Best’s News & Research Service - March 10, 2014 02:02 PM (EDT)
Millers Mutual CEO Making 'Deep Dive' Before Setting Long-Term Plans, Goals
HARRISBURG, Pa. //BestWire// - For the past two weeks, Scott Orndorff, the newly hired president and chief executive officer of Millers Mutual Group, has been getting to know the people, history and business of his new company as he makes a "deep dive" to find out everything he can before setting long-term plans and goals.
"My work here in the next couple of weeks is really going to be asking a lot of questions," Orndorff told Best's News Service.
Orndorff isn't looking to shake up the Mid-Atlantic commercial lines regional writer with brand new, hand-picked senior leadership or make other sweeping changes. His course will be more measured and calculated, with his extensive information-gathering phase coming ahead of what will be a "very significant planning process," he said.
"I want to have an operational plan that we're able to starting implementing here at Millers by September," Orndorff said.
Millers appointed Orndorff as its new president and CEO after its previous longtime leader, Robert Lyon, left the company to pursue other interests (Best's News Service, March 7, 2014). Orndorff, who has held senior leadership positions are other insurance companies, started Feb. 24.
Orndorff has brought in a consultant that he's worked with in the past to help him in the planning process. The immediate goal is to build a strong foundation based on what the company does well and keep a continuous planning process running. Part of that means asking fundamentally basic questions about the company and its value proposition, and reviewing its lines of business and operating territory, he said.
One of those basic questions: What does it mean to be a relationship company? Orndorff said every organization he's been in claims to value relationships, but that doesn't mean anything unless a company drills down into what pieces of the relationship are valuable to agents selling the products.
"Inside of any business, it's those fundamental questions that you want to have locked down so everybody understands it, everybody is on the same page," Orndorff said. "If you have a vision that people can't connect the dots from the mail room throughout the organization, then you haven't been very good at articulating what it is you're doing."
The deep dive will also more clearly define what niches Millers does well. Orndorff said he knows as a small mutual company it will have to find its operational niche where it can be most meaningful to its clients and write business in a space that doesn't compete with large national, or even larger regional companies.
"Millers has done niche business," Orndorff said. "We do what's called a habitional book, primarily condominium associations and apartment buildings, and there are parts of that that are very profitable and have been growing and there are other parts that haven't. So, we'll need to sort through that."
Millers in 2013 had direct premiums written of $58.7 million, up from $52.7 million in 2009, according to BestLink, A.M. Best Co.'s online financial system. The company reported a 2013 combined ratio of 99. It writes business in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., according to the company. In 2013, nearly 90% of its direct premiums stemmed from commercial multiple peril business.
Millers Capital Insurance Co. currently has a Best's Financial Strength Rating of A- (Excellent).
(By Michael Buck, senior associate editor, BestWeek: Michael.Buck@ambest.com)