Mark A. Speizer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Over 45 years in the insurance and banking industry began in 1962 with Mark Speizer assisting borrowers of savings and loans with their home and auto insurance needs.
During the turbulent times of the late 1960’s and race riots waged in California, fire insurance on properties, particularly in urban areas, were being canceled in wholesale lots by insurer’s who began to redline entire communities. An alarming number of property lenders and their borrowers were left without fire insurance on their financed properties. While working for an insurance agency owned by a savings & loan, Mark developed an entirely new product to provide relief to affected lenders and borrowers that he termed “lender placed insurance.” This new revolutionary new insurance product provided both the impacted savings & loans and their borrowers with instant fire insurance protection, when prior insurance was terminated.
- By 1972, Mark had purchased the agency that employed him and he changed the name to Mark A. Speizer & Co., Inc. a San Francisco based insurance agency and general agent. Lender placed insurance is now a multibillion-dollar industry. Mark was one of the first to apply technology to insurance placement and mortgage servicing making it a highly electronic seamless process.
- In 1979, Mark formed Great Pacific Insurance Company as the flagship insurance company for his property insurance business. Over the years the business grew and Great Pacific earned an A. M. Best “A” Excellent rating ultimately licensed and doing business in 48 states.
- As Chairman and CEO, he formed a holding company, National Information Group (National), took the company public listed as NAIG: NASDAQ/NMS. After becoming a public company, National formed Pinnacle Data Corporation which, using proprietary technologies, digitized the nation’s 120,000+ flood maps and became a leading U.S. provider of flood zone determinations for mortgage lenders and consumers while reducing the cost to consumers and making the flood zone identification less fraught with mistakes.
- After making other acquisitions in the areas of insurance tracking on mortgage loans, leased cars and realty tax tracking, National had become a highly successful company with about 1000 employees and a reputation for being data-driven and as having excellent customer services by serving some of the leading companies in America. Among its clients and policyholders were such marquis names as, Bank of America, Citibank, Ford Credit, GE Credit, Chrysler Credit, Home Savings (then, the largest S & L), World Savings, BMW Credit and many others.
- In 1999, information services and title insurance giant, First American Financial Corporation (FAF: NYSE), acquired National. Since that time Mark has explored several investment opportunities in the U.S. and in South America. For the past five years, Mark has dedicated his efforts to working on the formation of Consumer General Corporation Insurance Services and the product development, market research, insurance placement and launch of The Utility Service Payment Protection Plan in the United States.
Douglas H. Helm, President and Chief Marketing Officer
CA Property & Casualty Producer License#0F94234
An attorney by education and training, Doug is an experienced senior insurance executive with skill sets in digital marketing, business planning, product development, competitive positioning and in managing high-performance growth strategies both in the U.S. and internationally.
- For the past five years, Doug has concentrated his efforts to work with partner Mark Speizer to develop The Utility Service Payment Protection Plan. His background was perfect for this assignment with his insurance career beginning with developing and marketing A&H and disability insurance products for CNA Insurance, and spanning years in the workers’ comp, property, employee benefits and insurance technology related businesses. Disability insurance, A&H and workers’ comp are examples of insurance products having similar coverages, benefits and exposures to those of The Utility Service Payment Protection Plan.
- In the early 197o’s Doug was one of the founding team members and a director of EBI Companies, San Jose, CA. Under his leadership as head of sales and marketing, EBI became a leader in the workers’ comp business in the west coast specializing in the wood products business and heavy manufacturing.
- Beginning in 2002, Doug served for 10 years as the senior officer for sales and marketing of workers’ comp specialist Employers Direct, Agoura Hills, CA (now Pacific Comp) and as president of Plenary Insurance Services, the employee benefit company affiliate of Employers Direct.
- Other highlights of his career include, as Executive Vice President of National Information Group, South San Francisco, CA (“National”), Doug was instrumental in leading the charge in Washington D.C. to amend America’s flood insurance laws to assure that real estate properties being financed were properly checked for flood zone exposure. While working for National subsidiary, Pinnacle Data Corporation, the first company to digitize America’s 120,000+ flood zone maps by converting those paper maps into retrievable online data, Doug developed and led the sales team that made Pinnacle one of the nation’s leading web based flood zone determination companies.
