Episode 56: Tracking Vendor Certificates of Insurance, Featuring Dave Bixler of Thimble

Bob Preston:                     01:09                    Hello, brainstormers. This is Bob Preston, your host broadcasting from our studio at North County Property Group in Del Mar, California. If you're new here, please subscribe so you get all the ongoing episodes. And if you like what you hear, please pay it forward with a positive review. Man, I cannot believe it's already April, Q1 is under our belt for 2021. And just kind of wondering if maybe it's time to do some spring cleaning as a property manager, do you ever worry that a maintenance vendor you send to a property might not have the proper insurance coverage? Are those policies that you hold for those vendors, maybe other little disorganized or maybe not totally caught up? So this is what I'm talking about. Maybe with some spring cleaning, if there is ever a mistake or claim dispatching, a repairman with insufficient insurance could really create a liability for you and your property management business further. I know it can be a huge pain tracking. All those insurance policies from vendors. We do this at my company as part of our approved vendors list. And there always seems to be one or two or three or four who have an expired policy on file, and we need to follow up and get that COI, right? That certificate of insurance to verify their coverage on the show today, my guest is Dave Bixler from Thimble. Thimble has a pretty cool service called certificate manager that helps you make sure all your vendors and contractors get the right policy and also tracks all your COI. So, certificates of insurance in one place certificate manager can also verify and automate approvals that that vendor has the right insurance in place. And perhaps most importantly helps you keep it all organized in one location. This is going to be great episode. I'm really looking forward to it. Hey Dave, thank you for joining me on The Brainstorm.

Dave Bixler:                       02:48                    Thanks so much for having me.

Bob Preston:                     02:50                    For sure. I always like my guests to kind of kick things off by telling us about themselves. So, if you could introduce yourself and perhaps what Thimble is all about.

Dave Bixler:                       03:00                    Cool. Yeah, I'm Dave. Uh, I work at Thimble. We're an insurance company. I'm a product manager here, so I work on all of the insurance that we develop as well as the products that we use, um, for our customers. Uh, so Thimble at its core is an insurance company. We sell small business insurance, uh, general liability, professional liability. Um, but what we do, that's interesting is we sell it by the hour, day or month, all the way up to a year, if you want a traditional annual policy. Um, and the reason for this is our co-founders saw the gig economy growing rapidly. And instead of these large contractors going to get work, um, you know, there's a lot of people with full-time jobs who are now trying to go get into the landscaping industry, just on the weekends, um, or a photographer that only does wedding shoots, maybe one day a quarter, and they don't want to buy an expensive annual policy. They don't really fit the mold for that. So, um, we've started selling insurance just by the amount of time that you need it for, for the project you're doing.

Bob Preston:                     03:58                    Wow, that's really cool. I mean, as property managers and landlords, I know finding good vendors and contractors to keep our properties maintained is a huge challenge. Right. But I never thought about that, that they might just be doing it part time and they might be able then to have insurance that's just for a limited period of time. But from your perspective, I guess, why is it important for us people like North County Property Group in the property management business to make sure these vendors have the proper insurance?

Dave Bixler:                       04:22                    So the importance of, um, making sure that they have the proper insurance is to make sure that you're not held accountable for any of the mistakes or negligence that these vendors and contractors, uh, maybe have happened while they're working for you on the job. Um, anything like damage to the property or medical expenses, if somebody gets hurt, you want to make sure that you're not the one held accountable. Um, if something like this happens, uh, so that their policy covers any sort of injuries or damage to the property, um, and they’re a hundred percent compliance that you're, you're not in any sort of trouble.

Bob Preston:                     04:53                    Okay. So what are the various types of insurance that we should make sure a vendor or a repairman has?

Dave Bixler:                       04:59                    So the most common by far, which then will sales is general liability insurance. Um, it's definitely the most commonly required insurance for all types of contractors. Uh, it's similar to what I said before. It covers property damage. So in the case of somebody painting something and being on a ladder and it falls and it either breaks a window or, or a chandelier in the house, it would cover that, um, as well as, uh, maybe they leave a bag unattended and a child runs through the property and breaks a tooth because they trip over it, that would, um, you know, that would cover any sort of those expenses.

Bob Preston:                     05:32                    What about worker's comp auto? You know, some of these other classifications.

