Over the last year, 21st Century Insurance Group has been making big strides in its efforts to expand its customer base from California and other western states across the rest of the country. In reporting its second quarter financial results, 21st reported a 1.2 percent increase in premiums written in California. Its out-of-state offices increased their premium sales by 81 percent, however. In this latest quarter, out-of-state sales represented just five percent of the company’s total premiums sold, but that the figure has almost doubled since the previous year. Founded in 1948, 21st Century spent its first 40 years in business selling auto insurance only in California. In the late 90s the company opened its first offices outside of the state in Arizona, eventually establishing a presence in Nevada, Oregon and Washington as well. Over the last year, the company has made its first foray into the rest of the country, offering insurance in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. In January it established business in Texas. Those expansions have effectively doubled the market available to 21st Century. “We’re looking at becoming more of a national players and looking at larger states,” said Rick Andre, 21st Century’s senior vice president of human relations. “We’re going to consider investing in other states when we feel like the time is right.” Andre said 21st hopes to be announce further expansion during the coming year. Improvements to the company’s computer systems have made expansion easier have also reduced the number of people that the company has to hire in order to support new offices. “We’re a direct writer, people call our 800 number and we service the policy, we don’t have agents,” Andre said. “When we have sufficient business we’ll probably look to add claims people.” Still, the company hired several hundred people outside of California this year. In January, 21st opened its first call center outside of California, which is staffed by 300 people in Lewisville, Texas. As the company continues to expand across the country, Andre said the company will consider hiring more claims officers and adding more call centers in the Midwestern and eastern parts of the country, depending on demand. “(Adding call centers) is always a possibility, we did go to 24 hour operations a couple of years ago. If you’re in the western time zones you need more shift schedules, operating in the central and eastern time zones makes coverage for the phones easier.” The company is continuing to hire in California, where about 2,400 of its employees work, and Andre said that low turnover has always been one of the company’s strengths. A significant portion of employees have been working with the company for over half a dozen years. California’s extremely competitive auto insurance market made out-of-state opportunities all the more attractive, said Andre. In July Bruce Marlow, president and chief executive officer of 21st reiterated some of the some of the company’s reasons for growth in its quarterly earnings statement. “We found better opportunities for growth outside of California,” Marlow said. “In 2005, we are investing in the state expansion strategy, the conversion to our new technology platform (which currently services approximately 85 percent of outstanding claims and 65 percent of California policies) and the build-up of our Dallas service center. Loss trends are favorable.” While expanding, 21st also launched new televisions ads that ran earlier this year. The first to air was a spot that incorporated the chase scene from the French Connection, with an extra scene at the end showing a crash victim calling his insurance company, 21st Century. The company also re-shot some of the scenes from the movies Speed and The Italian Job, which aired for a time in several different markets and states, and served partly as a way to introduce the company in its new Midwest and Texas markets.
