Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The stories from the places where people gather.
Dana Kadwell (01:30)
And today we are talking with Mitchell, who is a leader and driving force behind Event Guard, the first and only AI powered event insurance platform in the United States. With over a decade of specialized experience in wedding and event insurance, Mitchell understands the critical role that risk management plays for clients, venues, vendors, and planners alike.
His deep industry knowledge combined with the cutting edge technology of Event Guard empowers wedding professionals and their clients to seamlessly navigate the complexities of event protection, ensuring peace of mind on life's most important days. Welcome to the podcast, Mitchell.
Mitchell Busse (02:04)
Hey, thanks for having me. Excited to be part and talk about this fun side of the wedding industry. Yes.
Dana Kadwell (02:11)
The fun side, I mean, I don't think you would ever
say insurance and fun in one sentence. Okay. I mean, I always joke that my insurance agent, like every year we go through like the, um, all the things like with our homeowners and whatnot. And I was like, and I went this last time I said, is it your job to tell me the sky is falling? And she said, yes, it is. It's my job to tell you this guy is falling. I was like, okay. Yeah. Awesome. Well, um,
Mitchell Busse (02:16)
Somebody has to. Somebody has to. And I'll be that person to say that it can be.
Yeah, it may be a part. Yeah.
Dana Kadwell (02:40)
I know that this isn't, you're not a venue owner, but obviously you are still very much an entrepreneur and has ⁓ built a business. So tell us a little bit about your backgrounds, how you even got involved in Event Guard and kind of where that passion came from.
Mitchell Busse (02:55)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I started as an insurance professional. That was my first job out of college. And I realized that I liked what I was doing. So for those that are in tune at all with the insurance industry, I started my career at Markel, which is a prominent leader, a large insurance carrier. I spent almost eight years there as primarily an underwriter overseeing a lot of the programs that we had, one of which was special event insurance, which included events
liability and event cancellation. A lot of venues who require insurance may be familiar with the Markel policy. As I was leaving my time there looking for a new opportunity with my career, ⁓ one of the partnerships I managed was a company by the name of Indem, which they were a startup tech platform, AI powered, trying to see what they could bring AI into the industry. Before AI was a thing, this was four, four and a half years ago. And ⁓ so I managed that relationship
Dana Kadwell (03:50)
Okay.
Mitchell Busse (03:55)
And when he realized I was leaving, he said, Hey, I've got this idea, this cool platform. You know, I want to see if it's something that would work. And, you know, if you'd like, I'll give you the opportunity to try to take this event program and put it out there. so I said, sure, why not? I took a leap of faith. And, ⁓ so from ground zero took, before event guard was even the name event guard for any venues that may perhaps have been part of the list before we were in them, got things going and realized that that name wasn't.
quite fitting for the industry that we were serving. It's an insurance term, it fits well there, but let's be honest, the wedding industry are not ⁓ insurance professionals that like that lingo. So, ⁓ you know, I played around, wanted to find a better fitting and resonating name, which led us to Event Guard. And ⁓ here we are today. ⁓ We primarily focused, the start of our business journey was partnering with venues. And so we take that capability use of AI and incorporate it into the insurance process.
Dana Kadwell (04:27)
Yeah. Yes.
Mm-mm.
Mitchell Busse (04:55)
which just allows for much more confident purchases about event insurance from clients. They understand the policies that they're getting, much more seamless and personalized. Again, going to the insurance, lacking the fun category, you know, these bland, boring webpages. Well, our platform really embraces the elegance, the personalization, the tailored experience that venues like to deliver to their clients. And we put that front-facing in their clients' user experience through our platform.
And so we've done all that. It's been myself as a solo operation until this time. But one exciting thing I'd love to share actually as of the time that we're recording this, we just officially announced we were have been acquired by a Jewelers Mutual Insurance Group, which is a very fitting tie. And that will allow us to not only continue to deliver the service and the experiences that we've done, but also do more. Jewelry insurance is one big thing you can probably pull from the name of that.
Dana Kadwell (05:31)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mitchell Busse (05:55)
that company,
but a lot more options for venue insurance, for vendor insurance, and a lot of other programs that we get asked on a daily basis from venues, from their clients that they work with. And so now I'm excited to say that we'll be able to deliver all of those and hopefully continue to be that true trusted resource for anyone who wants to decide to partner with Event Guard.
Dana Kadwell (06:15)
That's really exciting. I can, if you're watching this, you can see just like, it's almost like a relief and an excitement all at once for this merger. I can only imagine it's like something that I think any tech, anything that does tech, it's like so overwhelming to like be that kind of solo operation. So congratulations, it's amazing.
