Riko C. Metzroth

Vice President of e-Business, Farmers, Los Angeles, United States

Why Zurich?

"Because of the opportunity to expand Personal Lines on the East Coast and Midwestern U.S.".

• Raised by German parents from Rudesheim am Rhein and Stettin, Pommern; speaks English and German; enjoys helping his three sons grow as solid citizens, teaching them to always put others ahead of themselves; has served on the Los Angeles March of Dimes Board for years.
• Graduated from Skidmore College with a B.S. in Biology/Psychology
• Has 29 years experience in the insurance industry in Underwriting and Product Management; started with Chubb & Son and then moved to Atlantic Mutual; had joint responsibility for agency development/production, as well as underwriting profitability.
• Since joining Zurich in October 1997 in Zurich Personal Insurance: Regional Vice President of Midwest and Mid-Atlantic States Farmers/LAHO; ZPI - Baltimore VP of Business Technology & Integration; VP of Sales; and VP of e-Business responsible for three web portals (the Agency and Employee Dashboards, and the consumer portal, Farmers.com).
• Significant projects: East Coast expansion for Farmers; original team leader on the creation of Agency Dashboard and e-Agent web processing; leader of the e-CMS customer management database project; expansion and enhancement to Farmers.com's FastQuote for online consumer quoting; 2008 redesign of Farmers.com and Customer Self Service functionality.
• Community involvement: at national level, automating and simplifying the Farmers fundraising process to help achieve record-breaking results; as a March of Dimes Board member, gets the word out to other large employers in the metropolitan area and so engages more walkers; is putting on special fundraisers in Los Angeles, closely tied to the entertainment industry so they can raise even more money; Board to host five events in 2007.

Why I'm still here?

"I can honestly say I've never seen a more collaborative environment both within Farmers, as well as between Farmers and Zurich".

Bottom line

"If I were interviewing you, I'd expect a commitment to excellent work and a focus on customer experience. Our job at Zurich/Farmers is to support agents on the front lines, and provide customers with a superior experience, via our agents as well as our services available on Farmers.com. You get out of life what you put into it".

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