- Payment flexibility for those who need it.
- Provide coverage under Personal Auto policies when a covered person uses their personal vehicle in the usually excluded business activity of delivering food, groceries, and/or pharmacy items.
- Through June 1, 2020, in most cases, when we are made aware that COVID-19 has created an economic hardship for a policyholder, we are not cancelling policies due to the policyholder being unable to pay or if the policyholder has an expired driver’s license that cannot currently be renewed. In addition, through June 1, we will not be canceling Commercial Lines policies due to non-payment of premium.
- In recognition of the fact that many businesses may find the current situation an ideal time to engage employees in safety training, through June 30, 2020, Western National policyholders can now rent up to eight videos a month from our Free Safety Video Program. (Streaming and DVD options are both available.) Policyholders can also purchase videos at an additional discount.
These represent just a handful of the actions we are taking on behalf of our customers during the current COVID-19 situation. For the original announcements and complete lists of actions being taken, you can view our personal lines bulletin here and our commercial lines bulletin here.
We remain committed to working with our policyholders, agency partners, and employees to get through these challenges together.
Agency Partners – As we’ve recently wrapped up the first quarter of 2020 – which has certainly taken a different shape globally than any of us anticipated, though we ultimately remain both prepared and able to successfully weather it, while at the same time continuing to deliver on all our promises to customers – I wanted to share with you a few key thoughts on our start to the year and where we’re headed next.
Let’s begin with the topic that is on the top of most people’s minds right now: the COVID-19 situation. As COVID-19 continues to impact daily business operations across the country, we have been evaluating several options to ensure that our customers’ Western National obligations do not pose an undue burden during this difficult and uncertain time. Over the past few months, we have put into place many actions, including the following:
- Premium Relief in the amount of 15% on Personal Auto policyholders’ premiums for April and May.
Through March 31, 2020, written premium for our Group (not including affiliate Michigan Millers) is at $187.5 million — which is about where we aimed to be after the first few months of the year. Our loss ratio is 54.0% (vs. goal of 55.6%), our loss adjustment expense ratio is 10.0% (vs. goal of 10.3%), and our underwriting expense ratio is 30.1% (vs. goal of 29.4%) — adding up to a combined ratio of 94.1%. While this puts us generally “on track” relative to our annual plan, it’s still early in the year, and we do not yet know what the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will be. It’ll take continued flexibility, hard work, and quality underwriting from our employees and agency partners to achieve our year-end goals.
Finally, I am very pleased to re-share the news that we have appointed Richard (Rick) Long as President of Western National Insurance Group. Rick joined Western National in 2010 as Senior Vice President of Claims and has been President of affiliate Michigan Millers Mutual Insurance Company since 2016. Prior to joining Western National Insurance Group, Rick served as Senior Vice President of Claims for Farm Family Casualty Insurance Company, having worked his way up in the company since 1984.
This well-deserved promotion of Rick is the result of his leadership success at Western National over the last decade and at Michigan Millers over the last several years. Splitting the CEO and the President role serves as the next step in my own succession plan. I will spend the next year preparing our new President to assume the role of President and CEO, after which time I will retire from active involvement in the companies and their operations. I plan on continuing in the service of our employees, agents, and policyholders by remaining on the Board of Directors of the Mutual Company once this transition is completed.
I am confident in Rick’s ability to lead our group of companies into the next phase of its success, and I hope you will join me in congratulating Rick on this new and very important role. I suspect you will be hearing from him soon in future editions of this publication and other forums with Western National.
