Erik Davis: 0:00

The people who live in associations want to be the the great the the fun board member that doesn't raise reserves. That's like, oh, don't worry about it. We can skip them this month, or you know, we'll lower them. Then an issue happens, and an event happens, and they're not adequately able to fund what needs to be done. Then you have people who live in the association who sued the sue the board for negligence of not properly funding reserves.

Announcer: 0:27

HOA Insights is brought to you by five companies

that care about board members: 0:29

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.

Robert Nordlund: 0:43

Welcome back to HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas. I'm Robert Nordlund, and I'm here today for episode number 175 with a first-time special guest. I'm speaking about Erik Davis of Kevin Davis Insurance Services. Erik is Kevin's son, and about the same age as my son, so it's been a genuine pleasure to work with Erik over the years on special projects and to see his smiling face at industry conferences. I like his curiosity and his investment in the future of the community association industry, and being on the team of the largest, or Erik, one of the largest,

Erik Davis: 1:18

definitely the largest, Kevin Davis Insurance Society.

Robert Nordlund: 1:20

I like that. Definitely the largest DNO insurance provider in the country. So all this gives him an interesting peek into human nature. We're here weekly, so if you missed last week's episode number 174 with one of our sponsors, CEO Curtis Peterson and CFO Andrea Peterson of the Inspectors of Election. That was a fun episode. I feel fortunate having all these conversations with experts who are genuinely fascinating and personable. And regular listeners can tell I take a whole lot of notes during the show because our guests share some great insights that I want to capture for the show notes that we have attached to the episode, so if you missed that episode or any other prior episode, take a moment after today's program to listen from our podcast website hoa insights.org or watch on our YouTube channel. But better yet, subscribe from any of the major podcast platforms or our YouTube channel so you don't miss any future episodes. Also, becoming a subscriber increases the podcast's ranking and search results, helping others find this free resource so they can be better equipped to lead their association. Those of you watching on YouTube can see the HOA Insights mug that I have here. See the very nice. There we go. Oh, Erik, I got to make sure you get a mug too that I've got here. I got that from our merch store, which you can browse through from hoa insights.org, with a link in our show notes. And while you're there, download a free Zoom background that you can use for your next board meeting. Well, we enjoy hearing from you, responding to the issues you're facing at your association. So if you have a hot topic, a crazy story, or a question you'd like us to address, you can contact us at 805-203-3130, or email us at podcast at hoa insights.org. We try to shape our episodes based on what you ask, but today's episode is on me. I've been meaning to have Erik on the show for quite a while now to tap into what he's thinking about both the current status and the future status of the community association industry. So, Erik, welcome to the program.

Erik Davis: 3:28

You know, Robert, thank you so much. You know, I've you know we've been you know friends for a long time, and I know you've been friends to my father for a long time, and he's been on this show a lot, and hope your listeners really enjoy him. So, hopefully, I can live up to that.

Robert Nordlund: 3:41

All we're doing is living up to you today, so it's a treat to have you here. So, what's it like? You're the son of an icon in the community association D and O insurance industry. What was your career ambition? Was that your career path idea from the beginning?

Erik Davis: 3:57

First of all, icon sounds like you know maybe a little too big, but you know what? I think that as soon as people people keep telling you that, and then you see it, you kind of have to start believing it at some point. I think you're right. You know, it was something that I did sort of see for me career path wise. You know, growing up, I saw my father bringing home boxes of policies, and not knowing what they were, they were in U.S. mailboxes, and I used to think that he was a mailman because

Robert Nordlund: 4:23

oh, of course, yeah, because like you know

Erik Davis: 4:26

me, me as a child, like oh, he must he must make mail. When in reality, he was mailing out lots of insurance policies. So I thought that it was always something I was interested in. I was always around his office. I always went to a lot of trade shows that were in fun places. When he went to Disney World, I went to a lot of Disney World ones. I went to a lot of Disneyland ones. Definitely had a lot of fun at conferences. But being around him and being around the space in the industry really came to fruition when I, after I left Travelers in in New York City and started. Working for him.

Robert Nordlund: 5:00

Wait, let me back you up. So, regular four-year college somewhere,

Erik Davis: 5:05

right? Yeah, I guess we want to get into the whole thing. Yeah, four-year college, Seton Hall in New Jersey.

Robert Nordlund: 5:10

Oh, Seton Hall. Okay, good.

