Pour Decisions: When Vacation Brain Hits Summer Stays, with Amanda Martins of Safely

Welcome To Poor Decisions

Alex Husner 0:01

Welcome to Alex and Annie, the real women of Vacation Reynolds. With more than 35 years combined industry experience, Alex User and Annie Holcomb have teamed up to connect the dots between inspiration and opportunity. Seeking to find the one story, idea, strategy, or decision that led to their guests' big aha moment. Join them as they highlight the real stories behind the people and brands that have built vacation rentals into the $100 billion industry it is today. And now, it's time to get real and have some fun with your hosts, Alex and Annie. Not every stay goes as planned. Sometimes it's a small issue, and sometimes it's the kind of situation that turns a story into one you'll never forget. This is poor decisions when stays go sideways, presented by Safely, where we talk about the moments that no one puts in the highlight reel, but what actually went wrong and what operators can do to handle it better next time. Join Annie and I and the Safely team for cocktails and commiseration as we swap jaw-dropping tales of the good, the bad, and the downright outrageous. And trust me, there are plenty of them. Laugh, learn, and pick up a few instructive tips to help you handle and hopefully prevent future poor decisions. Come for the cocktails, stay for the stories. Welcome to Alex Nanny, the real woman of Vacation Rentals. I'm Alex, and I'm Annie. And we are joined today for episode number two of our series with safely. This is Poor Decisions, and we have Amanda Martin back on the show. So good to see you.

Annie Holcombe 1:31

Hi, good to see you guys again. So I'm excited because this is like summer season. We've got summer stories, we've got our summer drink.

The Hugo Spritz Summer Cocktail

Annie Holcombe 1:42

So our drink this time is a Hugo Spritz, but you've put a little twist on it here.

SPEAKER_05 1:49

I I have. So um, Annie, thank you for introducing me to this. Oh, I'm so happy to share it with everybody. This is one of my favorite drinks uh now, especially for the summer. So it's really refreshing. Um, and I'll tell you the ingredients first and then we'll get into the inspiration besides Annie introducing me to this. Um, so we added a little twist on this, right? So this is a Hugo Spritz, basically. Um, and it includes um a little bit of prosecco, you've got some lime, you've got some mint in there, so that adds that refreshing feel for the summer. And then um you top it all off with a little bit of club soda, but not before we're adding this special ingredient of vodka to it. Yes, okay. Let's go with some Tito's or like a little deep eddy. That's pretty good too. Yeah, that works too. Yeah.

Annie Holcombe 2:44

I did mine traditional with just elder flour and no Tito's, but that's good. Oh, yeah. That's that's the other piece. It's got to have elder flour makes it the yes, yeah, yeah.

Alex Husner 2:52

And you can make it with gin too. I think that's the other option that people probably do sometimes. Yeah, yeah. I prefer the vodka for sure. Um, funny story, it when Annie and I were in Italy last fall, she had been looking for a Hugo spritz everywhere we went. And the first year we went to Italy, they were at like every restaurant. For some reason, the second trip could not find one anywhere. And finally we sat down. We were so tired from walking. They had on the menu and they asked if she wanted the the small or the large, and she said the large. They brought over, I mean, it was bigger than like a fishbowl kind of drink. Like maybe it was like this. I mean, it was massive, it was like a bucket of Hugo spritz. So she got what she was asking looking for over there, finally.

SPEAKER_05 3:31

But yeah, be careful what you wish for, right? Yeah, that sounds amazing to me. I wouldn't mind having Aperaw spritz about that size, too. Um, but I love any of the spritzes are good, except for this particular spritz that happened recently.

The Urine-Soaked Couch Discovery

SPEAKER_05 3:49

Um a recent customer since submitted this claim. And so picture this, you know, you're going into your you're the housekeeper, you're going in and you're going to do your normal cleaning, everything looks kind of fine until you get to the living room and you see that the light gray couch looks a little dark gray on about a third of the entire couch.

Alex Husner 4:13

Uh oh.

SPEAKER_05 4:14

Okay, and then not only that, so you get a little closer and it's this dark gray kind of color, and then you go to the throw blanket. You know those like nice fuzzy throw blankets? Yeah, I have many of them. They're so nice, but have you ever had to touch one that is sopping wet?

Alex Husner 4:38

Oh gross. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:39

No, you don't imagine. So this this okay, this is so gross. So they um they took videos and everything and walked us through, and they would like showed us in the in the washing machine. They pulled, they had gloves on, just so you know.

Alex Husner 4:53

Thank goodness.

