In this episode, insurance expert Cheri Martinen shares insights on construction insurance, common gaps, risk management, and how contractors can better protect their businesses. Jeff Williams hosts a practical discussion aimed at helping business owners understand and optimize their coverage.
In this episode, insurance expert Cheri Martinen shares insights on construction insurance, common gaps, risk management, and how contractors can better protect their businesses. Jeff Williams hosts a practical discussion aimed at helping business owners understand and optimize their coverage.
In the construction industry, insurance is more than just a safety net; it's a critical component of your business strategy. In this episode of the Construction Cowboy Show, host Jeff Williams speaks with Cheri Martinen, a fourth-generation insurance agent from Oregon, about the complexities of contractor insurance and the common pitfalls that many business owners face.
Cheri emphasizes the necessity of understanding how your business structure—whether a partnership, S Corp, or sole proprietorship—affects your insurance needs. "Learning about them is the first step," she states, adding that income and employee structure play significant roles in determining the right coverage.
One of Cheri's unique niches is insuring wildland firefighter contractors. "We started with one or two and now we insure more of them than any other agent in the Pacific Northwest," she shares. This specialization showcases the importance of knowing your industry and the specific risks associated with it.
Cheri points out critical areas where contractors often misjudge their insurance coverage:
"If you’re using that truck for work, you want it covered under your business policy," she advises.
Contractors often discover gaps in their policies when it's too late. Cheri highlights the dangers of assuming coverage based on past experiences. “When a claim arises because they were doing more than originally insured for, they’re surprised when it’s not covered,” she explains.
Maintaining an open line of communication with your insurance agent is crucial as your business grows and changes.
Discussing the truth about policy gaps, Cheri warns of the risks associated with growing businesses. As contractors expand their services, they may inadvertently expose themselves to liabilities that their current policies don’t cover. Regularly reviewing and adjusting your insurance based on your evolving business model is essential to avoid financial pitfalls.
With numerous changes in the industry, Cheri encourages business owners to reach out to their insurance professionals regularly, especially when they add equipment or take on subcontractors.
For a deeper dive into insurance insights tailored for contractors, tune into the full episode with Cheri Martinen.
Key Topics:
Chapters:
Introduction to construction insurance and guest Cheri Martinen
Cheri explains her unique focus on wildland firefighter contractors
Types of construction risks and how insurance covers them
Common gaps between perceived and actual insurance coverage
The importance of policy reviews and updates as your business grows
How to handle policy exclusions and avoid surprises
Examples of coverage mistakes contractors often make
Nationwide insurance options and working with multiple states
Questions to ask your insurance agent for better protection
Cheri shares her book and additional services offered by One Digital
Cheri discusses her personal life and hobbies
Keywords:
construction insurance, risk management, policy gaps, contractor coverage, insurance tips, wildland firefighter insurance, business protection, insurance questions, policy review, insurance advice
Connect with Jeff Williams:
Contact: (307) 372-9052 O. (630) 973-6481 D.
Website: www.merchantcommodites.co
Email: Theconstructioncowboyshow@gmail.com
Email: Jeff@merchantcommodities.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-williams-merchant-commodities/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61559698873942
Alignable: https://www.alignable.com/sheridan-wy/merchant-commodities-llc?user=17404768
Jeff Williams (00:01.64)
All right, folks. today on the Construction Cowboy Show. I'm Jeff Williams, your host. And as you work, as you know, we work to bring a value and key insights to help all of you with your businesses. Your hard work to build your business, but you don't know how well it's protected when something goes wrong. So today we're joined with a special guest, Cheri Martinen and did I pronounce your last name right? I probably did not Martinen. Martinan. Okay, great. And you're for you're an Oregon licensed insurance consultant and producer who believes in straight answers and helping people understand what their coverage actually does. So we're talking about insurance, blind spots, cost surprises, and questions every contractor and business owner should ask. Cherie, welcome to the show.
Cheri Martinen (00:32.588)
Yeah, Martinan. Martinin, yeah.