Dave Bixler:                       05:37                    Yeah. So worker's comp and auto obviously also required by a lot of property managers, um, sort of to the same point or just make sure you're not held accountable for any sort of injuries or mistakes and the contractors. So in workers' comp, um, for example, you want to make sure that if you hire a contractor and he comes in with a bunch of employees and maybe of them trips and falls and ends up breaking a leg or an arm that they have the proper insurance in place to cover that and make sure that all of their bills are taken care of so that you don't end up getting sued in the case that they're uninsured. And they can maybe blame it on the property itself.

Bob Preston:                     06:12                    Talk about that for a minute. I mean, these kinds of incidents rarely happen, right? But when they do it can be a big deal. We had a plumber who went into one of our properties one time and they were installing a reverse osmosis system in the kitchen under the kitchen sink finished, the job worked great for about a day. The tenants woke up the next morning and the entire downstairs was flooded. I mean, it was a disaster. I mean, they had to move out the whole bit. Fortunately he had insurance in place, but what would have happened or what could have happened, I guess, from a risk mitigation standpoint, what could have happened if that particular plumber didn't have good insurance in place?

Dave Bixler:                       06:49                    Uh, I mean, like you said, these things are rare. Uh, hopefully when they do happen, it's something small, like a window breaking. Um, so that whoever's insurance does take over is only paying a small fee and it doesn't cost too much, but yeah, things like this can happen all the time, um, where maybe an entire house gets flooded and it's not going to be, you know, five to $10,000. It's probably going to cost a lot more. Um, but I mean at this day and age in America, um, somebody is probably going to end up stewing whoever's insurances in place to make sure that they get that they are compensated for it. So, if the contractor doesn't have insurance, they're more than likely going to take it up with the property itself. So if you have insurance as, as the, uh, building owner or the property manager, um, they can't go to the contractor to Sue them for the damage to, they're going to have to go to you and, and maybe, uh, your insurance will have to cover the cost for that damage.

Bob Preston:                     07:39                    Yeah. I mean, I guess I've always wondered what the risk would be. If we put somebody in, who didn't have proper coverage on behalf of the owner, are we the ones responsible because we were the ones who dispatched that particular.

Dave Bixler:                       07:51                    Yeah. That's more than likely probably how it would unravel.

Bob Preston:                     07:54                    Yeah. I mean, usually the insurance companies get together and they fight that out. Not necessarily between the individuals. Right,

Dave Bixler:                       08:00                    Exactly. Um, but if they have their own insurance, uh, it definitely makes it a lot more clear. Who's held responsible and who's going to have to pay for the claim.

Bob Preston:                     08:07                    Sure. Well, either way, I mean, bottom line is as property management companies, responsible thing to do is just to confirm insurance is in place when dispatching vendors. I mean, that's, that's a must have, so what should we obtain then from each vendor? And how should we keep it organized to confirm that they have the proper insurance in place?

Dave Bixler:                       08:26                    Right. So, so far I've talked about how the nimble sells insurance. Um, we sell a range of products, but I'm actually here specifically to talk about today, uh, is a tool that we built. That's a hundred percent free called the nimble certificate manager, um, which basically is a, is a one, one tool that helps you manage everything that you need to do when you're hiring vendors and keeping them compliant. Uh, as it works today, for the most part, when you're hiring somebody, you're probably going to ask them to send you proof of insurance. You're going to have to review a certificate, which is literally just a PDF with tons of tons of texts in a tons of different boxes. That's hard to read, you're going to have to come through and make sure they have the proper coverage. They have enough limits to cover you in the case that something like that, uh, plumbing incident happens, um, more often than not there's mistakes with the insurance.

Dave Bixler:                       09:15                    You're going to have to go back to them and say, Hey, your limits were too low, or you don't have general liability. You need to update this coverage. Um, so there's a lot of back and forth, uh, but with the nimble certificate manager, you can actually put all the insurance, you require into one, um, what we call it project, you would say, I require general liability insurance with a $2 million limit, a waiver of subrogation must be present. And you would just send that link to everybody that's working for you. And when that person opens the link, they can either purchase a policy from them, Denville with all of your insurance requirements, preselected for them, which takes out all of the issues with the back and forth of correcting COIs over and over again. Um, we let you know the dates of the certificate. We let you know when it's about to expire.