SPEAKER_05 4:54

They pulled up the the the the the throw and it was like dripping. And this was this was not unfortunately, it wasn't like you know, a glass of water. They confirmed that this was urine.

Alex Husner 5:10

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05 5:11

And not from an animal. Oh so it's nasty.

Alex Husner 5:16

The interesting thing is here, I mean, I'm sure property managers across the country and the world that listen to the show, they can relate to these stories that you're that you're bringing to us now. And that's kind of the fun part of this series is that we're gonna hear some of these crazy things that happen. And at the end of the day, I think it just it it does make everybody feel better that you're not the only one that's dealing with this. And you know, I think that's where we see people at the conferences really commiserating on like the the craziest guest stories and things that have happened because sometimes it's like you probably feel like you're losing your mind. Like, why is this happening to me? But I mean, it it just it happens, it's part of the business.

SPEAKER_05 5:55

Yeah, and what I found is it's hard to actually shock or surprise property managers with yeah, everybody's seen how bad it could can be, but yeah, yeah. Um one of my favorite things is you know, I don't exactly have the most interesting job in the world, right in insurance, right? But um, one of my favorite things is to just uh at least tell my I start telling my husband all like, hey, come over here, look at this, and then I'll start actually showing him. And usually his response is do people not get arrested for this?

Alex Husner 6:28

Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, I can't even imagine.

SPEAKER_05 6:31

People are animals, aren't they? Yeah, so so and and one of the one of the bizarre things, you know, we're going into summer, right? I know this is the busiest season for a lot of property managers, especially in this in the south here. Um, I'm in Atlanta in that in that area, so all over the south. We're gonna get really busy, if not already, soon. Unfortunately, you know, people like to kind of relax a lot, they're on vacation. Sometimes they'll invite, you know, 22 many of their friends, then they then you know were anticipated on the par, you know, on the in the reservation party. And then, you know, of course, homes with pools are very popular too, right? And so we um we recently had a claim that came

Lawn Furniture Thrown Into The Pool

SPEAKER_05 7:19

in. So another, I like to paint this picture, right? Because you got the the first person to these, so the property manager has seen it all, but I feel bad for the housekeepers that they're just seeing it all. So imagine you're coming in, you're like, oh, this is gonna be an easy job. You know, you walk in, you're like, okay, this is actually not too bad. There's a little bit of a mess. Oh, they didn't empty the dishwasher. That's okay. Oh, a little extra, a little extra to clean up, maybe a sticky countertop here and there. So you kind of walk through, and then imagine going out to the pool area, and you're like, this pool area is a little bit too clean. Where is all the lawn furniture?

Alex Husner 8:00

Oh no.

Annie Holcombe 8:02

Don't tell me it's in the pool.

SPEAKER_05 8:04

Yes. Every bit of the lawn furniture was in the pool. And this was not from wind. So we don't cover, you know, safely doesn't cover damage from wind, right?

Alex Husner 8:16

Oh my god. Wow.

SPEAKER_05 8:18

Every single piece was placed in the pool like they were trying to make some kind of makeshift Baja couch or you know what I mean? And so, um, so they had to pull everything out. The the lawn chairs were damaged because they didn't just throw them in, they were actually trying to, you know, be on them. I don't know, yeah, jumping in with them or whatever. Um, so that's you know, it's just a good thing they have these. It's like people do weird things when they go and they're like, a pool, what what bizarre thing can I do with this today?

Alex Husner 8:52

Right, yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's like what you know, I don't understand why people think that when they leave their own home that you can just like act completely reckless and and not have any consequences on the other side. So, I mean, uh on on the other side of that, what happened to the guest? Do you do you know?

SPEAKER_05 9:09

No, no, unfortunately. Um, this is a question that my husband asked me all the time did they get arrested? Um, you know, and and the thing is with us, we don't always know exactly what happened to the guest because we just don't require guest involvement in most of the claims, right? Um, unless there's something truly, you know, nefarious, which you would think that destroying all of the lawn furniture would be nefarious. That's not the worst thing that we've seen in a home. So unless it's that, we we just don't require you to call up your guests and have that awkward conversation, which they're inevitably gonna say, uh that wasn't me. It was the end.