Mitchell Busse (06:23)
Yeah. Yes.
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Thank you. Very exciting and looking forward to just delivering more to everybody because again, it's a process that not everyone enjoys when it comes to insurance. Weddings are flashy and fun and exciting. So the fact that we're able to provide engaging and really ⁓ elegant user experiences across this process, it's great that we're able to do that. We're looking forward to just growing that further.
Dana Kadwell (07:02)
Yeah.
So before we get into like the really fun stories, which insurance, I'm sure you have so many fun stories. What, what drew you to insurance in the first place? Like as you know, a 20 year old in college, you're like, I want to be an insurance. Like what was that? Like what brought you into that field in the first place?
Mitchell Busse (07:06)
Yes.
honestly, there was an opening for a customer service position at an insurance company as a temp position. said, sure, I'll try it. ⁓ I had no back-up.
and insurance. None of my family was ever in that space. So I was like, I'll give it a shot. All lo and behold, I enjoyed it. I liked learning new information. I'm always one to learn something, even if it has no relation to what I do daily. I want to intake as much information as possible. I enjoyed it. like being able to, the two aspects of insurance I like the most is one, I like being able to use my experience and skills to review risks or certain
certain criteria and determine like, yes, we can do something with this, but how? And that's a fun spin that you get to do with insurance. But then the other side that I really appreciate the most is the relationship building. Insurance is about connections. It's about building relationships with the partners and clients that you work with. And I mean, over these last three and a half, four years with EventGuard specifically, those relationships with the venues that we work with, I wouldn't trade that for anything else. All of those relationships have
transformed into just personal friendships beyond just business transactions. And so ⁓ I'd never take any of that for granted. And I think truly that's what's kept me in the industry is being able to facilitate those and build on those relationships each and every day. So.
Dana Kadwell (08:45)
Yeah, I think
that's so true. ⁓ It's funny, like when something disastrous happens, the first person you call is probably like your spouse or partner or whatever, but then the second person you call is your insurance agent. They are up there with it. Yeah, I know.
Mitchell Busse (08:58)
Yeah, yeah. And
But I think then what helps the process is realizing that I'm able to deliver solutions to those people to help remedy, you know, what may be going on, which feels good.
Dana Kadwell (09:10)
Yeah, we were traveling overseas a couple years ago and we decided to rent a car in Ireland, which ⁓ was fine and everyone's like, get all the insurance. we had like this snappy with the rental company right over. Anyways, we ended up hitting a wall, like literally scraping a wall in Ireland. I was texting my insurance, I was like, this is the policy we got, are we covered? And she's like, no, not really.
Mitchell Busse (09:27)
No. ⁓ boy.
Dana Kadwell (09:35)
But here's what I would do and she talked me through it and we ended up getting ⁓ fully covered so it was awesome. Yeah, yeah.
Mitchell Busse (09:41)
there you go. talk about
not being an insurance professional and forget about figuring out insurance here in the United States. Let's go get a policy in another country. But I'm glad that worked out for you.
Dana Kadwell (09:48)
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. Me too,
it was very stressful, but ⁓ alas.
Dana Kadwell (09:59)
I don't about you, but when I first got engaged, I don't know, like feels like a thousand years ago, the first thing that I did was I created a knot wedding page. and today still they have thousands of couples signing up daily. In fact, over 7,000 couples sign up on the knot and wedding wire annually. It is one of the most trusted brands in the industry that is working with you.
It's a great way to grow your business that is easy and super
Wedding Pro is the only wedding advertising solution that combines the power of the knot and wedding wire to bring better leads and more bookings.
They send over 9 million leads annually into our inboxes. There's over 241,000 pros on the knot and on WeddingWire. And the best part is they're backed by over 40 plus years in the industry. Wedding Pro helps Wedding Pros, just like you, reach your unique business goals. I personally have been using them since a day opened the Bradford and first thing I did when I bought my two venues was sign up with Wedding Pro. So if you're interested in learning more,
head to pros.weddingpro.com to learn more and tell them that I sent you.
Dana Kadwell (11:11)
Okay, so I wanna talk about some of the things that like, ⁓ I think when you walk into venue ownership, you don't think about, I mean, of course in your mind you think about liability, but there are things that really keep venue owners up at night. And so I wanna, you have like probably the most common claims
Mitchell Busse (11:11)
again.
Dana Kadwell (11:30)
that people say like, I didn't think this would ever happen. Like it was just something that they never really thought of that ended up happening.
