1995-08-07 Peter Lewis.SEX.REEFER? AND AUTO INSURANCE!

Refer To：《SEX. REEFER? AND AUTO INSURANCE! PETER LEWIS HAS BUILT PROGRESSIVE CORP. INTO A SMASHINGLY SUCCESSFUL INSURANCE COMPANY AND A STOCK MARKET STAR. AND HE'S FULL OF FRESH IDEAS FOR MORE GROWTH. BUT GET A LOAD OF HIS LIFESTYLE. AND CHECK OUT HIS UNPUBLISHED BOOK.》。

(FORTUNE Magazine) – In the annals of big business, there may never have been so curious a pair--company and man--as Progressive Corp., a Cleveland auto insurer, and Peter Benjamin Lewis, its 61-year-old chairman, president, and chief executive. Progressive, on the one hand, is a prodigiously growing, solidly successful stock market standout, with a cool, we've-got-it-all-together personality. Lewis, on the other hand, is a total eccentric--though that description hardly goes far enough in capturing either his unique style of managing, or of living. The son of a Progressive founder, Lewis has been CEO now for 30 years. And were there to exist a Fortune 500 prize for outlandishness and riotous comment at the boss level, he would be odds-on to win.

（财富杂志）——在大企业的历史中，可能从未有过如此奇特的一对——公司和人——如同克利夫兰的汽车保险公司 Progressive Corp.和其 61 岁的董事长、总裁兼首席执行官彼得·本杰明·刘易斯。一方面，Progressive 是一家快速增长、稳固成功的股票市场佼佼者，拥有一种冷静、自信的个性。另一方面，刘易斯则是一个完全的怪人——尽管这个描述还不足以完全捕捉他独特的管理风格或生活方式。作为 Progressive 创始人的儿子，刘易斯担任首席执行官已有 30 年。如果有一个《财富》500 强中最古怪和最具争议性评论的老板奖项，他将是最有可能获奖的人选。

Listen, for example, to this exchange that took place between Lewis and a prospective investor in their first minutes of meeting. Said the investor to the 6-foot-2, fit-looking Lewis: "I've looked at your stock very carefully. It's clear to me that this is a great company. But I also know that you are terribly important to it. So I have one big question: How's your health?"

听听这个在刘易斯和一位潜在投资者之间的对话，这发生在他们见面的最初几分钟。投资者对身高 6 英尺 2 英寸、看起来很健康的刘易斯说：“我非常仔细地研究了你的股票。对我来说，这显然是一家很棒的公司。但我也知道你对公司非常重要。所以我有一个大问题：你的健康状况如何？”

"Well, I really don't know," answered Lewis in his agreeable, matter-of-fact way, "because I don't believe in doctors. But No. 1, I feel fine. No. 2, I swim a mile every day. And No. 3, I'm single, so I get laid all the time."

“嗯，我真的不知道，”刘易斯以他那种令人愉快、实事求是的方式回答道，“因为我不相信医生。但第一，我感觉很好。第二，我每天游一英里。第三，我是单身，所以我一直都有性生活。”

In a three-hour interview that took place recently at Lewis's art-filled Cleveland penthouse--his home since he was divorced 14 years ago--this writer did not manage to elicit quite the same wind-up declaration. But Lewis was obsessively candid about almost all other subjects, certainly including the remarkable success of Progressive and his wildly individualistic views about the way the world should be run. By self-classification both a "very liberal Democrat" and a libertarian--is that combo possible?--Lewis doesn't believe much in laws and rules, especially those that attempt to impose on people a code of behavior that is unenforceable. Though he makes his living from collecting auto insurance premiums, for example, he doesn't think drivers should be forced to buy insurance. For some, he says, among them those earning very little, it doesn't make sense--so why make them buy?

最近，在刘易斯位于克利夫兰的艺术装饰顶层公寓进行的一次长达三个小时的采访中——自 14 年前离婚以来，他一直住在那里——这位作家未能引出同样的总结性声明。但刘易斯对几乎所有其他话题都坦率得令人着迷，当然也包括 Progressive 的非凡成功以及他对世界应如何运作的极具个人特色的看法。自我分类为“非常自由的民主党人”和自由意志主义者——这种组合可能吗？——刘易斯对法律和规则并不太相信，尤其是那些试图强加给人们无法执行的行为准则的法律和规则。例如，尽管他靠收取汽车保险费为生，但他并不认为司机应该被强制购买保险。他说，对于一些人来说，其中包括收入很低的人，这没有意义——那么为什么要强迫他们购买呢？

极度坦诚明显是心理问题，偶然中向好的一面发展。

On another subject of close personal interest, he believes that romantic relationships in the office are going to occur no matter what the rules, and are perfectly okay just as long as they don't interfere with his most sacred goal, the efficient workings of Progressive. He has, in fact, danced around this thought in Progressive's annual reports, which are both as informative and oddball as Lewis himself. "Intraoffice romances just happen," he says, "and I've had them, both inappropriately and appropriately."

