined in the governing documents, and that's the key thing. When they don't make decisions as outlined in the governing documents or state law or whatever they have, then guess what happens now, all of a sudden, you face what you call a procedural lawsuit against you. Perfect example. Here's one that we I love talking about the trash can, right? The 48 hour trash can.

Sherry Branson: 5:43

Oh, yes, those trash cans. Yeah.

Kevin Davis: 5:46

I mean, you know, for where, where you live at, where I used to live at, grew up, you know, if trash cans not removed, them in certain at the time, I'd knock on the door, pick the trash cans back myself. It's a day. Guess what happened? They end up following a going to the board. It's like, guess what? Board you need to find this individual, because trash cans were out more than 48 hours. So now it's been three or four days, I want you to send out a fine and notice of fine. So when you do that now that you now, you have a person there who sits back there and gets upset, because guess what? You're inconsistent in your rules enforcement. Because I see a lot of trash cans out there that's been there for three for a week long, and now you're going after me, so because you're inconsistent, now, all of a sudden, there is a claim made against you. Again. These are procedural claims. These are basic claims that the board has to follow again. These are documents that says, That's outline that okay, you live in a community association. If you have election, you have to notify people within maybe 30 days. Okay, but what happens if you it's been, you know, 45 days and you haven't sent out the documentation? We have people in that community association. This community association says, Guess what? What you're doing is unfair. You know, what you're doing is inappropriate, therefore, I'm going to file a claim against you to make sure you do things in a more timely manner. And

Sherry Branson: 7:10

you know, the sad part of these procedural claims, Kevin and like you said, small claims, is that people were never looking for money. They were not looking to, you know, to sue or file a claim or to get money. But it does end up costing the association 1000s of dollars,

Kevin Davis: 7:24

$1,000 and it's the key thing to it, the reason why it costs so much money, because once you get a lawyer involved, and a lawyer is looking at procedures, if lawyers looking at the fact that, wait a minute, it's been 30 days, or four days, your trash cans been out, you're now not conforming to the governing documents. Your document says you have to have these things done over certain length of time. If you don't have it, then that attorney who's handling that case is looking forward to it, because most states have what's called prevailing party fees, and basically that means is that if I win the case, I win back my attorney fees so that I win, so I don't lose. You didn't

Sherry Branson: 8:04

have to spend any money to spend money so that then the association is paying for their attorney fees

Kevin Davis: 8:11

Exactly So, so the lawyer wins, because the association failed to just conform to the government and documents. So these are small procedural claims that we see constantly. And guess what? These kind of claims can be stopped.

Sherry Branson: 8:27

What would you advise? You know, the board members listening today, Kevin to how would they what is the best way to handle this, to stop it? What do you recommend?

Kevin Davis: 8:35

The number one reason that a lot of these things happen is procedural claims is because the board failed to communicate properly. Okay, communication is the key. They either ignore it, okay, afraid of it, or say that it's that crazy guy in unit number six, again, he always complains about everything, okay, but what they'll do, they do not respond, and or if they respond, they don't do it in a timely manner.

Sherry Branson: 9:05

So decision or a delayed decision,

Kevin Davis: 9:07

exactly, and when you have that delayed decision now of a sudden, as you said before, it becomes emotional, and as it becomes more emotional, guess what happens now? Of a sudden, it gets more and more intense, yes, yes, and

Sherry Branson: 9:22

more and more expensive.

Kevin Davis: 9:23

That's the point, see, right now we're talking about $20,000 claims, basically $20,000 or less. Okay, now we get a point, though, when we get past that$20,000 and hit that 100,000 to $250,000 range, that's where things actually just starts to escalate. That's the problem that we see today, because we're living in a time where we have community associations and we have people who live there that are not they'll like each other.

Sherry Branson: 9:56

Unfortunately, yeah, more people at home, and there's. Lot more stress and, you know, and things, and it just ends up turning into a lot of claims, because there's, you know, houses are closer together. You have shared walls and condos, that kind of a thing, noise.