Mitchell Busse (11:35)
Yeah.
Yeah. And before I jump right into that, I'll preface by saying there's the term wedding insurance gets used. I'll say vaguely. And yes, I think that's a good, good name to call it wedding insurance, but it's important to realize that it's two options. There's two policy types within wedding and event insurance, both very polar opposite as far as what they cover and benefits across both of them. so I'll, I'll share some and they'll, they'll touch across both.
Prior to this kind of, we're in a little bit of a trend shift, which I'll touch on, but prior to this day and age liability insurance, you know, that's very important for the most part. Most venues require liability insurance. It seems like the industry standard, which it is important if claims occur at an event on a liability standpoint, those claims are going to be a bit more involved because it's other parties, it's doctors, it's injuries, it's determining who's at fault. And so those claims.
Dana Kadwell (12:06)
Mm-hmm.
Mitchell Busse (12:36)
can get lengthy. ⁓ And so there's there's that side of things. Those claims don't occur as often because actually there was a report that was ⁓ published last year that of event insurance, wedding insurance, the three out of the four most common claims that occur actually come from cancellation insurance. I've got a lot of listeners here now that that name is going to ring some bells because over the last year, especially since COVID, COVID kicked it off.
Dana Kadwell (12:43)
Mm-hmm.
Mitchell Busse (13:06)
But really this past year alone, ⁓ the shift has kind of happened where venues are realizing that that is where a lot of the value comes from in wedding insurance because most of the claims occur in that type of policy versus the liability. And to share a couple of examples with that also too, is that people don't even realize cancellation insurance, what it all covers. So yes, three of the four are most common ⁓ claims from that policy, but they're not even full on cancellations.
Dana Kadwell (13:29)
Mm.
Mitchell Busse (13:36)
And that's where it's like, what are we talking about here? Then the event doesn't cancel. Well, then how is it providing coverage? And that's where people are really liking it. And so, for example, some things that people probably wouldn't even realize one that I always like to share. There was a couple that showed up morning of to set out their florals for their wedding, you know, excited day of let's go get it set up. Well, they realized that somebody had put the florals in the freezer rather than the cooler. So morning of 8 a.m. florals are shot.
Dana Kadwell (13:39)
Yeah.
Mitchell Busse (14:06)
they're dead, can't be used. So you have that loss cost. Now don't remember exactly if the floral vendor like reimbursed them at all or whatnot, but let's say they didn't, that's a loss cost that they are eligible to get reimbursement from the cancellation policy. And then on top of that, well now you have what do I do without florals last minute, scrambling to find something additional, that additional cost that they incur as well as something that cancellation insurance reimbursed to them. And so, I mean, just look at that one experience alone.
Dana Kadwell (14:24)
Alright.
Mitchell Busse (14:36)
a complete game changer this couple got, however many thousands, directly back into their pocket and still had their event. And the one thing, there's a lot of other examples that we can always get into, but the one thing that I like to highlight with that is that it allows for a much better relationship between the venue and the client when they have cancellation insurance. Because when you think about it in that sense, if they didn't have cancellation insurance, mean, the venue's not, let's be honest, no venue owner is gonna say, okay, here's $5,000.
Dana Kadwell (14:36)
Right?
Mitchell Busse (15:05)
so you can go get florals. That's not going to happen. And that couple still could have had their wedding and it could have been as best as they could without florals and ⁓ things would have went on. But instead, what happened from here is the venue, they actually required their client to have cancellation insurance. So not only did this mishap happen, but it was resolved almost in part because their venue recommended or required it. That client actually in their review of the venue thanked them for having them get it. And so it completely
Dana Kadwell (15:06)
Right? Right.
Hmm. Yeah.
Mitchell Busse (15:35)
transforms
that relationship with you have with their client. They listen to you as the venue owner. And so when you give that guidance and that support to them, even though it's not you paying it out and things like that, they appreciate that. And so there's a lot of other instances that happen very often. Vendors not showing up, bad weather and it's outside and rather than cancel, let's rent tents. That tent rental costs can go back. And so there's a lot there. And it's when you correctly navigate both the liability and cancellation insurance that
Dana Kadwell (15:52)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Mitchell Busse (16:06)
Not only does it make business operations for you as the venue owner better, but it really elevates that experience with your clients Especially, you know if it comes time where it has to be used
Dana Kadwell (16:16)
Yeah,
I mean, that is awesome. I don't think I really even knew that it was those kind of small, nuanced things, but like, because I got into the industry as a planner. So and you can imagine the amount of like last minute things that happen and in those scenarios, like something like that, not necessarily that exact same thing, but like where, you know, a cake fell apart, like in a because it got too hot in the car or whatever.
