Ep. 639 Your Plumbing or HVAC Website May Be Sending the Wrong Message to Your Insurance Carrier
Rancho Mesa's Alyssa Burley and Account Executive Matt Gorham discuss three key elements Plumbers and HVAC Contractors should include in their fleet safety program.
Show Notes: Subscribe to Rancho Mesa's Newsletter
Host: Alyssa Burley
Guest: Matt Gorham
Producer/Editor: Megan Lockhart
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 Matt Gorham, Account Executive with Rancho Mesa. He specializes in risk management for plumbers and HVAC contractors. And today, we’re going to discuss the message contractors’ websites are sending to their insurance carriers.
Matt, welcome to the show.
Matt Gorham: Thanks for having me, Alyssa. It's always great to be here.
AB: Well, we're happy you're here.
Now, many contractors think of their website primarily as a marketing and sales tool. So, why are insurance underwriters paying such close attention to contractor websites today, and how can a website influence insurance costs and coverage options?
MG: That's a great question. And first, I think it's important to acknowledge the way that contractors do look at their websites as a way to market themselves and present themselves. And primarily, they are focused on attracting new customers or converting potential customers to working with them. So, they're having to think about how do they place with SEO, what services might appeal to a potential customer. And, what's the message that they're trying to send usually around value that they bring to their customer? What they're, a lot of times, not thinking about is how other people might be using that same information that they're presenting. As you're talking about insurance, underwriters are looking at what information these businesses are putting out, these contractors are putting out to then say, who are they? What do they do? And, what's the risk that those things carry? So, they might be looking at some of the services that they're offering and how that aligns with that carrier's appetite and what we talk about as class fit. Just because a contractor is a plumber or performs HVAC services, they don't all do the same things. And so, they can serve different industries. They can perform different services that are within the scope of plumbing or mechanical. But, a lot of carriers are really focused on finding the right class fit, as well as the right leadership and ownership of contractors that understand what their operations are and what the risks are to be able to control those effectively. And, as we kind of zoom out a little bit and look at the insurance landscape, there's a lot of scrutiny right now, a lot of sensitivity to... of risks. In fact, there was a study released recently by Marathon Strategies that looked at severity of claims or thermonuclear claims. These are claims that exceed $100 million. And in 2023, there were 27 of these claims that exceeded $100 million. And, in just 2024, one year later, there were 49 different claims that exceeded $100 million. Even if we move away from the idea that those aren't in the industry that we work in, or that a contractor works in, we have to look at the overall impact of a carrier having to pay out $100 million and the different industries that that could affect. And, when you multiply that by 27 times in 2023, 49 times in 2024, that's a massive impact to the insurance industry. And so. carriers are now looking a lot more closely at what risk they want to take on. And so, they're using websites that provide a lot of information from contractors about, again, who they are, what they do, and how well that fits with a carrier's appetite.
AB: Yeah, and what's interesting about that is the application or the supplemental application for the insured may describe it one way, but the website says something different. And so, if I'm an underwriter and I see that there's a mismatch, I'm wondering which is correct. Is it the application and that's 100% accurate or is it the website? So, it's interesting. People do need to make sure that their websites are accurate.
MG: You're spot on with that, Alyssa, because there is a limited amount of information that any carrier receives about the potential risk that they're underwriting for and how they evaluate for that. So, underwriters need to be resourceful. And so they do ask follow-up questions. It's not just looking at what the accord is or what the supplemental says or what's on the loss runs. A lot of times that's really just scratching the surface. And so a good underwriter is going to ask follow-up questions. And, again, they're going to look at what information can I find. And so there is, again, that. push and pull is that tension between a company that's marketing themselves and trying to broaden their appeal versus what are they saying about themselves. And to the second part of your last question, you know, how can the website impact pricing or potentially coverage? A lot of what we're seeing right now is with underwriters being so sensitive to these severity risks, we're seeing declinations based on what might be inaccurate information because of what's presented on the website. And so carriers are saying, we've known through our experience that this is a loss leader, excuse me, this is a cost driver, that is problematic for us. So, we're not interested in partnering with contractors that have this exposure even if that's not what the contractor actually does. So for our side of things, because we are responsible for understanding our clients and their operations and so much about them and we do have strong relationships with our underwriters. Fortunately, more often than not we are able to get reconsideration of that declination but it's already created a perception in the underwriter's head that we have to then overcome. And that can impact how competitive they want to be or what exclusions they might consider in the terms that they're offering.