Annie Holcombe 9:50

I was gonna say my experience has always been it's like, well, one, vacate it proves vacation brain is absolutely 100% real. Um, but I have this theory about like people, like when they go to like Florida, they like check their brain at the state line, and they're like all of a sudden they cross the state line and they're like, okay, the rules don't matter, and it's just like that. But you know, I when I was in property management, we would deal with like the spring breakers, and it invariably you'd have to call somebody's parent and say, like, hey, Billy did this, and the parent would always say, Billy would never. And I was like, Well, you know, Billy's on video doing what he's not supposed to have done, and then all of a sudden it changes. So I just think that people, one, they don't think they're gonna get caught. Two, they just they just do stuff that you wouldn't do in polite society. I for whatever reason, vacation seems to be that place, like the gentleman that was in Hawaii recently that threw the rock at the seal. Yes, why would you do that, other than just being a complete jerk? Like, why would you do that?

SPEAKER_05 10:51

What's the right word that I can use for this person?

Annie Holcombe 10:55

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So vacation brain is true. So you can't actually insure for vacation brain, but you can insure from the actions of some vacation brain, right?

Alex Husner 11:06

That way, not even just having to deal with the guests, but now the property manager doesn't have to reach out to the homeowner. And and maybe they still do tell them that something happened if they weren't able to replace the exact pieces. But I mean, it definitely makes it a little better when you can call homeowner and say, there was an incident, it's taken care of. Don't worry, I've got your back. I mean, and and really it's like we say this with guests all the time, too, that sometimes a bad situation or something going wrong in the property that wasn't the guest's fault could end up being a better situation for the property manager because it gives them the opportunity to solve a problem and build that connection. And it goes the same way with the homeowners, too.

SPEAKER_05 11:41

So that's it does how it works, I guess.

Alex Husner 11:45

Yeah, complicated.

SPEAKER_05 11:47

Unfortunately, sometimes when things go wrong with your guests or your homeowners, whenever um if you have a solution for it, that's what really matters, right? If everything goes great and it's just kind of neutral, which is nice, you know, it's a more peaceful life, right? But if things are neutral, it's what do you have to compare it to? But if like for me, if I was a homeowner and something crazy went happened and my property manager knew exactly what to do, they were able to file a claim, they were able to remediate things quickly, then I would trust them in the future because why would I leave? Because what if something like that happened with another guest? I don't know if another property manager is going to handle it

Owner Trust And Explaining Protection

SPEAKER_05 12:24

the same way.

Annie Holcombe 12:24

So that that actually brings up a question in my mind. Do you have um talking points, collateral, anything that you give property managers to share with their homeowners about the program? So again, you know, at the end of the day, this are relationships are built on trust. And so to your point, I think if an owner can trust the manager with their asset from A to B, A to Z, whatever, all everything in between, you know, that's great. And I think that the fact that they have insurance, because a lot of managers, especially in the panhandle, will say, Oh, I'm self-insured, I'm doing, you know, the damage waiver or whatever. And then at the end of the day, it's really not like, you know, the story we talked about the last time with the damage to the walls and like structural things where you have to bring in somebody from outside, it ends up costing you thousands of dollars to repair. You know, I think homeowners want to know that. Is there is there something that you can give the managers to put in their collateral to talk about this program? Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 13:15

So when um when property managers start up with us, we'll actually create professionally printed uh co-branded brochures. So we'll get we'll get their logo and all of their contact information. And it's this kind of like really nice uh gloss, high gloss two two-fold brochure. You get a digital copy and everything, but it kind of and we we cater it to the exact uh policy that you have. So we have something like 58 policies with several different deductible. It's just so many options that you can choose from. But we we narrow it for you. We don't make it overwhelming. We work with you and cater it towards you. But once we narrow that down, um, we'll actually put these together and it shows all of the all of the basics. So you don't have to be an insurance expert. Most people don't want to be one. So you can um you can use these brochures to kind of showcase those extra steps that you're taking as a property manager to protect their home. You know, and no, I understand the desire to self-insure. People say you can make a lot of money off of it. Well, you can, but also there's a there's kind of this side benefit of making your homeowners very comfortable. So um, with programs like this, you can usually mark up any kind of fee that we charge you to your to your um guests as well. So that's part one. So we put together these professional brochures for your homeowners, and our customers don't just use them to make their homeowners, their existing homeowners happy. They actually use them as an acquisition tool. So um, and it's we have all different ranges of like sizes of customers. There was uh one customer when I would back when I was leading onboarding, I was really excited for her. Um I I personally onboarded her when she started with four homes. And then about a year later, she called me up and was like, Hey Amanda, I need more brochures. I just hired my first on-the-ground property manager, and I have 26 properties now. And she had been using these brochures with her acquisition packet, like as part of her story. So I thought that was pretty cool because that's almost that's like when you tip over to being able to do something like that full time, right? You're not doing your day job anymore, you're actually building your business here. So that was pretty cool. We had another property manager that had about 600 homes with us down in the panhandle, and um, she called us up and said, Hey, can you send me 300 of these brochures to the wow?

