Metromile Expands Leadership Team as It Continues to Shake Up Auto Insurance
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Metromile's Data Drivers Report: March 2022 Edition
By Jeff Rutledge, Metromile Senior Communications Manager and Data Geek
We compiled the latest telematics data from our six main metros in this report to compare and contrast the impact of weather, regulation, and local attitudes on driving patterns and quantify the money saved, accidents avoided, and emissions reduced as a result of driving less throughout the pandemic.
Introducing our Values: Create Fiercely Loyal Customers
We recently spent some time at Metromile refreshing our values to make sure they were aligned with who we are, the work we're doing, and the future we're building. The end result? Five updated value statements that express how we operate and treat each other:
- Create fiercely loyal customers.
- Invent the future
- Be intellectually persistent
- Be outcome oriented
- Nurture diversity, inclusion, and belonging
When we put our values in writing and commit to them, we're saying something about what's important to us as an organization, and what's important to our stakeholders, customers, and employees.
The best way to introduce our values is to let Metromilers speak for themselves. After all, values don't mean much without the people who believe in them.
Create Fiercely Loyal Customers
"My job is to understand people's needs and wants, what would make their experiences easier or better. Creating fiercely loyal customers is very much what I'm working on," said Brandie Smith, Senior Principal User Researcher. "I want to know how we can bridge business needs with user needs so that we're not just focused on the company, but we're also remembering that what we're doing is in service of improving the customer experience."
"Fiercely loyal" is a level of passion you wouldn't normally associate with insurance, Customer Experience (CX) Manager Ti-Jael Stafford said. "We actually want to create customers who love our insurance," she said. "We want the customers who'll blog or tweet about how great an experience they have with us, that's the kind of feeling we want to inspire."
This commitment to customer experience runs deep at Metromile, and spans departments, Ti-Jael said.
"I moved from supporting customers on the phone, up to digital support, and I am now a manager with a team of CX agents. I have seen this value play out from all sides and angles."
That customer-focused view goes beyond Metromilers who are directly engaging with customers.
"We are engineers who really care about customers and the product and the experience," said Senior Software Engineer Prachi Shah. "We want the tools to be easy-to-use, and more than that, enjoyable to use. We also have a very focused team who takes customer feedback and acts on it right away."
Whether it's a byproduct or a main goal, the drive to create fiercely loyal customers has a payoff in company culture as well.
"I've always loved that we call it a Customer Experience (CX) department rather than a service department. We all have the same capabilities, so when you call, you get help with whatever you need; you don't need to be transferred to a specialist," Ti-Jael Stafford said.
"We're not highly scripted. We're all equally capable, and so we're able to work together better. Even though CX can be at the bottom of the hierarchy at some companies, that's not the case here. I've never felt like I didn't have a voice. I think all our values—inventing the future and being intellectually persistent and being outcome oriented—these are the ways we're going to make sure we create these fiercely loyal customers. The values really build up to support our number one value, the customer."
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We're building a community of drivers who come to Metromile for the savings and stay for the experience. Our diverse team combines the best of Silicon Valley technologists with veterans from Fortune 500 insurers and financial services giants focused on using technology to reinvent insurance as a tool for financial resiliency.
Check out open positions at Metromile or give our pay-per-mile auto insurance a try by taking a free Ride Along™ trial from the Metromile app.
The road ahead: Metromile to join Lemonade
Metromile was founded with a simple premise: insurance tailored to you, the individual.
It's long been known that auto insurance is simply unfair to the majority of drivers. Drivers like you (and us!), who don't drive much get into fewer accidents, yet historically paid the same rates as high mileage drivers who get in most of the accidents. We believe your insurance should be based on your own driving, not everyone else's.
So from our earliest days, we've been laser focused on building the world's fairest insurance with pay-per-mile auto insurance. We're passionate about bringing far greater equitability to low mileage drivers, and we're proud of how far we've come in just ten short years.
Metromile today
Today, we have a loyal community of nearly 100k customers. We've proven that it is possible to offer high quality insurance at better rates than traditional carriers, along with an exceptional experience that supports drivers wherever the road takes them.