Dave Bixler:                       10:03                    Uh, but even if they already have insurance, we know that not everyone's going to buy it from us. We also allow them to upload a certificate of insurance that they already have. Um, and then you would be able to, to open that and see it right next to the requirements that you've put in. And you would just check it off in one location. Uh, you know, my general liability requirement is met. The limit is correct, but there's no waiver of subrogation. So I'm going to send them a quick email that tells them what's missing and what they have to correct.

Bob Preston:                     10:32                    So we put our requirements, say, we're just bringing on though, a plumber who's we know we're going to put out on a bunch of different jobs. Can it just be sort of a generic requirement? Like here are the requirements that North County property group has for our vendors.

Dave Bixler:                       10:50                    Exactly. Yeah. You can, uh, some property managers only have one set of requirements for everybody. Um, but some people have different requirements depending on who they're hiring. So if you require a higher limit for some people that are maybe doing a riskier job, um, you can create multiple projects, uh, and, and sort of keep track of who you're sending them to. Um, but if you just have one set of requirements for everybody, you would just put it in one time. Um, and you would use that as like your central location to send it to everybody that's ever working for you. Um, and yet we would keep track of, of when they've uploaded documents when their insurance starts, when it ends, uh, let you know, before it expires. And we do that for them, both certificates, as well as other insurers certificates that they upload

Bob Preston:                     11:36                    You track, then when the insurance would expire or when we need to get a new certificate of insurance.

Dave Bixler:                       11:42                    Right. So if it's a nimble policy, we obviously know that information, right. So more often than not, uh, property managers are usually listed as an additional insured on a policy. So we always make sure to contact the additional insurance 30 to 15 days. Sometimes we do, we do both depending on your settings, but we let you know before it expires. But even for uploaded certificates, when they've vendor or contractor that you're hiring uploads, the certificate, we ask them to provide dates. Um, and just in case somebody is trying to pull a fast one on you and maybe tell you that their coverage is still active when it's actually expired. Um, we let you double check it, verify that the dates are correct. And then we store that and, uh, w we'll let you know before it expires, but you can also log in at any time. And there's sort of like a library of all of the, you know, hundreds of people that you, maybe you have working for you, and whether they're still active, if the policies have expired when it expires, and we keep track of all of that for you.

Bob Preston:                     12:41                    Okay. Do you have any property managers who upload the policies themselves? Just kind of as a holding tank? I mean, I know we have a file server and literally have a vendor section on that file server where we have then sub folders that are all the different trades, you know, plumbers, electricians, carpet people, right. And then inside there there's another sub folder for each individual vendor and that's where we keep these things. Right. So I'm just curious. I mean, if we just uploaded those and did it ourselves, that might be kind of a nice way of being able to track when they expire, et cetera, instead of keeping track of it on a spreadsheet.

Dave Bixler:                       13:17                    Yeah, exactly. So basically, um, one of our mottos is no more spreadsheets with this certificate manager. Um, so once you sign up, we would assume that you'd be using it going forward so that whenever you're hiring someone new, um, you would just have them either purchase from us or upload a policy. Uh, but obviously we know that most property managers have been in business for a lot longer than today, so you can easily go in and upload them yourselves. Um, so if you just want to have a record of everybody that's worked for you in the past and is actively on the job, that's already provided documents. It basically works the same way you would just say, you know, I'm adding Barry, he's working for me right now. Here's his certificate. It has all these coverages, it expires on this day. Um, so you would have to do it yourself if you want it to upload all of those, or, uh, when you hire the next person, you just tell them to handle it themselves. They upload it or buy it from us. Um, and it sort of removes that work off of you

Bob Preston:                     14:13                    As a plumber, I tell to upload their insurance. Do they have to open up any,

Dave Bixler:                       14:16                    So you can either use a link, which a lot of people like, because you can just put it on your website. Maybe if you're, you know, North County, property management.com/uh, you know, upload or something like that. Um, but you can also just send an email. You would just type in here's the contractor that I'm hiring, here's their email. And we basically just send them an email that says, um, North County property management requested proof of insurance from you click this link and you can upload your existing policy. If you're not insured, you can buy one from us. Okay. But yeah, no, no accounts are needed. You're already providing us their email, their name. So we don't even have to ask them for that. They really just upload, upload what they have.

Bob Preston:                     14:56                    Do you get many vendors converting over? So like once they do that and they find out who you are, and then they, Oh, wow, this is cool. These guys not only help keep this organized, but they also offer insurance. Next time renewal comes up. Do you ever get some of those vendors coming to you and saying, Hey, can you guys quote me?