Mitchell Busse (16:22)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Dana Kadwell (16:41)
There are certain things where when you go to the client, you're like, I can fix this. I can fix it with X amount of dollars. And yes, we can, on the back end, we can worry about, you know, getting reimbursed or whatever from the vendor or whatnot. But there's some clients who just, the idea of it, there's no guarantee they're going to get that money back, you know? And they're like, I'm not willing to like spend any more money because everyone knows like at the end, the day of a wedding, you're just like, you know, cut me open and bleed me dry, right? Like it's so much money. ⁓
Mitchell Busse (16:58)
Right.
Yes, exactly.
Dana Kadwell (17:09)
But I love
that. And I think you're so right. I think it really allows professionals to be professional and the relationship to stay that way and to recognize that there are just things that are completely out of our control that we just can't control. Yep.
Mitchell Busse (17:20)
Right.
And that's what insurance is. mean,
we don't provide policies hoping that they get used. Like we don't want you to use the policy, but it's, it's inevitable things happen. And it's, you know, you're spending arguably the most you'll ever spend on one single kind of events in a lifetime, all this preparation and planning. And it's, it's almost silly to not take the very minimal costs of what wedding and event insurance is and kind of back yourself with that protection. ⁓
Dana Kadwell (17:26)
Right, right, yeah.
Mitchell Busse (17:51)
from the variety of scenarios that could potentially arise. ⁓ And just to highlight a little fun fact on the liability side, just a claim scenario of why liability insurance is so important. I don't want to take the light away from liability because it is still important.
Dana Kadwell (17:53)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yes, it is.
Mitchell Busse (18:08)
We had, there was a client, someone got hurt at the event, a friend of the bride, I think, I can't remember exactly, but nonetheless, the event went fine, wedding was good, nothing came up during the time, but after the fact, this friend came up to the bride and was like, hey, just letting you know, I tweaked my knee at the wedding, dancing or whatnot, I just wanted to give you a heads up, because I'm gonna go to the venue and try to file a claim on their insurance, but I just wanted to make you aware.
Lo and behold, they tried to do that. Well, part of the liability process that I mentioned is because the venue has insurance, vendors have insurance, the client has insurance, not everybody's just going to pay to pay. They review to see who's at fault. Well, they found that the venue wasn't at fault. The venue had like slip-proof flooring. They had the special flooring that tested. Wasn't the venue's fault. So then what happened? The policy, the claim was directed then to the client's policy. Now, I don't know if the client
Dana Kadwell (18:54)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Mitchell Busse (19:07)
her friend our friends anymore because that to be settled that way. But that just goes to show if that client didn't have insurance there may not have been that option to direct that to and that then could have fallen on that venues insurance policy just because that was then the easiest solution to follow through on. And so it's when you don't take that initiative to have that in place that injury liability claim could have easily fallen on venues shoulders and they would have had to deal with it. Their rates would have gone up eligibility wise and so
Dana Kadwell (19:09)
Yeah.
Mitchell Busse (19:37)
Those ones, while not as frequent, like I said, they get more convoluted and involved and it's an important aspect to have should a situation like that arise.
Dana Kadwell (19:41)
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think in general people aren't overly litigious. Like they're not going to be like, okay, I'm going to sue for everything. But there are certain people that like, and it's, I don't even think it's like they're trying to take advantage of the situation. It's like they just, yeah.
Mitchell Busse (19:57)
Yeah.
And even that one, yeah, it
didn't seem like she was trying to be malicious in any way and she was trying to be open with her friend who got married, like, just letting you know. ⁓ But then, you know, the facts of what happened, you know, that's why they had it in place.
Dana Kadwell (20:07)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So what do you ever come across this like, what do the new owners think that they're protected against, but they actually are not protected against?
Mitchell Busse (20:23)
So there's a, that's a very good question. Um, one of, one of the, there's a few different items, but one that comes up the most are, uh, like the, I like to call them the friender space. You you deal with that a lot. Most venues try to have a pretty good process, you know, outline for their vendors that they also need to be insured, which absolutely they do need to be. But there's kind of that gray area when it comes to the, the, to the frienders. And you can probably make out what I'm getting, but it's the friends or family members that.
Dana Kadwell (20:35)
Mm.