We love hearing from our customers — we read every review, social media comment and in-app feedback. We love that you love the features we've created like car health monitors and budget trackers, our technology that creates fast and simple interactions, our licensed in-house agents, and the savings you've racked up by not racking up miles. In fact, Metromile customers save 47% on average over what you were previously paying for insurance. But we're not ones to settle, so we're eager to do more for you.
Also, as word of mouth spreads, we often hear from drivers who are eager to switch to Metromile but can't because we aren't available in the state where they live. Or, a customer moves to a state where we're unavailable, and they are disappointed they can't keep their Metromile insurance.
That brings us to today's news
Lemonade is acquiring Metromile, and we're thrilled to embark on a new journey together. By joining forces with Lemonade we'll be able to accelerate the growth of the most customer-centric, fair, and affordable car insurance to millions of drivers throughout the US, well beyond our current eight state footprint.
We also expect to accelerate our ambitious plans that meet (and anticipate!) the needs of the modern driver. Some of the things at the top of our list:
- Creating more ways to bundle and save for homeowners and renters alike, along with pet owners, too (Lemonade's best-in-class homeowners, renters, and pet products are top-rated and loved by customers)
- Investing in our connected car technology to align with advances in auto safety and autonomous driving
- Taking the next big steps to reshape insurance pricing based on the individual, and moving away from unfair proxies
In short, we want to offer an even more delightful experience than anyone ever thought was possible in insurance. With Lemonade, we can make that happen.
We're not joining forces with just any insurer
Lemonade is cut from the same cloth as us. They've built a stellar reputation for renters, homeowners, pet, and life insurance with more than one million customers. They're a fully regulated public company, reinsured by some of the most trusted names on the planet, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange as LMND.
Like us, the Lemonade team is obsessed with customer satisfaction, savings, reliability, and a fast and simple digital experience.
We also love that Lemonade is a B-Corp and a public benefit corporation, which means the company meets a certain standard of performance indicators and social good metrics to balance profit and purpose. The company set on a mission to transform insurance from a necessary evil into a social good, and they certainly walk the talk — they donate what's leftover from claims' payouts to charities, in what's called the Lemonade Giveback. In 2021 alone, Lemonade gave more than $2 million to charities chosen by their customers (and planted nearly 200k trees!).
This is a unique opportunity to create value for our shareholders
Lastly, we believe this will be an excellent long-term outcome for our shareholders. Joining forces with Lemonade is a unique opportunity to position Metromile for exceptional growth, beyond what we believe would be achievable on our own over the same time period. As shareholders of the newly combined company, we will benefit from the advantages realized by bringing together Lemonade's one million subscribers, growth expertise and Metromile's distinctive competencies in auto insurance. data science, and claims automation. With a single brand, single platform, and unified team, we will be able to achieve faster scale, far more efficiently, realizing that value creation as Lemonade shareholders.
Beyond the core benefits of scale and efficiencies gained, Lemonade also presents our customers, old and new, with a single platform that addresses nearly all their insurance needs. Post-close, Metromile customers will be able to easily access home, renters, life, and pet insurance with a single brand and integrated digital experience. This has long been our North Star, and will help us more rapidly grow average customer lifetime value, which we believe will benefit us as Lemonade shareholders.
Finally, the combined entity will be well-capitalized with a strengthened balance sheet, ensuring we are fully resourced to achieve scale and profitability.
This transaction presents us an excellent opportunity for shareholder value creation as we build the future of insurance together with the Lemonade team. We could not be more excited about the upside ahead.
What's next
We believe that there are no two better companies that can come together to maximize insurance as a force for social good.
We're thrilled about the possibilities created by Metromile joining Lemonade and we hope you are too. We expect the deal will close sometime in 2022, so nothing is changing for the time being. Our customers won't notice any changes, and no action needs to be taken. We will continue to meet your car insurance needs, while delivering incredible service, coverage and rates.
In closing, we're reminded of one of our company values — "create fiercely loyal customers". It's core to who we are and the work we do, and we will remain unwavering in our commitment. We thank all of our customers for continuing to be part of our community. We look forward to the next stop on our journey together with Lemonade.
Introducing our Values: Invent the Future
We spent the spring and early summer months at Metromile refreshing our values to make sure they were aligned with who we are, the work we're doing, and the future we're building. The end result? Five updated value statements that express how we operate and treat each other:
- Create fiercely loyal customers.
