The Right Way to Insure Rental Properties, Creative Deals, and Vacancies with Seth Markum

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Good morning. Welcome, Smart Real Estate Coach listeners. Chris Pree, your host again with another very, very appropriate, I'll call it, guest for year-end sort of regrouping. Here's why I say that. For about 12 years now, we have utilized the insurance services of NREIG. They've gone through some iterations and some buyouts. They are presently NREIG. Now, NREIG is one of the, if not the largest, non-owner-occupied insurers. And so we have no tie to them other than I've used them for over a decade. And I would suggest that as you gather your properties, I don't care if you're a buy-and-hold investor or you're doing creative like us, if you're holding properties where the title's in your name in any one of the strategies, Then you're going to want to look into this. And I'm going to chat here in a couple seconds with Mr. Seth Markham. He's their Executive Vice President of Sales. He's got over 20 years experience. Now, again, I, I sound like a broken record, but when I hear 20 or more years, I want them on the show because he's had that experience just in the property and casualty space. He co-founded one of the first national online commercial property casualty agencies. And he kind of used the internet when it wasn't as prevalent as a distribution channel before, you know, before it was mainstream. He has extensive experience developing innovative sales and service solutions. So they're super adaptive, I'll call it. And he brings this experience to NREIG to continue his efforts streamlining these, the processes and the distribution channels as investors grow and as things change in the marketplace. And he loves educating investors on proper coverage. So I'm going to dive into that with him. so that you can maybe either know for your present properties where you should fit in or take action and for future stuff that you're going to do. Okay, Seth, with that as a little backdrop and intro, welcome to the show.

Ah, thanks for having me, Chris.

Yeah, you bet. As I said in the intro a couple seconds ago, I wanted these guys to get sort of exposure to before the new year. This is coming out right during Christmas. I think it's a week before Christmas or thereabouts. So You know, getting their mindset right about setting things up properly in 2026. And I wrote down just a few things. I wanted to first get a real general 10,000-foot view of how they should look at their present portfolio insurance-wise, because you've got people on here that do what we do with creative real estate, end up keeping some. You've got buy and holds, you've got all kinds of different niches, but a lot of them hold property, right? So if the deed's in their name, I want them to hear from you. So Thoughts on properly insuring, and then I can kind of pick it apart a little bit.

Sure, sure. So, you know, there, there's a wide variety of things we can talk about when it comes to properly insuring. And the first thing is, is to make sure that you have the proper forms, meaning a landlord policy. We see a lot of people that want to use a homeowner's or a deviation of a homeowner's form. It never works because generally excludes commercial. And so rentals are a commercial exposure. So here at National Real Estate Insurance Group, we offer the true commercial form with it offers basic or special form in a DP-1 or a DP-3 equivalent. And I don't want to get too technical on that because people may not know what that is. But, you know, when you're, when you're insuring investment properties, the reality of it is, is that there are so many ways to invest, and you kind of keyed on some of them. Some of them are, you know, fix and flip, some are buy and hold. It depends on if you want to invest in just one area or you want to invest in multiple areas. Some people mix and match, you know, single-family and multifamily. Some will put some short-term rental in there. And the reality is, is that there's a lot of great companies that are out there, but they tend to do one thing good and not the other. And so at National Real Estate Insurance Group, we're a national agency. We write in every state except for the state of Louisiana. So I have to kind of preface that. But the reality is, is that we custom tailor coverage because every investor's a little bit different. Your acquisition strategy may be different. Your exit strategy may be different. And so if you're not getting a customized policy, if, so for instance, if your, if your agent comes in and they just say, here's what I got, that may not be the scenario that you want to entertain because there are so many different things to consider. Because some of your locations, you may want to have basic forms. Some of you may want to have special forms. Some of you may want to have a higher deductible or a lower deductible. A lot of these companies, You know, they'll do 1 to 4 locations, but once they get over that, it really doesn't, doesn't tailor to their appetite. And so our product, it doesn't matter how many locations you have, doesn't matter where they're at. So they could be multiple state, even under different entities. So let's say you have an LLC for each location. We can still put those all on one schedule and give you one monthly billing cycle. So a customized approach because there is no one size that fits all. That's really the way to go. And that's what we've done at National Real Estate Insurance Group.

So it sounds like sort of the customization is your differentiator. Am I tracking with you?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we can get into why it's different as well if you want.

