Rancho Mesa's Alyssa Burley and Greg Garcia, Account Executive in the Landscape Group, discuss implementing technology and safety tactics to protect commercial fleets.

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Director/Host: Alyssa Burley

Guest: Greg Garcia

Producer/Editor: Megan Lockhart

Music: "Home" by JHS Pedals, “News Room News” by Spence

Transcript

Alyssa Burley: Hi, this is Alyssa Burley with Rancho Mesa's Media Communications and Client Services Department. Thank you for listening to today's Rancho Mesa News. Brought to you by our Safety and Risk Management Network, StudioOne. Welcome back, everyone. My guest is Greg Garcia, Account Executive in the Landscape group with Rancho Mesa. Greg specializes in providing commercial insurance and risk management to the lawn and land care industry. Today, we're going to discuss implementing technology and safety tactics to protect fleets. Greg, welcome to the show.

Greg Garcia: Hey, Alyssa. Yeah, thanks for having me. Good to be back here in StudioOne.

AB: Of course. So one of the most important practices for a landscape professional is fleet safety. Whether it's a fleet of ten trucks or 100, the exposure and risk remain the same. Now, we've discussed fleet safety in a previous episode. I think it was episode 251 where you talked about some really eye opening statistics that show frequency and severity of auto accidents and how they are rising every year. So knowing that commercial auto accidents are on the rise, what are some of the things our clients can do to improve their fleet safety above and beyond just having a written fleet safety program?

GG: Yeah, that's a I wanted to touch on fleet safety again because it is such a pressing issue with our landscapers. Usually , you know, our landscapers have between 25 and more vehicles. And if you think about an auto accident, that could really bring in four lines of insurance into play, whether that would be you know, you get into an auto accident, that's an auto claim, potentially. It could potentially be an excess claim if the auto claim is severe enough where you're exhausting your auto limits, it could be a work comp claim if some if someone's injured in the truck while the accident occurred. And then finally, it could be an Inland Marine claim as well if maybe one of the pieces of equipment on the trailer get damaged in the accident. So really a four prong kind of effect here on your insurance policy, not to mention what we're seeing from the marketplace. Less and less carriers are wanting to right this auto market. A few carriers even backed out of California writing altogether.

AB: Right. We're seeing that on the news.

GG: Exactly. Yeah. So wanting to be proactive. That's what we're always trying to preach around here is being proactive and getting back to your original question, What I think people can do other than just having a written fleet safety program, would be installing some sort of GPS or telematics into their cars and into their trucks to try to capture some of that data and seeing where they can improve on and kind of go from there. And I know a lot of these GPS and telematics can can track, you know, speeding obviously, harsh braking, turning too fast, things like that. So I think that's a great approach for any landscaper looking to take the next step in their fleet safety. You know, having a fleet safety written program is great, but taking it to the next step would be getting some sort of GPS or telematics in the trucks.

AB: Yeah. And are you seeing that companies are actually utilizing the data or are they just installing the GPS and that's all that they need to do?

GG: Yeah, no. And kind of going off in the segment again, we're lucky enough to be partnering with NALP, the National Association of Landscape Professionals, and we try to get to as many of those events as we can. And we were recently at Elevate, which is in Dallas, you know, maybe three weeks ago now. And I asked this exact question to one of the members there, and their response was, I thought, really, really strong. And they have GPS and all their trucks. So I said, "Oh that's great." And, you know, and I said, "What's the next steps?" And they go, we want to take that data and try to make actual improvements. So what that particular organization does is at the end of each month they're going in and examining the data and seeing what drivers maybe were speeding the most or, you know, having them severe turning or something like that, bringing those drivers in, trying to kind of let them know, hey, you need to you need to kind of cut it out or there's going to be some repercussions. And then also putting any driver trainings out that can come along with any of that stuff. So again, it's like GPS is great. That's that's a great first step. But then I thought this organization took it to the next level and went above and beyond. And so they actually started integrating the data that they were getting from the GPS systems. So I thought that was really, really solid.

AB: Yeah, I think that's the part that some people miss, is they install the GPS, but then they don't do anything with the data and it's like the whole reason of having it is because we want the data to know what's happening out in the vehicle.

