In the United States today, there are only 38 women serving as ceos of fortune 500 companies. One of those with the best track record is tricia griffith, ceo of progressive insurance, one of the largest Automobile Insurance Companies in the United States. She started as a claim adjuster and worked her way up to become in 2016 the ceo. Since that time, the stock is up more than 175 . My big mistake was, i didnt know her then and i didnt buy stock in the company. If she ever goes somewhere else, im going to buy that stock right away. So for those who arent familiar with progressive, and if you watch television you would be familiar, because you have a lot of television ads, right . I am just curious why is it that , Automobile Insurance Companies seem to advertise a lot . I see your competitors advertising. You advertise a lot. Is that because people will be guided in their insurance decision by the advertisement . Tricia it is just a really competitive industry, which is always odd because it is something you are required to have. It is not like if you pick a different soft drink or a beverage, but it is required. It is so competitive. To be out there and to be top of mind and be part of the shortlist, you really have to be advertising. David you have a famous character in some of your ads called flo, a woman that plays i guess, an insurance person. Does she get a certain percentage of the new business she brings in because shes so good . She does not have that deal . Tricia she does not have that deal. She is paid per contract and shes doing fine. David lets talk about this year. A lot of the auto insurers are up this year, in part because people arent driving as much. And the theory is, if you dont dont drive as much, it is hard to have an accident. I presume there are fewer people claiming that they have had an accident and therefore you dont have to pay out as much. Is that why your stock is up, you think . Tricia i think that might be one piece, but weve also continued to grow, not only market share, based on units, policies, and really, if you think about it, yes, immediately in march vehicle miles traveled have been reduced, but as states have reopened, it continues to go up. Right now, we are still not precovid level of driving. We are about 8 to 10 down. But those lost costs, that gap is closing in as we see more and more people driving more often. That lasted a couple months. Then remember, Many Companies gave back credits or have reduced rates. David let me ask about that. If you got a rebate, that was because you thought it was a good idea or the regulators said you would have to give back money. Why did the insurers start giving back money to their policyholders . Tricia we did it because it was the right thing to do. We immediately saw driving, vehicle miles traveled go down. 40 . It went back up quickly to 20 , etc. , but we sat down and said, we dont want margins that big. It is not the right thing to do. We want to be competitively priced. So we gave 20 credits for both april and may, and subsequently we are very analytically driven, so we went statebystate, channel by channel, product by product. So far weve had rate decreases in about 35 states. Those are baked in permanently. David today when people have an accident, the accidents are more expensive than they used to be. Is that because the cars are more complicated, more expensive to repair . Tricia they absolutely are. A couple reasons. One is the components of the cars. So i started as a claims rep and the cars in 1988, the bumper repair or replacement would be a couple hundred dollars. Now they could be upwards of 1000, 2000. Because of the components, the safety components. In addition, think of the inflation of medical costs. So if you are injured in an accident, that is another component of increased severity. David let us suppose i want to get some automobile insurance. I am now 71 years old. Am i a good risk or would you rather have somebody who is 25 and more alert . Tricia that is one variable. So we look at hundreds of variables. It depends on where you live, do you live in a congested area . Do you live in a rural area . What is your driving history . Do you have our usagebased insurance . That way we know the time of day you drive, how many miles you drive. Have you had any violations . Theres so many things that go into it. Age is only one component. David when i was a teenager, i was told that teenagers are not good drivers and insurance is expensive. Is that true today . Insurance is more expensive for teenagers, that they are not good drivers . Tricia i will say that having six people that drive in my family that weve added over the years, we call them youthful drivers. The issue is that many are good, but they just do not have that maturity. They havent had the experience. I remember saying because a lot of times you get rate increases if you add on a youthful driver i challenge that when i first got this job and then i realized, having six youthful drivers, there is a reason you pay more. David you are in Home Insurance now. You bought a company that helps you get into that. Why do you want to be in the you get into that. Home Insurance Business . Tricia it was really access to more of the preferred customers. Especially on the insurance side. We had a relationship with asi for years. We had a small ownership. Their values were very much aligned with us. And so we decided to go ahead and purchase them. It has been a really nice transition, a really great acquisition. So now, having the whole picture, for whatever you want, auto, home, motorcycle, commercial, we are continuing to expand because i think it is really important to diversify. David is the Home Insurance business profitable now . Tricia it depends on what company you are talking about. We have struggled a little bit because of wind, hail, catastrophes, and we also have been obviously growing our model across the country. We were in five states