Yeah. Anything else that differentiates you? Because I want, like, literally it's year-end planning time and I want them to go, okay, that's why I need to pivot. And while I ask that, while I say that, it brings to mind while you're answering differentiation, If they're midway with a policy, can they also pick up the phone and go, hey, year-end, I want to do this with NREIG? Can they do that too?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it, you know, so the only scenario where that wouldn't be feasible is if you're on an E&S policy where there's a 25% minimum premium earned and you're in that 90-day window, we would tell you right off the bat, hey, look, you need to wait till this date so that you don't lose any premium. But that is really one of the things that differentiates us is so I'm going to go back and I'm going to elaborate a little bit on this. So when our founders created us, they are investors. I'm an investor. Many of the people that work at the company are investors. And so when they created the product and they realized the need for it, they created it looking through the lens of the investor. What do you really need and what do you not need? And so that's how the creation and the company was formed. Now, when we talk about what differentiates us, Number one, I already said we can do multiple LLCs on different locations. We can do 1 to 100 different locations or even bigger. That's not a problem. We can do multiple types all on the same policy. So single-family, multifamily up to 20 location or 20 doors at any location, condos, mobile homes, the short-term rentals like Airbnb and VRBO type of things.

That's great.

And then they can land. And if you're doing creative investing, so like if you're buying non-performing notes or you're doing a subject-to deal, we understand that and we can do that properly. The other thing—

I want to put a big highlight on that, Seth. And I want to really highlight you guys on that because we've done, as I said in the intro, I've dealt with you guys since 2013, I think. Like I've been with you guys for a long time, whenever that first one was. But sub-to is never a headache with you guys. And I think, No, it scares a lot of people and they need to, so if you just say that, that's a reason to call you. We'll get, we'll get your information in a minute, but thank you for bringing that up. Okay.

Well, no, no. And, and that's a big thing. It's not without risk. So you need to have an agent that understands. If you go into your corner agent, Bob on the corner, and I'm not badmouthing Bob, I used to be Bob, but they give you the deer in the headlights look. You don't want to go there. So, but the, the other great thing about this is we, we use what's called a monthly reporting format. And that doesn't mean that you need to update us monthly. What it means is that we report to the carrier monthly. What that does for the investor is it gives you flexibility to make changes anytime you need to. So if you're, let's just say you're a current client of ours, you've got a few locations with us and you want to add another one. Well, we're not going to make you sign a contract to add that one. We're just going to say, send us the information. We're going to tell you how much it's going to add in premium, either monthly or annually. And we're just going to add it. So there's no new contract, there's no down payment, none of that. But the biggest part is the way that I look at investing is investors have enough headache. Why make it more difficult? And so when we talk about ease of use, so one thing that we really do well and that differentiates us from everybody else in the market is that all phases of occupancy are contemplated on our single policy form. What that means is, let's say you have a location that's occupied. It, it, the person moves out. It's time to now go in and renovate it because it hadn't been renovated in 10 years or whatever. And so with the traditional policy, you would cancel your occupied policy and you would buy a builder's risk. Well, that means canceling the policy, signing a new one, down payment, all that. Ours, you don't do that because all forms are contemplated on the single form. We just endorse it. And so the continuity of your coverage is never broken. It goes from one to the next, and it just updates in your billing cycle. The same thing with vacant. So you have a 60-day window on vacant, but on day 61, we would want to know because that's— after that, you now have a vacant dwelling. And so we can endorse in between occupied to vacant, occupied to renovation, or any of the top kind. Now, Like for fix and flippers, this one is really good because you're buying a builder's risk. You purchased a property, you're buying the builder's risk, and generally you're going to the— I'm not gonna say their name, but I used to write 'em a lot and they're gonna sell you a 6, 9, or 12-month policy and you gotta pay for it all upfront. Well, if you don't use all that, then you're just out that money. But with us, you bring it on, it comes on under renovation. Let's just say you need 4 months. You're only gonna pay for 4 months of renovation. And then we can endorse it to a vacant while it's on the market. There again, the continuity of coverage is never broken. You're always insured. And it's just a much simpler way to do business for investors regardless of how you're doing it.

I love it. I appreciate that. And Seth, 'cause I just said it, let's not forget, tell these guys how to reach you. And then after you tell 'em how to reach you, and you can use any phone number, email, website, let's talk about the interaction of them submitting properties. 'Cause we've been doing it for years and our office manager, So easy online. So first, how do they reach you? And then what's the interaction like before we wrap?

So the best way is to go to nreig.com. There's a button that says, get a proposal. It's gonna ask you some questions and it's gonna ask you, you know, quite a few questions. But keep in mind, this is enough to get us off the ground and going. Basically what happens is, is that they submit it into our sales team in Kansas City, Missouri. They will reach out to you and talk to you about what form you want, what deductible you want, that type of stuff. Or, and you can put multiple locations in there as well, but it really is on your time, depending on what your schedule looks like. They're gonna reach out to you and schedule a time with you to sit down and talk about it and give you that consultative approach. And then we just send it all out electronically. You sign in, you sign online, and literally we, we do the payment and everything that way. And it's just a simple process.