Kevin Davis: 10:12

And we live in that post covid world where, right right now, here is what, two o'clock, two o'clock in the afternoon, where you're at, okay, it's 11 o'clock here, and the last Skipper coming in, and you can't hear it. I'm

Sherry Branson: 10:24

here

Kevin Davis: 10:25

exactly. So now, if I live in the condo, and it's this time, and I hear pickleball people, pickleball noises, I hear the dog barking because he had a covid pet. So we're living in a time now where things are heightened and because they're hiding, I don't like the fact that the board is not listening to me. They're not responding. So it gets heightened when I'm saying, guess what? I don't agree with decisions you made. That's the $20,000 claim. But now I disagree decision you made. I think decision you made is inappropriate. It's unlawful. You lack the authority to do it.

Sherry Branson: 11:04

Okay? So now it's gotten to that point where it's contentious, where they're, yes, very contentious. And, you know, lawyers are billing more hours. Let's you know, they're they're getting more involved. They're filing more paperwork. So the costs are going up and up.

Kevin Davis: 11:18

That's the problem. So the biggest problem our fear, you know, again, we're handling insurance for directors and office of community associations. Our goal is, first of all, is to eliminate that$20,000 claim, and we do that by doing one thing is, communicate better. If you communicate better, guess what happens? You do not have those$20,000 claims. Okay, but now comes the next area now that only you haven't done your job of communicating properly, okay? You now you heighten a situation, because the person on the other end lives in a community association where they are seeing things that haven't been done well, they've seen things that have been kept up. Whenever I start these community association talks, we talk about the board of directors have a basic job. They do three things, they enforce the rules, they collect assessments, and they maintain the association. So if you ever what you want to see is somebody being upset by one of those three things, or maybe all three of those things. So what happens now if you have a situation where I'm upset because I fail to pay my assessment in a timely manner, I send them a nice note. They didn't respond to my note, and I'm keep getting fees. I keep getting fees. I keep getting fees. Now of a sudden, I'm on the phone my lawyer, because guess what, you're being unreasonable.

Sherry Branson: 12:39

We're targeting you with fees and fines and letters and you feel discriminated against and picking on you.

Kevin Davis: 12:47

That's the next word. So all of a sudden, again, we went from a $20,000 claim, now we're into the 100 to $200,000 claim. That 100$200,000 claim happens because you, as a board member, did not respond to me. It could be about the money, it could be about maintenance, it could be about the rules. You know, right? You would pass a special assessment where, guess what? I told you that the balcony that you said was cosmetic damage that was done, it was structural damage. I've been looking at this for the past two years. You didn't listen to me. Now, all of a sudden, you were in special assessment. Your special assessment for $10,000 after you failed to do your job appropriately. So now all of a sudden, guess what you have? You have a bigger claim. You have a claim that's gone from something really, very, very small to something very, very big. Because what happens is, again, once you get to that point where I'm excited or I'm upset or I'm emotionally charged with it, now all of a sudden, more money is involved. So you went from a$20,000 case to now because of my emotions, my lawyer is now more involved because I'm upset, because of special assessment, right? So now that lawyer had to go out and do his job and find out, well, guess what? Did the association have the right to have a special assessment? Did he have the authority to write the special assessment? Because I'm saying the board lacked the authority to do it.

Sherry Branson: 14:15

So went from mild emotions to mildly upset to very upset, and since the temperature has gone so far up, now the price is going up. The lawyers, more involved, more legal fees, that kind of a thing. So everything has gone up. And it could have all you said, it could have been stopped in the beginning. It could have been stopped in

Kevin Davis: 14:34

And the question is this, how the very beginning. do you end something like this? How do you say, Okay, guess what? You know, everybody go back to the corners, figure out it's hard to because you're looking at something that's really, really important to the person who lives there, right? A special assessment, right? Okay, but it could be, you know, a parking situation, you know, no matter what it is, again, it could be a pet. You know,"I've had this pet. I have a dog." Okay? Dog is over the weight restriction that the board has said I have now have a 35 pound dog. The weight restriction is 25 pounds. "I believe that rule is unreasonable. I believe you are discriminating me, because guess what? You inconsistently apply that rule. You're applying it to me." So all of a sudden now you take a small claim and you heightened it,

Sherry Branson: 15:29

and now it's a medium getting even getting bigger and bigger with no end in sight, really no end in sight to come at all. In order to solve it is going to be more much more challenging and more complicated.