Erik Davis: 5:12

Yeah, there are some

Robert Nordlund: 5:13

people in the audience going, yeah, or or boo. Oh yeah, if there are

Erik Davis: 5:18

biggies from from Seton Hall, then moved to New York City, where I worked at Travelers Insurance for eight years, doing private nonprofit business similar to what we do now.

Robert Nordlund: 5:31

So you jumped right from college into insurance, but not Kevin Davis Insurance Services. So it wasn't carrying boxes and going to fun places all the time. It was

Erik Davis: 5:43

not. So what actually ended up happening was I confronted my father about working at Kevin Davis Insurance Services right out of school, and he told me he cannot hire me. And I said, "Oh, that's strange. Why not? It's your company. I'm

Robert Nordlund: 5:58

I'm your son. Yeah, aren't you the boss?

Erik Davis: 6:01

Yeah, I think that makes sense. You know, he says you have no experience. I said,"Well, isn't that your job to get me experience? He's like,"It's not my job. It's like it's your job to get experience, and then you come back when you're ready. And I said, "Okay, well, where do I go? And he says,"Well, why don't we, you know, maybe let's let's see what we can do. You know, then I got to interview our travelers from there, which I was used to, you know, build and grow my experience, which was an amazing experience. I learned from some really good mentors and really good people, and made a lot of good connections, and definitely shaped how I work today. You know, they always say if you can make it New York, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.

Robert Nordlund: 6:38

Oh yeah, that's Frank Sinatra, isn't it?

Erik Davis: 6:42

Yeah. So if you make it there, you can make it anywhere. So you know, definitely learned a lot living in that space that I now take with me into this space. I guess after that was when I did make the change over to Kevin Davis.

Unknown: 6:57

Okay.

Erik Davis: 6:58

And when I learned,

Robert Nordlund: 7:00

did you have enough experience? Did you send in your resume?

Erik Davis: 7:03

He actually came to me. I was not ready to leave, and he said that I think it's time for you to come.

Robert Nordlund: 7:08

So you got recruited.

Erik Davis: 7:10

I did, but I couldn't say no. So a little bit different. Yeah. But I thought that was a different, interesting experience trying to negotiate with your father. You know, terms of your employment was something that was interesting, that I'm sure that many people don't get a chance to do, but definitely an experience.

Robert Nordlund: 7:28

How long have you had been at Kevin Davis Insurance Services now?

Erik Davis: 7:32

I've been about eight years now, so I did eight years of travelers, eight years here, and like I was saying, I learned that the community association industry is so much bigger than it appears on from the outside. I didn't know anything about the association industry all that much outside of what my father did until I joined, and then once I learned about it, the space became so much bigger than what it actually is now, or what it seemed like on the outside. We have reserve study specialists, we have attorneys, we have agents, we have carriers, we have you know roofers. It's such a big industry that I had no idea like so much went into just people living in an association. So it definitely opened my eyes that this industry that seems small on the outside really does have a lot of life in it.

Robert Nordlund: 8:20

Yeah, that's interesting because when you drive down the freeway, you don't see billboards advertising for anything related to community associations. What do we see? We see dentists. We see auto injury. Call this lawyer. That kind of stuff. Just billboard. Oh, new movies because you're in Los Angeles areas, right? So billboards have to do with movies and TV shows, but was it now half of all new homes in the United States are in some form of community association?

Erik Davis: 8:50

Yeah, I think it's that, and I think even in some states like Nevada, like I think it's like mandatory that like any new builds have to be done in an association format. That's amazing, and so yes, it's creeping up on us. And you look around, you turn around, and everyone seems to have a community association story, and not all of them good ones. No, definitely not. I would say that you know, obviously, being in the industry that we're in, you know, yourself included. You you probably encountered people who live in associations who are you know maybe don't treat others the way they want to be treated. You know, and whether that's people who are board members, whether it's just people who live there, whether it's vendors, whether it's anybody, it is somewhat human nature. You know, not everybody gets along all the time, and not everybody sees their same perspectives as others, and I think that you know, with that comes a lot of issues. You know, I'm sure we'll get into some claim stories or some interesting things later in the discussion. But you know, it's definitely it's not for everybody living in association. But I think that the people who do really do try to the best. That they can,

Robert Nordlund: 10:00

yeah. It is their home. I don't think I've ever asked you this. I've asked a number of people what percentage of owners at the average condo association should never have purchased a home in a community living type situation. Yeah, I would say 100% But I'm just kidding. Don't don't tell that to the developers.