Yeah, I watched it go on with Sue and she no longer has to come in and ask me questions, so I know it's simple. Awesome, awesome. Any— should they only be going there for their properties? What if they want a, I don't know, a phone call with someone first? Is that unnecessary? And any other way they can find you or is that fine? NREIG.com.

So I mean, you can call into the company, but honestly the best way to do it is online.

No wonder.

If you wanted to email, And you could do it to sales@nreig.com and then say, hey, look, can somebody please gimme a call? We could always do it that way as well.

Okay, so nreig.com, submit your property, you'll get a rep calling you, or sales@nreig.com?

Correct.

Very good, very good. Seth, anything else you want to share that you think the investors should know? Because again, wide variety of listeners here. Anything else that I didn't ask you that they should know?

You know, not, not really. I think we covered most of the bases. The reality is, is that if you just want something that's going to be all-encompassing, no matter what your strategy is, this is going to be the best solution for you.

Love it. Love it. I appreciate our association with you guys for, again, like 12 years or whenever my first deal was with you guys. I heard about you through a friend and we had never left you. And then I was Super proud to have you guys as a sponsor of our most recent event. And hopefully, we'll be doing a lot more of that together. So, thank you so much for your time, Seth.

All right. I'm looking forward to the next time.

Take care.

All right. Thanks.

Okay, smart listeners, that does wrap up our time together today with Seth. Listen, I can't think of a better thing to do. First of all, have an amazing holiday week and let's say 2 weeks. And I can't think of a better thing to do than to get yourself set up for 2026 to have access to our In the Trenches boot camp here in the office in Newport, Rhode Island. It's absolutely amazing. It's free with every level. And when I say every level, if you're new to the podcast, if you're an apprentice or an associate, you get to attend for free. For more information, I'm going to give you a few links because here we are year-end, right? And I would suspect that you would Maybe perhaps carve out some time in your schedule for year-end to set yourself up to have a killer '26, right? The best year ever. It's your choice, guys. I just shake my head when we get to like February or March of a new year and people go, yeah, I'm kind of off track. What do you mean you're kind of off track? Let's set a plan for 2026. A plan, not a would-be nice warm and fuzzy goal, but a plan that has definitive checkpoints, that has accountability built in, that has some predictability, that has profitability and that's fun? That'd be cool, right? That'd be ideal. Go check out 2 things, actually. One is my free master's class. I'm big on free, guys. There's a lot of stuff hitting you guys on social media and a lot of it's crap. And I want you to be able to distinguish. So go to my free master's class. Go to smartrealestatecoach.com/masterspodcast. It's about a 30-ish minute class where I go through a workshop-type environment online and you don't have to be bugged by anyone. You watch it at your own leisure. If you don't, because we're at year end and we're in the, the giving holiday season, if you don't have my books, don't go to Amazon. You don't have to do that. Just go to wickedsmartbooks.com/podcast. They're yours for free. And guys, it's not the free offer where you got to put in $8, $10, $12, $6, whatever dollars for shipping. It's free. We'll send out of this office here. Our office manager Sue will ship that package out to you. Now, if you're wondering what the heck is this Associate stuff and apprentice stuff you're talking about. Again, because we're at year end, I want to, I want to arm you with this stuff. The apprentice program, you can learn more at 3Paydays— 3, the number 3— paydaysapprentice.com and use the coupon code PODCAST, uh, if you want to go ahead and get your fingers on that. It's like, it's crazy. It's over 10 grand worth of stuff for, I don't know, less than $1,500. Crazy. Last but not least, you want to learn more, you're kind of in the Hey Chris, I'm used to earning good money, or hey, I want to do this aggressively, or hey, I want to be like one-on-one with you guys and your coaches, check out the associate levels. We're in about, I think it's the last, one of the coaches told me like 80 markets right now, meaning we're doing deals with people just like you. Why not you? Like why not lock arms with us and do deals? Go to smartrealestatecoach.com/associate and we'll give you some videos there to check out. All right, make it a great week, guys. Make it an outstanding holiday season and year-end and new year. And I can't wait to see you at our In the Trenches boot camp on January 21st, 22nd, and 23rd. To learn more about that, after you go through the links I gave you, simply email support@smartrealestatecoach.com and they'll give you some options for you to get registered for that. We are limited. It's right here in our office. We built a little classroom and it's right in our office here. Can't wait to see you. You will have an amazing experience. Make it a great week. 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