Jeff Williams (00:56.992)
let's start off with your background, where you're from, and what drew you to helping people protect what they've worked so hard to build.
Cheri Martinen (01:08.14)
Jeff, thanks for having me on the show. so like you said, I'm located in beautiful central Oregon. And this is actually a family business. So I grew up with insurance as a normal everyday conversation around the dinner table. I'm actually a fourth generation insurance agent. So insurance, we always joke that it's kind of like you you you kind of get stuck in it.
Jeff Williams (01:23.424)
Okay. Well, yeah.
Jeff Williams (01:31.405)
fantastic.
Cheri Martinen (01:36.953)
Which is lovely. It's a lovely industry. and I started helping people with my own license and joining the agency back in 2013, 14. and I started in the agency just like any other agent and with a desk and a list of names to call and a whole bunch of forms to fill out and learned it from the ground up from my parents and eventually purchased the business. And then after owning the business for multiple years, I actually sold it. So I have a wealth of knowledge not only as a family run business, but then as an owner operator and then growth strategist up into sales, the sale of a business and now joining a larger organization. It's a fun ride.
Jeff Williams (02:32.862)
Fantastic. Well, congratulations on all of that, absolutely. Yeah, so let's get right into a few questions to kick off a little bit. But one of the things I want to know is, and I thought this was kind of interesting, it it is what I noticed in your LinkedIn and even your website, but it is what is cool or your tagline or your title that jumps out at me on your LinkedIn page.
Cheri Martinen (02:33.902)
Yeah, thank you.
Jeff Williams (03:02.258)
was the title the Wildland Firefighters Insurance Team Slash insurance for wildland fi fire contractors. That's pretty unique. So can you you wanna elaborate on that a little bit or just, you know, it's an eye catcher is what I'm getting at. So
Cheri Martinen (03:16.813)
Yeah.
Yeah, it is pretty eye-catching. So insurance is big and ensuring all the businesses out there is a lot of work and you have to know quite a bit about the business to really make sure that you're covering it correctly. And I don't know if it's because we're located in Oregon or how we exactly got into it, but wildland firefighter contractors who contract with the federal government to fight fires is one of our largest niches in our agency. And so
Jeff Williams (03:45.056)
Yeah. And so
Cheri Martinen (03:47.051)
We started with one or two and now we insure more of them than any other agent in the Pacific Northwest. the goal is to stretch that so I can say the largest agent to ensure specialty wildland firefighter contractors across the United States. Yeah. So we we insure the people who run the wrong way. So they're running towards the fire, they've got the plane skis, they've got the fire engines.
Jeff Williams (04:03.796)
Wow.
Cheri Martinen (04:14.754)
They've got the water tenders, and then we also ensure aviation, so individuals who are dropping like the retardant or using buckets to pick up water and then drop on fires. And then we also ensure support crews. So the people who feed the firefighters while they're working, the people who make sure that there's proper facilities for them to use, showers, even places to wash clothing and to transport them back and forth between work. and to the airport to back home as they don't stay out there for months and months and months. Normally it's like, you know, ten, fifteen days on, ten days off. So there's a lot of moving pieces.
Jeff Williams (04:56.036)
fantastic. Thank you so much for that. I knew there was a little bit more to just the title, so that helps a lot. I know that I've got a little bit of it's not really a relationship or background. I've got some associates out there that after the timbers are burnt through a fire forest fire or whatever, they go in and work on capturing the the burnt timber, turn it back into good materials and ship it out and into lumber. Again, I'm in the building construction material and know a lot of lumber providers and contacts and so I may pass your name on to them 'cause I know that they've got a lot of equipment and they are still in need of some you know good quality coverage and so we'll do that too.
Cheri Martinen (05:40.256)
It's it's gonna be a busy one this year. It's gonna be a lot of mop up. A lot of mop up this year.