Erik Davis: 10:20

Yeah, yeah, no, but I would say you know it's a tough question because I think it's probably somewhere, you know, third. I would say probably in that situation because okay,

Robert Nordlund: 10:32

that's going to take me to my next question. I've talked to a number of people, and most of them answer

in the single digits: 10:38

3% 5% five to 10% something like that, because a lot of us professionals deal with the bumps in the road because that's what we're here to do. Try to smooth things out. You're you actually remind me of when I was a young engineer. I worked on the space shuttle program. I worked on the liquid engines on the back of the space shuttle, and my specific job was failure analysis. When the test engineers cranked it up on the test stand and made it blow up to find, you know, its failure point, I was on the failure team, and so all my job was just working on failures, and it made me nervous when there was a launch with astronauts on it because most of my experience was things going wrong. And being in the DNO insurance side of things, it seems like that's your entire world is when things go wrong with the human dynamics. Does that you think that may give you a little bias towards more problems than actually are there?

Erik Davis: 11:45

You're right. You're probably right. But first, I have to go back. Like rocket scientists to reserve studies. Like I'm not sure. You know, Robert. I'm not sure what your career path was. But rocket scientists to reserve studies. I think that means to be further fleshed out to see your your journey. But I would say that it does probably skew things a little bit because you're right. We deal with claims, you know. We deal with associations that have issues. Usually, you know, when when they come up, they can be bad sometimes. Maybe they're it's a little skewed because the the ones that we encounter, you know, we have a lot of great clients. You know what I mean? So not every association has losses. Obviously, some of them are great, and and even the ones that do have losses doesn't make them not great. But but you're right. Like the ones that we do see, it does seem a little skewed because we're usually dealing with, you know, when things don't when things go sideways, they they can go really sideways. If you have as many policies we have, which is over 30,000 policies. We insureds we write, you know. If you see 100, 200, 300, 400, you know, claims in your, you know, in a book of that size, you start wondering, like, okay, yeah, I mean, it's not, it's not, it's right, it is nothing. But you start thinking about you, just see the ones constantly that are issues, and they they they does kind of skew your thinking. So I guess you're right. In hindsight, it's probably not that much, just because it seems like it's a lot. Because the issues that we do see are reoccurring issues, and they're the same issues sometimes. And it's like, okay, when are we going to learn how to correct these issues? When are we going to learn how to fix those, and if we can figure out those, and maybe they'll start to seem a little bit less. So I would say maybe from a third, which now seems high. I would say probably you're right, maybe in the in the low, like maybe 10 to 12%

Robert Nordlund: 13:35

Okay, maybe not single digits, maybe not single digits, but okay, but

Erik Davis: 13:38

definitely probably lower than a third.

Robert Nordlund: 13:40

You laid something out there for the audience. The audience has heard my career path a little. I bought a condo while I was a young engineer. The condo board resigned at the first board meeting I went to, and they asked if I could be president, and I said sure. And my inside voice said, "If you knuckleheads can do it, I certainly can. And so that got me into community association leadership. But it seems like in every odd story, there's either alcohol involved or a pretty girl involved. And my story was a pretty girl because one of the other people there, one of the other new owners, was Kathy, my wife, and so we started working together. She created a management company to take over because we fired the management company, and I started doing the planning because she said literally,"Well, you can model the energy flow in a rocket engine, can't you? Model the dollar flow in a community association? And when a pretty girl asks you if you can do something, what do you say?

Erik Davis: 14:44

Absolutely,

Robert Nordlund: 14:45

absolutely, and that was the start of association reserves. So it all comes together. We've all got a story. Okay, I find it interesting that you've identified problems, and there were. Recurring problems, and that's why I want to touch in the second half of the show here what you would do. But I also want to just make sure you know that when I talk to your dad about what's going on in his life, he's always got fascinating stories about a board member who's having an affair with another board member's wife and crazy things going on, and it makes my stories about well, the roof got old in plain sight over 20 years, and they didn't, they'd never funded for it, so they had a special assessment. My stories seem really boring compared to the stories that you're dealing with that are all human dynamics. Are there categories of these recurring problems that just you shake your head at, or do they make you upset?