GG: Yeah, and really quickly touching on that again is when we have conversations with these auto market underwriters, you know, you're asking, hey, what are you looking for in an organization to want to write their, you know, their auto policy? And one of the biggest things they've always come back with was GPS is really important. But going further and showing how you're using the GPS. Right. It's one thing to just say, yeah, we have it in all of our trucks, but go the next step and say, how are we utilizing that data? And then it's on your insurance agent to make sure they're relaying that information to the underwriter to try to get the most aggressive pricing on a really a market that has been hardening for the last 3 to 5 years now. So yeah, exactly. Yeah.

AB: Yeah. And the better you can make our clients look to the carrier, the better, right?

GG: Yep.

AB: And you know, Rancho Mesa has in our SafetyOne™ platform a bunch of different driver training that we do recommend that it's used to prevent accidents. So let's get all of our drivers using the online courses. But then also, if there is an accident, then finding the course that you know best applies to whatever the accident was. And of course, our team here can always recommend the appropriate course that should be taken after the fact. But again, we highly recommend everyone uses them to prevent the accidents. So what else can you recommend that our clients do to help with their fleet safety?

GG: Yeah, a couple more things I'm going to touch on before we kind of wrap up here, and that would be, first of all, just routine maintenance on all your vehicles, you know, checking tire pressure, making sure all the vehicles have their oil changes up to date, and just making sure all your equipment is, you know, up to tip top condition before the day's work. You don't want to, you know, have an issue after something happens. Again. We're always talking about being proactive. And then another thing that I found again through NALP, we've been able to go on what they call field trips, and you get to go and tour a landscapers facility and kind of see how things how they do things and they kind of open up their doors. And one of the most impressive things I saw was this landscape company did what's called a company rollout so early in the morning, you know, all the crews are about to head out for their jobs. But as they're leaving their yard, they're actually, you know, hitting both of their blinkers. They're checking their brakes. They're doing all these diagnostic checks before they actually get onto the road. And then they have somebody out there at the front gate making sure all the blinkers work, all the lights work. And then the last thing they do is they go and check to make sure the trailer's properly hitched down. All the equipment is tied down properly, and now that crew's ready to go. For me, I thought that was the most impressive thing. And it's something that it probably takes some energy and some effort to implement something like that. But once you make it part of your culture and it's, hey, this is what we do here. I think it's it's something that can really prevent auto accidents. It can't hurt it. You know, it can't hurt or make it more risky to go drive on the road. But if you're doing those things beforehand, you're doing everything you can do in your power to be as safe as possible. Does it mean you're never going to have an auto accident? No. But it's putting you in the best position to not have an auto accident for sure. So those are two of the last things that I kind of wanted to touch on. Again, this is such a tricky market and it can affect so many different lines of insurance. But let's just try to keep being proactive and keep utilizing the resources that you have. I know we have a ton of resources here to try to help help in those efforts.

AB: Yeah. And, you know, for the listeners that aren't really familiar with all the functions of the SafetyOne ™ app, there are digital forms that can be used to document maintenance on vehicles. And then there's also the ability for you to check out a vehicle or kind of like what you mentioned doing a safety check every single day before you leave the yard and you can document, okay, this truck, we checked the brakes, we check the blinkers, we wash the windshield, you know, all of those things. And then it gets stored digitally and it makes it really easy to document that all of those things were done every, single day, for every vehicle. And, you know, even if you don't have the mobile app on your device, drivers can scan a QR code on the vehicle and complete that form. And it's just a really easy, streamlined way to make sure that all of those things are being done every single day.

GG: And I know if any of our clients have any questions on the SafetyOne™ app, I know our team over here can easily help implement those strategies in place and kind of help them get off the ground with that, because again, the

SafetyOne™ app for us is another proactive tool that we want our clients to utilize and we have the team here to help implement that app. So yeah, definitely reach out to Alyssa and her team if, if they need to, if they need any help with that.

AB: Yeah. So Greg, if listeners have questions about their fleet safety, what's the best way to get in touch with you?

GG: Yeah, absolutely. I can be reached at ggarcia@ranchomesa.com or you can call my office phone, which is 619-438-6905 and I'd be happy to help.

AB: All right. Well, Greg, thank you so much for joining me in StudioOne.

GG: Yeah, Alyssa, thanks for having me.

AB: This is Alyssa Burley with Rancho Mesa. Thanks for tuning into our latest episode produced by StudioOne. For more information, visit us at Rancho Mesa icon and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.