Jeff Williams (05:42.503)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, l lot lotta cleanup. Yeah. There was a lot of tin for the first time around on this a f a couple of years ago. So anyway, so when you sit down with a contractor or a client, again we're talking about construction contractors, developers, people that are in the construction industry and any other business, you know, it doesn't have to be a contractor or any business that anyone that's listening right now. I know I have a lot of London folks that like to listen in, but when you sit down with them, what's the first question that you ask to understand their risks? Can you give me an idea of that first, you know, evaluation or whatever you want to call it?
Cheri Martinen (06:18.444)
Yeah. I know it sounds simple, but a lot of times it's just learning about them. So we want to know how their business is structured. Is it a partnership, an S Corp, a Sole Prop? Because those have different risks depending on how you structure your business. And then we're gonna ask lots of questions like, What's your income? What's the income from the business? How big is it? How much risk do you have? How much do we need to insure? How much payroll do you have? Do you have 1099? Do you have workers' comp? Do you have, you know?
What type of employees are you using? We're gonna ask questions about what you're doing. And this sounds really obvious, but in construction, there's such a wide range of what they do. So a a roofing contractor might have different risks and maybe a higher premium because of what they do than a paper contractor or a flooring specialist, right? So really digging down on what they do.
Jeff Williams (06:58.944)
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Williams (07:11.541)
Yeah.
Cheri Martinen (07:14.83)
and nowadays underwriters are using the internet just as much as anyone else. So if you're coming to us and saying, all I do is fences, and then we Google you and your website says, I do fences, decks, roofs, and I don't know, something else perglos, we're gonna be like, What do you really do?
Jeff Williams (07:30.975)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jeff Williams (07:37.345)
Yeah, exactly. It's such a wide range of liability. I get it. Yeah, absolutely. All across the board. Yeah. well, you know, it's interesting in the industry. It's got you know, they got the ground folks and I call them the concrete guys and the the foundational folks. And then you've got the framers and the you know, the the exterior framing work and then you got the the the interior work and finish work and you know, all the and then the roofers and the plumbers and electricians, so all the subs are just crazy all over and so yeah, it gets pretty complicated, especially
Cheri Martinen (07:42.133)
Yeah.
Cheri Martinen (07:51.118)
Yep.
Jeff Williams (08:06.964)
with general contractors that have multiple projects and multiple crews and multiple subs and all that. Yeah, it's it I I I don't feel for you at all. you know, I I I have a tough enough time doing what I do with them. I can't imagine what you do with them. So absolutely great. So where do you f where do you most often see a gap between what business owners think their insurance covers.
And what their policy actually says. Is that make sense to you in what I'm asking?
Cheri Martinen (08:38.328)
Yeah. So I feel like there's a couple places where specifically construction does this. for some reason, inland marine is what we call it, but it's tools coverage. Just like your hand tools, any tools that you have, maybe in a trailer, the tools you throw in the back of your work truck, all of the tools you bring to a job site. You can have a little bit of coverage.
Jeff Williams (08:50.869)
Okay.
Cheri Martinen (09:04.042)
Of those, like just in general, but most of the time we actually have to add it on in an endorsement. And we call it inland marine, which doesn't make any sense, but that's what we call it. And I see that as being a huge gap. That's like one of the number one things that contractors call us and say, I just had my tools stolen. What what's my coverage on it? And we're like, Remember when you wanted us to make that premium cheaper?
Jeff Williams (09:32.276)
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Cheri Martinen (09:33.327)
So tools is probably one of them. The other one that I see a lot is with vehicles. So I get it. a personal auto coverage is cheaper than a commercialized auto coverage. But when you're using that truck for work, you really want to have it covered underneath the business. And some of it is to create a line of liability between your personal and commercial business to protect your personal assets to keep them personal and to have your commercial assets be commercial just in case there's a lawsuit because of something that happens with that truck while you're using it. You want it to sue the business and not take any personal assets. And then on the other side, it's just going to have better protection for what you're actually doing. Like when you're going to a job site.
Or when you're transporting tools or goods or materials. I gosh, I see this all the time. Sometimes they're like, I'll just throw a snowplow on it. No, don't do that. but if you do, call your agent and then tell them that you're also snowplowing because that's a completely different risk and more insurance. So yeah, the auto, keep those separate.