Dave Bixler:                       15:10                    We do. And, um, ideally that would happen. That will continue to happen more and more often. Um, we obviously have a lot of other benefits aside from the short term policies. So even if you're an annual policy holder and yours is expiring soon, um, it might be easier to just buy it from us where you can, you know, we, we give you the exact insurance that the, that the property manager requires. So that saves you the time of having to call an agent or go to a competitor and tell them I'm required to have all these coverages, you know, all of these endorsements and additional insured. So that's another benefit of it. But obviously some people might just have an annual policy realized that we offer coverage by the project and say, I'm just going to cancel my annual policy and start using them to buy insurance just every time that I'm working. So even if it's just one day a month, that you're on the job, you can, you can buy it from us. Um, and I'll also add that our purchase process is only 60 seconds, so you can really get insured by us in about a minute. Okay.

Bob Preston:                     16:08                    Wow. That's really cool. Do you guide them in terms of what kind of covers they should have for their particular trade? Seems like certain trades are riskier and might require a higher level of insurance. Do you guys guide them on that?

Dave Bixler:                       16:21                    Um, they absolutely are riskier. A lot of that can sort of mostly factor, uh, the price of your policy. Um, because for the most part we recommend a 1 million or $2 million limit, no matter what job you're doing, because, uh, again like the plumber example that you gave earlier, um, even though some, some professions are less risky, there's always that chance of like a very big mistake happening that, that results in up to a million dollars, um, in a claim. So we pretty much always recommend our minimum insurance is a million dollars in general liability coverage. Um, another coverage that we recently, uh, are starting to sell in certain States, um, is equipment protection, which is really just, not so much for the property manager, but this is for the contractor or vendor. Um, so when you require them to have general liability insurance, that's really for them to make sure that, that you are covered in the case of them making any mistakes. But if they end up breaking their own tools, you know, if they break like a saw that they have, or, or a lawnmower, if their landscaper that wouldn't be covered, because general liability is that third party coverage. Um, but we now sell equipment insurance to make sure that your gear is covered as well. So we usually recommend that they buy that for themselves. Um, it's totally optional, but we let them know, you know, you're, you're a photographer. Your camera might end up breaking and this'll protect it. If you're any of those examples.

Bob Preston:                     17:47                    If we have someone who we're tracking in the system and we've entered it, and the, I don't know, let's just make up a scenario. The insurance policy is going to expire say May 1st, it's now April 1st, do you guys send us a notification? And do you send a notification to the vendor as well? How do we know, or do we have to go into the system to track it ourselves?

Dave Bixler:                       18:05                    So we email both, um, the certificate manager user, as well as the contractor to let them know that their policy is expiring, um, ahead of time. So we do let them know the day that it's expiring too. Uh, just to give you, you know, a last reminder, your, your policy is expiring today. You should probably renew on, um, but we also let them know in advance. So we sent an email to you that lets you now, uh, you know, Jane Doe's policy is expiring in 15 days. If they're still working for you, click this button to send them a reminder to renew their coverage. And we also let them know if you're still working on the job, you should probably, uh, renew your policy. Um, if for some reason they don't, we'll let you know that their policy has expired. Um, and you'll probably have to take that into your own hands if they haven't renewed it yet, maybe you have to find a, a more compliant vendor or contractor going forward, but we make sure that you're always in the loop.

Bob Preston:                     18:56                    And how far in advance do you send those notifications?

Dave Bixler:                       18:59                    So we send them for 15 days in advance. Uh, but we also have a setting where you're allowed to request a 30 day notification as well. Um, and then if you like, aside from the emails, you can always log in at any point in time and just see, uh, like a way better version of a spreadsheet that lets you know, everybody who's expiring. And when, so you can just log in and say, here's 20 people that are working for me. And three of them look like they're expiring in the next 60 days and other ones set for the whole year. Um, so you can just sort of log in and engage what's going on.

Bob Preston:                     19:35                    Well, I'm definitely going to log in and set up an account for us, cause it's really, really interesting. I haven't done that yet, but I'm going to, and then once you're in, there are the policies that are set to expire. They sort of highlight.

