Self-knowledge feeds growth
“A 1-2-3 punch” is how Dick Lavey describes the triple challenge experienced by the insurance industry in recent years. Inflation, weather volatility, and the liability crisis triggered by a rising tide of claims have all battered the sector.
Yet The Hanover Group has emerged stronger, according to Chief Operating Officer Dick Lavey. Diversification of earnings has never been better, he says, with personal lines, core commercial, and specialty customers all contributing substantially to $6.3 billion of net premiums written in 2025.[1]
Lavey attributes the group’s health partly to its distinctive identity in the market. “If you stay true to who you are and how you go to market, you can better manage that volatility,” he says.
Hanover aims to combine the scale of a national company with the local presence and relationships of a local carrier. It is pursuing growth by strengthening agent partnerships, widening its product portfolio, and advancing its use of technology.
“If you stay true to who you are and how you go to market, you can better manage volatility.”
Dick Lavey, Chief Operating Officer, The Hanover Group
Practical tools for agents and clients
Lavey, who has been with the group for 20 years, accepts the primary and non-contributory (PNC) industry could stand to improve its image. The Hanover Group is doing its bit by “evolving from a pure risk transfer vehicle to more of a proactive risk prevention platform”.
For example, Hanover’s proprietary tool, Agency Insights, is designed to support its network of independent agents to better understand their own operations.
That’s especially important in the current environment of high acquisition activity in the distribution channel. “We spend a lot of time helping agents to think about how they consolidate markets,” says Lavey, “and what they can do to serve their customers better.”
Hanover also provides services to reduce customers’ risks. A 24-hour nurse triage service is designed to ensure injured workers get the swift medical care they need, while installation of water and temperature sensors protects property: “We’ve put around 25,000 of these into customers’ buildings,” Lavey says. “It’s helped us, and them, to save millions of dollars.”
Taking AI to the next level
Having spent much of the past decade modernizing its legacy systems, Hanover is now embarking on a new phase of transformation.
That starts with using AI tools to support employees with standard tasks such as contract-writing. Beyond this, the group is creating AI agents for digesting and structuring information in underwriting, claims, and service.
“That whole process of taking information in, understanding it better, triaging it, and moving the process along more quickly – that's pretty amazing,” says Lavey.
He foresees the technology evolving to further streamline the automated claims process, for example, as well as improving communication at multiple touchpoints with agents and clients.
“The biggest friction point that these technologies can help with is the whole data exchange from customer to agent to carrier, back to agent, back to customer,” he says. But, he warns, the value of such efficiencies must be captured for the end customer, rather than for technology vendors.
“The biggest friction point that AI helps with is the whole data exchange from customer to agent to carrier, back to agent, back to customer.”
Dick Lavey, Chief Operating Officer, The Hanover Group
Humanity tempers tech
Crisper communication within the organization itself is also a priority for Lavey. Effectively conveying the vision to employees is his top leadership principle, followed by “ruthless prioritization” of activities.
The advance of technology needs to be presented and balanced with “a heavy dose of humanity, to bring people along,” he elaborates.
“There's a bit of sci-fi mystique to this AI agent movement,” he adds. “We can’t lose sight of the fact that we're talking about people and their jobs and getting them excited about evolving what they're going to do in the future.”