Alex Husner 15:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:41

And um, and they use that, they actually put the brochures in front of 300 homes and our doors in in a condo building and won about half of them.

Annie Holcombe 15:51

Oh, nice, very smart.

SPEAKER_05 15:53

Part of the acquisition, we're not the only secret sauce here, but yeah, part of that. So all size property managers are using this as that acquisition tool as well. Good.

Alex Husner 16:04

That's what I was thinking. Yeah. No, that's that's great. And that's I think what we were thinking, you know, you would you would say something along those lines. Because I know in companies that I've worked with, same thing, that they either had a different provider or they were doing some sort of a self-insured, but like that didn't exude the level of trust and you know, the ability to have that fulfillment. I mean, if it ends up being, you know, pretty sizable impact on the home, that can be difficult for a company to reimburse, even though they're collecting a little bit on every reservation. So it's definitely a selling point of the process and getting the homeowners and really just shows, I mean, the professionalism of the company to be, you know, working with safely and some of the other providers in the space that, you know, this is a real business. This isn't just a co-host just managing your listing for you.

SPEAKER_05 16:47

Exactly. And the other kind of the other reason why proper why homeowners like this, like when a property major has this kind of thing, is because generally speaking, most homeowner policies will have a high deductible. And even then, the homeowner might not even have the right coverages to cover the short-term rental in the first place. And then on top of that, even if they have the right coverages and a lower deductible, it's not always ideal to go to your homeowner's insurance for every little thing.

Alex Husner 17:16

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Because that's gonna affect everything else that you own your own home and everything else. So yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 17:23

And especially in like Florida and California, when it's where it's getting harder and harder to get good insurance, you don't really want to disrupt your own policy if you if you have a good one already. So some some of the little things, a little side side.

What Safely Covers And Who It Fits

Alex Husner 17:38

I've got one little question, then we'll get back to the next story. But is there a certain type of inventory or like price tag of an inventory that safely works best for? Like, are you best with like the Uber luxury homes? You mentioned condos. That's why I was thinking, I'm not sure. Does it work for everybody?

SPEAKER_05 17:56

Yeah, we do. I think so. So we have a we have a, like I said, we have 58 different policies, and even then, like different layers of different types of coverages. So we really can um cater the coverage towards your specific needs. And so we we do work from anywhere from the lower ADR, uh, like hundred, about like 100 ADR home condos all the way up to um luxury homes as well. We're talking like over 2,500 a night type homes. So it really is a wide range that we can work with. I'd say, you know, we're more we're more ideal for short-term rentals. We have programs available for midterm rentals, and I think our midterms might work best with the with the higher-end market, our midterm rental program. But even so, I'd still, if you only have midterm rentals, still talk to us, see if see if we have something that can work for you. But short-term rentals here is the sweet spot. Okay.

Alex Husner 18:51

Cool. We'll be back in just a minute. But first, a word from our premier brand sponsor.

Sponsor Message From Safely

Alex Husner 18:56

This episode is brought to you by Safely. One of the realities of running a short-term rental business is that things don't always go as planned. Whether it's accidental damage, guest-related issues, or the unexpected, these situations are part of the business. The challenge is figuring out how to handle them without adding more friction to your operations or your guest or owner experience. And for a lot of operators, that's where things can get messy. Safely is designed specifically for short-term rental operators, combining guest screening, protection coverage, and a streamlined claims process into one solution. Instead of relying on large security deposits or navigating complicated insurance workflows, Safely helps operators put a system in place that's both more efficient and easier to manage. And what we love about Safely is that they remove a lot of the back and forth that usually comes with these situations. When something does happen, you're not starting from scratch or trying to figure out what the next step is. There's already a process in place that helps you move forward without slowing everything down. For teams that are growing or even just looking to operate more professionally, having that layer of protection without disrupting the guest or owner experience can make a huge difference. If you want to learn more about how Safely works, click the link in the show notes or visit safely.com and be sure to mention that you heard of them on the Alex Nanny podcast.

SPEAKER_05 20:12

What's next on on deck? We're excited for the next show.