在另一个他个人非常关心的话题上，他认为无论规则如何，办公室恋情都会发生，只要不干扰他最神圣的目标——Progressive 的高效运作，就完全没问题。事实上，他在 Progressive 的年度报告中也曾绕着这个想法打转，这些报告和 Lewis 本人一样既信息丰富又古怪。他说：“办公室恋情就是会发生，我也经历过，有些是不合适的，有些是合适的。”

Among the acceptable kind, apparently, is a long-running though definitely nonbinding relationship Lewis has had with Janet Frieden, head of Progressive's travel department. And by the way, his ex-wife, Toby, works at the company four days a week, serving as curator of Progressive's large contemporary-art collection. The once-marrieds, who are parents of three grown children, are good friends.

在可接受的关系中，显然，刘易斯与珍妮特·弗里登有着长期但绝对不具约束力的关系，珍妮特是 Progressive 旅行部门的负责人。顺便说一下，他的前妻托比每周在公司工作四天，担任 Progressive 大型当代艺术收藏的策展人。这对曾经的夫妻是三个成年子女的父母，他们是好朋友。

Similarly, Peter Lewis remains on cordial terms with many of the executives he has fired--a society of large and ever-growing numbers. Says Lewis proudly: "I'm the best person to have been fired by or divorced from that I know." His reasoning: "I can put myself in the other guys' shoes. And I care about how they feel about me when we're not together, because I care about how I feel about them."

同样，彼得·刘易斯与他解雇的许多高管仍保持友好关系——一个庞大且不断增长的群体。刘易斯自豪地说：“我是我所知道的被解雇或离婚的最好的人。” 他的理由是：“我能设身处地为他人着想。我关心他们在我们不在一起时对我的感觉，因为我关心我对他们的感觉。”

Lewis cares also about the good life for himself. He has thoughts of building a huge (25,000 square feet or more), insistently modern house in Cleveland but has so far spent five years noodling inconclusively with Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry over its design. That project is now shelved (not for the first time), and Lewis is making do with his Cleveland pad; additional apartments in New York City and Washington, D.C.; and a house in Aspen, Colorado.

刘易斯也关心自己的美好生活。他曾考虑在克利夫兰建造一座巨大（25,000 平方英尺或更大）、极具现代感的房子，但到目前为止，他已经花了五年时间与洛杉矶建筑师弗兰克·盖里在设计上无果而终。该项目现已搁置（这不是第一次），刘易斯目前住在他的克利夫兰住宅；在纽约市和华盛顿特区还有额外的公寓；以及在科罗拉多州阿斯彭的一所房子。

Lewis acquired his Washington digs because (why is this not a surprise?) he was interested in a woman who lived in D.C. But he also visualized the apartment as a base for getting close to a Democratic President. To that end, he contributed heavily to the Dukakis campaign in 1988 and was a major donor to the Democrats during Clinton's run, giving more than $250,000. That kind of money got him a limousine ride in Cleveland with the candidate, during which Lewis helpfully offered his advice about the womanizing issue: "I told him that if there'd been, say, 27 women since he got married, he should just state that was the case, say it was 'juvenile behavior,' and put this problem in the past." After that, Clinton didn't seek out Lewis for further advice. Today Lewis says he's given up his ambitions of gaining political influence.

刘易斯在华盛顿购置房产，因为（这有什么好惊讶的？）他对住在华盛顿的一个女人感兴趣。但他也将这套公寓视为接近民主党总统的基地。为此，他在 1988 年大力支持杜卡基斯的竞选活动，并在克林顿竞选期间成为民主党的主要捐助者，捐款超过 25 万美元。这笔钱让他在克利夫兰与候选人一起乘坐豪华轿车，在此期间，刘易斯热心地就女人问题提供了建议：“我告诉他，如果自结婚以来有过，比如说，27 个女人，他应该直接承认，说那是‘幼稚行为’，把这个问题抛在脑后。”此后，克林顿没有再向刘易斯寻求进一步的建议。今天，刘易斯表示他已经放弃了获得政治影响力的野心。

Friends--and others--attempting to describe the phenomenon that is Lewis ransack their vocabularies for the right words. Says a friend who knows him well and seems genuinely to like him: "He's a frame or two off the ordinary radar screen. He's a big, overgrown child. His threshold of embarrassment is very high. There's no way to jerk his chain because he doesn't have one. He's a rock star without any musical ability." And then a summation: "He's weird. That's it, weird."