- Invent the future
- Be intellectually persistent
- Be outcome oriented
- Nurture diversity, inclusion, and belonging
When we put our values in writing and commit to them, we're saying something about what's important to us as an organization, and what's important to our stakeholders, customers, and employees.
The best way to introduce our values is to let Metromilers speak for themselves. After all, values don't mean much without the people who believe in them.
Invent the Future
"I'm inventing the future with Metromile, but I'm also able to invent my own future and continue to build my experience and my knowledge base just to become a better employee here," Senior Process Manager Megan Kurin said. "It's very challenging at times. And more technical than what I've worked on in the past. And I love it. I love being challenged."
Megan is a self-described insurance geek, and her role is focused on helping enterprise customers—other insurance carriers—find solutions to improve claims organization, track mileage, tighten fraud processes, and more.
"My purpose at Metromile Enterprise is to drive an "innovation-first" roadmap with our enterprise customers. How can we come up with solutions that'll resolve issues before they even become a problem? That's what I think is really exciting."
It's easy to see that Megan loves her job. It's the focus on innovation and growth, she said, that gives her so much passion. "I'm always thinking about so many ideas. I actually had to start keeping an Excel spreadsheet," she said. "The ideas just keep coming to me!"
Customer Experience (CX) Manager Ti-Jael Stafford sees inventing the future as core to Metromile's business.
"I think many legacy or larger insurance companies think that insurance is simply a product that will always be needed, so they don't see much need for change or adaptation. Metromile's model of disrupting the insurance industry and inventing the future shows that they value what is to come over what has always been," she said. "Just because everyone who owns a car needs insurance doesn't mean they need the same insurance that their grandparents had 50 years ago."
Brandie Smith is a Senior Principal User Researcher and sees inventing the future playing out in her day-to-day work life.
"Invent the future, as well as two of our other values—be outcome oriented and be intellectually persistent—all relate to curiosity, exploration, openness. I see that in the open lines of communication around what product is working on, what CX is hearing. We have this regular feedback loop so that we can work on what CX is hearing, share improvements and so forth," she said. "Metromile is constantly thinking about how we can make insurance more fair and easier to use. Invent the future is a guidepost for our work."
Brandie is a Metromile veteran of several years, but Dan Wakefield, a Senior Content Designer who's new to the company, thinks about it along the same lines. "The great thing about inventing the future here is that everyone is onboard. Building something new and different takes a lot of ideation, and everyone I've worked with across the company gets just as excited about ideas as I do and works hard to push them forward. I'm blown away at how open and efficient the process has been compared to other places."
Introducing our Values: Be Intellectually Persistent
We spent the spring and early summer months at Metromile refreshing our values to make sure they were aligned with who we are, the work we're doing, and the future we're building. The end result? Five updated value statements that express how we operate and treat each other:
- Create fiercely loyal customers.
- Invent the future
- Be intellectually persistent
- Be outcome oriented
- Nurture diversity, inclusion, and belonging
When we put our values in writing and commit to them, we're saying something about what's important to us as an organization, but also what's important to our stakeholders, customers, and employees.
The best way to introduce our values is to let Metromilers speak for themselves. After all, values don't mean much without the people who believe in them.
Be Intellectually Persistent
"We obsessively ask why," said Senior Principal User Researcher Brandi Smith. "I really want to understand at a user level, what are the problems that they're having? Why is that a problem? Why do they ask for a particular solution?"
The desire to understand runs deep at Metromile. Intellectual persistence means not taking things at face value.
"As adults, we don't always hold onto the curiosity and persistence we had as kids. We assume that it's 'just always been like that' so it must be right," said Megan Kurin, a Senior Process Manager at Metromile. "We need to ask why and be persistent enough to know the answer inside and out. We need to try better ways and accept that just because something was always done one way doesn't mean it can't be done better another way."
That curiosity helps not just keep products up-to-date and customers happy, it drives Metromile's internal culture too.
"It's good to work with such smart engineers, product owners, people across the company they're very competitive in a way that encourages you," said Senior Software Engineer Prachi Shah. "They know what's going on in the industry, there are so many different perspectives. All of that is very creative, it stimulates your mind."
