Ben Hays Email and Phone Number

P&L responsibility for small and middle market commercial businessManaged a group of product management professionals overseeing product development strategy for both small and middle market commercial businessLed the modernization of the firms rating structure with a focusing on valuation, third party data usage and structural alignment between business unitsAccountable for the organization’s data strategy, collaborating closely with data scientists and engineers to create essential reports and visualizations.

As VP of Personal Lines, I have full P&L accountability for a $100M+ admitted & non-admitted portfolio and lead a team of product management, underwriting and sales professionals. I am responsible for influencing all aspects of product development, establishing underwriting appetite, and implementing sales strategy. After taking on this role the firm has seen improvements to both profit and production KPIs while aggressively expanding into new states and introducing new programs.

I was responsible for developing the market entry strategy for Velocity’s coastal homeowner programs in Texas, including building the programs and setting the underwriting guidelines/risk appetite. I built HO3/DP3/Wind Only programs from the ground up, introducing first of its kind wind only endorsement and had full P&L responsibility for the state. Under my guidance through the first two years the programs grew GWP to +$20M, delivered a sub 25% AOP loss ratio all while managing PML concentration.

I was accountable for the development of pricing strategies and the creation and implementation of new products and programs across multiple states. I led cross functional teams to enhance the customer experience and to grow the business profitability. Through my responsibilities I work as a liaison with both internal and external stakeholders; outside stakeholders such as regulators with the department of insurance to verify our filings get approved and internal partners such as our senior leadership group to develop strategies or too our technology group to ensure implementation. My primary focus has been to shore up profitability, modernize the program, and to capture market share from entrenched competitors. I joined at a time when increased frequency and profitability are industry wide concerns which has allowed me to flex my creative muscle to balance both long term growth and profitability.

In 2014 I was given the opportunity to assume the position of Unit Manager where I was tasked with creating and leading a team to provide consultative support to our agency force. My team was responsible for providing support to over 600 agents and over 30 sales leaders. My role as the leader was to work with our sales leadership group to develop the overall strategy and opportunity areas to target. We provided consultation’s either via phone, WebEx, or in person where our main focus was to help agency owners grow their business profitability. Our support would cover a wide variety of topics such as; competitive information, partnering market demographics with available tools to maximize their rate of return on marketing expenditures, loss ratio reviews, and retention consultations – how to improve and what are the trouble segments.

As a product consultant I oversaw the development and design of new projects, programs, and product features of varying complexity as well as guideline line changes and rate adjustments. It was also my responsibility to communicate and provide education on these new programs or changes to the sales force as well as other departments. My main responsibility during my time as a product consultant was for the growth and profitability of the state of Louisiana. I would provide forecasts for short-term and long-term business strategies to inform recommendations on rates and risk management guidelines. I would also provide analysis on a macro (state/market) and micro (agency) level to help provide insight on trends and performance issues. As a consultant for an individual state I was the one stop shop for both the sales force (agents and sales leaders) as well as internal partners (marketing, finance, compliance, and education). One of the most important projects I worked on was a collaboration with home office counterparts to reintroduce a homeowner product with wind coverage in select post Katrina coastal Louisiana areas. As the regional contact, I was accountable for every aspect of this reintroduction from selecting markets which presented the best growth opportunity, re-education of the sales force, managing our growth vs. the home office growth targets, competitive intelligence, and continual review for expansion into additional areas. This pilot began with only 9 zip codes but through my analysis and reviews expanded to over 85+ zip codes where we had been achieving 100% of target production while effectively managing exposure.

I was in charge of analysis to measure the effectiveness of regional strategies; including quote/close ratio, production results, agency deployment effectiveness and agency-level business result analysis. Through this analysis I also provided action plans and recommendations to where we stood against our current business objectives. I also provided monthly reporting on our current competitive position based on outside data sources and internal data which was used by both sales and marketing to strategically target their efforts.