Erik Leeming

Meet HSI Instructor Erik Leeming

Erik Leeming teaches both our in-person and virtual Property and Casualty Programs for Commercial Lines and Personal Lines. Courses include the Virtual Commercial Lines School, Commercial Lines Producer School, Commercial Lines Account Manager School as well as the Personal Lines School.

Erik is the newest instructor at HSI bringing nearly 30 years of industry experience to the team. Previously, he held a variety of positions in Sales, Marketing, Underwriting, Program Management and Operations on the Agency side. His last 10 years have been spent on the carrier side in Sales, Claim Strategy and Product Training working for The Hartford, Travelers, and MetLife Small Commercial. In 2014, The Hartford awarded him Sales Representative of the Year.

Erik has been well known for innovation and creativity and he brings those talents to the classroom. While he was a Personal Lines Sales Representative for The Hartford, he created several training and development opportunities for the producers and CSRs at his agencies.

“I found that many of those people were corralled into only selling price and not value.” said Leeming. “I wanted to give them the tools they needed in order to set themselves apart from their competitors and to elevate their sales and service skills. Many of them often remarked that they felt like I was truly a business partner who cared about making them and their agencies successful.”

At the start of his career, Erik was drumming up business the old fashioned way by Dialing for Dollars by making appointments for Commercial Lines Producers at several independent insurance agencies.

“I found that the seasoned Producers weren’t too excited about the small premium accounts.” says Leeming. “I saw those risks as low hanging fruit which could grow into larger accounts over time, which they did!”

While at Travelers, Erik, took over the responsibility of Continuing Education for Agents with two claims centric courses that were homegrown. Leeming says that agents loved the Claims Handling for the Non Claims Professional because it gave them insight into what actually happens when insureds use the product you sold them – an insurance policy. He also created a situational preparedness exercise for the claim organization where associates were figuratively crash landed on a deserted island and had to survive.

“Everyone really loved that exercise. Claim leadership saw so much value in it that they used it as a training ground for staff that were being groomed as a “high potential” employees.” says Leeming. “Aside from the fun I could see everyone was having during the day, the best part for me as a facilitator was talking them through the debrief. I knew I had succeeded in doing my job when they all had that “AHA!” moment at the end when I pulled it altogether for them.

Erik truly enjoys helping people achieve and exceed their professional and personal goals and especially enjoys the courses he’s able to deliver in person. Being in the spotlight isn’t anything new to Erik either. In addition to his full time insurance career, he spends his spare time doing something else that he can’t seem to get enough of. Acting.

Erik lives in South Orange County, CA and when he’s not teaching or developing curriculum, he can be found training for his next marathon or ultramarathon. And if he’s not doing that, then he’s either acting on stage, traveling to LA for an audition or shooting a film on location.

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