"Being intellectually persistent means you're not just checking tasks off of your to-do list, " said Senior Customer Experience Analyst Paige Gilmore. "You're thinking about what you're trying to accomplish longer term, you're ok with not succeeding 100% every time, and you're adjusting how you work based on results. Keeping this in mind makes us more likely to accomplish our best work."
No one at Metromile – or any company for that matter – sits down in front of their computer and thinks: Today, I'm going to be intellectually persistent. But at Metromile, that's part of our values because it's part of our culture. It comes from the great minds who work here, their commitment to improvement, innovation, and understanding.
Thanks for sharing your perspective, Metromilers. Look out for more on the other four values.
Welcome Kevin Rickard, Metromile's First CISO
We're excited to welcome Kevin Rickard to the team as our very first Chief Information Security Officer, or CISO. Kevin joins us with a deep security expertise, having built programs from the ground up for other consumer brands. Beyond his successes in the industry, Kevin spent six years in the Army Reserves, including a deployment to Afghanistan.
He'll now turn his focus to Metromile, safeguarding our consumer data and ensuring the trust of our many stakeholders, from employers to customers and many others.
The security landscape is complex and changes fast, and a CISO operates as both a technician—ensuring we're compliant with a number of complex sets of regulations—and a leader—educating every Metromiler on security practices and making clear the responsibility of each individual. "Our industry is highly regulated with fifty Departments of Insurance and States Attorneys General all with data protection rules, in addition to a number of state data privacy laws.. And as a public company we have additional requirements to adhere to," he said.
"Just as important, our customers and employees trust us with an enormous amount of personal data. As custodians of that data, we must ensure we have effective controls in place to protect this valuable commodity."
Kevin's excited to bring his leadership to a place that's shaking up the status quo, too.
"I never thought insurance could be exciting. I guess that's what makes an industry ripe for disruption. Metromile's ability to create a fair product that prices based more on actual, individual risk than perceived, group risk is appealing. I was especially drawn to the idea of minimizing, and eventually eliminating, credit scores from pricing, which often adversely impacts the most economically vulnerable."
"I'm a low-mileage driver since COVID, and my daughter will get her license soon, too, so I'm looking forward to becoming a Metromile customer." Add in a remote-friendly workplace, and a culture that's flexible and embraces change, and it was a good fit.
What's Kevin's number one security tip? Set up that password manager you've been dragging your feet on, and turn on multi-factor authentication! "We tend to reuse the same passwords or a set of rotating passwords. MFA adds another layer of security in the event our passwords are compromised," he shared.
Looking ahead, Kevin's goals are to build a crack security team that ensures a smooth and secure future. "My foundational principle is that security should enable the business. With the right team and controls in place, the company can achieve its objectives securely. There's no reason good security has to be a drag—security can move at the speed of our business."
Welcome, Kevin. We're thrilled to have you leading the way.
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By the way, Kevin is hiring! Take a look at our careers page for open roles on the security team and others.
Metromile Embraces No Meeting Days
Even before the Covid-19 pandemic and the shift to work from home, meetings could overwhelm a typical workday and prevent individual time to think and focus. Now, remote work has only exacerbated the problem for employees and led to "Zoom fatigue" and burnout across the country.
To help address this problem, Metromile's People team instituted a few No Meeting Days (NMDs) during Mental Health Awareness Month in May. Metromile employees reacted with overwhelming support of NMDs. Accounting Manager, Romain Bauer, says that the NMDs offered him "a break from Zoom and time to focus on work without too many distractions."
Positive employee feedback spurred the People team to formally establish NMDs on the first and third Friday of every month. On these Fridays, "employees are given the autonomy and flexibility to choose what they want to do with their time, instead of structuring their days around company or team meetings," Lindsay Orr, Director of People, explains.
Lindsay outlined how having a company-wide initiative lets employees prioritize what is important to them during their workday. That might be going on a walk in the middle of the day, spending extra time preparing lunch, taking a deep dive into a project without interruption, or having a social catch-up with colleagues.
Having pre-set NMDs allows people to plan ahead and encourages employees to take that day off if they prefer, without feeling like they will miss out on anything – whether key team events or company-wide meetings. These days also give employees time to focus on their mental health and offer a day to reset before the next work week.