朋友们——以及其他人——试图描述路易斯这个现象时，绞尽脑汁寻找合适的词语。一位非常了解他并似乎真心喜欢他的朋友说：“他与普通人的雷达屏幕有些偏离。他是个长得过大的孩子。他的尴尬阈值非常高。没有办法激怒他，因为他没有弱点。他是个没有音乐才能的摇滚明星。”然后总结道：“他很怪。就是这样，怪。”

And yet there is this essential fact: Peter Lewis is an extraordinary businessman, who in his three decades as CEO has taken Progressive from an industry gnat to a large, powerful competitor. In 1980, just 15 years ago, Progressive was the 48th-largest auto insurer in the country. Last year, when revenues hit $2.4 billion, it was No. 6. Numbers three through five in the industry, Farmers, USAA, and Nationwide, had better keep checking their rear-view mirrors. At the moment, State Farm, with $23 billion in auto insurance revenues, and Allstate, at $12 billion, seem too far in front to catch. But can Lewis imagine overtaking State Farm? "Yes," he says, looking thoughtful. "I can imagine that."

然而，有一个关键事实：彼得·刘易斯是一位非凡的商人，在他担任首席执行官的三十年中，已经将Progressive从一个行业小角色发展成了一个大型、强有力的竞争者。1980年，仅仅15年前，Progressive还是美国第48大汽车保险公司。去年，当收入达到24亿美元时，它已经排到了第六位。行业中的第三到第五名——Farmers、USAA和Nationwide，最好保持警觉。此时，State Farm以230亿美元的汽车保险收入和Allstate以120亿美元的收入似乎领先得太多，难以追赶。但刘易斯能想象超越State Farm吗？“能，”他说，神情若有所思。“我可以想象得到。”

These aren't dreams fueled by fantasy. Financially, Progressive has the stuff to keep forcing the race. Soundly capitalized, as an insurer should be, it is also a star earner, making $274 million in 1994 and managing in that year, as in most, to return better than 20% on equity. The stock market has cheered: For the ten years ended in 1994, Progressive had an annualized total return--that is, stock appreciation plus reinvested dividends--of 27.3%, which ranked it 19th among the Fortune 500. Had you put $10,000 into Progressive stock when it went public in 1971 and held on, you would today have roughly $1.7 million in stock. As for Lewis, he owns 14% of the stock, worth just over $400 million.

这些不是由幻想推动的梦想。从财务上讲，Progressive 具备继续推动竞争的条件。作为一家保险公司，它资本充足，同时也是一个明星盈利者，1994 年赚取了 2.74 亿美元，并在那一年，如同大多数年份一样，实现了超过 20%的股本回报率。股市对此表示欢迎：截至 1994 年的十年间，Progressive 的年化总回报率——即股票增值加上再投资的股息——为 27.3%，在《财富》500 强中排名第 19 位。如果你在 1971 年 Progressive 上市时投入 1 万美元并持有至今，你现在将拥有大约 170 万美元的股票。至于 Lewis，他拥有 14%的股票，价值刚刚超过 4 亿美元。

Perhaps even more bizarre than this seeming paradox of a man and his company is the fact that he has documented in a book --often outrageous in its detail--both the story of how Progressive got so good and how Lewis himself became the Ted Turner of the insurance business. Called Progressive History, the book is technically unpublished, because Lewis says it does not yet meet his standards of quality. Nevertheless, he has sent it in its quasi-finished form to many, many people, including some former Progressive executives whose firing by Lewis is baldly described in its pages. Learning of the book, Fortune began asking around for it, and one day a photocopy arrived in the mail, sent by an anonymous donor. Thank you. The pages sent cover the period from 1937, when Progressive was founded, through 1993.