Kevin Davis: 15:40

And it makes it more complicated because the board doesn't do the simple things they should be doing. Okay? Again, communicating, effectively, asking experts, you know, the simple thing they can do, go out a higher attorney and say, Can you please look at this and respond to this for me. Don't go to chat GPT and say how the best response, because chat GPT is not a defensible position if youre in court,

Sherry Branson: 16:08

right, right. Yeah, they should speak to their attorneys. Call a risk management professional, or higher risk management professional, somebody who knows how to navigate this, Kevin, without escalating it and to calm it down, to cool it down and hopefully stop it, you know, before it gets to an even higher level.

Kevin Davis: 16:27

And that's the whole point there, Sherry, is that we have to calm down the people are involved. Because right now you have the union owners upset. Believe they're being mistreated, okay, but you have the board member there who's uncomfortable, because, guess what, they may not have enforced the rules the way they should have enforced the rules. So in other words, if I'm complaining about, you know, me parking my car in the wrong spot, or my dog or the balconies, and they choose not to do anything about it, they now will defend themselves. Now what they should do, what they could do, is step in early and resolve this thing in an early manner. Okay, don't let it escalate. Don't let it get bigger and bigger and bigger. Try to have it, you know, more manageable.

Sherry Branson: 17:21

Absolutely, absolutely. But a lot of times, you know, the board member may be defensive or not feel, you know, well, you know they might want to dig their heels in and say, I'm going to defend myself and defend the association. But you're right. I think hiring somebody from the outside to come in, an attorney or risk management person, somebody who could help bring it down and handle it so that it's resolved in a, you know, a way where everybody's happy, or at least, you know, at least reduce the heat and the emotions of it to the point where they just, you know, like a mediator, mediator type person would be good.

Kevin Davis: 17:58

And one word I used last time, when we talked about this a month, they have to learn to board if they can be just a little bit kinder to the people who bring any things against them, they can avoid a quarter of a million dollar lawsuit. Okay, that's what we're talking about right now. We're talking about 100,000 to a quarter million dollars because the board of directors. Okay, again, the union owner there, who lives there, is complaining to the board, because I don't like decision you made, but the way you handle it was inappropriately, the way you handle it, I believe it was wrong. The way you handle it was unlawful. You know it was unreasonable. When they start throwing out words like this, you lack the authority. Now I'm challenging the board. Once I challenge that board, we're not talking about $20,000 anymore. We're talking about 100 $200,000 I'm challenging that board's authority to act.

Sherry Branson: 18:55

Yeah, you know, Kevin, people receive a letter in the mail saying, you know, you have to do this to your lawn, or you have to take that flag down, or you you have to stop painting your house. I know you're in the middle of it, but rather than having board members talk, maybe have a meeting with the homeowner, you know, and saying, I understand this is not a popular decision. Or, you know, sorry, have to tell you this, but you know, there's, there's ways to handle things. With a letter, just a cold letter, saying, you know, I'm sending you a 50, $50 fine over your trash cans, you know. I mean, as opposed to, you know, I mean just talking to the person and saying, hey, you know, I'll let it go this time. You just want to let you know that the rule is, you know, I know it's, it's a pain, but you know, you have to have the cans in, in a cup, in 48 hours, and you know, something like that.

Kevin Davis: 19:41

And that's what I always say is about this, as board of directors of community associations, is your job, your job to kind of lower the temperature so you don't end up with a$20,000 claim, let alone when that$20,000 escalates to 100 A $200,000 claim, and it's easy for it to happen. You know, it's easy. All you have to do is say you're being unreasonable. Okay? You don't have the authority now of a sudden, you take it that much bigger, and all you have to start by doing is communicating effectively, but communicating in a kindly way, communicating the kindly way, it'll allow you that ability to be able to handle things a lot better.