Jeff Williams (10:38.538)
Yeah. But if you do call your agent.
Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. Well you Okay. Cool. Great advice, great advice. I know it's kinda like we're going through so many fires this year and so many floods this year with all the weather, east coast to west coast and now it's in Texas and and you know, so many times people don't think about flood insurance and and how that impacts their business. Even though if they're in the desert in Texas, you know, it can flood, you know, and they just don't think about it and and like fires, you know, we all
Cheri Martinen (11:10.84)
Yeah.
Jeff Williams (11:13.928)
you know, we're all susceptible to it. But in other cases like out where you're at, absolutely, all day long, you know. But so anyway, I'll kind of move on to so another question here, but appreciate that. Thank you so much. So tell the listeners a little bit about the truth of I read in your LinkedIn, I pulled this out of it. Tell the listeners about the truth of the policy gaps and then touch a little bit on Smart risk management. So I kinda combine those two together, but I think they have a little bit of common ground in each other. So again, the truth about the policy gaps. Does that make sense?
Cheri Martinen (11:52.483)
Yeah, it does. a lot of times it's what you think is being insured versus what you're actually being insured. And that goes back to that very first question you asked me, which is what do I do when we first start? So a lot of times people will come to us and say, I do decks, and be like, Great. So we insure for decks, and then their business grows and changes, or they're hungry and they take jobs, which I don't blame them.
Jeff Williams (12:18.471)
Yeah, yeah.
Cheri Martinen (12:20.614)
they do decks. Yeah. listen to Jeff. so they they do more, not because they're thinking it's bad, they're trying to grow their business and succeed. And when a claim arises because they were doing the pergola instead of the deck, they're surprised when it's not covered. And that's the worst case scenario.
Jeff Williams (12:22.121)
Yeah, I I teach on I teach on how not to do that, but go ahead. Yeah.
Cheri Martinen (12:51.734)
Other times I think contractors get really surprised is when again you're growing and say you get a new contract, you're like you're a sub and you get a new contract and you're so excited and they they pick your bid and then you're already working on it and the third party that makes sure that your insurance and paperwork is all in order contacts you and says you don't have the correct insurance, we're not paying you.
That's also really hard because then when they call us, we're like, yeah, great, we can increase their coverage to make sure you're in compliance with the contractor you're working with. We do that, it increases their price on their insurance. And sometimes the bid is no longer a great bid. They're not going to make any money because they have this additional insurance cost to be able to work with this larger contractor. And that one's really hard because we want to see all of our contractors thrive and not.
take a hit because they have to increase their coverage as they grow and work with bigger organizations.
Jeff Williams (13:52.691)
A little side question has just come to mind. Do you guys provide bonds and s or security bonds? through you do, through your firm. yeah. Okay. Okay. then I may be calling you here for too long. Okay. All right, great. Sounds good. that's an awesome. fantastic. So as a business grows and adding employees and equipment and all this stuff, this may even be a repeated question, but what changes should trigger the conversation with the insurance professional? In other words,
Cheri Martinen (13:59.331)
We sure do. Yeah, that's like yeah, that's like a necessary. Yeah.
Jeff Williams (14:23.038)
I think it's more about how often should they you know, keep an conscious mindset to reach out to you on those growth and adjusted things. I'd rather it be equipment or subcontractors, especially subcontractors I know that work for a firm out east and and they burnt through about five different contractors on one project, subcontractors on one project and they were frame framing crews and they just couldn't deliver and mistakes after mistakes and they started costing change orders and all that stuff and it ended up causing some failures in the project and so again I wanna just emphasize that how often should they call you or their agent or the professional agent and stay in communication, especially in today's world with all the changes.