for many years. We are learning a lot about the product model. If you look at our results, we will be profitable, but we are doing the same thing we did on the auto side. We are getting very surgical in our segmentation to understand the right rate for each home. David are you thinking of getting into the life Insurance Business . If you are in the other Insurance Businesses, why not get into the life Insurance Business . Tricia right now we have a great relationship with an unaffiliated partner that we get a commission when we send them to the company. And that has been working really well. We actually are considering that. We have a Life Insurance company filed in ohio. More to come on that. David people say that there is eventually going to be driverless or Autonomous Cars and, of course, the theory is they will never have an accident because they are perfectly programmed. Is that something you worry about, cars that never have accidents, or are not going to worry about that now . Tricia i dont worry about it. From a society perspective, you want to have less accidents. It is good for society. Everyone has been affected by an auto accident. What i think about i dont put my head in the sand but what i think about is realistic timing. That is also one of the reasons why i think about not just executing on our current plan, but expanding and exploring other possibilities, adjacencies for our business. When you look back at some of the headlines in 2012 that say this type of car is going to be fully autonomous by 2020 or 2015 it will take longer. And i know that. That said, again, we are preparing for a possible smaller Auto Insurance industry, but we have so many opportunities with other adjacent models, including home and some of the other things weve talked about, all the things weve expanded to in the last couple years. David elon musk has said hes going to have an Autonomous Car out there at some point in the nottoodistant future. And hes also said anybody that is an insurance agent, why dont you call me up, because we are wanting to hire insurance agents. We are going to be in the auto Insurance Business. Is that something you are worried about . Tricia not really. David because . Tricia i think people love working here and i think we have a huge future. The technology is absolutely there. And i can see a car going from point a to b in a geofenced area, but theres a lot to be done. I think it will be longer than most people predicted. David when you were able to go into your office, you were well known for walking into the cafeteria and sitting down with the average person. Why did you do that . Why didnt you eat in your office with other executives . Tricia when you break bread with people, they open up to you. Not just about great things, but about things they want to change. David lets talk about progressives background. Its a great name, progressive, that is a very positive word. Was that the original name of the company . Tricia it was the original name. The company was founded in 1937 by joe louis and jack green. They were two attorneys in cleveland. And they didnt know what they wanted to do, but they wanted to serve the nonstandard customers in cleveland that needed insurance. So they borrowed 10,000 from joe lewis motherinlaw and that is how progressive was born. You might know peter lewis, who ran the company for a long time, he was the second ceo. And then Craig Renwick and the myself. Then myself. David how did you get started at progressive and at the bottom, right . Tricia i went to university, got a marketing degree. I wanted to go into something in marketing, but all through high school and college, i worked in retail. Oddly, where i went to school is the home office of state farm. And everybody was doing internships there. I was like, who wants to work in insurance . So i went to a Retail Company for about six months. It was a Building Materials place. Think of a lowes or home depot. I was like, what am i doing . I am mixing paints. Im actually forklift certified. I was driving home one day with my hard hat and said, i have to look for something different. What i wanted to do was work somewhere for a couple years, pay off my school loans, then go to get my mba. So i went home and i opened the classified ads. I had never heard of progressive. At that time we were less than a billion. I thought, this sounds interesting. 19,000, that will help me pay off my debt. And made the call. David so, the job is to be a claim adjuster . Tricia correct. If i had your claim and you were injured, i would go out and talk to you about your injury and guide you through that. I would crawl under your car and let you know how much it took to get it repaired. I would manage your whole file. I also did special lines. I was a motorcycle rep. I basically handled the entire file. I was in body shops crawling under cars, in your house, talking to you about your injury. David you have obviously risen up from the lowest position, to the highest position. And youve had many positions in between. One of them, which is very unusual to have for a ceo, maybe sadly, is to be the head of Human Resources. So how did you go from being head of Human Resources to being ceo . Tricia to me, to get the hro job from having mostly claims experience during the first 15 years i had a little bit of sales and a little bit of claims and my predecessor interviewed me. It was actually an odd circumstance. I went for it. I wasnt going to because i dont have any hr experience. I have some maternity leave. That is about it. People kept calling me from around the company, saying, you have to go for this. You love diversity, you love metrics, we need this. Finally, i had a preinterview lunch with glenn to see if i could even go for it. He put my name in a hat and gave me the opportunity. I will always say it was a risk for him. He does not say that, but that was really the turning point in my career. Then he watched me and i did that for six years and made a lot of big changes that we still have now. And the president of claims came up, and that was my dream job. I love claims. I love helping customers. I was able to do that. That is . 