Dave Bixler:                       19:44                    Absolutely. So we actually just launched a new feature, which is sort of like what we're calling the project management section, um, where we just surface all of the things that you should be doing. So obviously if a policy is expiring and a couple of days that's going to be right at the top, um, but we're also not going to put somebody that's been approved for six months, anywhere on that list. We're going to let you know, um, somebody just recently uploaded a policy for you to review somebody. Uh, you requested insurance from somebody, but they haven't purchased yet. You should remind them. So we sort of show you all of these things that you should be taking care of, whether it's an expiring COI, um, somebody still has an upload insurance yet and they might be working for you uninsured. Um, somebody has uploaded documents, but you haven't approved them yet. Or even if somebody has uploaded documents, but one, one little requirement is missing. We put that right at the top and let you know, this person is insured, but they're missing your, your limit requirement. You should reach out to them and have them update that. What about the insured

Bob Preston:                     20:48                    Aspect? That's one thing we always make sure we enforce with our vendors is, is that tracked also within your system?

Dave Bixler:                       20:55                    Yeah, so we know that's a very common requirement. It just is another layer of protection to make sure that you're covered in the case of any claims. Um, so with our, with the people who do not have insurance from another carrier, when they buy it from your link, you actually have the ability to fill out your own additional insurance certificate. We know that, um, being at nimble at a long time, I've seen a lot of customer support tickets and a majority of them are people saying I filled out the additional insurance certificate and correctly. Uh, is that something that you, you ever have happened? People just not filling them out correctly. Yeah.

Bob Preston:                     21:30                    Where they, where they don't do it. Um, they send us their policy, but we're not on it or they do it incorrectly or with the wrong company name, something like that. That happens all the time.

Dave Bixler:                       21:38                    Exactly. So when you put all of your requirements in, you basically are filling out your own additional insurance certificate, the certificate holder name, the description of operations, no room for error. If they buy it from us, we're going to put that on there. Um, you can also add multiple additional insurance, our policies, uh, they're absolutely free. They don't cost any extra. So we know oftentimes maybe the property manager wants to be listed as an additional insured, but the actual building that they're working at also wants to be listed as an additional insured. You can put all those in there. We'll let them know these are the additional insurance you have to have. If you buy it from us, they're already included.

Bob Preston:                     22:15                    This is really awesome. I can think of two examples where I think this could be really helpful. So I'm a general contractor in addition to being a broker and a property manager, and we have a pretty robust vendor list. Right. But despite that, every now and then we get presented with a scenario where we have to use what we call a one-time vendor. Okay. So, you know, we had a case recently where the guy, uh, the property had a dilapidated fence along the property line, the guy next door wanted to use a specific fencing company and he wanted to go through our company. And so all of a sudden we're dealing with this vendor who we don't know, you know, we don't know if they, you know, we're probably never going to use them again. We don't know if they're insured, they haven't signed all these documents that we require. So we put in place different set of circumstances, maybe a different set of requirements for that one time vendor. I mean, this could come in really handy in your case because we could just send them the link and say, all right, one time vendor, Mister one-time vendor, Mr. Fence company, show us your stuff, uh, show us your documentation and upload it here for your insurance to thimble. Right? And if for whatever reason, they don't have it, they could buy it for that one specific job on that one specific property. It could be

Dave Bixler:                       23:23                    Exactly. I think that's, um, sort of exactly the, the ideal scenario for us is that not only are you going to have a specific set of requirements for that person, or maybe you're just going to waive certain things. Um, so you're able to make a separate set of requirements just for these one-time vendors. But I, I would assume that more often than not these one-off vendors who are only working for a day, probably getting odd jobs here and there, they probably are uninsured. So, um, when you're trying to hire somebody who's just getting worked for a day, they're probably not going to cash out and buy an annual policy, um, just to get that one job. So that's where our insurance, uh, our unique product offering really comes in handy of letting these people get the jobs that they wouldn't have been able to get. Um, before, because a lot of people can't get these really good contracting jobs unless they have an annual policy and they can't afford it cause they don't have enough work. Um, to now they can, they can play in the big leagues and get insurance for just the time they needed an affordable cost.

