Craig Kliethermes, CEO, RLI Insurance Company

Craig Kliethermes is the CEO of RLI Insurance Company

In 1961, Gerald Stephens founded Replacement Lens Inc to offer a novel insurance policy that covered the cost of replacing contact lenses. As the price of contacts fell over time, insurance demand fell as well, but RLI already diversified into other niche insurance markets. 

Today, RLI offers dozens of highly specialized insurance products across a wide range of niche markets that fill unmet customer needs 

This steady stream of new product introductions has allowed RLI to deliver the highest revenue growth among specialty insurers over the past five years and total shareholder returns at the top of the industry

RLI attributes much of the company’s success to great people and its distinctive culture, captured in the tagline "different works."

Employees love the culture, and have voted RLI one of Glassdoor’s best places to work for four of the last six years.

RLI puts five core values--ownership, customer focus, drive, innovation, and integrity at the heart of its culture  

We analyzed how more than 50,000 employees described their company in Glassdoor reviews for 45 insurance companies.  We found that RLI employees spoke about the company's core values much more frequently and positively than employees in peer companies.  

In this episode, Craig discusses the vital role culture plays in RLI’s success, and how the company fosters such a strong one.