Sherry Branson: 20:27

Absolutely, that's the key, I think. And I think, you know, it's it's nice, it's every HOA has to have rules. Everybody knows that. But there are ways, I think, in some situations, to communicate them, where you can understand that a homeowner would be upset about a pet if you're telling them they can't have their pet anymore, or paint the house their favorite color, or whatever. You know, these are, like we said. They're emotional decisions and emotional claims. So I think handling it with some discretion and kindness and communication, I think goes a long way, and could save the association a lot of money, and everybody wouldn't be so stressed out, you know, they wouldn't. It wouldn't get worse. Put it that way,

Kevin Davis: 21:06

and you're right, too, in terms of all these decisions are mostly emotionally based, you know, which at the end of the day, which means that once it goes to a judge, right? The judge is sitting there, and all these, most of these cases, they'll say, Okay, I understand. You don't like the election. You like the fact that your car was towed. You don't like the fact you can't have a pet. Well, how will you harm financially? So what kind of judgments? What do you want as a result of this?

Sherry Branson: 21:35

If they don't want money, they don't want that's the thing. They don't want the money. They want to be able to keep the pet.

Kevin Davis: 21:40

And that's the whole point. So a lot of times when we talk about these lawsuits that end up costing$20,000 or go from 100,000 100,000 to a quarter of a million day, almost 500 million. You're talking about defense costs. It's rare where there's a judgment, settlement, damages involved,

Sherry Branson: 21:57

yeah. So it's just such a unique situation that, you know, the board members, I don't think, realize, you know that they're in. And I think that if you have people skills and communication skills, and maybe, you know, get, maybe get take some training, some courses regarding that, maybe mediation skills would be a good class to take, just something like that would really go a long way in saving everybody a lot of headaches and a lot of money.

Kevin Davis: 22:27

How true? All right, share, this is break time. Let's take a break and hear from one of our sponsors. Then we'll come back and talk about big million dollar claim, how we hit them, and how do we stop that from happening? Okay, let's take a quick break. Hi, I'm Kevin Davis, the president of Kevin Davis insurance services, our experienced team of underwriters will help you when you get that declination. We provide the voice of reason, someone who will stand by you. Our underwriters bring years of knowledge to our clients that can't be automated by technology or driven by price. As a proud and women's company, we bring true value to your community association clients. We are your community association insurance experts, and we're back. Let's talk about the big claims. A million dollar claim. Last year we had a $3 million claim. Okay,

Sherry Branson: 23:18

yes, three million dollar-- That's the biggest one that Kevin Davis insurance has ever had, correct,

Kevin Davis: 23:23

biggest one they ever had. Let's talk about how you're going to see a large claim. Okay, a large claim happens in about a couple areas. Number one, structural damage, like the one I talk about with the balcony. In California you have balcony laws that you have to have a balcony inspected. Again. What happened to the one we're talking about, They thought it's cosmetic. It's structural damage. And when you have structural damage, we have a million dollar claim. It's no longer about me. It's about the association in general. That's the difference,

Sherry Branson: 23:54

right, right.

Kevin Davis: 23:55

$20,000 claim is about me.$100,000 claim is about me. Million dollar claim, it's not just about me, it's everybody who lives here,

Sherry Branson: 24:06

right, right. That's an extremely expensive claim, and one that will go on for years, right Kevin?

Kevin Davis: 24:12

eight years, 8, 10, 12 years. Million dollar claim, a curse. Number one reason structural. That's the big reason why. Second reason is really we have our severe weather, so they kind of go hand in hand. But you have when we had the wildfires out here last year, a year ago, the amount of claims that we are seeing today is unbelievable. We're starting to see claims from them because the board of directors were not prepared for this. There was no they didn't do the proper notifications. They didn't have a manual that tells them what they do in the event of a major disaster. We see them with fires. We saw the earthquake we had in California. We saw with wind damage whenever theres a major disaster. We're looking at million dollar, oh, the main one that went down the one in Florida, Surfside.