Bob Preston:                     24:18                    Yeah. That's similar to the other category. I was going to talk about that. I think where it could be pretty useful. I mean, most plumbers, electricians, you know, roofing companies, they know they should be insured. Right. And it would be unusual for them to let their insurance expire, but there's this other category of maintenance people I'm talking about handyman pool guys, gardeners. I don't know that we could probably brainstorm some others as well, painters, maybe right. Who are working sort of more job to job that maybe don't necessarily have the right insurance or your typical homeowner might not ask them to show their insurance. So they're not used to it, but as a property management company, kind of like the example we gave before about the house getting flooded, you know, we never want to put somebody in on a job that's not insured. Yeah. So this would be a really sort of quick way and easy way for them to get insurance. If we were requiring that and they wanted to take our job,

Dave Bixler:                       25:10                    Right. I mean, handyman is definitely arguably our biggest customer base, interesting little data point, 70% of our customers have never purchased business insurance before. So it's their first time buying insurance. Um, and it's sort of because the nature of our, of our short term policies is it's for people who are really just getting started, uh, whether you're somebody who's, you know, just trying to get some handyman work on the side to, to get, to bring some extra money in, or you're just trying to start your own company and go out on your own. Um, and even in those cases you just gave like the pool cleaner, uh, there's even other scenarios where maybe you're a homeowners association and you're hiring somebody to paint a mural on the side of a building just to spruce up the neighborhood a little bit. You're still going to want that, uh, painter to have insurance, um, all the way down to if there's some sort of event and there's going to be a DJ in the, in the bottom of a hotel, you know, you probably want them to have insurance. We cover 140 activities. All of them can buy general liability from us for those same durations a day to a year. Um, so yeah, it, it makes sure that you can have everybody that's working from you in every possible industry insured

Bob Preston:                     26:16                    And you guys are in 50 States, right? There's no limitations in terms of what state you happen to be in.

Dave Bixler:                       26:21                    So today we are in every state except for Washington and New York. Um, we are hoping to be in there soon. Uh, and we also are working on some additional coverages. I know at the beginning I said that we have general liability, professional liability and a few others, but we're hoping by the end of 2021 to have a lot more product offerings as well and be in all 50 States.

Bob Preston:                     26:41                    Okay. Terrific. How does work?

Dave Bixler:                       26:44                    So for general liability, it's based on your location, uh, there just tends to be certain States, um, where maybe there's a higher risk for something to happen. Uh, it could have anything to do with like natural disasters or just because a number of claims to come from that specific area. Uh, so that's going to, that's going to play a big role in your price. Um, your profession, like we mentioned earlier is obviously the most important part, um, because there are much riskier jobs. Uh, so, um, one job that's very difficult to get insurance for that we actually currently don't sell is roofing because it's just such a risky job. There's so, so much room for error, um, doing roofing. So that's the place where the Dusseldorf and insurance are going to cost a lot more than it would for a handyman, um, or, or general contractor. Um, and then there's going to be sort of the specific types of insurance you want to buy.

Dave Bixler:                       27:36                    Uh, you can buy a $1 million limit from us or a $2 million limit that's going to affect your price. But, um, it's not a huge, a huge lift, not like the level of your, the risk of your job. And then for our policies, I guess, for other carriers, it's not really a factor, but it's going to depend on how long your policy is. So if you buy a one day policy, it's going to obviously save you a ton of money, but it would be more expensive than buying a week upfront because we're only selling it to you for one day. So the longer duration you purchase, the more the price goes down for each day, um, all the way up to a year where you're saving the most money. Um, and that, that would be the main pricing points for our policies. Okay.

Bob Preston:                     28:17                    That's really good to know. So it sort of depends upon what trade you're in, what state you're in, what location, maybe how many years of experience, I mean, I'm sure I'm certain, there's probably some kind of a questionnaire that helps determine all of those different aspects. Now, you guys have a program in place with NARPM, right? The national association of residential property managers. What's, what's the deal for NARPM members that you guys offer?

Dave Bixler:                       28:38                    So the certificate manager is a free tool for everybody. Um, so obviously NARPM members have access to it for free. Uh, but we also have, you know, it's available for any property manager, whether they're a NARPM member or not. Um, for normal members, we do offer, uh, like a direct supporting email with faster responses. Um, even though you can always contact us from our website, if you have any questions, but for the most part, it was really just a way to tell property managers who are part of NARPM, that there's a free tool to simplify all of these things that they're doing, you know, tracking expiration dates in Excel, making sure that people have the correct insurance and not having to read through pages and pages of PDFs and red line things and send them back. So it's a benefit for normal members, but it's really a tool that's supposed to benefit all property managers, but you know, they, they have a big list of property managers on their platform. So it was a good way to let everybody know about it.

