2012-06-25 Peter Lewis.Progressive Thinker

Refer To：《Peter Lewis: Progressive Thinker》。

No other company is as aptly named as Progressive Insurance, which for the last 50 years under the leadership of Peter Lewis has been remarkably ahead of the insurance-industry curve in implementing game-changing business practices.

没有哪家公司像 Progressive Insurance（进步保险）那样名副其实，在过去 50 年里，在彼得·刘易斯的领导下，该公司在实施改变游戏规则的商业实践方面一直显著领先于保险行业。

Perhaps the most important innovation for which Lewis can be credited will come as something of a shock to anyone who has been in the industry less than 25 years: customer service.

也许可以归功于 Lewis 的最重要创新对于在行业中工作不到 25 年的人来说会有些震惊：客户服务。

"Peter Lewis has done more than anyone else to change the relationship insurance companies have with their clients from an antagonistic one to one focused on service," says Cliff Gallant, an analyst and managing director at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods who has been following Progressive for nearly 20 years.

“彼得·刘易斯在改变保险公司与客户的关系方面比任何人都做得更多，从对立关系转变为以服务为中心的关系，”克里夫·加兰特说，他是 Keefe, Bruyette & Woods 的分析师兼董事总经理，近 20 年来一直在关注 Progressive 公司。

Prior to the late 1980s, policyholders in need were at best ignored by carriers, which relied on their agents to handle customer interactions; at worst, claimants were treated more as latent criminals than premium-paying clients.

在 20 世纪 80 年代末之前，有需要的保单持有人在最好的情况下被保险公司忽视，这些公司依赖其代理人处理客户互动；在最坏的情况下，索赔人被视为潜在的罪犯，而不是支付保费的客户。

"Customers detested our industry, including Progressive," Lewis tells NU. This hatred culminated in 1988 in the punishing Proposition 103 in California, which required insurers to cut rates by 20 percent across the board.

“客户厌恶我们的行业，包括 Progressive，”Lewis 告诉 NU。这种仇恨在 1988 年加利福尼亚的惩罚性 103 号提案中达到顶峰，该提案要求保险公司全面降价 20%。

This financially devastating mandate—and fears of similar legislation spreading across the land—lit the proverbial light bulb over Lewis' head: providing quality service could give Progressive a huge competitive edge. From that moment on, Lewis became "committed to the customer at an increasingly psychopathic level—and boy, has that approach paid off," he says.

这种在财务上具有破坏性的命令——以及对类似立法在全国蔓延的恐惧——在刘易斯的脑海中点亮了一个象征性的灯泡：提供优质服务可以为 Progressive 带来巨大的竞争优势。从那一刻起，刘易斯变得“以越来越偏执的程度致力于客户——天哪，这种方法确实奏效了，”他说。

Among the many customer-focused firsts: a customer-service phone line staffed 24/7; "concierge" claims service, which handles every detail of a client's car repair from start to finish; and emergency-response vehicles that travel to accident sites.

在众多以客户为中心的创新中：提供 24/7 服务的客户服务热线；“礼宾”理赔服务，处理客户汽车维修的每一个细节，从开始到结束；以及前往事故现场的应急响应车辆。

"We promised an immediate response—by which we meant immediate: within hours or even minutes," Lewis says. "We recognized that accidents are a harrowing time for claimants, and we added to our set of responsibilities not only paying properly and in a timely manner but making the process as easy and speedy as possible—reducing the trauma."

“我们承诺立即响应——我们的意思是立即：在几小时甚至几分钟内，”刘易斯说。“我们认识到事故对索赔人来说是一个痛苦的时刻，我们增加了我们的责任，不仅要及时和正确地支付，还要尽可能简化和加快流程——减少创伤。”

The industry-bucking investment in service transformed the company: "Deciding to make the promise was hard enough; delivering on it was really hard," Lewis remembers with a laugh. Barely cracking the Top 100 list of P&C companies in 1979, by 1992 Progressive was the country's largest writer of auto insurance through independent agents.