也许比这个人和他的公司之间的这种看似矛盾的现象更奇怪的是，他在一本书中记录了——常常以令人震惊的细节——Progressive 是如何变得如此优秀的故事，以及刘易斯本人是如何成为保险业的特德·特纳的。这本书名为《Progressive History》，从技术上讲尚未出版，因为刘易斯说它尚未达到他的质量标准。尽管如此，他还是以半成品的形式将其发送给了许多人，包括一些被刘易斯解雇的前 Progressive 高管，这在书中被直白地描述。得知这本书后，《财富》杂志开始四处打听，某天收到了一份匿名捐赠者寄来的复印件。谢谢。寄来的页面涵盖了从 1937 年 Progressive 成立到 1993 年的时期。

Forget the dull title. What Lady Chatterley's Lover was to 1920s literature, this book just may be to corporate histories. It is self-revealing beyond belief. In the late 1960s, for example, Lewis shared lunch with a female Progressive employee and "felt overwhelmed by the need to have an extramarital experience." Was she willing, he asked, to go to a motel and do it with him? "She was and we did," he writes. Somewhat later, though possibly not as a result, Lewis turned to psychiatric therapy, "beginning a lifetime of intense introspection" that focused unremittingly on one issue: "my not being interested in or able to achieve [a] loving, monogamous, committed relationship with a woman." Maybe that was because he was giving his all at Progressive. In one passage, Lewis describes his then-office--"a palatial penthouse designed to reflect and indulge my hedonism and appreciation of contemporary art"--and says his decision to hold a particularly important business meeting there was a way for him to "show off my success, symbolize my position, and emphasize my ample supply of testosterone."

忘掉这个乏味的标题吧。就像《查泰莱夫人的情人》之于 1920 年代的文学，这本书可能就是企业历史的代表作。它的自我揭示令人难以置信。例如，在 1960 年代末，刘易斯与一位女性 Progressive 员工共进午餐时，“感到强烈的需要进行一次婚外情。”他问她是否愿意和他一起去汽车旅馆？“她愿意，我们就去了，”他写道。稍后，虽然可能不是因此，刘易斯开始接受精神治疗，“开始了一生的深刻反省”，专注于一个问题：“我对与女性建立充满爱意、专一、承诺的关系不感兴趣或无法实现。”也许那是因为他把所有精力都投入到了 Progressive。在一段文字中，刘易斯描述了他当时的办公室——“一个奢华的顶层公寓，旨在反映和满足我的享乐主义和对当代艺术的欣赏”——并表示他决定在此举行一场特别重要的商务会议，是为了“炫耀我的成功，象征我的地位，并强调我充沛的睾酮供应。”

思考各种作死的办法。

Though those passages do not suggest a man seeking to hold anything back, the book may have an omission of note. Nowhere is there mention of a habit some people claim Lewis has: the heavy use of marijuana. Says one person who has been around him a lot: "He is a functioning pothead."

尽管这些段落并未暗示一个试图隐瞒任何事情的人，但这本书可能有一个值得注意的遗漏。书中没有提到一些人声称刘易斯有的习惯：大量使用大麻。一个经常和他在一起的人说：“他是一个正常运作的瘾君子。”

Since possession of marijuana is illegal in the U.S. --though many people argue that it should not be--and since alcohol and drugs are issues for auto insurers, the question of whether Lewis has a marijuana habit can't easily be dismissed as irrelevant. Given both his frankness and his related reputation for absolute honesty, direct inquiry about this matter seemed logical. So in a phone interview, Fortune asked the threshold question: "We hear that you are a user of marijuana. Is that right?" He didn't choose "no" as an answer but went instead to "I'm not going to comment." Later he called to remind us that a "no comment" does not amount to an affirmation.

由于在美国持有大麻是非法的——尽管许多人认为不应该如此——而且酒精和毒品是汽车保险公司的问题，因此关于刘易斯是否有大麻习惯的问题不能轻易被视为无关紧要。鉴于他的坦率以及他以绝对诚实著称的声誉，直接询问此事似乎是合乎逻辑的。因此，在电话采访中，《财富》杂志提出了一个关键问题：“我们听说你是大麻使用者。是这样吗？”他没有选择“否”作为答案，而是说“我不打算评论。”后来他打电话提醒我们，“不予置评”并不等于肯定。

Whatever the reality, Progressive cannot easily be discerned to have suffered. One person who avows Lewis to be a heavy user of pot hurries on to laud his business accomplishments as well, while wryly recalling President Lincoln's rebuff to certain advisers who complained to him of General Grant's drinking habits: "You just tell me the brand of whiskey Grant drinks--I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."