Brandon Loyd, Director of Product Management, uses NMDs to catch up on product requirement documents and look ahead at upcoming roadmap items. For Brandon, these days are also a reminder that Zoom meetings are not always the best way to communicate or collaborate with others. "I often find myself resolving open questions and making decisions much faster through internal wiki pages or Slack," Brandon explains.
While NMDs are designed to encourage more reflection, focus, and reset time, our customer experience and sales teams are still available as usual on these days to support our customers and prospects. As part of our effort to ensure that all employees – including our customer-facing teams – have time to reset, all Metromilers now have two additional floating holidays to use at their discretion.
Shannon Shafer, Director of Customer Experience, said one of the things she loves about Metromile is how much the company supports inclusivity, regardless of role or title.
"As a long-time CX leader, I'm passionate about ensuring the productivity and wellbeing of everyone on my team. My leaders have let me know they love the NMDs, and the floating holidays have really been a boost to our customer-facing team members."
Metromilers are regularly reminded of NMDs but, of course, can still schedule time that day if they want to catch up with their teams, socialize, or reflect on their week with others. As Lindsay highlights, "the goal is to give employees the freedom and space to choose how they want to spend their workday – whatever that is."
Introducing our Values: Be Outcome Oriented
We spent the spring and early summer months at Metromile refreshing our values to make sure they were aligned with who we are, the work we're doing, and the future we're building. The end result? Five updated value statements that express how we operate and treat each other:
- Create fiercely loyal customers.
- Invent the future
- Be intellectually persistent
- Be outcome oriented
- Nurture diversity, inclusion, and belonging
When we put our values in writing and commit to them, we're saying something about what's important to us as an organization, but also what's important to our stakeholders, customers, and employees.
The best way to introduce our values is to let Metromilers speak for themselves. After all, values don't mean much without the people who believe in them.
Be Outcome Oriented
Brandie Smith, Senior Principal User Researcher, has been around long enough to see former versions of Metromile's values. "Be outcome oriented" in particular, she said, represents a "mind shift" for Metromile.
"I think it's going to set us up on a really helpful path. It offers much more flexibility to make adjustments if we need to rather than just stay the course to get it done," Brandie said. "It's not so much about what we're building; it's more about how we're solving the problem to get the outcome we desire."
Customer Experience (CX) Manager Ti-Jael Stafford advanced her career with the customer service team during her time with Metromile, and it's given her historical context for how Metromile's values have evolved over the years. When Ti-Jael started as a CX Representative more than three years ago, Metromile had a firm "penalty miles" policy that didn't allow as much flexibility for customers. The process was updated to be more tailored and fair, and eventually, the Pulse device was updated to better prevent penalty miles from being applied to a customer's account at all.
"The old policy was enforced mostly through an automated process, and updating it involved changing how we connected with the customer, and eventually the device itself. It would have been easier to only update the policy without changing the device itself," she said. "But being outcome oriented means that we value and prioritize follow-through, not empty promises or half-finished projects. It's not enough to have a great idea and create a plan, that plan must be executed and completed. And in this case, it was a big win for our customers."
Senior People Operations Manager, April Slater says it speaks to confidence in each other and the process. "This value shows a lot of trust in the people and managers we hire. It focuses on the outcome, not the tasks that get us there—so we know it's ok to make mistakes as long as we learn from them and ultimately get to the outcome we're looking for."
Senior Process Manager Megan Kurin sees being outcome oriented as propelling Metromile's other values forward.
"We have to have those end goals in mind every day when we're making decisions," Megan said. "It's just all woven together."
Thanks for sharing your perspective, Metromilers. Want to read more? Check out what Metromilers share about our Nurture Diversity, Inclusivity, and Belonging value, and look out for more on the other values soon.
Welcome Adam Harrington, VP, Marketing
We're excited to welcome Adam Harrington on board as our new VP, Marketing on the Growth team, where he'll be leading the teams that catapult our community of happy drivers into its next phase of growth.
Adam joins us from the east coast—he's a born and raised Bostonian—and is an insurance veteran, joining us from a large insurance carrier where he built key marketing functions from the ground up.