在服务方面的逆势投资改变了公司：“做出承诺已经够难的了；兑现承诺真的很难，”刘易斯笑着回忆道。1979 年，几乎未能进入财产与意外险公司前 100 名榜单，到 1992 年，Progressive 已成为通过独立代理商销售汽车保险的全国最大公司。

"The industry was marching in lockstep in a straight-line direction. We began a process of forking off the road, and no one followed," says Lewis. "As we did this, we began to grow faster and more profitably than any other company. After seven to eight years, everyone began to catch up, and now everyone has their version of this approach to customer service."

“这个行业一直在齐步走，沿着一条直线前进。我们开始走上岔路，没有人跟随，”刘易斯说。“当我们这样做时，我们开始比任何其他公司增长得更快、更有利可图。七到八年后，大家开始赶上，现在每个人都有他们自己的客户服务方法。”

"Concierge claims service is just one example of a very groundbreaking move started by Progressive that has become common industry practice now," Gallant agrees.

“礼宾理赔服务只是由 Progressive 公司开创的一个非常突破性的举措的一个例子，现在已成为行业的普遍做法，”Gallant 同意道。

In addition to reshaping the customer-service landscape, Lewis can take credit for initiating another seismic industry shift: selling policies directly online.

除了重塑客户服务领域外，刘易斯还可以因发起另一场行业巨变而受到赞誉：直接在线销售保单。

In quick succession, Progressive became the first auto-insurance group to launch a website (1995), to offer rate comparisons online (1996) and then the big breakthrough: In 1997, Progressive laid claim to being the first insurer to give consumers the ability to buy an auto-insurance policy in real time online (motorcycles and boats followed in 1999).

迅速地，Progressive 成为首个推出网站的汽车保险集团（1995 年），提供在线费率比较（1996 年），然后是重大突破：在 1997 年，Progressive 声称成为首个让消费者能够实时在线购买汽车保险的保险公司（摩托车和船只在 1999 年紧随其后）。

While independent agents always were—and still remain—vital to Progressive's distribution strategy, the direct-online purchasing model marked the start of a severe cut in the amount of Personal Auto insurance written by independents, as other insurers—and buyers—followed Progressive online.

虽然独立代理一直是并且仍然是 Progressive 分销战略的重要组成部分，但直接在线购买模式标志着独立代理撰写的个人汽车保险数量大幅减少的开始，因为其他保险公司和买家也跟随 Progressive 转向在线。

The disintermediation of the independent agent is a fate Lewis says he saw coming a long time ago.

独立代理人的去中介化是刘易斯很久以前就预见到的命运。

"In the first big industry speech I gave—45 years ago—I predicted the end of the independent-agent business and all the reasons why it was going to happen," he relates. "I was right; the only problem is my time horizon. It won't happen in my lifetime. The independent agent today has something to offer and still produces over half our business. They are more efficient in certain circumstances than a direct writer can be, and there is something about auto insurance that makes people like having an agent in between them and [their carrier]. But it's irrational to think they can survive forever; shopping online is just so much easier. I wouldn't invest in an independent agency."

“在我 45 年前发表的第一次大型行业演讲中，我预测了独立代理业务的终结以及所有导致这一结果的原因，”他表示。“我说对了；唯一的问题是我的时间预期。这不会在我有生之年发生。今天的独立代理商有其独特的价值，仍然为我们贡献了超过一半的业务。在某些情况下，他们比直接承保商更有效率，而且在汽车保险方面，人们喜欢在自己和保险公司之间有一个代理商。但认为他们能永远生存下去是不理性的；网上购物实在是太方便了。我不会投资于独立代理机构。”

Lewis' early embrace of the Web is far from his only technological innovation. Given the critical role that data analysis plays today at insurers, it's hard to imagine that wasn't always the case. But Lewis, a self-described "data freak," was instrumental in introducing the use of predictive modeling to better select and price risks.

刘易斯对网络的早期拥抱远非他的唯一技术创新。考虑到数据分析在当今保险公司中扮演的关键角色，很难想象过去并非如此。但自称为“数据狂”的刘易斯在引入预测建模以更好地选择和定价风险方面发挥了重要作用。

In 1991, for example, Progressive became the first auto-insurance group to use consumers' credit histories, in select states, to develop more accurate policy premiums. And then in 2004, Progressive took the lead in telematics, unveiling its TripSense usage-based program.