Mitchell Busse (20:53)
They really aren't a business, but they may have done it in the past or Uncle Joe used to DJ back in high school. So we're going to have him do it for our wedding. And it's navigating that space. You know, those people, as much as the couple and client may be trying to urge you like they're a guest, but they're just happening to be doing this. You need to look at them as, a vendor, they're providing a service and the client's policy will not cover them as a vendor. And so that's the common thing is, well, they think of them as a
Dana Kadwell (21:20)
Hmm.
Mitchell Busse (21:23)
and so that the coverage would apply there through them because they're guests in actuality, you need to take that vision as the venue owner and consider them a true on vendor. Have them follow vendor form or whatever vendor contracts you have for your business, which then should include them getting their appropriate vendor type insurance because the client's policy, if something happens from that person, won't be covered.
Dana Kadwell (21:35)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
So
like an example, let's say you have Uncle Joe as a DJ and he's that friend or he's not insured and he decides in the wedding he's gonna use like a CO2 cannon or something like that. And it makes somebody like slip and fall, whatnot. So then this person decides to go in and say, well, you caused me to hurt myself or whatever, does a liability and obviously the clients... ⁓
Mitchell Busse (21:59)
Yeah.
Dana Kadwell (22:12)
insurance you said wouldn't cover it so then it would fall on would it then fall on the venue at that point like then the the person who was hurt would have cause on that end.
Mitchell Busse (22:22)
that.
Yep, so they would probably attempt to but you know if there was clear that it was fault of Uncle Joe and the equipment that he set up ⁓ He would probably unfortunately face a difficult ⁓ Let me just future ahead of that There may be some and the reason why I say may and this is also a conversation to have with legal advice as well But there could be some potential if you didn't follow a standard vendor protocol for that person because they weren't an official vendor
Dana Kadwell (22:26)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mitchell Busse (22:52)
there could be some type of liability falling to you because you didn't vet that process properly. You didn't have them go through the normal checks and because of that you have some negligence at play because you allowed it to happen. So there could be partial. ⁓ But it definitely, it would be difficult. The client's policy, like I said, would deny it ⁓ and it would then fall between on that person and if they didn't have coverage then they would be handling that themselves and then partially, you know, towards the venue.
Dana Kadwell (23:11)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. And
part of it too, like I say this all the time, we've had this conversation, someone's like, oh, they can sue us, but they're not going to win. I'm like, well, it doesn't matter actually at that point. It still costs money. It still is your time, your energy, your effort, your resources to fight this battle, whether it's going to be in your favor in the end or not. It's still something. Yeah.
Mitchell Busse (23:29)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. And the thing with insurance too
is like those legal battles, insurance policies cover those costs too. Like that's part of the protection. So if there is a situation, even at the end of the day, if the policy decides it's not covering it because, you know, whoever the insured is, is not the at fault party, the defense costs that it took to get to that point are still covered by the policy. So even at the end of the day, like those costs get astronomical. ⁓
Dana Kadwell (23:43)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Yeah, they do get astronomical,
yeah.
Mitchell Busse (24:04)
The other one kind of misconception that comes up a lot is you hear that venues, and this more so applies to, you see it more on like the larger scale venues that maybe have a couple properties involved, but it definitely has spanned across all venue ownership. But they say that we're covered well enough with our own insurance, so we don't need clients to get a policy. ⁓ Which first and foremost, absolutely you should have the best
available coverage that you can find for your business to protect it. But as you can kind of hopefully pull from some of the comments that we just shared is that you don't need to be the one kind of sole policy, sole person that people should rely on for if something happens. You know, if there's a claim on insurance, I think most people know, like if you have a claim, oftentimes rates go up and sometimes if you have enough, like you'll get canceled and you won't be able to get a policy through that company again anymore.
And when if you take the stance of we have great insurance We don't need to worry our clients to have them get it You're leaving that space open for everyone to go to you to be the policy to rely on which it doesn't need to be because other people are Responsible the guests are responsible. Excuse me. Your client is responsible for bringing 150 strangers to your place. Yes, you're based But like you're not the reason why they're coming your client is and well, how do you make sure your clients responsible for all?
Dana Kadwell (25:15)
Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
Mmm.
Mitchell Busse (25:34)
of their actions, well you have them get an insurance policy. ⁓ And so that's the kind of one misconception. Yes, get covered, get all the policies you need and perfectly protect your venue, but it's more than that. It's having the vendors insured, it's having the clients insured, and so that's one of the large ones that comes up often.
Dana Kadwell (25:54)
Yeah, I also feel like too, it allows decision-making, like just better decision-making. So North Carolina, get, sometimes you have really bad hurricane years and there's so many people that are willing to risk it all because they're like, can't throw away this money. And so, but when you have something like, like, the cancellation insurance, like...
