Ep. 631 Strategies to Help Contractors Reduce Insurance Costs

Rancho Mesa's Alyssa Burley sits down with Account Executive Casey Craig to talk about strategies to help contractors reduce insurance costs.

Show Notes: ⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to Rancho Mesa's Newsletter⁠⁠⁠.

Director/Host: ⁠⁠⁠Alyssa Burley⁠⁠⁠

Guest: ⁠⁠⁠Casey Craig⁠⁠⁠

Producer/Editor: Jadyn Brandt

Music: "Home" by JHS Pedals, “Breaking News Intro” by nem0production

© Copyright 2026. Rancho Mesa Insurance Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

Transcript

Alyssa Burley: You’re listening to Rancho Mesa’s StudioOne™ podcast, where each week we break down complex insurance and safety topics to help your business thrive.

I’m your host, Alyssa Burley, and I’m joined by Casey Craig, Account Executive with Rancho Mesa. He specializes in provided insurance for painting, plaster and drywall contractors.

Today, we’re going to talk about strategies to help contractors reduce insurance costs.

Casey, welcome to the show.

Casey Craig: Thanks for having me.

AB: Now, many companies are experiencing rising insurance costs. And, in a recent article, you wrote about different ways contractors can proactively impact their insurance costs. Why do you believe that focusing on risk reduction is a more effective long-term strategy than simply shopping for lower insurance premiums?

CC:  Yeah, it kind of ties into anything in life. I mean, this is more, are we going to be preventative or reactive? And if we're looking for better insurance costs after we have claims? you're going to end up dealing with people that are willing to work with worse companies. So they're looking at it going, well, this is them at their worst. We're going to have higher rates. We'll work with them now. As an insured, you want to be working with the best insurance carriers that are giving you the best pricing. The best way to do that is to try to mitigate the losses before they happen.

AB: . All right. So we want to work with the top carriers and we want to make sure that when... we're being presented to that carrier, we look the best that we possibly can, right?

CC: Yeah, in any way that we can. I mean, you're going to have losses. There's no way to avoid it, but we are trying to. Whenever we do have losses, there are ways that we can stay ahead of the problem. So that's kind of what we'll discuss today.

AB: All right. So you also emphasize hiring practices as a key risk management tool. What specific hiring and onboarding processes can contractors implement to build a stronger safety culture and reduce claims over time?

CC: There's a lot. I mean, obviously having a strong employee handbook would be a good start when somebody comes on giving a good onboarding up to what their job duties are going to be, what they can be looking for if they were going to be getting promotions, how that would look. So our big goal with when we're taking on new employees, we want to make sure that they have a direction so that they're not just being hired and they feel like just a number for the company. They want to have somewhere to grow. Obviously having drug tests and physicals and written tests when they get hired is helpful, but that might not always be something that's practical just because a lot of the contractors, They have more turnover or they might have a big job coming up where they need more employees on that job. So it might be too costly to have to do the drug test or physicals every time. But we want to stay away from a lot of times in construction, we have word of mouth. You'll have a foreman out in the field. He'll have a friend, they'll hire him and he'll go straight to a job duty that's in the field, never coming into the office, never really having that formal interview process. So one thing that's really helped out with some of my better insurers is when they have new hires, they'll bring them into the office. they'll have them climb ladders in the office have them carry materials up those ladders that they would be doing in the field if they're going to be in a harness they're going to get them strapped up at the office to see how comfortable they are in the harness maybe even one of the insureds that i have they'll strap them in and actually have them hang freely from a harness to see what it would be like. If something goes wrong, how do you react? So a lot of those ones tend to lead to employees having a better sense of safety once they get to the job site and less claims happen when they do that.

AB: Yeah, and it reinforces the company's safety culture. This new employee now sees this is something that they take seriously.

CC: Exactly.

AB: So return-to-work programs are a major focus of your article. How do these programs benefit both injured employees and employers, and why do insurance carriers view them as an important indicator of risk management?

CC: Yeah, so the short answer would be temporary disability. I mean, whenever a claim happens, it's who's going to be handling the continued wages of any employee when they're injured. The carriers are looking at it from the employer's side saying, if you are bringing people back to work on a modified basis, you're going to be covering their wages. You're also showing that employee that you care for them, that you want them coming back, being a part of the team. The mistake that I think happens is when an injured employee happens, the employer can look at it like it's fraudulent and they start looking at that injured employee as if they're the enemy. So our goal whenever we have an injury is to make sure that they feel like they're part of the team. We want them back as soon as possible. When they come back, the other employees are going to ask questions as well. And if they got to sit at home for a month and a half and just kind of collect paychecks, it's a bad look for the rest of the employees. They're going to look for ways to take advantage of the company too. So that's a big part of it, but obviously the cost. I mean, if we're going into it and the carrier has to pay for that cost, your mod goes up, your loss ratio goes up. The carriers now look at you like you're going to be passing that burden to them on all future claims. So they'll take that into account with pricing as well. So it's really just partnering with the carrier and saying, hey, we want you to cover the medical. We understand there's going to be long-term permanent disability that you have to cover. But the temporary disability, if we can have them coming back, we always want them being a part of our team.

AB: Yeah, it sounds like that it's... It's good for the employee, but it's also good for the employer of the company as well.

CC: Absolutely. Yeah.

AB: All right, so Casey if listeners have questions about their hiring practices, return-to-work program or other risk management strategies, what’s the best way to get in touch with you?

CC: Hey, you can reach out to me, my number is (619) 438-6900 or you can email me at ccraig@ranchomesa.com

AB: Casey, thanks for joining me in StudioOne™.

CC: Thanks for having me

AB: Thanks for tuning in to our latest episode produced by StudioOne™. If you enjoyed what you heard, please share this episode and subscribe. For more insights like this, visit us at RanchoMesa.com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.