In 2016, William (Bill) Villari sold the business he founded in 1993, his first premium finance company, to a Georgia-based bank. After a year and a half, he began to feel like a hood ornament with a fancy title and wanted to be fully engaged in the business again. His vision for his next venture was to deconstruct the company delivery platform, redesigning it from the inside out. That process has resulted in the business he runs today, what he and his team have come to affectionately call, Version 2.0: P1 Finance.
P1 Finance provides a best-in-its-class property and casualty insurance premium finance experience to its customers by offering superior service, excellent terms and a specific plan to help clients grow their business and deepen their own client relationships.
“The impetus for 2.0 is a combination of unfinished business and a belief this new version could reward long-time employees and be a better business, operate more efficiently through a more cost-effective funding source, with deeper, more experienced intra-departmental decision makers and an integrated software platform,” said Villari.
Thus far, P1 Finance has grown more rapidly than version 1.0 with a 50% compound annual growth rate since January 2019. It took 22 years at the prior company to achieve $400 million in annual loan production while P1’s run-rate is $400 million today after only four and a half years.
“Bill Villari has achieved more than any active leader in this crucially important insurance payment option called insurance premium finance,” said his staff. “Villari’s leading role in premium finance makes him a thought leader in the banking space, of which insurance premium finance is a subset.”
Excellence is far more important than growth, said Villari. “Being the best matters more than growth or scale; our rapid growth has been a godsend,” he said.
According to Villari, as a leader, he has relied on his ability to focus intensely over an extended period. “I’ve found that the exercise of bearing down hard on a topic over a long period of time usually enables me to see things that are not obvious, which produces unexpected outcomes and typically favorable results,” he said.
There are no shortcuts to success, said Villari. “Extreme success in business requires an extreme degree of sacrifice at many levels, including personal, social and economic,” he said. “If you’re unwilling to make these sacrifices, you will not win at a high level in business.”