Erik Davis: 15:53

I would say yes, for sure. I mean, and one of them is actually more focused in your world, actually, and it's proper reserve setting. Okay, I think that that is the biggest issue. That that is a reoccurring situation. It's that the people who live in associations want to be the the great the the fun board member that doesn't that doesn't raise reserves. That's like, oh, don't worry about it. We can skip them this month, or you know, we'll lower them. You know, because they want to be like they want to keep their their status as the board member, you know, or as like you know a board member of one of five. Usually, what ends up happening is that you know years go by, months go by, whatever situation is, and you know they're not adequately reserved. And when there's a big storm, or something happens, and all the roofs go at the same time, or maybe there's a leak or something like that, and it's because that over time they never fixed the siding or never took the time to change the pipes because they were, you know, galvanized instead of copper or whatever situation might be, and you realize that then an issue happens and an event happens, and they're not adequately able to fund what needs to be done. And with that, you know, obviously comes issues in your world. Obviously comes issues in our world because then you have people who live in the association who sue the sue the board for negligence of not properly funding reserves. I would say the other issue that we keep seeing is, as you mentioned before, associations are all about human personal interactions. It is the most kind of other than personal lines, the most personal kind of insurance you kind of get because all the people who live there, this is their home. They want to be able to do the things that they believe they should be able to do because they purchased this home. So what ends up happening is these reoccurring issues of I bought this house. I want to be able to paint it this color.

Robert Nordlund: 17:53

Yeah, yeah.

Erik Davis: 17:54

You can't paint it that color. You can paint it one of three colors, and it's like, well, I I bought this. Like I should be able to paint whatever I want. Well, no, you bought into an association, which means you have to follow the association guidelines. And if you don't, then we fine you. And then if I'm X, Y, and Z person, and I say, well, that fine is, you know, unfair because let's say I'm color blind and I painted my house red because I drive by all the house and all the houses look the same. I need my house to look different because you know that's still color I can see. And now I sue because you're discriminating against me because I'm colorblind. Something along those lines. These kind of things. I mean, just that sounds ridiculous. But these types of things can happen. Whether it's a dog that you're not allowed to have because the dog breed is too big or too quote unquote dangerous, as people would say sometimes or noisy, yeah, or noisy. You know what I mean. Or it could be thing about it's like, okay, I need you know a special ramp or a device to help me get into the pool. There isn't one, you know what I mean. Like so, ADA compliance type situations come into this situation. So there's so many things that happen, and but they're all personal. It's such a personal based issues that arise because everybody who who buys into an association thinks that they are able to do the things that they want to do, and they're not, and that that can make you know that that can make people untrue. Yeah, that's where the that's where the friction happens, and that can make people unhappy because think about it. I mean, if somebody told you you can't paint your house whatever color you want it after you after you spent after you spent a million dollars to buy your house, you know what I mean. You said I didn't spend all this money to not be able to paint my house whatever color I want it to be. You know, I didn't.

Robert Nordlund: 19:35

Yeah, I don't think you know. My wife and I, shortly after we started association reserves, we each sold our condos and moved to a single-family home. We said we're done with this. We get it all day with association reserves. We don't want to live in it, so we moved away. We have kids. Kids grow up. We need to move to a place with a better school district, and we buy a home in a planned community. And I'm. Thinking, cool. There's a tennis court and a pool a couple 100 yards away. It's going to be great, easy access to school, a lot of good things, and it's our nice new home where we're going to launch our kids into the world. And my wife hires a interior designer to help with remodeling her home, she has a color palette for the outside, and all the homes have either a yeah they just have a white garage door, and we had a tile roof, and the designer picked a nice coral color for the garage door that would accent the white stucco and the tile roof, and it was great. And they just went ahead and did it. And I didn't think twice they painted it. And I think it was the next day we got a note from the association saying,

Erik Davis: 20:51

"Can't paint your yeah,

Robert Nordlund: 20:53

you can't do that. I'm think oh gee. And by then we've got multiple offices where the largest reserve study firm in the country, and thinking, how foolish am I? What do I do here? And we did the reserve say for the association. The owner of the management company knows me, and so I, I, I just threw my. No, Robert, that

Erik Davis: 21:15

shows you that shows you that nobody is immune from this. Even people like us who do this on a regular basis, we have coworkers that live in associations themselves and fall into the same pitfalls that everybody else falls into. When it becomes when it becomes your own, you still, even though you know the right things to do, you still think of it things differently. You still expect you should be able to do things the way you would like to do things. Yeah,

Robert Nordlund: 21:37

we have this bias that our home is our castle, and yeah, I work all day. Anyway, to wrap that story, I called the owner of the management company. Said, "I'm so sorry. Do what you need to do, but please let the architectural committee know that it really is a good color. And maybe

Erik Davis: 21:58

they should add that one.

