John K. Smith, President & CEO
Pennsylvania Lumbermens Mutual Insurance Company (PLM) enjoyed a very good year in 2017, producing an underwriting profit and an operating profit that grew our surplus to just a bit more than $149 million. Our premium volume grew to more than $230 million, while we enjoyed a loss ratio of 64.4 percent and an expense ratio of 30.9 percent. At the same time, admitted assets achieved an all-time high of $540.9 million. We were very pleased with these strong numbers and overall performance.
This past year has seen our new business soar to record heights as over 550 wood related businesses decided to join the PLM family. These new accounts generated in excess of $20 million of new premium. Further, and perhaps more importantly, our ability to retain current clients shattered expectations with roughly 90 percent of our current policy holders choosing to renew their coverage with PLM during the year. Both accomplishments are testaments in our minds to the faith and confidence that our current clients and new customers are placing in PLM.
This past year was not without changes in the wood related market place. One super-regional insurance company continued to non-renew its book of pallet business, while another national company that jumped into the wood niche only four years ago chose to begin non-renewing its book of non-related business.
Just before Christmas, PLM came to an agreement with a managing general agent that chose to replace their “non-admitted market” with PLM. The new arrangement will bring an additional 200 accounts generating an additional $5 plus million in premium to the PLM family in 2018. This should be a win-win for all parties involved as our goal is to match the terms and conditions on this business with these insureds. We were also able to bring on three members of the MGA’s team to help smooth the transition of the business. Additionally, we will upgrade the “paper” for these policies from non-admitted to admitted.
During the year, we continued to roll out our Employee Practices Liability Coverage (EPLI), thus broadening our policies in states where this form has been approved. We were happy to be able to do this at a relatively minor cost to our policyholders. One only needs to read today’s papers to understand the need for this type of coverage.
Further, we were pleased that, effective Jan. 1, 2018, we began rolling out our Cyber Liability and Data Breach Coverage, in states where it has been approved.
Today, with these additions to coverage, the value of the PLM relationship has once again increased. Though many will say they don’t need these particular coverages, the reality is in today’s world we all need them. It is our expectation that these coverages will be expanded to all states once state insurance departments approve them.
On a separate note, we have once again kicked off our trade show program. This year, we will continue to seek out venues that allow us to interact with both insureds and to a greater extent than in the past current and potential brokers. In fact, a significant change in our approach to our trade shows in 2018 will be the addition of over 50 “rural and small broker” shows. For these shows specifically, we have invited our younger teammates to represent PLM in an effort to more broadly spread the word about PLM, our offerings, our approach to doing business and our ability to create value for brokers and insureds alike.
On the succession planning front, Steve Firko, senior vice president of field operations will rotate into a claims leadership position, thus, providing him an opportunity to gain a more complete understanding of that area of our organization. Mr. Firko will be mentored in this role by Fran Santoro, our long-time vice president of claims. The rotation that we did last year involving William Johnson, vice president of underwriting, has paid significant dividends, as Mr. Johnson has led our entire underwriting staff to drive up our large account retention, while writing quite a few new large accounts and rounding out coverage. His service as a mentor to new members of the underwriting leadership team has also been valuable.
In other staff changes, we said goodbye to our senior vice president of IT, Joe McGurrin who joined PLM in the early 1980’s and retired last year after spending his whole career within our IT operation. He did a simply splendid job and was the architect of our new systems platform that we implemented over the past five years.
Joe has been replaced by Erin Selfe (eselfe@plmins.com, 267-825-9266), who will guide the last piece of our new platform – a new business intelligence tool. The goal is to put this in place this year before we begin refreshing and updating the various components of our systems platform. She will also focus heavily on cyber security related efforts.
With Mr. Firko rotating from field operations, I will step into a more active role as the three field operations managers will report directly to me. This will give them the opportunity to experience a different style of leadership and hopefully assist them in continuing to grow in their careers.
It is clear to me that the future looks bright indeed for PLM, with our insureds enjoying a better economy, the housing market continuing to perk upward, and business conditions in general seemingly continuing to improve in most regions throughout the United States.
I look forward to your questions and comments.