75 of every dollar that comes in, that is a big business. Then he gave me all things customerfacing. I had call centers and claims. Then i was coo before the ceo role. So i really credit glenn for guiding me, giving the opportunities, coaching me, and sponsoring me. David as head of Human Resources, you must have instituted some policies that changed the companys face. Because your company has been voted the number one most Diverse Company in the United States in some surveys. Is that something you implemented and put into practice . Tricia yes. We started our Diversity Inclusion initiatives in earnest when i was there. We started our first employee resource groups, which provides the africanamerican network and lgbt plus we really set forth a strategy of how we are going to make sure everyone can bring their whole self to work. It was a big piece of our culture. And we started looking at the data. We continue to work on it. It is not something you can ever get a check mark. If you look at senior leadership, we have opportunities there. In fact, we are working on some aggressive objectives for the next five years with my team to continue to change that. David your chairman of the board is a woman and you are a obviously a woman. Is there any other fortune 500 company with the chairman as a woman and the ceo is a woman . There must be none. Tricia i dont think so. We have 12 members of our board and six are women, and one of the female is person of color. David when you were in line to be the ceo, did you think they were going to give the job to a woman or you thought this would revert to the normal form and they would find a nice white male to give it to . Tricia i was hoping they would give it to the person they thought was the best fit for progressive at the time. I remember interviewing with the board for several years during the process. And one of the Board Members said to me, you want to be a ceo . I said, no, i want to be the ceo of progressive. That was what really was meaningful to me. Had i not gotten the role, i would still be here. And there were lots of other opportunities to have a great ceo other than myself. David when you were able to go into your office, you were wellknown for walking into the cafeteria and sitting down with the average person. Why did you do that . Why didnt you just eat in your office with other executives . Tricia because that is my way of getting to know people and really feeling what is going on with the company. And when you break bread with people, they open up to you. Not just about great things, but about things they want to change. For me, i think because of my roots as a claims rep, i wondered what the executives did. We dont have an executive cafeteria. All of us eat in the cafeteria. This is a very different type of company from that perspective. Literally, it has motivated me to be a better leader. Every time i walk up to a table of five people and said, may i join you . And they gave that horrible look like, please no, i sat down and i had five new friends. To me, it is an important part to be approachable. If you feel connected and trust your leader, you are going to run through the wall for them. David when you sit down with people at the employee cafeteria, do they ever say, i am underpaid . They never say that . Tricia they sometimes talk about how they wish they could make more. What can they do . How can they get there . People are pretty open and honest with me. David what would you say are the Leadership Qualities you brought to the table or you most admire . Tricia i dont always have to be the smartest person in the room. I know collectively what a team needs and i love having great debates. David as i talk to you, you you are generally working remotely . We took a decision to work remotely. Thatse conditions are such for the safety of staff, we ought to continue to respect that modality of work. It is been amazingly successful. We are doing much more because of the crisis. We are doing it working remotely. But, it has some downsides. We will never go back to where we were. Have this amount sitting offices. We can be very productive working from home. Haveuld be striving to 60 40 at any one day being and telecommute. David how have you changed since what we have been going through since march 13 . What i have learned is that in crisis, the most important over, ask andan help the most affordable. I reach out to people and record almost every week, short videos to connect with staff. I never get tired to bring people in these virtual rooms, where we have to Stay Together so that we have clarity of purpose in this crisis. David as i talk to you, you are not in your office i presume, you are in your home . Tricia that is correct. Im in my little library. David and have you been running progressive from your Little Office there for a couple months now . Tricia ever since midmarch. I go in sometimes once a week to get my mail and check things out, but i dont see anyone. In fact, where im sitting here, my son, who is in film school, filmed me weekly for several months so i could send a video out to all of the progressive people. David has it been difficult to run the company remotely . Tricia it has not been difficult for me. It has been unusual and i dont love it because i love the interaction. The biggest part is the claims organization because that is facetoface. Especially when youre looking at vehicles. But we immediately were able to use videos and pictures to do the best job we could. To estimate vehicles. And we are doing pretty well. Im very proud of the organization. David when the world comes back, which hopefully will be at some point in time when we have a vaccine, do you expect that all your employees will come back and work