Robert Nordlund: 21:59

They said,"Okay, hold on this, and a couple months later, they said we've added that color to the color palette, so you can leave it as is. I'm like, and my son was like, Dad, you should have put up a fight. I was like, No, they're the association. I have no power on this.

Erik Davis: 22:15

No, they say the upside is that like when you when you do work in our kind of space, you can make those kind of recommendations. Most people probably be like, "Oh, I guess I can't do this, and then just put it away. But see, you're thinking about you're like,"Well, maybe we should add this one. It does look work well. And then, so you won in the end. It's like you can game the system a little bit in the end, I guess, if you really need to.

Robert Nordlund: 22:32

Well, so much of it is cooperating. We realize that when you're in a community association, is fundamentally that it's in community, and you need to be cooperating with the other owners. And yeah, one guy he may park his car in front of my house, and there's really no rule against that. But there's just some social dynamics, and you have to realize, okay, what am I going to put up a fight about? Is that significant? Is it not significant? And let's let's live together. Hey, Erik, I'm looking at what time it is, and it's time to take a quick break, quick break to hear from one of our generous sponsors. After which, we'll be back with more common sense for common areas, and we'll speak about the future of the industry.

Paige Daniels: 23:15

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Robert Nordlund: 23:46

And we're back. Well, before the break, we spoke about some of the normal pain points that you see, Erik, across the country. Let me start with what ideas do you have for change to improve community associations? It's

Erik Davis: 24:00

a good question. You know, it's something that in our industry we think about often because we want to help community associations function better. We want to help people to live better in communities together. So I think that you know, in the vein of that, I would say that you know, transparency is something that's really important. You know, for associations to have. You know, board members need to should be keeping adequate notes about what's being what's happening. They should be also disclosing certain activities. That, for example, if my brother is a is a contractor and I hire this person, you know, I should be disclosing that this person is my brother or my father-in-law or my brother-in-law. I think that when it comes to living together, the more trust there is, the better it can be. And I think that when it comes to providing adequate, I said disclosure and. Adequate transparency, and while keeping adequate notes, because there's nothing probably that happens more often is when there's poor record keeping, and as you know, living in association yourself, you said boards change, and when they do change, if there's no record of what the past board member did, they don't know like how much they paid this vendor. They don't know how much they paid that vendor. They didn't know if this vendor was any good or not. You know, they end up rehiring the same people that make the same mistakes. If that's the case, important record keeping is something that I think associates really need to to to have. And like I said, it kind of all comes back to you know making sure you have your reserve study done, and have it funded properly, because I think that everybody in an association wants to have their association look the way it was when they bought into it. And I think the major issue is that 10 years from now, 20 years from now, when you've been living there for a while, things start maybe looking not as nice as they did before, maybe things need to be updated, and they realize that whatever that that crack's been there for a while. It's been there for the last 15 years. It's fine. When in reality, I think that people want to live in an association that looks beautiful, and that's why you buy into one because it's important to have the the value of the the association and the value of the community to retain what people really want, and I think that when you have the proper reserve set up, you can keep your association looking beautiful and the way it should be, and functioning the way it should be for you now, and for anybody who comes after you. So I would say those are like just some minor changes, but I think that they're ones that if the board members or association residents who live there are listening to this, they're things that they should be striving for to have in their community association.