Cheri Martinen (15:11.49)
I'd say anytime you're spending a significant amount of money, think about insurance. So if you're buying a new rig, if you're buying new equipment, if you're buying a new storage facility or like say you're changing to a larger storage facility for your warehouse goods, think about insurance. if you're just pretty steady fretti, at least once a year. You know, like once a year your policy renews, it's a great time to pick up the phone or just kind of go down your list and just be like, am I still doing what I said I was doing last year? Do I still have the same assets? And am I insured correctly for like the correct time? So I think c in the construction industry, you guys already know this, but a lot of people don't. So I'll just restate it. When you have property, it's becoming more expensive to replace that property with brand new. So, like you were saying, with the fire or hail or floods just making sure that if you're a contractor and you own property that you're valuing it correctly and include labor, because that's the other thing I see contractors do all the time. They'll say, I'll do a replacement cost of this because I'll fix it myself. And so the labor, I don't have to have the labor cost. No, like throw that labor cost in there. Like, like you're like that, throw it in.
Jeff Williams (16:25.054)
Yeah, it yeah you yeah. You're not making any money if you don't. Yeah. Yeah. And you can't pay your premiums if you don't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Cheri Martinen (16:30.536)
Exactly. Like if you're so if you're putting a replacement cost on your property, make sure to not only have the cost of goods, but then include the labor and make sure it's really a replacement cost. Yeah.
Jeff Williams (16:41.62)
Cheri
Cheri Martinen (16:58.552)
The auto the auto tends to be that six month cycle. Yeah.
Jeff Williams (17:11.112)
I will try to stop wearing you out with all these questions. we're got a couple more here to go, but it seems like a short, but you're doing a really great job with it. And so avoiding cost coverage mistakes, can you provide some examples of what that might look like? Again, avoiding cost coverage mistakes, yeah. Or it's getting something on the policy that you don't need to pay for is what I'm getting at, I guess.
Cheri Martinen (17:30.446)
Cost coverage.
I mean it's kinda like what we've
Cheri Martinen (17:39.353)
Yeah. So a lot of times they include it. Yeah. Because like it and so it's kind of nice just to have it, right? So like I think of like let's think of something. A lot of policies sometimes will include like a small amount of like cyber. And you're thinking, I don't need cyber, but if you've got an email, you probably do. Because of like phishing and other things. Or if you're taking any sort of payment digitally, which let's face it, we're all taking payments digitally.
Jeff Williams (17:40.32)
That's a hard one.
Jeff Williams (17:45.235)
Yeah, yeah.
Cheri Martinen (18:06.89)
Yes, you're probably using a third-party provider to process that credit card, but when you're doing that, you're still having a little bit of liability for maybe holding that payment information. So yes, you might think, I don't need this, but sometimes it's nice to have it and it's just included. The other thing is a lot of time if you really go through and dig in and you want to take stuff out, it might not be that big of a premium savings, unfortunately.
A lot of times when we're selling contractors policies, they are specific for contractors. So they're not putting any fluff in. They're like, they're like, this is what contractors need based on the claims provided. Like this is what we think needs to be included. So you probably won't find too many, but if you do, you can always talk to your agent. And depending on how large your organization is, it might save you some money. Yeah.
Jeff Williams (18:44.638)
I think there's and like this is what we think.
Jeff Williams (18:58.816)
Okay. So so I'm gonna go a couple of different directions with you here before I get any kind of the last couple of questions or questions, but this is still a question. but more and I apologize for my stalling out, but I had two or three in my head, so I'm gonna have to get reel them back in here for just a minute. But first, are you guys strictly in Oregon or are you do you have a nationwide license and can you provide insurance across the board?
And the second part of that question is do I don't want to I don't wanna use the word shop, but do you have providers from a multitude of providers through your brokerage and your firm that you can you know f custom fit a particular client and maybe they're in Tennessee or Texas or wherever, it has different regulations and rules for you know insuring and things of that nature. Is that something that you guys can do nationwide?
Cheri Martinen (19:57.871)
So Jeff, that's actually one of the reasons I recently sold to One Digital. So is I wanted to be able to provide more services for people across the nation. So with the One Digital team, we have over 6,000 agents nationwide that are ready to help contractors of all sizes. And they're ready to help across all the states. So yes, we are licensed and ready to sell, and we have specific regional experts. So
Jeff Williams (20:06.1)
Right.
