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Jessica's Risky Business

Jessica's Risky Business

Written by: Jessica Villarreal
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About this listen

Insurance doesn’t have to be dull — and Jessica Villarreal is here to prove it. Every Friday, she takes you inside the high-stakes world of business, risk, and claims with unapologetic energy and fearless insight. From behind-the-scenes war stories to real-world strategies that keep businesses alive when things go sideways, this podcast is equal parts bold, fun, and just a little dangerous. If you came for boring, you’re in the wrong place.

© 2026 Jessica's Risky Business
Economics Leadership Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • New Year, No Chill. Assuming Coverage is NOT a Strategy!
    Jan 24 2026

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    Pause the multitasking. This story starts with a routine choice, a trusted employee, and a well-run company—and ends with a six-figure bill sitting in the gray space between general liability, faulty work, negligence, and professional exposure. We unpack why the quiet claims, not the headline disasters, are the ones that bruise cash flow, rattle operations, and redefine renewal leverage.

    We pull back the curtain on the 2026 insurance market: property easing for clean, well-documented accounts, casualty still tight, auto still brutal, and GL with completed ops under a heavy spotlight. You’ll hear how underwriters are viewing employee decisions that touch customer property and why even paid gray claims can harden terms, raise deductibles, and trim flexibility. More importantly, we show how a five-minute conversation could have altered coverage structure, tightened protocols, and set expectations long before adjusters parsed policy language.

    This is a blueprint for moving from transactions to strategy. We share the exact questions to ask your agent—what scares underwriters about our account, which claims keep you up at night for our industry, where are we exposed—and how those answers shape endorsements, training, and decision rights. If your broker only appears at renewal or when a certificate is needed, it’s time to demand more: real updates on appetite, claim perception, and the steps to future-proof your program. The payoff is simple: fewer surprises, better pricing power, and a risk posture that actually matches how your business operates.

    Ready to pressure test your coverage and close the gap between intention and policy language? Follow the show, share this episode with your ops and finance leads, and leave a quick review with the one question you’re asking your agent this week.

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    5 mins
  • A Christmas Eve Claim Shows Why Insurance Only Works When You Plan
    Dec 25 2025

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    A quiet Christmas Eve, a building full of smoke, and a hard lesson about what insurance pays for when holiday décor meets hot-running equipment. We open the door on a real seasonal claim and walk through the exact points where coverage helped, where exclusions bit, and how a few small decisions in November could have saved days of downtime.

    We break down the chain reaction: extension cords and lights strung through storage, a tree too close to heat, and an overloaded circuit that triggered emergency response and operational shutdowns. From property policies to business interruption, we highlight why improper electrical use can limit recovery and how sublimits, waiting periods, and endorsements can either cushion the blow or magnify it. This is a practical guide for owners, operators, and leaders who peak in Q4 and can’t afford surprises when orders pile up and staff rotate.

    Then we get specific about prevention. The naughty list includes last-minute certificates, unvetted pop-ups and events, temp staff added without notice, and the dangerous myth of “we’ve always done it that way.” The nice list is simple and powerful: a pre-holiday check-in, fresh property values for peak season, confirmed sublimits and endorsements, early loop-in with your broker, and a quick electrical safety walkthrough before the lights go up. We share why the best outcomes come from relationship-driven risk management—clients who ask questions early, invite transparent conversations, and make coverage decisions intentionally.

    If you want fewer frantic calls and more resilient operations, this one’s for you. Share it with the teammate who owns facilities, the partner who handles pop-ups, or the finance lead eyeing next year’s limits. Subscribe for more real-world claims, practical risk tactics, and candid stories from the front lines of insurance. And if this helped, leave a review and tell us what seasonal risk you’re tackling next.

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    5 mins
  • Cannabis, Caramels, And A Christmas Claim Gone Sideways
    Dec 12 2025

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    Peppermint-scented chaos, a late-night shortcut, and a claims maze no one wants for Christmas. We unpack how a boutique cannabis brand turned a blockbuster holiday promo into an explosive manufacturing failure—and what it really takes to keep a claim from dying on technicalities.

    We start with the high-energy collide of MJ BizCon and AWS re:Invent, where cannabis operators and tech teams are swapping notes on scale. Then we zoom into Green Globe’s “12 Days” push: upgraded equipment, surging orders, and SOPs that didn’t reflect what the line was actually doing. One heat bump later, pressure met infused caramel and the facility met disaster. Two shredded tanks, hundreds of thousands of units lost, and a peppermint THC glaze over everything—plus an unlucky neighbor reporting contamination and employee exposure.

    The real story lives inside the policy. Property coverage narrowed under undisclosed equipment upgrades and out-of-bounds temperatures. Product loss limits lagged because production volume was under-reported to save premiums. Business interruption didn’t trigger due to employee actions outside written SOPs. Liability for airborne vapor across the wall? Not without products pollution, contamination, or neighboring premises endorsements. We break down each miss and map the structure that would have paid: accurate equipment schedules, equipment breakdown with BI, products pollution and contamination, recall, neighboring premises liability, and production records that match reality. We also get tactical about culture—training tied to the real workflow, deviation logs, safe throughput metrics, and pre-peak stress tests.

    If you’re scaling for holidays, launching new SKUs, or recovering from the MJ Biz whirlwind, this is your checklist to keep growth from outrunning your risk program. Subscribe, share with your ops and finance teams, and leave a review with the one coverage you refuse to ship a season without.

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    6 mins
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