AB: Yeah, some really significant consequences. So, in a recent article that you wrote on this topic, you said that certain services and operations can raise red flags for insurance carriers. So, what types of website content or service descriptions are most likely to affect an underwriter's perception of a contractor's risk profile?
MG: Great question. Again, as we talk about the perception of the risk profile here, it's really important that we do our best to be proactive and try and create or control the narrative of what we want the underwriter to think about the risk that's associated with a particular contractor. And because I focus on plumbing and HVAC, I'm going to focus on that first, but I've had similar conversations with other brokers and share some of what I've heard on similar topics from them. But from a service standpoint, and I guess I want to differentiate here, there's actual services that are performed, there's services that get marketed that are performed, but then there's also media, like pictures or videos. But focus first on services because that's what the question was here. For plumbing contractors, you know, we'll often see gas line work or... sewer water main construction, medical gases, hospitals, 24-hour services. And it's not to say that any of those aren't insurable. It just changes the perception from an underwriting standpoint of what the risk really is and how do you properly price for it and what coverages really need to be in place. Septic tanks being another one, actually, that can create a lot of concern for an underwriter around plumbing contractors. And I'm shifting over to the HVAC side, clean rooms. Clean rooms are a big concern for a lot of underwriters because of the potential for severity in that. Really anything involving R&D, research and development for pharma, for biotech, crane lifts. And obviously crane picks are such a big part of the mechanical contracting space. Where a lot of underwriters get concerned is what are the controls that are in place around that and how do they manage the risk of... the crane work and potentially dropping these massive chillers or cooling towers and what damage can arise from that and how they might be exposed to that risk if appropriate controls aren't in place. And then going into some other industries that I'm not as familiar with, but again, just hearing some of the same message from other brokers in our office, you know, common one paint and drywall and plaster is the setup of scaffolding. That's another area that a lot of carriers are concerned about. And so if there's a perception that it's created from an underwriter that a painter is actually erecting scaffolding for themselves and for others, it does make it more difficult then to have them see the business the way that we want to from an operational standpoint. And, I know from the green team, from landscape, one of the things I hear consistently is elevated tree service. So again, it's not saying that... that can't be insured, but it definitely changes the perception of an underwriter of what that risk really is.
AB: Yeah, so when you're choosing photos to be published on your website, make sure that the person who is choosing those photos is knowledgeable about what services, what activities that company is actually performing, and not putting just stock photos on the website because they look cool. They should accurately depict what the company is offering and what they're doing and making sure, again, that there's no OSHA violation in the photos that are being put on the website, because that can be a red flag.
MG: Yeah, it's a really good point that kind of overlooked the pictures themselves, right, or the videos that we see. And I want to also bring in here, it's not just about the website, because there are a lot of contractors that have now started to get onto social media. Social media can be another area that we see raise a lot of red flags, a lot of concerns about not just what operations are from a risk standpoint as far as potential loss of liability, but then also compliance. And I know you've got plenty of experience of building websites and can tell the difference between somebody that really understands what they're presenting, how they're presenting it, and somebody that's just saying, hey, this picture looks cool.
AB: Yeah, absolutely. And there's a lot of requirements, especially in California, for websites. So if you are publishing something, you want to make sure that the person that is responsible for that understands what the requirements are for California or for a specific state. And that, again, all of the content is preferably photos that they have taken and not taken from someone else's website or stock photos. Sometimes you can't get around it. You need to use a stock photo, but you need to make sure that it doesn't show any violations that OSHA is going to ask you about. So there's just a lot of things that the building of a website, you need to understand and know that you're making sure that you're following all of the rules for whatever state you're doing business in.