Robert Nordlund: 26:52

Those are five great points, and I just want to go through them because those are going to hit the show notes. And what's important also is what you didn't say. You didn't say every board member needs to take a class. You also didn't say there needs to be better or different legislation. All this that you talked about was just some behavior issues that are not complicated. I got number one transparency and disclosure, so everyone's aware of what's going on. Actually, let me let me start with number two, well, that was number one: transparency and disclosure. Just being open. It's not a secret cabal or a secret group of people that have power. They are. They should be servant leaders. It's our community. Someone's got to do the heavy work of carrying the association forward, and I put number two as social momentum. I wonder. I come with the burden of when I grew up, you either owned your home or you rented your home, and somewhere in the middle, you grew up in a world where there was a third category of you co-owned things with other people in the community association industry, and I think that will help as more and more people understand that a community association involves compromises. It involves collaboration. It involves living in community successfully, and hopefully, the I was going to say the three to 5% and you would say the 10 to 12% of people will realize that, yeah, we I'm just not a good fit for that type of life. I think there's a lot of problems at community associations because people who shouldn't be there are there recurring problem makers? Have I said that inappropriately? And unfortunately, have I am I going to get a lot of hate mail now? Number three, institutional knowledge, good notes, good record keeping. Why did we hire this person? Why did we want to wash our hands of that company afterwards? And you know, open board meeting, we said we will never hire ABC Roofing again. And then, 10 years later, you hire ABC Roofing. You want to have that institutional knowledge, the board member who remembers the notes, the meeting notes, record keeping. Number four, build trust, and I think of political capital when you've built trust little by little by little, when you've been friendly, when you've answered questions in a timely manner, when someone has said, "Can I see the budget? You don't answer with, "Well, we sent it to you in February. Go find it yourself. Maybe you are kind and you give them another copy of the budget and say, "Join us at the next board meeting a week from Wednesday, and you can see the year-to-date budget. You know you're you're open. And number five is sufficient reserves. That is a problem that boards make themselves if they keep up with if they keep up with deterioration. They haven't created a problem. I should think of if I was to rerun this, I would have a smoother way to say that. But yeah, you don't want to create a problem of your own doing. So that wasn't legislation. That wasn't required training. Is that just how do we make that happen? You and I, and actually maybe I should say you and your peers, because I may be aging out as a leader in this industry.

Erik Davis: 30:23

Well, first of all, Robert, if we if we lose you, then we're we're in a lot of trouble. So don't go anywhere.

Robert Nordlund: 30:28

You got me for a little bit longer.

Erik Davis: 30:30

Yeah. So, but I would say it's interesting because I thought about those ideas, you know, about the educational part of things, the legislative part of things, and I was trying to figure out what can board members do now. What can people in associations do now? So that's why I came with those ideas because these are things that don't require lots of change. They they require minor change, but things that can be done now, instituted now, things such as education and and legislative reform that those can take time. Now, great. What I love to say, hey, it would be great if board members took CE classes, like took a continuing education class, like you know people who are attorneys or people who are agents or brokers, so that they know, hey, look, this is the best way to run an association. These are the pitfalls that they would encounter, and they would, you know, they would have to take classes about learning insurance. And I think that that would probably not be a bad idea, but I think that that type of that's probably the way things should be going. But your listeners to know these are the things that they can do now. That the items that you mentioned, the five items that you mentioned, those are things that can be done now. Now in the future, I think that having board members that can take classes that understand what running association is like because they're all volunteers. If there's a lawyer, a doctor, a plumber, and a gym owner on a board, you know what do they know about living in an associate, running an association? They know about being a doctor. They know about being a lawyer. They know about being a plumber. You know what I mean? They don't know. Yeah, and a gym owner. They don't know. They don't know what goes into running an association. They don't know it essentially is running a company that you live at. That's a lot of work for people who have zero idea how to run an association. And I think that having adequate training, educational purposes, whether that's through you know like you know a company that does it, whether it's through CAI, you know, maybe they they work something out where it's like, hey, board members can take these classes to fulfill their, you know, education requirements on how to run an association. I think that would be great, and hopefully we are heading towards that direction. So people who are volunteers who need adequate training on how it is to run an association can get it, because you know if somebody told me to run a a doctor's office or something like that, I would have no idea. You know what I mean? So I think it's not any different than somebody putting you. Or if you said, Erik, I know I really want you to learn how to you know be a rocket scientist like I was. I mean, I'd be like, I don't know the first thing about that. You start and then you

Robert Nordlund: 33:05

get trained.

Erik Davis: 33:06

Yeah, and you starting to get trained. So I think that's ultimately where we need to go. But you know, I understand that that that could take a little bit of time.

Robert Nordlund: 33:14

We regularly feature board heroes and had a board hero on the program who talked about he went to a introduction to community association management class given to managers because he wanted to see the world through the eyes of a manager. And I thought, how smart is that? Just yeah, no, that's perfect. That's it's there already, and we've got this podcast, Kevin Davis Insurance Services, kdisonline.com. You've got regular webinars, right? Yes, we do. Training on how to limit your DNO exposure at Association Reserves ReserveDay.com. We have regular webinars. There are so many interesting opportunities out there. You mentioned CAI. If you can go to CAIOOnline.org, you can find a local chapter near you. They have regular programs, discounted for board members. There's lots of opportunities out there to do exactly what you're talking about. It's not a new wheel that needs to be invented. I'm looking at the time. I want to get a couple more questions in here before we close out. But what would you like to accomplish in your time at Kevin Davis Insurance Services.

