A focus on customer service brings many rewards

WORKING THE CORE: Amica Mutual Insurance Chairman, President and CEO Robert A. DiMuccio brings every aspect of the insurer's operations - technology, approach, people - back to making customer service its highest priority. / PBN PHOTOS/ MICHAEL SALERNO
WORKING THE CORE: Amica Mutual Insurance Chairman, President and CEO Robert A. DiMuccio brings every aspect of the insurer's operations - technology, approach, people - back to making customer service its highest priority. / PBN PHOTOS/ MICHAEL SALERNO

“Amica’s folks always go back to our core values,” said Robert A. DiMuccio, chairman, president and CEO of Amica Mutual Insurance Co. Those core values are embodied in the Lincoln-based company’s mission: “To create peace of mind and build enduring relationships.”
“We have more than 3,300 [employees] … and they all understand that our customers are our top priority,” said DiMuccio, who joined Amica in 1991 as a vice president in the accounting department. He then held a number of increasingly senior positions before being named president and CEO in 2005. In 2008, he was elected chairman. Before joining Amica, he worked for 12 years at KPMG Peat Marwick, where he became a partner. He earned an undergraduate degree in accounting from Providence College and, later, the chartered property casualty underwriter and the certified public accountant designations.
“We hire people who are empathetic, service-oriented and relate well to others,” DiMuccio continued. “We put a lot of time into training to instill the highest level of customer service and empower our employees to do the right thing for a customer.”
Such training and empowerment is clearly paying off. Amica reported $1.7 billion in premiums earned in 2013, a 6.3 percent increase over premiums earned in 2012, while more than doubling net income to $149.5 million. Driving those numbers is Amica’s focus on the customer.
Amica was one of only 50 U.S. companies – five of which were insurance companies – to be named a J.D. Power Customer Champion in 2014 for service excellence. Also this year, the company earned the highest customer satisfaction score among homeowner insurers in the J.D. Power U.S. Household Insurance Study, as it had for the past 12 years. Consumer Reports magazine’s homeowners and auto insurance studies also give top marks to Amica’s customer-satisfaction outcomes.
Many Amica employees have been with the company for 20, 30 or 40 years, noted DiMuccio. “That’s a benefit. … They’re passing on the culture and the values embedded in the company.”
While he considers communication and collaboration significant components of leadership, he said, “Sometimes, I have to stand alone and make hard decisions. I try to make them in good faith and to explain the reasons. … If people know why you’re doing something, they’re apt to follow.”
DiMuccio communicates with employees through “good news” messages and quarterly updates, which draw employees more closely together, wrote nominator Jill Andy, an Amica senior vice president. DiMuccio replies to hundreds of letters and emails from customers describing their claims and service experiences and holds regular town meetings with employee groups at corporate headquarters and at 43 branch offices across the nation. He encourages employees to ask the tough questions, wrote Andy, who added, “They are rewarded with a day off for being the first to do so.”
Asked how he believes the Amica board would describe him, DiMuccio said that they might think he might talk a bit too much. Nevertheless, DiMuccio mentors not with words, but by deeds.
Asserting that people pay more attention to what you do than what you say, he gratefully acknowledged his early mentors. “Coming up, I made more mistakes than I want to admit, but I had some great mentors who let me make mistakes … in the background.”
At corporate headquarters, where he waits his turn in the cafeteria’s lunch line, people behind him are often surprised to learn that he’s quietly paid for their meal, Andy wrote.
The extraordinary velocity of change in the marketplace presents both challenges and opportunities, said DiMuccio. “We have to change fast enough to survive in the environment as it is. … We are adapting to all these new technologies [mobile apps, etc.], but the values have all remained the same. My job is to make sure the company carries the values forward.”
Still, DiMuccio is determined to get ahead of the technology curve. In addition to making improvements to its full-service website, Amica.com, the company has introduced mobile capabilities, and electronic policy and billing systems, among other initiatives.
The insurance industry’s extreme competitiveness is a risk factor that keeps Amica, which offers auto, home, marine, personal umbrella liability and life insurance products, sharp. “Better products come from more intense competition,” he said.
By their nature, insurance companies possess a long-range perspective, and Amica is no different. The company looks at weather patterns over decades, said DiMuccio. Global warming, for example, could have a major impact on the company, as it has a fair amount of insured property on the Eastern Seaboard and in Florida and Texas.
DiMuccio continued, “If [I] can look forward in decades, I can make hard decisions for decades forward … and that makes our decision-making a little bit easier.” As a mutual company and thus without institutional investors clamoring for stronger next-quarter numbers, Amica can focus on satisfying its sole constituency – its clients.
The Rhode Island native shares Amica’s corporate commitment to improving the communities in which it operates. “Companies should see themselves as parts of communities,” he said. “If they don’t, if there’s detachment, it’s not good for the long-term health of the company. I want to feel connected, I want the company … and employees to feel connected.”
To that end, DiMuccio encourages Amica’s employees to participate in nonprofit organizations of interest to them. He serves on the boards of such diverse organizations as Crossroads Rhode Island, the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce and The Washington Trust Co., and is president of the board of directors of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council. At the national level, he serves on the board of governors of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, an organization representing more than 1,000 insurance companies. He is also on the boards of the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety and the Property & Liability Resource Bureau.
“Our company and our people make a difference in our state and our industry,” he said. “I believe that things are better because of this.” •

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