Pool Floats Stabbed With A Knife

SPEAKER_05 20:19

This is more bizarre than anything. So we had a recent claim come in where all so again, this is this is a pool, like a place, a really beautiful place that has a nice pool. And um, they have all the amenities. So the lawn chairs were fine in this one. So that's good. Just good news. The lawn chairs were fine, the house was pretty clean, everything was fine. But the one bizarre thing that they found was every they and they had a ton, every single pool float had little slits in it.

Alex Husner 20:56

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_05 20:56

In other words, somebody had taken a knife and stabbed every single anger management class. So again with this vacation brainer, maybe they just had a bad day. I don't know. I mean, I'm I'm happy that they that they that they did that to the pool floats and nothing else. And it was only like $100, right? So we don't have a minimum claim. It was like $100 to cover all of the pool floats. But a lot of beach balls and floats. Um, I thought that'd be a little that was a little bizarre.

Annie Holcombe 21:33

People do the darndest things.

SPEAKER_05 21:35

They do such weird things on again. The vacation brain is just so real. Um I have a really a really good one for then for the next one.

Alex Husner 21:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 21:48

Bring it.

unknown 21:49

Okay.

Cooking 800 Dollars Of Crab In A Hot Tub

SPEAKER_05 21:58

Another home in Florida. So not only are pools popular in the summer, but hot tubs are kind of too. You know, I know when my husband and I go on vacation, we like to even whether it's winter or summer, we like to book a place with a hot tub so that we can like sit there and at night, right? And exactly. Between the two, you know, you kind of get the hot and cold going. Um, well, for for this uh particular home, I don't know about you guys, but when you go to these uh to these locations, I don't know if you like particularly like to get the the cuisine of the area or something that's more local, right? So when you're in Florida, usually, so my family usually likes to go and get shrimp. Um like a big shrimp boil and that kind of thing. Um, this particular guest was craving crab. Okay. I didn't grow up that fancy. I mean, shrimp's shrimp was a special occasion for me, right? Crab's extra special here. So this group of people, they must have gone to like a seafood market or something, and we guests probably probably got about like $800 or so worth of crab, and they took it back to the house and they were like, okay, go to the kitchen, right? Let's find a pot for this, let's get this going. So they went to the kitchen, they looked around, and they were just like, gosh, we have too much crab. I just, you know, there's not one pot or just, you know, like all enough pots here for us to cook all this crab. So um, I'm guessing they must have pounded back like a ton of PBRs or something, and maybe some eggers. I'm I'm guessing like that combination really is what I'm guessing would um cause this next mentality, which is not big enough pots. We've got tons of seasoning though. So let's take all of this crab outside and put it in the hot tub.

Alex Husner 23:54

Stop.

SPEAKER_05 23:56

Start the hot tub all of the one-day seasoning that we have in the hot tub and just see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

And they didn't think about like the chlorine that was in the hot tub, the chemical to spend all that money and then I mean that you can't even eat it. Oh my gosh. So nasty.

SPEAKER_05 24:18

I mean, we can just imagine, like, the color was just like this murky color. There was like crabs just like floating around. There were some that I guess had had bubbled out onto the grass. Oh like little crab, this like gray, dried-up crab body.

Alex Husner 24:38

My question would be what did you decide wasn't a good idea? You know, I mean, like you decided that was a good idea. Like, what did you decide? Oh no, we shouldn't do that. Like, that's too much.

SPEAKER_05 24:48

Yeah. Like, I and you can't even eat it afterwards, right?

Annie Holcombe 24:53

So they wasted $800 on crab. Wow, that's bizarre.

Alex Husner 24:58

I've I haven't heard one quite like that before.

SPEAKER_05 25:01

And you know what's the most bizarre part of this story? This is the second time I have heard this story. This is maybe is it like a like a is it like a TikTok or a challenge or something? I mean, I think I guess that's crazy, yeah. Like the tide, like the like the the the the tide pods, but like oh yeah, by eight hundred dollars of of crabs.

Alex Husner 25:27

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_05 25:28

Yeah, so this is the second time that this has happened, and it that's the bizarre. People just do such weird things, and and generally speaking, what I am convinced is part of vacation brain is just not knowing how to cook anything, right? You you should just get takeout, get your Uber Eats, just get taken out, don't dance it.

Alex Husner 25:53

Yeah. No, I think you're right because I think people, and maybe part of it is what we say in our marketing of like, that's the best part of vacation rental. You can cook a big meal and relax and save money, but I mean, my god, they didn't save any money that that night.

SPEAKER_05 26:07

No, maybe like de-emphasize the cooking part in your homes. I'm just saying from the insurance perspective, you know, we have a kitchen and it's got good things. Look at all the restaurants nearby. Right. Exactly.