Mitchell Busse (26:03)
Yeah.
Dana Kadwell (26:16)
it makes the decision a little bit easier, because that's not the consideration. It's just, okay, this is what's safe, this is what's best. And in the end, it's just a better experience for so many people.
Mitchell Busse (26:18)
Exactly. Yeah.
Dana Kadwell (26:28)
IOPlaner is the most comprehensive booking and planning software platform for today's event professionals. It has so many amazing tools. You have sales management where you can create your own branded proposals, quotes, and contracts.
For those venues that do the event planning, this is just key. It helps you create timelines, CAD-based layouts. You can manage your vendors, budgets, and have a full project notebook that is chocked full of resources.
It's also great for collaboration. Using aisle planner pro as a source of truth is just a game changer. It has one place to find everything you need where you can invite teammates, clients, planning partners, all to collaborate in one portal. I'll plan a pro has all the tools that your business needs all in one place, all behind one login. So helpful. That is the power of aisle planner pro. So go to aisle planner.com, tell them I sent you to learn more and book a demo.
Mitchell Busse (27:27)
And so the growing, growing trend of cancellation insurance, as you can imagine, started along the coastal areas of the United States, you know, where people face hurricane season and everything like that,
one little fact I'll add about cancellation insurance is it reimburses all amounts that have been paid already but there are many contracts where clients pay up until the day of or up until the week of and the cancellation insurance can also reimburse amounts that still haven't been paid yet but per your contract are required to be paid and that's when venues are realizing like I have five thousand dollars on the hook that without cancellation insurance would have never been considered because the client's not going to pay me for it anymore well cancellation insurance helps with
Dana Kadwell (27:49)
Mm-hmm.
Yep. Yep.
Mitchell Busse (28:06)
that. And so as much as there are policies for the client, it really is an additional safety plan for the venue and your venue operations at the same time.
Dana Kadwell (28:16)
Yeah. And it costs you nothing. mean, it's just literally
just, it's just creating a policy and a procedure and enforcing it. It costs you nothing to have this extra layer of protection, which is like kind of when you think about it, kind of mind blowing that, ⁓ some people don't like don't require it, you know? Yeah.
Mitchell Busse (28:23)
Yeah.
I know. And, you
that's additionally part of the misconceptions is that, you know, it's going to cost my client a lot of money. It's a difficult process for them to go get it. And then if they do get it, they don't list my venue correctly and all those things. All of those are false narratives, I just want to say, because it can be very easy. The policies themselves, I always joke and say,
that clients spend more on their napkins at the wedding than they would for a wedding insurance policy package. Like it's very minimal. 1 % of their total wedding costs is the average cost of a wedding insurance package. And then when you just think about it at the end of the day, as I kind of mentioned earlier, it just seems silly to not take that additional couple hundred dollars to ensure your $30,000 wedding that year.
Dana Kadwell (29:00)
You
Right.
Mitchell Busse (29:24)
⁓
Dana Kadwell (29:24)
Yeah.
Mitchell Busse (29:24)
And so ⁓ just knowing that the seamlessness is there, ⁓ the affordability is there, and so any prior misconceptions of like, it's a headache, like it doesn't have to be, and you know, we do that pretty well and try to make that an easy process for everybody.
Dana Kadwell (29:40)
Yeah, so I guess we can go into that, like some misconceptions. And I will say, I have said this before, because I was a planner. Now I have not said it since 2020, I will say that. But there was this thing that circulated around that if your homeowner's insurance covers your event, is that true or not true?
Mitchell Busse (29:50)
Okay.
And so many not even just wedding and events but so many other, you know nuances in Insurances where it always falls back to people think that their homeowners policy Covers everything I'll first say there's an insurance policy for anything Anything at all you want to ensure something specifically you can get insurance for that now just putting that in the bigger picture homeowners insurance It's called homeowners insurance
Well, that's it's homework. The design, the purpose of it is to ensure your home. Now, are there some additional, you know, features that may be able to extend? Yes. So there can be some coverage that applies if you're away from your home and some, but it's very limited if there's any at all. I will say a lot of those, too, though, they have exclusions for like hosting gatherings outside of your home. And so.
