Before ascending to her current role as president of personal lines at Grange Insurance, Cheryl Lebens worked in several areas of the organization. She joined the company in 2012 in as AVP, sales strategy; was promoted to chief strategy officer in 2015; and again to chief risk and strategy officer in 2017. And she advises other leaders to work in various functional areas of their organizations.
"My biggest advice would be to get as much diverse experience as possible," she encourages. "Learn as much and as many different things as possible. I think it's important, especially as you move up in your career – the more different aspects of the business you can understand and have a perspective on gives you a well-rounded view of the business."
In her time at Grange, Lebens has cultivated a successful cultural pivot within the company, from a product-oriented focus to a more customer-centric strategy. She says that her approach to this shift in strategy started with an outward-in perspective from the customer's point-of-view.
"I think, historically, because we are so dedicated to the independent agency channel, [insurers] relied so much on the agent to be that front door to the customer with technology, with customer expectations," Lebens states. "But we can't ignore our connection to the customer. People don't necessarily think about things from a product perspective. They're thinking about risk. They're thinking about what they need to do to protect their assets."
She says that from an insurance organization's perspective, insurers should understand the needs of the customers and tailor products according to those needs – not the other way around, as is traditional in the industry. Developing advanced tools to better suit customer needs and provide custom solutions are critical to an organization's success. Lebens implemented technologies that optimize the company's systems and capabilities by streamlining processes to enhance the customer experience.
"It's about how we can tailor our products and our product development process to meet the needs of the customers. How do we better understand our customers? How do we understand how they think about risk?" says Lebens. "It's taking the outside-in view and really understanding the trends we're seeing and then the implications of that on our business to bring more value to customers, agents and our company."
Experiencing inflation and its effect on profitability has been a major challenge, according to Lebens.
"My role is rewarding. It's been an interesting time to take over personal lines when coming out of a pandemic, and then suddenly, inflation is taking off," she says. "Given inflation, the entire industry is underpriced and we've needed to take rate increases… We've been arming our agents with tools to help them educate customers on why their premium is changing and ensuring they are taking advantage of all eligible discounts to get the best price possible and hopefully stay with Grange."
Lebens notes that organizations may want to explore "the other levers that we have on the carrier side to be able to get us back to profitability in ways other than rate," and introduces the idea that utilizing data and advanced analytics will help "to really understand if are there certain
sub-segments of business that are driving a disproportionate share of your losses."
Lebens is also a member of the program Chief, a network exclusive to women leaders in C-Suite roles. The group meets monthly to network, discuss career or life changes, and receive guidance or coaching on various topics. Meeting and connecting with such a diverse, ambitious group of leaders presents valuable networking and learning opportunities, she says.
"It's a group that you start to bond with – none of us knew each other before, but they are that sounding board for you." shares Lebens. "It's so nice to have a group of women invested in your success."