Sherry Branson: 25:08

Surfside, yeah, Surfside, that's structural. I mean, that was the board member. They had done the this study where they had the engineering study, they had had the building inspected. They knew the work needed to be done. Kevin and they had the money. They had the money sitting in the account. They delayed it and delayed it and delayed it. And, you know, we, and I have talked before about, you know, a lot of board members, they don't want to be the ones to say, Oh, we have to pass a $10,000 special assessment, you know, we all have to fix the the parking garage or the foundation or the roof or something. And they don't want to be the bad guys. They don't want to deliver the bad news, you know, so they don't make that decision, they don't pass the special assessment, and don't spend the money even though they have it.

Kevin Davis: 25:47

And guess what? Money is the next big, big one. Next big area is we talk million dollar claim. There's money. We're talking about fraud. We're talking about embezzlement. We talk about mismanagement, because we're talking about a special assessment of millions of dollars, there's always somebody going to say, Guess what? You did not handle it properly. Reserve study told you 10 years ago, five years ago, that you needed X number of dollars. You didn't do it. So therefore I get it doesn't just impact me, but impacts the entire association. So we're going to hold you board members responsible for that special assessment or for the lack of money we need to make the appropriate repairs. Again, another large claim, yeah, structural damage, you know, financial you know, severe weather. The next biggest one we're talking about is discrimination. Discrimination is a big one. Is discrimination a big one in community associations, because a lot of times, most people don't realize they're discriminating until they go look and go, Oh, guess what? The only person that hasn't been impacted was, guess what, a person of protected class, the only person that we end up repairing the roofs on everybody, but we left one person out. Now the reason why we let that person out is not because we discriminated against them, because they happen to be the person that we don't like any associations.

Sherry Branson: 27:14

You don't like that person, so you're gonna, yeah, exactly single that person out because you don't like them. You know what I mean? And yeah, yeah. Emotional. These things are all emotional. The board members, they live in the association. They know their neighbors. They have, you know they they know who the complainers are, the people who complain all the time. And yeah.

Kevin Davis: 27:32

And what happens is, now what happened? We found out a couple times when a judge comes in and says, Guess what? Yes, you did discriminate against that one individual. You have to buy their place. We have to buy their place,

Sherry Branson: 27:43

right, right? So, right.

Kevin Davis: 27:44

So you end up now all of a sudden, you have, again, a huge it could be a half million dollar home. You talking about the defense and everything that we had to be a part of in this one claim. So now you're in that million dollar zone, that million dollar zone, that $2 million loan, a $3 million loan, a $3 million loan.

Sherry Branson: 28:03

Kevin, I know the $3 million claim that we saw discrimination was part of that one right? It

Kevin Davis: 28:07

was a discrimination case, and it was from a massive hurricane wind damage in Florida, where the person we started receiving monies to repair the Community Association, and one person was left out, and one person had to be a protected class. Yes, that we do the work, and we did the research. You find out the reason why a person left out. It was just going back and forth. It's communication issues. There's a problem with it. The person wanted more than they were entitled to and going back and forth, but had to be a protected class. And what happened to protect the class? You end up, it's just, you add them all up, and it ended up being a major, major deal for this one situation, yeah,

Sherry Branson: 28:54

yeah. 3 million. That's a huge claim.

Kevin Davis: 28:57

And then the final area is just a major breach of fiduciary duty. If board breach of fiduciary duty, because they fail to inspect this one unit, they fail to inspect it because, again, by law, you know you have to do either, like in Florida, you have structural integrity laws. In California have laws. So in certain states, you have these laws if you're not complying with these laws. So now, all of a sudden, I can't sell my unit,

Sherry Branson: 29:23

right, right.