Dana Kadwell (30:37)
umbrellas. Yes. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mitchell Busse (30:55)
Sure, people may say that it'll work, at the end of the day, it's not going to provide the quality protection that your clients need. And then on top of that, like one of the features is listing your venue as additional insured. Like that's not an option that clients can do on their homeowners policy. And a lot of times too, what ends up happening is even though a client says they're going through their homeowners insurance, what happens is typically their agent who they use goes and finds a place to get actual
wedding insurance, for example, they'll come to your event card and get a specific policy. And so it's a mix of both where, one, people are just trying to rely on their homeowners policy, but then two, they think it's their homeowners policy, but really it's their agent getting them a specific wedding policy because the agent realizes, again, the homeowners policy won't cut it.
Dana Kadwell (31:46)
Yeah.
Well, I just remember this is back in like the teens, like 2015, 16, 17 timeframe. was like, I think event insurance started really doing an uptick and especially in our area, because there was this, this event where I think it was a doctor, he had hosted a party, some teenagers like stole some liquor, drove, one of them passed away. And so the, the insurance was more about like,
Mitchell Busse (32:05)
Hmm, yeah.
Dana Kadwell (32:12)
being liable for somebody else's decisions, like someone driving drunk or something like that. and having a homeowner's policy and then we actually have a pool. So like, I have like a huge umbrella policy. That's what they're thinking. I think a lot of it was like, ⁓ it's this umbrella overarching big policy that protects me from like, you know.
Mitchell Busse (32:17)
Yes.
Yep.
Dana Kadwell (32:33)
someone being over served or whatever, but that's not, I mean, to your point, said earlier, that's not even, that's such a small percentage of what people use their insurance for is that liability piece, which honestly at the venue, that's the bartenders that's mostly liable at that point, right? Yeah.
Mitchell Busse (32:35)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. And then
really if people sat and looked at those policies and you know, there may be some coverage. You may or may not be surprised though that oftentimes there's going to be some language within the documents that really do limit how much. And so, yeah, you may have like a million dollar umbrella, but you know, the policy limits it to five percent of that for this. And so are you really getting a benefit from it? You know, so. ⁓
Dana Kadwell (33:00)
Yeah.
Yep, mm-hmm, yeah.
Yep.
What about the myth that insurance only happens for big weddings?
Mitchell Busse (33:23)
we work with a lot of micro venues as well and all it takes is one incident there can be five people at your property and something can happen and just the the biggest thing that people always face when they are dealing with this process the thing that that I hate hearing the most just because like I you know it could have been set up earlier as people just wishing they would have had it set up to begin with is because even if you are
a micro wedding, you have 25 people and you don't go above 40 and whatnot, those things can still occur. takes less than five seconds for talking specifically about like a liability, someone getting hurt or causing damage. It takes less than five seconds for something like that to happen. I would say it's almost more important when you are a smaller venue, just because those mishaps, if something happens, can be much more detrimental to your overall operations and set you back or possibly
Dana Kadwell (34:14)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mitchell Busse (34:17)
put you out of business. Larger venues can maybe take a blow. They may be able to sustain with that and then move forward. The smaller venues, it's going to impact a lot more. ⁓ And even though you're smaller in size, your clients budgets are much less, there still is a need.
Dana Kadwell (34:33)
for sure. definitely, but you can see like the, the mindset of that, like, oh, if it's a bigger wedding, it's more money, but whatever. But I think it's just, doesn't matter. You know, it's money's money, um, to, and small, big, large, but you're actually completely correct. Like there are certain things that like, know having a very successful, very, uh, well profiting venue that like, know we could weather, you know, um,
Mitchell Busse (34:43)
Correct.
Yeah.
Dana Kadwell (34:58)
But if it was like in the beginning stages, like it would have destroyed us. Like we would have, we wouldn't have made it to year three. Yeah.
Mitchell Busse (35:01)
Yeah.
We worked with, we
still work with a venue in Arizona and they require cancellation insurance. And thankfully there was fires, you know, number of years back in California or in the Arizona area. But thankfully because they required cancellation insurance, they were able to stay in business. Had they not required that and had all of their clients obtained that they would no longer be a venue. And they're not doing like huge, they're week long rentals and so they're more that intimate.
Dana Kadwell (35:12)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Mitchell Busse (35:32)
feel and everything and ⁓ again had they not had that implementation with their process that they wouldn't exist today and there's an abundance of scenarios and I'm sure many can relate to where have been in the same space and alternatively there's probably many people that were on the opposite end where they didn't have those and they no longer have a venue ⁓ and so it's it's relevant whether you're small, big, have one venue or 10 venues it fits everyone.
Dana Kadwell (36:00)
Yeah.
So are there things that it does not cover? Like, yes.