Bob Preston:                     29:34                    Yeah, that's a great tool. Sounds like it's easy to use and it can get out there to spread the word and get people using it. I think it's a fantastic way to plugged in with this industry. NARPM members are always interested in new technologies, new solutions, new ways to make their companies more efficient, so good on you and I'll help spread that word too. I'll also put a link in our episode notes to the NARPM page where you guys are listed, right. So that can give them some insights as well. Hey, Dave, I always like to ask my guests to tell a personal story about themselves, maybe something that's defined their lives or their careers or something that maybe is, uh, uh, able to show a little bit about you and where you've come from, where you are today. Do you have something you can share with the audience today?

Dave Bixler:                       30:13                    Yeah. So I've talked a lot about the nimble certificate manager today, which is sort of like a passion project that I've been leading at them bull, uh, which was because I saw a lot of support tickets from contractors contacting us and asking about, uh, you know, can I get these requirements that I can get the job property managers contacting us to ask if the insurance was still active or if it was expiring? Um, so I saw this opportunity and at the time I was just a graphic designer actually at nimble. I have been a designer for a while, um, previously at a construction company doing catalogs, which wasn't my, my favorite profession. Um, and I was sort of looking to, to get, uh, you know, get out of that career path and maybe get to use my brain a little bit more, trying to come up with some new products that I've thought saw fit.

Dave Bixler:                       31:01                    So I really made the case, um, dug into how property managers were managing things today, showed all of my coworkers and VPs, the opportunity that we had to offer a benefit to property managers, to manage compliance easier as well as a way to get our name out there and potentially have some new customers. Uh, so they gave me a great opportunity to be able to lead this, which is changed my role at nimble. So I'm now a product manager. Um, and it really all just sort of started from this idea of this tool that I'm here talking about today,

Bob Preston:                     31:35                    Creative thinking, right? And then the wherewithal to say, Hey guys, I've got this idea and how about we do this? And, Oh, by the way, how about if I spearheaded right. And go push it out to the market. It occurs to me that it could not only be good for property managers, but individual landlords as well too. I mean, there are people who do their own properties. Maybe they have one, two, three, four, five, whatever, how many rental properties they have, you know, they have their own vendors and go to people too, and they should be tracking this stuff as well. Likewise, real estate agents occasionally get into dispatching vendors to work on properties maybe before they go on the market. And so it could be a good thing for them as well. There are probably other categories too, that you guys have thought of you're coming up with a thimble, but I think it's a wonderful idea.

Dave Bixler:                       32:21                    Yeah. W we've talked a lot about property management today since that's obviously your specialty, but yeah. I mean, it spreads to a lot of industries that you would probably never think of. Even just venues that, that let people rent their space for a wedding. They always require insurance for the photographer, the DJ, the caterer. So we have venues using us as well, production

Bob Preston:                     32:40                    Studios. They want to make sure anyone filming a music video in their location, you know, has insurance. So definitely very focused on, on property management, but we're finding that a lot of new industries that have the same problems. Yeah, absolutely. Dave great episode. Thanks so much for being on the show today. I'd love to continue, but we kind of have to wrap things up in the interest of time. Do you have any last words or thoughts for our listeners? Thank you for having me. I would say, um, this is a hundred percent free tool that we've really built to help property managers, uh, save a lot of time combing through COIs and checking expiration dates. So, uh, feel free to sign up anytime@nimble.com slash 10, a RPM, a hundred percent free and always will be wonderful. Okay. And so that's a place to go if they want to get in contact at that particular link.

Bob Preston:                     33:24                    What if they're in some other industry and they're not in a part of NARPM, is it just thimble.com, nimble.com and you can find the certificate manager URL, or if you just Google them we'll dot com a certificate manager. I'm sure it'll pop right up. Perfect. Hey, awesome, Dave, thanks so much for coming on the show again, a great episode. And as we wrap up today, I'd like to make another quick plug to our listeners to click on the subscribe button and give us a like Dave YouTube, give us a like, man, you want your, we want your support. And if you like what you heard today from Dave and, uh, on the show, please pay it forward with a positive review to help encourage more guests like Dave and thimble to come on our show. And that concludes today's episode. Thank you for joining the property management brainstorm show until next time we'll be in the field, working hard for our clients to maximize your rental income and maintain top tenant relations.