- Following National’s acquisition by First American Financial Corporation, Inc, in 1999, Doug accepted a position with its subsidiary First American Real Estate Information Services, Poway, CA. As Senior Vice President, he developed the original strategy, product concept and hands-on execution plan for First American Title’s entrance as the first private underwriter of title insurance in Mainland China. He also worked in corporate development and acquisitions in the U.S. operations of the company, which later spun off to create information giant, CoreLogic.
- Doug was an early adaptor to digital insurance as early as the late 1990’s. While President/Property and Casualty Division of early digital insurance pioneer InsWeb Corporation, his team, along with the team led by technology luminary Darrel Ticehurst, co founder of InsWeb, provided the leadership for InsWeb to become amongst the first to apply web-based technologies to the insurance business. In 1997, InsWeb and its partner Nationwide Direct became the first to live quote and bind auto insurance with a consumer applicant over the Internet, a historic achievement at the time.
The Company. Consumer General Corporation Insurance Services (“CGC”) is a Delaware based insurance producer with HQ offices in San Mateo, CA. CGC is a Delaware Company with resident producer licenses in Delaware and non-resident licenses in other states where it transacts business; except in California, where it holds a resident producer license and conducts its insurance business as, CGC Utility Insurance Services.
- Delaware Resident Producer License #3000022528
- California Resident Insurance Producer License #0M76183
CGC has co-developed a specialty insurance product, The Utility Service Payment Protection Plan (variously referred to as the “USPP” or “SPP”), which is marketed to America’s leading energy, water/waste, wireless, telecommunications, cable and streaming media companies.
- If you are an insurance producer that would like more information of how you may be eligible to market The Utility Service Payment Protection Plan to your own utility clients, please Click Here for more information.
The Product. The Utility Service Payment Protection Plan is a “packaged” suite of protection that includes involuntary unemployment, disability and accidental death coverage. The coverage is marketed on a B2B basis by licensed insurance producers in the form of a master policy to public, private and municipal utilities and telecommunications companies in the U.S. that provide electricity, natural gas, water, waste, cellular, broadband/cable satellite TV, ISP, streaming media and other services to their respective customers.
The SPP is co-marketed on a B2C basis by the insurance company that is underwriting and administering the program and the utility or telecommunications company that is the master policyholder and is sponsoring it for its customers (“Sponsor”). CGC requires that insurance companies who underwrite and administer the SPP must be rated by A.M. Best as “Excellent” or “Superior.”
The SPP is presented to the Sponsor’s customers as an “opt-in” invoice-integrated service protection plan available to eligible residential customers. Although specific eligibility standards for prospective customer enrollees are up to the particular insurance company underwriting the SPP for the Sponsor, they typically include: between age 18 and 65; employed full-time (30 hours per week) for past year; not self-employed; and that the utility or telecommunication bill is paid in full by the customer at the time of enrollment. Joint coverage is available in the event that the customer’s spouse also meets eligibility requirements. Enrollees receive a certificate of insurance. The monthly premium charge for certificate holder is added to the monthly utility bill, collected by the Sponsor and remitted to the insurance company.
Certificate holders that have suffered involuntary unemployment, become disabled or died by accidental means have the comfort of knowing that the insurance carrier underwriting the SPP will pay directly to the utility or telecommunications company the amount specified on the certificate of insurance towards the household’s monthly bill so that services can be continued for the period of time, which is also set forth in the certificate of insurance.*
The Sponsor – a utility or telecommunications company – has the comfort of knowing that for those customers that have enrolled in the SPP program, should their household suddenly face unexpected and challenging financial times due to the involuntary unemployment, disability or the accidental death of a certificate holder– the coverage protection can help reduce operating losses from disconnection costs, mitigate collection efforts and bad debts; reduce revenue losses from involuntary customer churn; provide relief to emergency need payment plans, improve the customer experience and optics with regulators, oversight agencies and consumer activists. Ratepayers also benefit when customers take personal responsibility to protect themselves from such challenging financial circumstances by purchasing the coverage rather than relying on ratepayer subsidies when the unforeseen happens and they are unable to pay their bill.*
*Subject to the terms, conditions and exclusions as set forth in the SPP master policy and certificate of insurance. See, Terms of Use