Steven M. Mariano
Starting from scratch in 2004, Mariano has grown Patriot National to 750 employees and its launch as a public company on the New York Stock Exchange on Jan. 16.
The IPO is helping fuel Patriot’s growth as an outsourcer of services for major insurance companies, including AIG, Zurich and Nationwide. Patriot National includes Patriot Underwriters, a national managing general agency; Patriot Risk Services, a 50-state third party administrator; and Patriot Care Management, a leading provider of managed care services.
Just three weeks after the IPO, Patriot announced the acquisitions of Phoenix Risk Management, a managing general agent in the workers compensation field and Decision UR LLC, a software company that offers utilization review solutions in the workers’ comp field.
In addition to Patriot, Mariano also leads Guarantee Insurance Co., a workers’ compensation carrier that writes policies in 35 states and finished 2014 with $280 million in premiums, he says.
Mariano grew up on his grandfather’s 3,000-acre produce farm in southern New Jersey. His first business venture was Strategic Outsourcing Inc., a Charlotte, NC. company that offered staffing, IT outsourcing and employee leasing.
It had under $1 million in revenue in 1991, but riding a boom in outsourcing helped it grow to $900 million when he sold the company to Union Planters in 2000. He was a finalist for an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
Mariano, who was a single father with five children ages 1 to 8, moved to Fisher Island after selling the company.
He started Guarantee Insurance Co. in 2003 and then launched Patriot the following year, building on his experience in outsourcing and underwriting. Patriot has cutting edge cloud technology that makes it a cost efficient choice for the legacy insurance companies. Patriot handles claims administration, back office date and claims related to workers’ compensation George Hanbury.
Mariano is a visionary as a CEO, but his background selling policies and doing underwriting also means he can drill down into the details, says Christopher L. Pizzo, Patriot’s Executive Vice President & Deputy General Counsel. “When the rubber meets the road, management needs a hands on approach and he does that.”
Mariano says the key to his success is talented help, which he rewarded by giving an average of $4,000 in stock to each employee as part of the IPO.
“I try to hire the best in the business – the best talent – and let them do their job,” he says.
Patriot has strong expertise in closing claims so people get back to work, he says. “That just comes from experience and time. You get known in the industry as the best.”
Mariano is active in the community as a member of the CEO Council of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance and chairman of the Broward Boys and Girls Club. His personal foundation sponsored two schools in Uganda last year and Patriot was ranked as the fourth-largest corporate charitable giver in South Florida.
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