Our weekly round-up of the latest employment and company news involving the Massachusetts insurance industry
Promotions
The Hilb Group of New England Promotes Robert Calise
Mr. Calise Named President of Benefits Practices
Rob Miller, Regional Director for the Hilb Group of New England, is pleased to announce the appointment of Robert Calise as President of Benefit Practices for the region. Mr. Calise formerly served as the Managing Director for the Hilb Group’s Rhode Island enterprise where he oversaw their extensive employee benefits network.
He has particular expertise and experience working with mid-sized and larger organizations, and in designing benefit programs optimized to these businesses and their employees while ensuring cost containment.
Mr. Calise received his BS in Finance from Bryant University. He serves on the advisory boards of a number on the healthcare providers and is a member of both the National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU) and American Health Insurance Association (AHIA).
Mr. Calise can be reached at rcalise@hilbgroup.com or at 800.678.1700 ext 1117.
The Hilb Group of New England Promotes Joe Padula
Mr. Padula Named President of Property & Casualty Division
Rob Miller, Regional Director for the Hilb Group of New England, is pleased to announce the appointment of Joe Padula as President of Hilb’s Property & Casualty Division in the territory.
Mr. Padula formerly served as Managing Director for Property & Casualty in Rhode Island and has been a key contributor to the organization for more than 25 years. He has particular expertise and experience in the commercial middle market segment, and his holistic risk management approach helps clients to minimize their total cost of risk over the long-term.
He received his MBA from the Carroll Graduate School of Management at Boston College and holds both the Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) and Certified Risk Manager (CRM) designations from The National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research.
Mr. Padula can be reached at jpadula@hilbgroup.com or at 401-336-2120.
EverQuote Promotes Jayme Mendal to Chief Operating Officer
Cambridge-based Everquote, an online insurance marketplace in the U.S., has announced that Jayme Mendal, previously Chief Revenue Officer, has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer, effective immediately. In his new role, Mendal will oversee both distribution and consumer traffic operations, while continuing to report to Seth Birnbaum, CEO of EverQuote.
“Jayme has demonstrated an excellent ability to build, expand and lead an effective team to drive strong revenue growth across our auto, home, and life insurance verticals and establish deep relationships with partners,” said Seth Birnbaum, CEO of EverQuote. “We are excited for Jayme to take on an expanded role as COO of EverQuote as we continue to build the largest online insurance marketplace for consumers.”
Mr. Mendal served as EverQuote’s Chief Revenue Officer since 2017 and was responsible for managing EverQuote’s insurance provider network. Prior to EverQuote, he was the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at PowerAdvocate and a Growth Strategy Management Consultant at Monitor Group (Now Monitor Deloitte). Jayme has a B.S. in Finance and Economics from Washington University in St. Louis and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
“I am thrilled to be taking on an expanded role at EverQuote and I am excited about the Company’s future growth opportunities,” said Jayme Mendal. “I look forward to further developing an incredible team, building deeper partnerships with insurance providers, and scaling our traffic operations.”
Appointments
PMC Insurance Appoints Richard Skinner as Assistant Vice President
Bedford-based PMC Insurance has announced the hiring of Richard Skinner as Assistant Vice President for our staffing programs division: StaffPRO3. He will be responsible for growing new business nationwide and bringing additional depth to our already experienced StaffPRO3 team.
Richard brings more than two decades of staffing services and insurance brokerage experience to PMC. Specifically, building workers’ compensation programs for the staffing industry. He’s worked in various roles focused on the staffing services industry including underwriting, risk control/risk management, and business development. He previously worked as an Assistant VP for temporary staffing at Risk Placement Services (RPS).
Hiring Related News
Progressive Expects to Hire More Than 10,000 People in 2019 in its Biggest Hiring Year Ever
Progressive announced this year that it expects to hire more than 10,000 people in the coming year to support its rapid growth. The company has grown more than 50% in the last three years to $30 billion in revenue for 2018. Positions the company will offer include IT and analyst roles, corporate functions, customer care, and claims roles.
The following is a breakdown of the approximate number of positions expected to be filled at larger Progressive locations throughout the year:
- Austin, TX – 1,000 (customer service, sales, claims representatives, bilingual Spanish sales and customer service)
- Cleveland, OH – 2,000 (customer service, sales, multi-product sales, claims representatives, marketing, legal, IT, business analysis and more)
- Colorado Springs, CO – 1,100 (customer service, sales, IT)
- Phoenix, AZ – 375 (customer service, sales, bilingual Spanish customer service, and sales, claims representatives)
- Sacramento, CA – 380 (customer service, bilingual Spanish customer service and sales)
- Tampa, FL – 1,500 (customer service, sales, multi-product sales, claims representatives, bilingual Spanish sales and customer service)
- Over half of the jobs are based at larger Progressive campuses across the United States, with others located in Progressive field claims offices in more than 250 locations. There will also be work from home positions available in select locations for inbound sales positions, giving people who don’t live near a Progressive campus the opportunity to help customers from the comfort of their home.
“This is the largest hiring forecast in Progressive’s history,” said Chief Human Resources Officer, Lori Niederst. “We are excited to add hardworking talent to our team who are interested in a career with Progressive. For decades, we’ve been developing people who started in jobs like these into successful business athletes who rise to our leadership ranks. In fact, our CEO started as a Claims rep and I joined Progressive as an Analyst.”
These new hires will be eligible to participate in the company’s annual bonus plan. Progressive also offers eligible employees medical, dental, vision and life insurance benefits, as well as four weeks of paid parental leave for moms and dads – including same-sex partners, adoptive parents, and foster parents. Dedicated to employees’ professional success, Progressive also provides extensive training programs and career development resources.
And while Boston did not make the list above, Progressive is planning to do some hiring here as well. For starters, they have just posted a Marketing Sale Representative position on our job board, which you can view by clicking here.
