KBIA's Business Beat

After more than 40 years with the same company, Rick Means will retire from his position as president and chief executive officer of Shelter Insurance in August. Matt Moore, currently executive vice president, will be the company’s next CEO. Means has spent nearly all of his adult life with Shelter, starting as a claims adjuster and working his way up the corporate ladder to claims supervisor, manager, vice president and eventually to his role as the leader of a nearly 2,000-employee insurance company that wrote about $2 billion worth of premiums last year. Missouri Business Alert sat down with Means in his office at Shelter’s Columbia headquarters to discuss his career, the future of the insurance industry and his plans for retirement. How did you get started in the insurance business? Means: I graduated from University of Missouri in 1977. I actually had an advanced personnel management class that required us to get three interviews, where we were to evaluate the interview process.