Why Metromile? "The insurance industry has gone practically unchanged for decades and Metromile is challenging the status quo with their pay-per-mile model. I had written out my vision for the next phase of my career and I wanted to work for a company that's building a customer-first, digitally native product. It feels good to market a product that gives customers peace of mind and a fair, flexible price."
The chance to work on a car insurance product that's priced for the changing world excites Adam. There's no reason for insurance to stay the same.
We asked Adam what convinced him to make the switch. "I believe in Metromile's product philosophy. And when you believe in a product, you believe you can help it grow. We know our style of insurance can be sold profitably—it's just a matter of getting it in the hands of more drivers."
"There's an opportunity to make auto insurance less commoditized, more personalized. And by doing that we create fairer pricing for everybody that's based on their true behavior."
The chance to work on a product that's fair and flexible means a lot to Adam, especially when that flexibility can transform what often feels like a legally obligated bummer into something better, or actually delightful. In a changing world, it's actually possible to really like your insurance and your insurer.
His impression so far? "The team is incredibly talented and I'm excited to dig in. Everyone believes that Metromile is making the world better, and is working towards a shared vision. They truly care about the customer."
We asked Adam about his vision for marketing at Metromile. "Create a brand that our employees and customers are proud of, and that meets drivers where they want to do business with us."
Here's to bringing that vision to life, Adam. Welcome on board!
Introducing our Values: Nurture Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging
We spent the spring and early summer months at Metromile refreshing our values to make sure they were aligned with who we are, the work we're doing, and the future we're building. The end result? Five updated value statements that express how we operate and treat each other:
- Create fiercely loyal customers.
- Invent the future
- Be intellectually persistent
- Be outcome oriented
- Nurture diversity, inclusion, and belonging
When we put our values in writing and commit to them, we're saying something about what's important to us as an organization, but also what's important to our stakeholders, customers, and employees.
The best way to introduce our values is to let Metromilers speak for themselves. After all, values don't mean much without the people who believe in them.
Nurture Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging
"I've never worked at a company that is so involved in making sure that there is equality across the board…that there are women represented in leadership, that there are other backgrounds represented in leadership."
Megan Kurin is a Senior Process Manager at Metromile. She works with Enterprise customers – often other insurers – who are interested in licensing Metromile's technology. Megan works across a wide variety of departments and outside organizations, and is a self-described 'insurance geek.'
"Metromilers really do look at people from the work product that they do versus who they are," Megan said. "I think that's really important, especially as a woman in the insurance industry, I feel like I can always belong. I feel like I could always speak up and have a voice."
For Brandie Smith, a Senior Principal User Researcher at Metromile, the belonging part of diversity, inclusion, and belonging stands out.
"The company found it so important to create environments where everyone feels like they belong. That to me is really important to commit to as a company value because if it's not happening, we can point to that value and say, 'it needs to happen.'"
Brandie also appreciates that everyone is held accountable for living our diversity, inclusion, and belonging value." Rather than leaving it up to one person to fight against it, we have this stake in the ground. It shows it's important to us and we expect everybody to contribute."
Having that stake in the ground is key, Megan said, not just as a company goal, but as a part of daily work.
"There are always groups that are driving more conversations about it. It's easier because it's just present every day. I don't always have to be thinking, 'okay, how do we get more women in leadership'? Or 'how do we get more backgrounds in leadership'? We have a team that consistently works to make sure it stays that way and that we continue to get better and learn more."
For Kailee Rackham-Wojtasek, a Customer Experience Trainer at Metromile, it's clear that diversity, inclusion, and belonging are central to Metromile's culture.
"We are a united front. I've worked at a lot of places which profess to have strong culture and values, but there is no company-wide alignment on those values. I never have any doubt that I can reach out to a Metromiler with my questions or curiosities."
Metromile Recruiter Brigitte Garay agrees, saying "Because we understand the value that everyone brings regardless of age, race, sexual orientation etc., nurturing, diversity, inclusion, and belonging is who we are daily."
"It's literally in the fabric of being a Metromiler"
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Thanks for sharing your perspective, Metromilers. Look out for more on the other four values.
Source: https://www.metromile.com/blog/category/metromile-news/
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