无论现实如何，Progressive 似乎并未受到明显影响。一位声称刘易斯是大麻重度使用者的人，急忙赞扬他的商业成就，同时讽刺地回忆起林肯总统对某些顾问抱怨格兰特将军饮酒习惯的回绝：“你只需告诉我格兰特喝的威士忌品牌——我想给我的其他将军送一桶。”

Without question, Lewis is completely dedicated to making Progressive a great company, and he also brings some enormous abilities to the job. When channeled into business, Lewis's unorthodoxy spins out as creativity. He is an instinctive challenger of assumptions and a constant generator of ideas--and yes, a good number of those must be immediately and forcefully flattened, volunteers Progressive's chief financial officer, Charles Chokel, with a smile. Beyond the vision are serious analytical and quantitative abilities, as well as a perfectionist's passion for testing and for measuring performance. "We measure everything," says Lewis, dramatically stretching out the word.

毫无疑问，刘易斯完全致力于将 Progressive 打造成一家伟大的公司，他也为这项工作带来了巨大的能力。当这些能力被引导到商业中时，刘易斯的非传统性就转化为创造力。他本能地挑战假设，不断产生想法——是的，其中相当多的想法必须立即并强有力地被否决，Progressive 的首席财务官查尔斯·乔克尔微笑着说。除了愿景之外，还有严谨的分析和定量能力，以及完美主义者对测试和衡量绩效的热情。“我们测量一切，”刘易斯说，夸张地拉长了这个词。

极度缺乏安全感。

Lewis also seems to possess a skill for extracting superb work from the people below him--obviously not including those departed. He is an absolutist about untiring effort, a point he hits colorfully and memorably in speeches he gives to new claims adjusters brought in to Cleveland for training. "I'm going to tell you how to succeed," Lewis says to them, his voice dropping conspiratorially as he describes the moment. "It's so simple. There are 50 of you out there--and you're beautiful, every one of you is beautiful--and you're between 23 and 27, and you've got a college degree, and you've had one other job, and you're absolutely the handsomest people I've ever seen. And as the years go on, there is just one thing that will matter. The thing that will differentiate you is who will work the hardest."

刘易斯似乎也具备从他手下的人中提取出色工作的能力——显然不包括那些已经离开的人。他对不懈努力持绝对主义态度，这一点在他为新理赔员在克利夫兰进行培训时发表的演讲中生动而难忘地体现出来。“我要告诉你们如何成功，”刘易斯对他们说，描述这一刻时他的声音神秘地低了下来。“这很简单。你们中有 50 个人——你们都很出色，每一个人都很出色——你们的年龄在 23 到 27 岁之间，你们有大学学位，并且有过一份其他工作，你们绝对是我见过的最英俊的人。随着岁月的流逝，只有一件事会变得重要。区分你们的将是谁会最努力工作。”

When Wall Street analysts look at this improbable package--the personal eccentricities of Lewis arrayed against his perfectionism and the incontestable success of his business--some don blinders and others come on like Lincoln talking about Grant. Thomas Sargent of Conning & Co. says that in the insurance business, conventional thinking tends to produce conventional returns, while the real rewards go to companies that "think about the world differently." In his opinion, that's the Peter Lewis payoff.

当华尔街分析师看到这个不太可能的组合——刘易斯的个人怪癖与他的完美主义和他业务的无可争议的成功相对比时，有些人戴上了眼罩，而另一些人则像林肯谈论格兰特一样。Conning & Co.的托马斯·萨金特表示，在保险行业，传统思维往往会产生传统回报，而真正的回报则属于那些“以不同方式思考世界”的公司。在他看来，这就是彼得·刘易斯的回报。

As an insurance executive, it needs to be noted, Lewis has one big, and self-acknowledged, limitation: absolutely no expertise in investments nor any skill in landing and keeping an investment chief who might serve as his right arm. Lewis's worst disappointment on this front involved Alfred Lerner, now 62, a successful Cleveland businessman who, upon Lewis's ardent bid for his services, became chairman of Progressive and ran its investments from 1988 into 1993. Lewis had a kind of idolizing crush on Lerner, but nonetheless eventually sent him packing from Progressive because they fell to arguing about almost everything (and because the tension of it all caused Lewis to suffer sneezing jags).