Alex Husner 26:21

You can still do some things. We don't need to be making every meal, but yeah, yeah. Maybe maybe we should all be pushing delivery, you know, grocery services more too. I mean, that's actually not a bad idea. Take away from here.

SPEAKER_05 26:36

I think so.

Annie Holcombe 26:37

And you know, we're gonna talk to DoorDash. Yeah, exactly.

Grill Mistakes That Melt Siding

SPEAKER_05 26:40

DoorDash, do not let your guests use your grills. Or if you do, just like I recommend putting very clear instructions on how to use your gas grills outside. I can't tell you how many claims come across our our desk where where cus where guests will um instead of you know using the propane that's there, they'll actually go to the grocery store, get charcoal, and use charcoal in the gas grill in a gas grill.

SPEAKER_04 27:17

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_05 27:18

It happens more often than you would want to believe to have faith in humanity.

Alex Husner 27:28

And I think that's actually a really good point, and curious for your take on this. But like, do most property managers that you talk to for that reason, do they just have coal grills because they're worried that people are gonna do that?

SPEAKER_05 27:40

No, I don't think they're worried enough.

Alex Husner 27:42

Um worried enough, yeah. But I mean, I I I know, I mean, years ago when I was in property management too, that I mean, we the beach homes, they did have coal grills and the condo buildings, they had coal grills outside. So, I mean, they're in Myrtle Beach is probably a given that you couldn't let people take any leeway in that decision. So yeah, the gas to the coals, but um, but yeah, that's that's wild. That's wild.

SPEAKER_05 28:08

It happens often more often than you'd want to believe, which they don't you can imagine, they don't mesh well, right? We've had people back up um the grill all the way to the to the siding, use charcoal, and then it smoked and it melted the whole siding.

Alex Husner 28:28

Yeah, and the whole thing is you're supposed to back it away from the siding, not up to it. Yeah, you're supposed to pull it away. Oh my gosh. I wonder, do you do you think in most cases, and I mean this is super high level, I don't know if you give it a complete accurate, you know, technical look at it, but like, do you think that it's mostly kids? I mean, is it not that not necessarily that it's just kids that got into the property underage, but that it's you know, they tell kids to go to the grocery store, get some hamburgers and hot dogs, and we're gonna grill out, and like they just take it. Because I mean, I don't know what adult would do that. I mean, I I guess I'm overestimating you've been to Panama City Beach.

SPEAKER_05 29:05

I mean, come on. I don't know. When I was in my 20s, I couldn't afford $800 worth of crabs.

Alex Husner 29:11

So yeah, no, yeah, and I don't know that I knew how to grill, I mean, barely back then, but I don't know that I would ever have taken charcoals and put them on a grass gas grill.

Annie Holcombe 29:22

I think when you get I have to believe it's almost like when you get a bunch of people together and like maybe, and I I feel like this is this is not meant to be men bashing, but I feel like sometimes men they get in this mindset of like the fraternity, like, let's try it, let's do it. And like the wives aren't there, the wives have gone to the spa for the day, and the guys are like, Yeah, we can make this happen. You know, like I just feel like sometimes if you don't have a mom in the room, people make bad decisions.

SPEAKER_05 29:52

Sometimes, and then sometimes we have uh video footage, proof of that is what happened as well. You reminded me of a fraternity story that we're gonna save for another episode. Oh no, exactly. But speaking of a group of guys that was left, and again, like I love my I love my husband, I love the men. Um, we love y'all. Um, but this was a group of guys that again with the grills,

A DIY Pig Roast Gone Wrong

SPEAKER_05 30:22

okay. This that they had to think this through, okay. Oh, strategy, okay. I get a feeling that they were kind of proud of how resourceful they were, okay, with this whole situation. So, and again, we have we have that the backyard, the the video footage proof of this, where these these guys they acquired a pig, a whole pig, okay. They acquired a whole pig. And again, like they noticed that this particular uh rental, you know, short-term rental that they that they rented, um, just happened to not have a proper pig's pick. And I don't know what property manager doesn't have a proper pig spick in their backyard. So I mean maybe it was their fault. We all have one. So um they noticed that. And so then they were like, they they put their heads together. They were like, okay, how can we make our own, our own? We really want to have this pig. So what they did was they took the gas grill, they deconstructed it, okay, put the bottom part to the side. That's good, took the grill, the top, turned it upside down, then they got two lawn chairs, okay, and put it on either side of like in the backyard. They put they they set them up a little bit a few feet apart, however wide a lid to a grill is, stuffed the lid to the grill with charcoal, found some sort of a long stick or broomstick, stacked it on top of the chairs that were now upside down, hung the pig from it, and made their little weird backyard pig roasting spigot.

