As the enterprise risk manager (ERM), for Citizens Property Insurance Corp., Robert Gofourth's job places him at ground zero throughout the year, not just during hurricane season. Florida Underwriter spoke with him about the daily challenges of his position at the state's largest property insurer.

Q. How long has Citizens had an ERM and how long have you held the post? Where did you work before Citizens? How does your job help Citizens fulfill its mission?

A. Citizens created its enterprise risk management department in February 2009. I have held the post of vice president of ERM since inception. Prior to that, I was vice president of operations at Citizens, and before that, director of operational improvement for SITEL Corporation in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The ERM initiative — which reports directly to Citizens' audit committee — helps Citizens by ensuring that risks are known, by aligning those risks to our strategic goals, and by assisting management in seeing any roadblocks that will prevent Citizens from realizing its objectives. Our strategic goals are appropriately tied to our mission to serve the people of Florida by providing property and casualty insurance protection and superior customer service. When managing our business, we look at processes that may endanger our ability to reach those goals. ERM assists with that in ensuring that we are mindful in our decision making. It is true that there are a number of items that can be challenging, such as hurricanes. We make sure that we are aware of those, but in the end, they are just things that we have to work around and ensure that we have mitigating strategies.