作为一名保险高管，需要注意的是，刘易斯有一个很大的、他自己也承认的局限性：对投资完全没有专业知识，也没有能力找到并留住一位可以作为他得力助手的投资主管。在这方面，刘易斯最失望的经历涉及阿尔弗雷德·勒纳，现在 62 岁，是一位成功的克利夫兰商人。在刘易斯热切邀请他的服务后，勒纳成为了 Progressive 的董事长，并从 1988 年到 1993 年管理其投资。刘易斯对勒纳有一种偶像般的崇拜，但最终还是将他从 Progressive 赶走，因为他们几乎在所有事情上都争吵不休（而且因为这一切的紧张气氛导致刘易斯打喷嚏不止）。

价值投资和作死完全在两个方向上，这个问题遗留至今。

Summing up the Lerner years in his book, Lewis described them as evolving "like a classic romance: introduction, friendship, seduction, marriage, joy, accomplishments, problems that festered, irritation, and then an emotionally agonizing separation." Even today Lewis's comments about Lerner remain remarkable: "Al Lerner is a standoffish, supercilious, dominating kind of guy, who in my view is absolutely lovable and adorable."

在他的书中总结勒纳的岁月，刘易斯将其描述为“像经典的浪漫故事一样演变：介绍、友谊、诱惑、婚姻、快乐、成就、滋生的问题、恼怒，然后是情感上痛苦的分离。” 即使在今天，刘易斯对勒纳的评论仍然令人瞩目：“阿尔·勒纳是一个冷漠、高傲、专横的人，在我看来，他绝对是可爱和讨人喜欢的。”

Well, sure--and, if nothing else, such comments erase all doubts that Lewis is in any way a linear thinker. Yet in that part of the company identifiable as operations, Lewis has in the 1990s employed his peculiar brand of thinking to great effect. He has drawn exceptional help from his executives, starting with Progressive's chief operating officer, Bruce W. Marlow, 46, and, under unusual business pressures, has changed just about everything in the company's kit--its attitudes toward costs, its distribution methods, and its product line.

当然，如果没有其他，这样的评论消除了所有关于刘易斯是否是线性思考者的疑虑。然而，在公司可识别为运营的部分，刘易斯在 1990 年代运用了他独特的思维方式，取得了巨大成效。他从他的高管团队中获得了非凡的帮助，首先是 Progressive 的首席运营官布鲁斯·W·马洛，46 岁，并在不寻常的商业压力下，几乎改变了公司工具包中的一切——对成本的态度、分销方法和产品线。

Historically, Progressive has filled a niche: the sale of "nonstandard" auto insurance, bought typically by drivers with a history of accidents, perhaps caused by substance abuse. Many insurers won't cover that kind of driver at all. Progressive loves to do it--at a price. It is an acknowledged master at pricing high-risk policies, bought, say, by an unmarried 22-year-old Texas dude who drives a green Corvette and cracked it up recently while totally bombed.

从历史上看，Progressive 填补了一个市场空白：销售“非标准”汽车保险，通常由有事故历史的司机购买，这些事故可能是由滥用药物引起的。许多保险公司根本不愿意为这种司机提供保险。Progressive 乐于这样做——但要收取一定的价格。它被公认为是高风险保单定价的高手，比如由一位未婚的 22 岁德州小伙子购买，他开着一辆绿色的科尔维特，最近在完全醉酒的情况下撞坏了车。

Nonstandard policies account for only about 15% of the total auto insurance market, and for many years the industry's leaders largely ignored this corner of the business, allowing Progressive to work it aggressively. The company specialized in a top-quality claims service and worried not at all that it was a high-cost operator, a luxury it could afford knowing that its customers, short of alternatives, would pay up for policies. And in most years the company hit the tough targets that Peter Lewis demands of it: an underwriting profit (in contrast to the underwriting losses that most auto insurers run up); a return on equity that is at least 15 percentage points above the rate of inflation; and growth in written premiums that is at least that high also.

非标准保单仅占汽车保险市场总量的约 15%，多年来，该行业的领导者基本上忽视了这一业务领域，使得 Progressive 能够积极地开展工作。该公司专注于高质量的理赔服务，丝毫不担心其运营成本高昂，因为它知道客户在缺乏替代选择的情况下会愿意支付保费。在大多数年份里，公司达到了彼得·刘易斯对其要求的艰难目标：承保利润（与大多数汽车保险公司产生的承保亏损形成对比）；股本回报率至少比通货膨胀率高出 15 个百分点；以及保费增长率也至少达到这一水平。

But in the mid-1980s, giant Allstate, looking around for growth in its essentially mature market, finally focused on how much money Progressive was making in its nifty niche and within a couple of years whipped by Progressive in nonstandard business. That was a foghorn wake-up call for Lewis. A second blast came from Proposition 103, an initiative passed by California's voters in 1988. Prop. 103 eventually cost Progressive $50 million in refunds, established a tough new regulatory climate in this hugely important state, and generally sent Lewis into a panic. He worried that similar uprisings might sweep the country. His libertarian soul also recoiled at the idea of Progressive having to refund premiums that he considered its legitimately earned property.