Now, along those same lines, what are some of the most important steps plumbing and HVAC contractors should take when reviewing their website to ensure it accurately represents their operations and supports a favorable underwriting outcome?
MG: Yeah, I said a lot of really valuable things in what you just shared, Alyssa, because a lot of it's about accurate representation. If there's a lot of services that are advertised but not performed, it's doing you a disservice as a contractor because it creates, again, that perception that there is additional risk that underwriters may not want to take on. So, being able to do kind of a review or an audit of what does our website say that we do? How much of those services are we really performing? And even if we're doing some of these maybe once a year, twice a year, maybe really infrequently, is that worth advertising that that service is done? That's a question I'd suggest a business owner to ask themselves when they're looking at their website. But also looking at who is the clientele that they serve? Now, is that HOAs? Is that homeowners? Is that business owners? Is that municipalities? Because there are a lot of different industries. Again, I'll go back to the biomed industry, which is huge here in San Diego. Pharma, there's a difference between working in a medical office building versus working inside a hospital or inside of a clean room or a lab. There's very different exposures, again, because of the concern for severity. What could happen if something goes wrong? So, if the website is actively advertising, hey, we're your clean room specialist, there are a lot of underwriters that are going to say, well, that's great, and I hope they do that really well, but it's not a risk that we want to take on because of the potential for relief. incalculable losses. So, another piece that you mentioned, of course, is we're talking about pictures. When it comes to HVAC contractors, one of the things I see so consistently is helicopters. I think it's really worth mentioning here. And to your point about having somebody use stock photos, we see it a lot. Helicopters look cool. They're appealing. And so it does raise curiosity and it raises interest, but it also raises a lot of questions from an underwriting standpoint of saying, are they, self-performing helicopter lifts? Who are their subcontractors? What kind of controls are in place there? How does their subcontract agreement look? And is it actively being followed? And the same goes for cranes. But I think those are a little bit more standard. If you look at most HVAC contractors' websites, you're going to see cranes, whether that's pictures or videos. But it's knowing that it's going to raise potential questions. You should have the risk control processes the procedures really your controls in place that match what services you're advertising and that it's an again an accurate reflection of what services are that you guys perform.
AB: So, when you have a new client or an existing client that you're about to approach the underwriter, are you asking the client, okay, let's look at your website and let's compare it to our supplemental application. And do you think that it's wise to kind of document those safety procedures and acknowledge that, yeah, we do, we use a helicopter, we use a crane, but we have these controls in place and identify it up front? Or do you wait for the underwriter to ask you about those questions?
MG: That's a great question. And more often than not, if there's information available on the website, yes, we are doing that. Because again, the idea is to control the narrative for the underwriter. Once the underwriter has their perception of what the risk is, again, we're kind of having to then play defensively and justify or explain away the risk or the fear that they have. But if we can... be proactive in addressing that, then it gives us more of an advantage to be able to, again, define the narrative for them. And I've had multiple underwriters tell me the website is generally our first impression of a risk. And so we don't want to, as much as possible, give them that opportunity. So if we are working with somebody early in the process, it's not just, okay, send us your loss runs and fill out the supplemental. It's really looking at what information is available out there to characterize you, to describe you, to, again, influence what an unerdered perception is. So we've got a little bit more control and influence than what's just available.
AB: Yeah. So Matt, if listeners have questions about their website and what it might be conveying to their insurance carrier, what's the best way to get in touch with you so that they can kind of go through all of this and evaluate their website against what they might be including on a supplemental?
MG: Yeah, best way to reach me is give me a call 619-486-6554 or to email me, my email. First initial and last name, mgorham at ranchomesa.com.
AB: All right. Well, Matt, thanks for joining me in StudioOne.
MG: Yeah. Thanks again for having me here,
Alyssa. Thank you for tuning in to our latest episode produced by Studio One. 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.