The Wright move into commercial insurance

Thomas Wright walked away from the insurance sales stereotype before finding his groove in commercial insurance — and he’s never looked back.

His entry into commercial insurance started with a call in March 2015 from an insurance professional he met in grade school, Ron Trecroce, who was then at Tredd Insurance (since acquired by Westland Insurance).

“I met Ron Trecroce on ‘Bring Your Kid to Work Day’ back in Grade 9,” Wright told Canadian Underwriter, shortly after receiving a National Leadership Award from the Insurance Institute of Canada in the Emerging Leader category. “My Mom worked at [a cookie business], which was a client [of Ron’s]. And all these years later, I got the opportunity to go and interview with him, and he offers me a job. I started a month after my 19th birthday at his commercial brokerage downtown.

“And that that’s how I got into the industry. Our commercial brokerage did a lot of long-haul, transport, and international operations. And I realized that it’s not just selling life insurance or your neighbor’s auto policy. Here I was, looking at kidnapping and ransom policies for executives in Congo. And it really opened my eyes to the industry.”

Wright, the president of the Young Insurance Professionals of Toronto, is currently a partner, vice president and principal broker at Avail Insurance, a commercial brokerage specializing in many different types of business insurance, including specialty lines such as transportation, construction, realty, manufacturing, professional services, and cyber, among others..

It’s a world away from Wright’s first encounter with insurance straight after leaving high school. At that time, he left a restaurant job to work in the stereotypical role of a life insurance salesman. And he found out very quickly that world was not for him.

“I started selling life insurance door-to-door when I was 18, doing hundreds of cold calls a day, and it didn’t take me very many days to realize this absolutely sucks and I do not like it whatsoever,” Wright recalls. “I would go in people’s homes, if they would let me sit on their couch or at their dining room table, and tell these people who were more than double my age why they need life insurance. I wasn’t taken very seriously….

“And quite honestly, I figured that was insurance. I did that for six months before I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ and I was going to go get my real estate license or something else.”

But while pursuing other options, he got the call from Ron Trecroce.

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Trecroce and Wright’s other mentors at Tredd had him learn the job through osmosis. They “had me sit outside their offices and would do open door calls and tell me, ‘Eavesdrop. And if you hear something you don’t know, come in and ask me,’” Wright recalls “So, I really just embraced that opportunity.”

The original idea was to have Wright become a producer. But Wright said he didn’t know enough about insurance at that time to take on the role.

So instead, he began at the ground level, processing certificates of insurance, before he transitioned into a program for smaller businesses. That ultimately launched him into a marketing role.

“That’s where I really found my groove and my expertise, getting into the nitty-gritty of seasoned analysis, and shopping to markets, and going out and negotiating. I fell in love with that.”

He moved up to vice president of specialty risk after Westland Acquired Tredd Insurance in September 2021. Wright then moved to Avail Insurance in January 2024.

“I was really just wanting to go back to my grassroots,” Wright says of the move to Avail. “Tredd was a boutique brokerage — 25 employees in two provinces. Our offices had 10 to 15 people.

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“And overnight, [after the Westland acquisition], we went from 25 people to 2,500 people, and it was great to experience and see that side of things. But I really wanted the opportunity to be massively impactful in this small group, and that’s when I decided to come out here and partner with [Avail president and CEO] Dave [Leadbetter] and work in Avail.”

The secret to his leadership success?

It’s all about service, Wright says.

“To be of service to our clients, our communities, our staff, our industry,” he elaborates. “At Tredd, Ron said: ‘Take care of the clients,’ he said, ‘and the money takes care itself.’”

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Ron Trecroce’s name and to update the business classes offered by Avail.

David Gambrill

David has twice served as Canadian Underwriter’s senior editor, both from 2005 to 2012, and again from 2017 to the present.