但在 1980 年代中期，巨头 Allstate 在其基本成熟的市场中寻找增长机会，最终将注意力集中在 Progressive 在其巧妙的利基市场中赚取了多少利润，并在几年内在非标准业务中超过了 Progressive。这对 Lewis 来说是一个警钟。第二次打击来自于 1988 年加州选民通过的提案 103。提案 103 最终使 Progressive 支付了 5000 万美元的退款，在这个极其重要的州建立了一个严厉的新监管环境，并且普遍让 Lewis 感到恐慌。他担心类似的起义可能会席卷全国。他的自由意志主义灵魂也对 Progressive 必须退还他认为是其合法赚取的保费的想法感到反感。

But then, egged on by his Princeton classmate Ralph Nader, Lewis focused on a brain-rocking thought: Suppose that California voters were right in believing auto insurance a hateful, overpriced product? On a more pragmatic front, he asked himself and his troops just how high-cost Progressive could compete with Allstate, when that rival's cost structure--incorporating a captive-agent system that permitted relatively low distribution expenses--was so much more favorable.

但随后，在普林斯顿的同学拉尔夫·纳德的鼓励下，刘易斯专注于一个令人震惊的想法：假设加州选民认为汽车保险是一种可恨且价格过高的产品是正确的呢？在更务实的方面，他问自己和他的团队，高成本的 Progressive 如何能与 Allstate 竞争，当对手的成本结构——包括一个允许相对较低分销费用的专属代理系统——如此有利时，该如何应对。

Lewis then introduced Progressive to a rebuild-this-wreck period, achieving a transformation, says one competitor, "that makes you realize just how good Pete is." Insurers measure their efficiency by an "expense ratio" that expresses operating costs (not including claims and related expenses) as a percent of earned premiums. Allstate's expense ratio in 1988 was 24.1% and Progressive's was a sky-high 33.2%, a differential that guaranteed Progressive could not match Allstate's prices. By last year Allstate had whittled its ratio to 23.6%. But Progressive had pulled off a near miracle, getting down to 22.4%, an improvement of nearly 11 percentage points.

然后，刘易斯引导 Progressive 进入一个重建这个残骸的时期，实现了一次转型，一位竞争对手说，“这让你意识到皮特有多么出色。” 保险公司通过“费用率”来衡量其效率，该比率表示运营成本（不包括索赔和相关费用）占已赚保费的百分比。1988 年，Allstate 的费用率为 24.1%，而 Progressive 的费用率高达 33.2%，这种差异确保了 Progressive 无法与 Allstate 的价格相匹敌。到去年，Allstate 已将其费用率削减至 23.6%。但 Progressive 几乎创造了一个奇迹，将其费用率降至 22.4%，改善了近 11 个百分点。

"We'll cut still more," says COO Marlow, a fanatic about details who brings reality to Lewis's claim of being a "good delegator." Marlow, a Harvard MBA, is also a rare bird at Progressive in that he is a survivor of a period in the late 1970s when Lewis was on a kick of bringing in dozens of graduates from top business schools and immediately flooding them with big responsibilities. Most of those MBAs have since left, many sacked by Lewis--their belated reward being that they have been able to read in Lewis's book precisely how they fell short. Lewis says, however, that the best of the MBAs are still around and that Marlow, for one, is a highly creative "genius."

“我们还会进一步削减，”首席运营官马洛说，他是一个对细节狂热的人，使刘易斯声称自己是一个“优秀的授权者”变得现实。马洛拥有哈佛大学的 MBA 学位，在 Progressive 公司中也是一个罕见的人物，因为他在 20 世纪 70 年代末期幸存下来，当时刘易斯热衷于从顶尖商学院招募数十名毕业生，并立即赋予他们重大责任。大多数 MBA 毕业生后来都离开了，许多人被刘易斯解雇——他们迟来的回报是能够在刘易斯的书中准确地读到他们是如何失败的。然而，刘易斯表示，最优秀的 MBA 仍然在公司，而马洛就是其中之一，他是一位极具创造力的“天才”。

So we have Lewis, who's creative, and Marlow, who's that plus detailish, and the combination has proven to be nothing short of spectacular, especially in the 1990s, when the two have teamed up to launch revolutionary programs aimed, oxymoronically, at bringing "delight" to the two most painful experiences of being an insurance customer: buying a policy and seeking resolution of a claim. It seems to be working (see box).

