Anne Arvia was recently namedPresident and COO of Nationwide Direct, Affinity and GrowthSolutions, giving her oversight of the Columbus, Ohio-basedcompany's direct P&C sales channel, along with responsibilityfor specialty-insurance affinity partnerships and Veterinary Petinsurance. She joined Nationwide in 2006 as president of NationwideBank before becoming leader of Retirement Plans in 2009. Beforejoining Nationwide, she spent 15 years at ShoreBank in Chicago.

Why move from the financial-services side of thebusiness to property and casualty?

Nationwide is dominated by property and casualty. As a leader inthe organization, planning to be here a long time, one of thepieces of background I did not have experience in was property andcasualty. This is a terrific way for me to broaden my knowledge inthis space and gain more leadership opportunities.

In making this move from the banking and retirement sideof Nationwide to P&C insurance, what is the learning curve foryou?

There are so many similarities across businesses, and learningthe business-model part is secondary to understanding more of whatthe consumer really wants, what they need, and delivering it in away that is exceptional.

The business is in very good shape. The question is how do wetake it to that next level? The [P&C business] is an area veryfocused on growth. So what I am able to bring to the organizationis not so much the details of understanding the business, but howwe take it to that next level.

What exactly is that next level?

Integration between direct, affinity and our agents is really,really critical. But it is important that as the market shifts wemake sure the consumer experience is exceptional; that they bindtheir policies in the way they choose, whether that is online,through a call center or [through] an agent.

Agents remain a huge part of Nationwide's business: Howdo you balance the direct and agent equation?

That's a huge focus for Nationwide. Agents are still asignificant part of our business, with 85 percent of the booktoday. Even though 80 percent of shoppers start online, only 24percent end up binding online. There is still a significant desireon the part of the buyer to either talk with someone direct on thephone or through our group of agents.

We are partnering with our agents, working with them tounderstand that [buyers starting online] is an opportunity for themas well. Our job is that, for the customer, the [purchasingprocess] appears seamless and very transparent going from online tothe agent, because in the end what we care about is that it createsbusiness and policies in force for Nationwide in total.

You did a couple of YouTube videos for thefinancial-services division. Do you plan on doing the same for theP&C direct market? How big a role will social media play goingforward?

Our company and agents are very involved in social media. We seesocial media as an opportunity to educate [policyholders] and getbroad awareness of our brand in that space. It is imperative forNationwide to be in that space because that is where the people weare trying to talk to are.