Cheri Martinen (20:27.274)
If you're in Tennessee, you'd probably be working with someone from Tennessee instead of from me. Sorry. but in the Pacific Northwest region, I'm here.
Jeff Williams (20:32.65)
That's okay.
Jeff Williams (20:36.36)
Okay, okay. Well and the reason I ask is that sometimes there's an association or a collaboration or whatever it may be. And so like in my network of you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cheri Martinen (20:42.882)
Yeah. and this the second half of your question too. yes, so we're a brokerage, which means that we work with a lot of companies. like hundreds of companies to place insurance. The guys that I insure the wildland firefighters with is not gonna be the correct place to put a contractor. And so we have a lot.
Jeff Williams (20:55.688)
Okay. Good.
Jeff Williams (21:07.23)
Fantastic, fantastic. man, I wish I could remember the last question I had. Or it wasn't really that big a question, but it was more of a thought. So give me give me a little bit about are you in one office or you have multiple offices? And I know this family business, so how many employees you have and and if you can share a little bit of that, that'd be great.
Cheri Martinen (21:32.099)
Yeah, so we have one physical location, but I've got a lot of remote employees. So I've got employees in Texas, California, remote in Oregon. In the past I had she moved, but c Colorado, Idaho, Washington. and we are about 15 of us at our location here. But like I said, One Digital is much larger and we have a lot of people out there to help. So don't hesitate to call.
Jeff Williams (21:36.883)
Okay.
Jeff Williams (21:46.558)
Idaho, Washington.
Jeff Williams (21:57.631)
Okay. So if you have a so if there's anybody looking to place their license with someone, would you be interested in talking with them? Okay, great.
Cheri Martinen (22:06.782)
Absolutely. our 1-800 number is 1-800-452-6826. Or you can just email me. It's my first name, last name, Cheri Martinen at one digital.com. And Jeff, I'll give this to you so you can include it in the link.
Jeff Williams (22:24.626)
Yeah, we'll we'll put it in the contacts and the tens text and the in the in the transcript and all that so it'll be posted. so they can contact you right away. Absolutely. So let me kind of get to a question here. It's for somebody listening who feel who feels sort of overwhelmed by insurance, which we all are, and we I don't think anybody likes the insurance, other than people that sit around their, you know, dining room table and talk about it in the evening. Yeah. But
Cheri Martinen (22:49.934)
It's me.
Jeff Williams (22:54.37)
that is not one topic I don't talk about, you know. I'm usually fighting my grandchildren, you know, there are three and four and two and all of it. but what are three questions they can ask you today to get a real clear picture of their protection? Again, three what three questions can they ask you?
Cheri Martinen (23:12.588)
Like one of the things that we're gonna ask them or they're gonna ask us is we're gonna ask about current coverage. So what is your current coverage? What's your coverage limits? What are you doing for your deductible? Which the deductible is the amount you pay before the insurance coverage kicks in. And that can range depending on the size of your business and your financial stability between $250 to $150,000.
Jeff Williams (23:41.456)
Okay. Right. Yeah.
Cheri Martinen (23:41.743)
Right. So big. I think most of us fall in that like five to 10, like our 15,000 kind of in there. But so looking at those numbers, and then the fun part is going to the insurance policy has sections. And if you go to the coverage section and kind of just like read through and see where the coverage is, and then the second fun part is going to the exclusion section, which is below the coverage section, and see where they take coverages out.
Jeff Williams (23:47.359)
Yeah.
Jeff Williams (24:11.689)
Okay.
Cheri Martinen (24:11.822)
So those places are the places as an agent that we go to. And you can too.
Jeff Williams (24:20.318)
Fantastic. Anything else that you'd like to add to the time that we have here a little bit? and you know just share with whatever you want to share with if there's some offering that you're wanting to offer or promotion that you're doing right now or whatever it may be, you got the floor.