因此，我们有创意的刘易斯，还有既有创意又注重细节的马洛，这种组合被证明是非常出色的，尤其是在 1990 年代，当两人联手推出革命性计划时，矛盾地旨在为保险客户带来“愉悦”，解决购买保单和索赔这两种最痛苦的经历。看来这确实奏效了（见框）。

So where, with this wild card named Lewis, will it all lead? What will Progressive look like in the future--say, five years down the road? Lewis says the company will have remained primarily a personal-lines insurer, will probably have added homeowners' insurance to its line, and above all will have met its financial objectives. If Progressive does that, he says, "it will be because we have revolutionized auto insurance."

那么，这个名叫刘易斯的未知因素会把一切引向何方？未来的 Progressive 会是什么样子——比如说，五年后？刘易斯表示，公司将主要仍然是一家个人险公司，可能会在其产品线中增加房主保险，最重要的是将实现其财务目标。他说，如果 Progressive 做到这一点，“那将是因为我们彻底改变了汽车保险。”

Lewis himself has no retirement date in mind and shows signs of intending to stay CEO indefinitely. But the Progressive board, he says, would like to see some succession plans firmed up. He has thought about bringing in an outsider--including one executive, Richard Haverland, whom he fired 12 years ago. And within the company, he says, are maybe ten to 12 executives with the stuff to be CEO, including Marlow and at least one woman, Moira Lardakis, 43, president of the company's Ohio division. Lewis loves the idea of having a female prospect--"I'm an admirer of women in every sense of the word"--and exults generally over how good his CEO candidates are: "They are really --there are women in the group, so I can't say it-but one could say they are really studs."

刘易斯本人没有计划退休，并显示出打算无限期担任首席执行官的迹象。但他表示，Progressive 的董事会希望看到一些继任计划得到落实。他曾考虑过引入外部人士——包括一位他在 12 年前解雇的高管理查德·哈弗兰德。在公司内部，他表示，可能有十到十二位具备成为首席执行官潜质的高管，包括马洛和至少一位女性，43 岁的莫伊拉·拉达基斯，她是公司俄亥俄州分部的总裁。刘易斯喜欢有女性候选人的想法——“我在各个方面都钦佩女性”——并对他的首席执行官候选人的优秀表现感到兴奋：“他们真的——因为团队中有女性，所以我不能这么说——但可以说他们真的很出色。”

The whole subject, of course, raises a large question: Is Lewis essential to Progressive? Answering, his executives --those studs--are generous and convincing in their praise of Lewis, but argue unsurprisingly that he has built a Progressive culture that would endure if he were gone. One outsider who agrees is Francis Gouillart, senior vice president of Gemini Consulting, who has studied Progressive closely and believes that it has developed a team of executives who could keep the company moving briskly along the path Lewis has set.

当然，整个主题引发了一个大问题：刘易斯对 Progressive 是否至关重要？回答时，他的高管们——那些精英们——在赞美刘易斯时慷慨而有说服力，但毫不意外地辩称他已经建立了即使他不在也能持续的 Progressive 文化。一个同意的外部人士是Gemini咨询公司的高级副总裁弗朗西斯·古亚尔，他对 Progressive 进行了深入研究，并认为公司已经培养了一支能够沿着刘易斯设定的道路快速前进的高管团队。

Truthfully, it is unknowable whether Progressive could thrive without Lewis. He is linked inextricably and almost mystically to the company, just as the institutional investor suggested when he asked, "How's your health?" So Progressive's shareholders should just hope Lewis keeps swimming his mile a day. As for those other lifestyle things, the shareholders had better accept them or sell.

说实话，无法知道如果没有刘易斯，Progressive 是否能繁荣发展。他与公司有着不可分割且几乎神秘的联系，正如机构投资者在问“你的健康状况如何？”时所暗示的那样。因此，Progressive 的股东们应该希望刘易斯每天继续游一英里。至于其他生活方式的事情，股东们最好接受它们或者卖掉股票。

1995-08-07 Peter Lewis.SEX.REEFER? AND AUTO INSURANCE!

1995-08-07 Peter Lewis.SEX.REEFER? AND AUTO INSURANCE!

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