Alex Husner 32:21

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_05 32:24

What's hilarious in this video?

Alex Husner 32:25

What could go wrong?

SPEAKER_05 32:27

What could go wrong? What's hilarious in this video is you can see this one guy kind of standing back, and he's looking dead at the camera like just proud. Just proud.

Annie Holcombe 32:39

Yeah, just proud. Like we're gonna end up on America's funniest home videos or the police, who knows? Yeah, but who does that?

SPEAKER_05 32:49

I wonder if anyone, I hope that it maybe it was good. I mean, um, you know, I like bacon, but that's just yeah, a little extreme.

Alex Husner 32:59

Yeah. I mean, I I think you know, social media has played so much into all of these stories, you know, because it's like, okay, let's take the crab and the shrimps and let's put them in the hot tub. Let's let's do this with the pig. Like, let's I mean, it's just as disgusting. But I think people know that they could potentially, you know, get at least a reaction from their friends and people that follow them, but if not, maybe something bigger, hit it big, you know. But my god, at what expense, you know, to what end? Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:30

So that, you know, the all the burn marks in the yard, everything was covered, was covered. Well,

Claims Volume Plus Denials And Deadlines

SPEAKER_05 33:37

that's good.

Alex Husner 33:37

Yeah, here's the question because I'm just I'm trying to just like understand from a normal day at safely. Like, how many how many claims do you think you get on a day? Just a ballpark.

SPEAKER_05 33:49

We get about three or four thousand a month.

Alex Husner 33:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 33:52

Okay.

Alex Husner 33:52

Okay. So if yeah, if you get so you get 200 200 claims a day, how many of that 200 are crazy stuff like that?

SPEAKER_05 34:02

Not many. Um, that's fun. Okay, we're free.

Alex Husner 34:05

No, it's job is to read these claims and be like, it's just gotta be like if it they're all crazy, be like, God, like I haven't, you know, wildly entertaining.

SPEAKER_05 34:14

But I mean, I don't know. Maybe I'm just I'm just a little kind of uh desensitized because when I see, you know, something that comes into the channel and there's there's a bunch of like, you know, these, you know, the fake fruit? Um how there was a bowl of lemons where this kid just like I guess it was a kid, I'm hoping it was a kid, um, went like bit into every single one of the lemons. First off, how would you do that? Eat it like an apple, right?

SPEAKER_04 34:42

What in the world?

SPEAKER_05 34:43

Just bit into every single one of them. So that's kind of bizarre, but it's that kind of thing is commonplace.

Annie Holcombe 34:52

Yeah, yeah. So I have a question related to the claims. And actually, I was reading an article yesterday, and I mentioned this to my husband, or maybe it was before, but it was about the percentage of homeowner insurance claims that are getting denied. And they said that like two years ago it was hovering around 20%, but then the in this last year it's over 50% of homeowner damage claims. Yeah. So I I and and it was just speaking to like the number of like um you know, large-scale events that have happened, the fires in California, the hurricanes here. Um, so I was curious from your like, do you have situations where claims get denied? And like, or is everything, I mean, how does that how does that work out?

SPEAKER_05 35:33

Yeah, absolutely. Of course we do, right? Because we have limits, we don't just cover every single thing. We um our denial rate is about two percent. That's why I'm like 50% insane.

Annie Holcombe 35:43

Yeah, I was surprised. I was surprised, but there was some very specific um homeowner insurance companies that were of of this, you know, like they're not they're not well liked right now anyway. But I think that it was just an interesting thing to see that it had gone so high it tipped over the 50% mark, which was fascinating to me. So I was curious where you guys were.

SPEAKER_05 36:02

Yeah, we're at two percent, and the vast majority of those claims are um claims that were filed after 60 days. So we give you 60 days. Yeah, you have 60 days to file your claim with us, and it's actually really easy to it's it's easier to make that 60 days than you would think. You don't actually have to have all of your documents, you just have to put a claim and drop it.

Annie Holcombe 36:24

Open it.