in the offices, or do you think you could have people working remotely and save money by not having as much office space . How do you think about this in the future . Tricia prior to covid, we had about 25 of our call Center People and some claim Center People that work from home, just because it works better for them. I imagine, and we are doing some surveying as we think about what percentage that will still work for . I think in person, in the office, hallway conversations are so important. So, i think it might increase from that 25 . If you fastforward and theres a vaccine and people feel comfortable, i think a lot of people will come into the office. I think that is something that weve worked through and done a really good job with technology, but i know many people miss it. David you and your husband have six children, right . Is that right . Six children. Tricia yes. His, hers, and ours. David when you have six children and you are running a company, isnt that kind of complicated . How do you have time in the day to do anything else . Tricia it was very complicated as i was going up through the ranks. And my husband worked as well. When i was in hr for a couple of years, we met at progressive, we both had travel jobs. And at one point he said, when our oldest was going into high school, he said one of us probably needs to stay home. I think you have a longer runway. And so he decided to stay home. But i think i treat it like everything else. Assume something might go wrong. And so, when we were both traveling and i knew i had a presentation, i knew i would go into somebodys room and somebody would have an ear infection. And so i created a network of friends who stayed home and did an oldfashioned bartering system. So if you can take emma for a couple of hours while i do this presentation, i will babysit your kids on the weekend. I always had plans, just like you have in business. David what would you say are the Leadership Qualities that you brought to the table or most admire . Tricia i think the ones i brought to the table were being genuine, being authentic, communicating just all the time, painting the picture of where i want the company to go. I think that is really important. I think people, you are only a leader if people want to follow you. So, do people want to follow you . Do you have a great attitude but also a certain paranoia to make sure that we are always doing well . And for me, i think what i am most proud of and i think why i continued to get jobs after that hr job, i formed really great teams. I dont always have to be the smartest person in the room. I know collectively what a team needs and i love having great debates. The only thing better than those debates are the power and the unity when you come out and you are solidified as a leadership team. David sometimes people say it is very difficult for women to have it all, to have a family and also have a great professional career. It is obviously possible. Youve obviously done it. So what would you say is the trick to having it all and getting it all done if you were to give advice to some younger women . Tricia i think sometimes theres things you dont give up. So jack played high school and , college football. It was important for me to go to as many games as i could. And i worked my way around that. Sometimes that meant working at 10 00 at night to catch up on things, but it was worth it. Because my kids tell me, even now, you want to do more things than most stayathome moms. Because i was so obsessed with making sure i got to almost everything. David if you would go to a Football Game or Something Like that, do people come up to you and say, you are the ceo of progressive, or do you avoid telling people you are the ceo of progressive when you go to those kind of family events . Tricia my husband says all the time, why do you play games with everyone . People say, where do you work . I will say, for an insurance company. Where . In cleveland. What he do . Corporate. All these things until finally, ok im the ceo. What i have found, when you are on a plane, a good way to not get in a conversation is they say, what do you do, and i say, i sell insurance. Then no one talks to you. I have found the right thing. I live in a smaller town. And my kids went to a small catholic school, so Everybody Knows me. When i got the job, the day that it was announced, i was headed to our sons school to go to his lacrosse game. Our Pr Department kept same, cap saying the wall street , journal wants to talk to you, this place wants to talk to you. I said, i am headed to a lacrosse game. Let me call my mom. Let me call my sisters. Let me enjoy this. I finally said, stop calling me. I wanted to be present in the moment. Actually, i talked to my five other children. Jack was on the field. During halftime i went up and said, hi. I say, i need to tell you some news. He said, i know mrs. Ceo, you are trending on twitter. David suppose somebody came to you from ohio and said, you have right of one of the best companies in ohio. Should be governor of ohio. Would you have any interest in running for office . Tricia i think government would frustrate me. I like to get things done. I like to move forward and im a big believer in compromise. So, for me, i dont think government is in the future for me. I think i would love to do some philanthropy. Maybe a board or two. I am on a public board now. And do some things with my husband to help the country. David and the higher calling of private equity, that doesnt appeal to you . Tricia [laughter] i will let you do that. [narrator] this is kate. Hey. [narrator] she takes two prescriptions. Kates son jack, takes one too. Kate works hard, and thought she had good insurance. But she still pays too much. Thats no good. So kate downloaded the goodrx app. Now she can compare prescription prices, to find the best discounts. She even beats her insurance price. 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