Kevin Davis: 29:25

I can't sell my unit because Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac says, Guess what you in the blacklist,

Sherry Branson: 29:31

right? Right? Yeah, problem, right. Now,

Kevin Davis: 29:35

it's a big problem.

Sherry Branson: 29:37

Blacklist is for people who might not be aware.

Kevin Davis: 29:40

Well, okay. Well, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has this list of associations that does not comply, because either the reserves are not adequate, they have structural issues, or they have insurance issues, one of those three usually are the problem. Well, what happened is the Community Association breached their fiduciary duty, major fiduciary duty, because all of a sudden. I can't sell my unit, but nobody else can either.

Sherry Branson: 30:03

Yeah, so that's

Kevin Davis: 30:04

all of a sudden you're talking about talking about a claim that's impacting more than just me. When that happens is you're talking about a million dollar claim, because guess what happens now, my unit is not worth a half a million dollars anymore. It's only worth $400,000 if I can sell it at all, because I can't get a Fannie Mae, yeah, exactly.

Sherry Branson: 30:25

Wow. And the sad thing about that is, a lot of homeowners don't even know that their association is is on the black list

Kevin Davis: 30:32

until,

Sherry Branson: 30:33

until they go to sell,

Kevin Davis: 30:34

yes, until

Sherry Branson: 30:35

until they go to sell.

Kevin Davis: 30:38

And then all of a sudden they find out the hard way. But again, the difference between the large cases the large ones is that it impacts more than just me,

Sherry Branson: 30:48

impacts everybody,

Kevin Davis: 30:49

impacts more people. So So let's summarize what we learned today. Okay, for documentation, deferred maintenance, inadequate reserves. Okay, no decision or a bad decision all leads to losses, costly losses, okay, at the minimum, 20 less, little less than$20,000 but the maximum it can be in the millions of dollars. So what Association you do about it? Number one, enforce rules consistently. Number two, communicate decisions clearly. Number three, address problems early. Number four, seek advice from the experts. And number five, board members should seek training, get some little bit of education on how to run a board of directors.

Sherry Branson: 31:46

It's a job. Kevin, it's a job. And training is is so important. And you know, we've discussed it, you touched on it today, and when we've talked about another or other webinars, you know you you're following state laws, county laws, city laws and federal laws, and as a board member, you're a volunteer, and you don't, you're not going to know all the laws and ordinances and requirements in that each particular area. So that's, it's a lot to know,

Kevin Davis: 32:13

it's a lot to know. It's a lot to know. So any closing comments there, Sherry, we got anything

Sherry Branson: 32:18

I just want to you know, piggyback on what you said, which is, you know, the training is really important, and consulting the experts and the professionals, like attorneys, your insurance agent, your broker, risk management professionals, you know, people who have our policy, our DNO policy, have access to a risk management helpline, which is free, One hour free of legal advice. So that's a great resource, a great tool. So if you have access to risk management professionals, or you want to hire one, I highly recommend it. I think it's it's well worth the money and the investment and the time.

Kevin Davis: 32:53

I have one that we didn't say and treat it as a business. That is key, yeah.

Sherry Branson: 32:59

That's You're running a multi million dollar corporation. Treat it as a multi million dollar corporation, not as a social club where you get to decide what books you're going to read or what Netflix show you want to watch. You get it. Treat it as a business. When you treat it as a business, and you act as a business if you get sued, and on those$20,000 claims, you have insurance to pick it up. What you don't want to do is to get that $20,000 claim into that $100,000 claim, or a million dollar claim. So the one thing we did, we hope we did, was give you some advice, or some reasons or some ways to make sure you lower the temperature. You know, be kind to one another. Be kind in your communication so that we don't end up hearing about that$1 million claim on TV or the newspaper. So anyway, thank you a lot, Sherry. I look forward to doing this again sometime in the future. I enjoyed doing it back to back with you. Yes, I did, too, Kevin, thank you for having me today. I had a lot of fun. Thanks so much.

Kevin Davis: 33:57

All right. Take care. Thank you very much.

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