SPEAKER_05 36:25

So you have to open it and kind of alert us of a claim. You don't even have to sub have everything submitted by 60 days. So that's the majority of the denials that we have. And then um there are things like we don't cover wear and tear. Uh so it just because a washing machine happens to break down doesn't mean that we that we would cover it, right? But if somebody threw literal um work boots with metal tips in the washing machine, which they have on, yeah, then that destroys the the advantage of that, and we have so it's that's the kind of thing, so not like mechanical breakdown, no wear and tear, whether um something that I like to make clear is um if somebody like for example, if a guest leaves an umbrella open, um a lot of customers think, okay, well, the guest left it open, so we should cover it, but we wouldn't cover that unfortunately because it's the wind that carried it away. Right.

SPEAKER_04 37:23

So yeah. Yeah.

Annie Holcombe 37:25

Um it's interesting you say that because one of the one of our friends in the industry, um, she has properties up in Missouri and she had a guest that wanted a refund, or I think she started she started a refund what they wanted a discount and it was like progressive, but it was because the wind kept her up at night. Oh wow, not like not like the wind crashed a tree into the in the house and made noise. No, not it was the wind was just howling and it kept her up at night. And I was like, people will do anything, like just they will just do anything.

Alex Husner 37:52

I got a massage yesterday, and I found out before I went there that the the salon or the spot place was under construction, which whatever I still went. Yeah, but it was a terrible noise the entire time. And I'm thinking to myself, like, that's justified if I were to say something, but I'm not gonna do it. Like, it's okay. The massage was all right. Um, but you know, it's like that's to be that extreme of the wind. I mean, I don't I don't know. I mean, people, I think our culture has just gotten people accustomed to it's critical. It's the it's worth a try. I mean, you might as well just try and get money back for anything, you know, and and see if it sticks, if it doesn't. But personally, I get very embarrassed asking for money back in situations like that. Not that I've ever gone to that extreme, but like, you know, that's uh you have to have a whole different level of skin to ask for that stuff, I think.

SPEAKER_05 38:40

Yeah, I I'm with you on that, um, Alex. I don't I typically, even if I'm at a restaurant, because I have a history of working in the restaurant industry, so I'm really sensitive to but I'm sensitive to you know sending stuff back or whatever. Yeah, the freezing. But I can also tell when somebody's lying to me, right?

Alex Husner 38:59

It was terrible, but I had all of it.

SPEAKER_05 39:01

Yeah, but um, but yeah, it's um I'm with you on that. I I can't imagine just the wind. The wind bothers me.

Submit Your Story And Final Toast

Annie Holcombe 39:10

Um so we like we've covered a real uh a lot of great summer stories. I know that once we get on the other side of summer, we're gonna have our summer 26 edition of what crazy things happened. And so what poor decisions people made over the summer will be interesting. And I think because we have America's 250th birthday coming up soon, people are gonna do some really crazy things. And I bet we're gonna have some fireworks stories, I bet we're gonna have more beer stories. Oh yeah, we might have more, we might have a full crawfish boil in a hot tub by the time.

Alex Husner 39:44

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, make sure that you're keeping track of those, Amanda, so that when we when you come back in August, we've got a full loadout on two months worth of claims.

SPEAKER_05 39:54

Yeah, and I can tell you they're already starting to roll in.

Annie Holcombe 39:58

So we just we're just Orial Day weekend, so it was uh, I'm sure.

Alex Husner 40:04

Yeah. Graduation parties, there's a lot.

SPEAKER_04 40:08

Um, well, thank you guys.

Alex Husner 40:10

Yeah, no, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for coming back and thank you for um, I mean, I I would say it's a combination between you and Annie on on this drink because she introduced you to it and brought a story with the drink. So that's even better. If you want to get in touch with you first, what's the best way to reach out?

SPEAKER_05 40:26

Let's start with hello at safely.com. That's just an easy thing to remember. Um kind of gets gets in touch with me and my colleague Amy, then we can go from there. Okay. Yeah.

Alex Husner 40:37

And if anybody has a crazy story that you want to tell, or if you'd like to come on the show and tell the story live, we do have a form that we'll put in the show notes um and we'll post again on social media. But would love to hear, bring us your craziest story. Like I would love to see you tell a story that Amanda's never even heard before. That would be that would be the goal.

Annie Holcombe 40:58

Yeah. And the only caveat there is if you bring your story, you have to bring your drink. And it doesn't have to be an alcoholic drink, it can be any kind any kind of fun, fun drink that you want. Bring your drink, and we will share that with everybody in the show notes for that episode. But this could be a lot of fun.

Alex Husner 41:13

Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you everybody for tuning in. If you want to get in touch with Annie and I, you can go to alexandypodcast.com. And until the next round of poor decisions, we'll see you later.