Cheri Martinen (24:41.356)
All right. well, if you are interested in insurance and from the point of view of storytelling, I actually just am publishing a book called Covered, like covered insurance. covered, the Smart Buyer's Guide to Home, Auto, and Business Insurance. It is the baseline for I think everyone to read and just understand what insurance is and how it's protecting you and your businesses. It's done through stories, so it's not as boring as it sounds.
And with that, I will also plug One Digital. Thank you, Jeff, for letting me do this. One Digital not only helps with your property casualty insurance, which is what we're talking about here today, but it also can help with your employee benefits. So making sure your employees have health insurance and coverage, as well as 401ks, so that they can finally retire after working with you for so long. And then they also have a very specialty division for health or sorry, for HR.
So if you're a business owner over here, me, chances are you've had an HR question where you're like, What the heck do I do? One Digital has an entire team of HR professionals you can shoot an email off to, and they can help with everything from employee handbooks all the way to those really tricky questions like, What the heck do I do? This person just came to me with the weirdest HR request I've ever had, right? it could be anything from, you know, workers comp to other questions about leave or multi state employees, right? Those can get really tricky. So yeah, we can help we can help kind of support you.
Jeff Williams (26:22.068)
Fantastic. Yeah, we can help work. Okay, great. Awesome. well I've got lots of people in this industry from East Coast to West Coast and South and North. So we'll do our best to get it out there. Cheri thank you so much for helping us make sense of everything that can have a big impact on their business and families. when you're not working, what do you enjoy spending time doing?
When you're not working. And and not talking about the insurance around the kitchen table.
Cheri Martinen (26:49.88)
Yeah.
Cheri Martinen (26:53.804)
Yeah. so I have a husband and my daughter's eight and we also have a basset hound. And one of our favorite things to do is go floating on the little Deschutes River. So it's right behind my house and we pack up in the summer and go float right down it. It's really slow and lovely. Think like coolers and inner tubes, not white water. Yeah. And then we also really love hiking. So we live in a beautiful spot where we can hike to lakes, waterfalls, rivers. It's
Jeff Williams (27:12.864)
yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Williams (27:22.948)
Wow. What beautiful life. That's fantastic. I love that stuff and I love hiking in the mountains and things and trail riding and things of that nature. And I love the water. Yeah, so I'm right there with ya. Right there with you. I matter of fact I have to come out and see you guys and go. I don't know about the I don't know about the rafting and the canoeing or whatever, the tubing or whatever, but I may just sit on the bank and have a drink with you. Yeah.
Cheri Martinen (27:23.982)
Beautiful.
Cheri Martinen (27:46.752)
Yeah, it's pretty low key. It's kind of like you just kinda sit there and float down the river at two miles an hour. But
Jeff Williams (27:52.804)
Absolutely. Absolutely. great. Well great having you. where can our listeners con connect with you? Again, you said it earlier, but how about a number and an email, a LinkedIn, or anything else like your website. and like I said, I'll put it out there, but if you want to throw it out there one more time, that'd be great.
Cheri Martinen (28:10.648)
Yep. So you can find me at CheriMartinen.com My email is Cheri.Martinen@OneDigital.com You can reach me at 1-800-452-6826 right here at the office. And then also if you're like, I'm a little bit insurance curious, but not crazy about having a deep dive, you can also follow me on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube for little short videos. Most of them are under a minute and a half.
just on little clips about insurance, so you can be a little bit smarter and use your micro learning.
Jeff Williams (28:46.994)
Fantastic. Thank you so much. Like I said, we'll get that out on the digital side of everything that we do. again, thank you, Cheri so much, very much. folks, take a little time to ask questions and understand your coverage before you need it. and get in touch with Cheri today, right? Do it today. Don't wait tomorrow because there could be a problem with that. And so this is Jeff Williams with the Construction Cowboy Show. Until next time, keep your word, build good relationships and
Cheri Martinen (29:04.354)
Yeah, thank you, Jeff. Yeah.
Jeff Williams (29:16.894)
Don't wait on the storm to check your roof and keep the dust off your boots. Happy trails to you and till we meet again. Bye for now.