例如，1991 年，Progressive 成为首个在特定州使用消费者信用记录来制定更准确保费的汽车保险集团。然后在 2004 年，Progressive 在远程信息处理方面领先，推出了其基于使用的 TripSense 计划。

"When we realized the power of data, we reorganized all our systems to make all that information manageable and available to a lot of very smart people," Lewis says. "We are driven by numbers; we measure everything. If there's a problem we can't measure [at first], we figure it out fast."

“当我们意识到数据的力量时，我们重新组织了所有系统，使所有信息都能被许多非常聪明的人管理和获取，”刘易斯说。“我们以数字为驱动；我们衡量一切。如果有一个我们最初无法衡量的问题，我们会迅速找出解决办法。”

While Lewis takes credit for "conceiving and driving" many of these "adventuresome advances in technology," he also notes "there are lots of heroes in the history of our company."

虽然刘易斯将许多这些“大胆的技术进步”归功于自己“构思和推动”，但他也指出“在我们公司的历史中有很多英雄。”

And indeed, another way in which Lewis has profoundly influenced the industry is his approach to hiring. "I was recruiting early on at the business schools of Harvard, Northwestern, Dartmouth and Stanford—and there were no other P&C or life companies around. We were the only insurance company to hire from these schools—and the only one to pay them what seemed an outrageous amount to our competitors. Our management culture has always been more like an investment bank than an insurance company," says Lewis, who notes with a great deal of pride that, by his count, 25-30 Progressive alumni have gone on to become CEOs of other carriers.

事实上，刘易斯对行业产生深远影响的另一种方式是他的招聘方法。“我早期在哈佛、西北大学、达特茅斯和斯坦福的商学院招聘——当时没有其他财产险或人寿保险公司在这些地方招聘。我们是唯一一家从这些学校招聘的保险公司，也是唯一一家支付给他们的薪酬在竞争对手看来是天价的公司。我们的管理文化一直更像是一家投资银行，而不是一家保险公司，”刘易斯说，他非常自豪地指出，据他统计，有 25-30 名 Progressive 的校友后来成为了其他保险公司的首席执行官。

But of all his personnel moves, Lewis singles out the selection of his replacement. "I thought about this for a long time before our interview, and the greatest thing I did for Progressive: I orchestrated a brilliant succession. I was good as a CEO; [current CEO] Glenn Renwick is better."

但在他所有的人事变动中，刘易斯特别提到选择他的接班人。“在我们面试之前，我考虑了很长时间，我为 Progressive 做的最伟大的事情是：我策划了一次出色的继任。我作为 CEO 很出色；[现任 CEO]格伦·伦威克更出色。”

Gallant concurs with Lewis' assessment. "Given the length of Lewis' tenure, it was a remarkably smooth transition—really a case study for how to get it right."

加兰特同意刘易斯的评估。“考虑到刘易斯任期的长短，这次过渡非常顺利——确实是一个如何做对的案例研究。”

Summing up the indelible mark Lewis has left on insurance, Gallant says: "He changed what had long been a staid industry to one where innovations are both common and necessary."

总结刘易斯在保险业留下的不可磨灭的印记，加兰特说：“他改变了一个长期以来沉闷的行业，使创新变得既普遍又必要。”

Asked to predict the future for P&C insurance, Lewis gives a poignant answer: "We'll see the gradual end of auto accidents. This is starting to happen now. Progressive's mission statement is to reduce the human trauma and economic cost of auto accidents, and if the ultimate outcome is they don't happen anymore, we will have succeeded."

当被要求预测财产和意外险的未来时，刘易斯给出了一个深刻的回答：“我们将逐渐看到汽车事故的终结。这种情况现在已经开始发生。Progressive 的使命宣言是减少汽车事故带来的人类创伤和经济成本，如果最终结果是事故不再发生，我们就成功了。”

2012-06-25 Peter Lewis.Progressive Thinker

2012-06-25 Peter Lewis.Progressive Thinker

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