Mitchell Busse (36:05)
Of course there are, yes. There's,
you know, I wish I could say that, you know, we'll cover anything and everything. ⁓ There are limitations, you know, like on the liability insurance, there's not so much limitations as far as just understanding what the policy will cover. As I mentioned, like client policy, a vendor policy, and a venue policy. And across all of those, they're not going to cover the other person. So you as a couple, your policy won't cover your vendors. Your vendors policies won't cover you. And so, yes, there's some,
Dana Kadwell (36:31)
All right. All right.
Mitchell Busse (36:35)
⁓ Exclusions for like ⁓ Intentional acts like if you're intentionally hurting somebody or causing damage like that's not going to be covered ⁓ But like exclusion wise on liability It's it's pretty standard across other liability insurance that you know, some you may have the exclusions to highlight though I would like to put out our for the cancellation insurance ⁓ One, I think we're phased past and I like to think that we are everybody seems to be operating back to normal But there is a pandemic exclusion ⁓
And that's kind of industry wide, every other platform, you know, even outside of Event Guard. When COVID hit, ⁓ cancellation insurance did not do well because obviously everything shut down. Little fun fact, all of the insurance industry that had cancellation insurance, they turned off their programs. Nobody could buy cancellation insurance for an extended period of time once that enlightenment of COVID came up. And they only turned it back on once they have a
Dana Kadwell (37:17)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mitchell Busse (37:35)
So I like to note that just because the question still does come up, again, hopefully we're kind of phasing past that. ⁓ the other one that gets asked all the time, but breakups, change of heart, change of heart, breakups, voluntary decisions to cancel are not covered. And I do realize that there are a lot of cancellations where that is the reason of why it happened. ⁓ most people realize and understand that that's not covered, but, ⁓ nonetheless, people are always going to ask. So that's not.
Dana Kadwell (37:37)
you
Mm.
Yeah.
Mitchell Busse (38:05)
And then the only other one that I like to mention is just Not being able to to afford the wedding anymore you get that every once in a while where people over budgeted And you know as they're getting closer. They realize they just can't support it financially anymore Unfortunately, if it's just solely without any other underlying circumstances They just realized they didn't budget right like that's unfortunately not covered either
Dana Kadwell (38:32)
Yeah, yeah. mean, the breakup one is probably the hardest one. ⁓ It's the hardest from a venue to watch happen as well. I've had a couple of clients who have taken the opportunity. They just have a party. ⁓ It's not a wedding anymore, but it's just a great, I didn't make a mistake party. ⁓
Mitchell Busse (38:35)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.
We've had, we've had clients that they've, they've done that. They've called us to let us know. you know, we're like, Hey, just, we just want to be open with you and let you know that breakups aren't covered. And then they actually listen, well, well, we're actually not going to cancel our policy. We're going to still have the event and just do it as like a family gathering. And so you can hopefully still try to spin it off that way and everything. But yeah, those, those are tough situations when they come
Dana Kadwell (39:12)
I think to you, saying, you know, like how insurance isn't fun. It's, know, it's not sexy or whatever. But at the same time, it's like one of those things you have to look at. It's like the building blocks and basics of an event. And even though it's not fun and it's not the exciting thing, it allows the wedding to be fun and to be exciting. And for and I think that is really how you have to kind of shift your like mindset about it. It's any time you have to pay like taxes on your house or like
Mitchell Busse (39:29)
Yes, exactly.
Dana Kadwell (39:40)
you know, homeowners insurance, whatever, like, yeah, it does suck. But at the end of the day, it allows me to do all the things that I want to do and, ⁓ and, and be happy about it.
Mitchell Busse (39:41)
Yeah.
Yes.
yes, that was a perfect example. Insurance itself is not the exciting piece, but it allows you to deliver those exciting, meaningful, sexy components of your business to your clients. And that's, think, a perfect analogy for it.
Dana Kadwell (39:57)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, well,
thanks for your time today. It's been so wonderful chatting and catching up and excited. Obviously, this will come out. We'll have already seen each other at the master class, but I'm sure there'll be more stories coming out from there. So yeah, thanks so much for your time today.
Mitchell Busse (40:14)
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, thanks for having me. Looking forward to being part of the master class as well. And I'm always happy to connect with venues anytime anyone wants to connect.
Dana Kadwell (40:22)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yes. And
I will leave information in the show notes if you want to connect with Mitchell and Event Guard, highly recommend it. Our venue used it and it was very easy. It's super easy. Like it is the easiest thing to send them a link and it's yes free. So it doesn't cost you anything. Yep. Yes. Love it. Yeah. Awesome.
Mitchell Busse (40:39)
Yeah, and it's free for venues. You don't pay anything. It's super simple. So