Erik Davis: 34:24

That's a interesting question because it's not necessarily what I would like to accomplish on my own. It's what I want to accomplish together, you know. Because I think that my father left a legacy of helping community associations grow and get better and understand and by education. And what I want to do is just build on what he has made successful and what the people like you have made successful, Robert. Because ultimately, all we can do is build on what the people who have come before us have built. And I think that if I can just continue. Building on what came before me to the point where people then can say like,"Wow, not only did like we didn't know what a community association was in 1982. I mean, maybe half of to now, like you're saying, like you know, in most states, you know, are like you said half of no new home builds are going to be an association like this is something that is a growing industry, but it's it's something that is only going to keep expanding and growing. So they're going to need more and more people like us, like you, like my father, like you know attorneys. Well, like me, you know, hopefully

Robert Nordlund: 35:37

who's come into it, and you've got decades ahead of you, to do just what we were saying-to not do a tear down, but to build, to build, to build, to build-and to use the opportunity that more people are more familiar with it, and to round all those rough edges. And again, transparency and disclosure-the social momentum of people understanding what a community association is, institutional knowledge, record keeping, building trust in political capital, and having enough cash to take care of the place. That's that is not rocket science. That's common sense.

Erik Davis: 36:15

That's what it comes down to. So it's like, what do I want to accomplish? I want to be able to build on what was already done so well by people like you, like people like my father. When you invest in the community association space, the community association space invests in you. We don't do this for money. We don't do this. That money is a byproduct of what we get for helping people. So it's not about that. It's about we take what we do so seriously, and we understand that being in a community association isn't the easiest thing. So we have to help them and help people who live in them to the best of our ability, because that is what we really do this for. I think you said that so well. Hey,

Robert Nordlund: 37:01

Erik, it's finally-it was great to finally have you on the program and hear you share some of your background and your insights and what we can do, what you can do, to help make the future a better place. Any closing thoughts to add at this time?

Erik Davis: 37:16

No, you know, I just want to say thank you, Robert, for allowing me to be on your podcast. Like I said, I've listened to a lot of your episodes, and I think the things that you do are so beneficial for the space itself because we need more people like you telling your story and helping educate people about what association living is like, the things that they need to know because when when you buy a house, a single family home, there's so many things you don't know. When you buy as a first time homeowner, I bought my first home five years ago, and I didn't know half the things I got into. You know, imagine buying into a house where not only you buying the house, you don't know like what you're getting into. You're buying into an association, and and they say here's the these here's these bylaws, and it's 50 pages of stuff you have to read, and you have no idea how you're going to get through it all, right? You know, so what you're what you're doing is helping people make their way through life when it comes to living in association, and I think there's nothing more noble than that when it comes to helping people, because in reality, it's like you already said you know Association Reserves is the largest reserve study organization out there. You've created, you've reached the pinnacle of what you wanted to be, what you could take your company to be. So, what's the next thing you do? You help people because when you help people, it makes association living better.

Robert Nordlund: 38:39

You help more people.

Erik Davis: 38:41

Yeah, you help more people. Yeah,

Robert Nordlund: 38:42

you help more people.

Erik Davis: 38:44

Yeah, and and those people help other people. If they, if you have 100 listeners listening to this, or I'm sure you have a lot more than that. But if you have whatever, how many listeners you have listening to this, if they take this on to the next person and then share it to the next person and share it with the next person, then you know what you're doing. The message that you're sending out is helping so many people. I think that you know what you're doing is is truly great, and I'm glad that you allowed me to be a part of this with you today.

Robert Nordlund: 39:12

Well, it's a real treat, Erik. You stumbled on something very important. The podcast exists so we can encourage and equip board members for the hard work they do leading their association, and if we can get this out to a majority of the 400,000 associations out there, think what a better place the community association industry would be. So that's that's what we're all about, trying to help board members in the hard work they do leading their association. Well, if you'd like to get in touch with Erik or anyone else on the Kevin Davis Insurance Services team. You can go to their website kdisonline.com, and we certainly hope you learn some HOA insights from our discussion today that helps you bring common sense to your common areas. We look forward to having you join us for another great episode next week.

Announcer: 39:59

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