Trading books for books of business

Weaving her way through the works of such literary heroes as Victor Hugo and Thomas Hardy, Brenda Rose stepped away from reading books during her university career in English and French literature and instead entered into a whole new world of writing insurance books of business.

Rose, now president of the Toronto Insurance Conference (TIC), has been working within the insurance industry ever since she left university 22 years ago, deciding on the insurance path in a ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ story.

“After graduating I needed a job, so I applied to a position where they asked for someone that could take French dictation – and it happened to be a brokerage,” Rose said of her first insurance job at Direct Insurance. “It was a tiny office so they needed me to get my license.”

After her brief foray at Direct Insurance, now defunct, Rose began her 20-year career with Firstbrook, Cassie & Anderson Ltd. Progressing through the business, Rose first gained experience as a client services representative, handling junior personal lines. She later became a manager in both personal and commercial lines.

In the current chapter of her career, Rose serves as vice-president of operations for Firstbrook, Cassie & Anderson. Her current work at Firstbrook Cassie & Anderson removes her from direct client involvement; instead, it streamlines her focus on customer service and supervision of HR systems and IT.

COMMUNITY CARE

Rose, who has served on the TIC board for the past six years, says it is “a critical skill to be able to effectively interact, cooperate and negotiate with others.” Such skills helped establish the TIC’s recent Community Safety Village project, a CD$4.6-million, six-acre facility found north of Toronto in the Bruce’s Mill Conservation Area. The outdoor mini-village is a place where children learn life-saving pedestrian safety rules as they walk, bicycle or drive miniature, electric-powered cars along the streets of the village and follow traffic lights and railway crossings.

Rose said TIC is working on the community initiative to increase the profile of brokers in the community at large. This summer, for example, TIC sponsored a summer day camp for underprivileged children. “Foster kids and their foster families were able to benefit from the Safety Village summer camp program,” she said. Through the TIC’s support, 80 children were able to spend one week honing their safety and outdoor educational skills at the Village.

While community involvement is essential, Rose says the association has not forgotten its roots.

“We (at TIC) are always focused on being an insurance organization, but it is important for the industry as a whole that brokers get their identity known in public,” she said. “The Village is a means to do it and do some real good at the same time.

“Our primary focus is still to benefit our member brokers.”

JEWEL IN TIC’S CROWN

Canadian brokers are still working hard to prevent changes to the Bank Act that would allow banks to retail or provide information about insurance through their local branches. Keeping the fight alive, Rose said the TIC is asking its membership to maintain open communications with their Members of Parliament (MPs).

“It’s difficult to maintain that level of activity, and we don’t want to wear out our welcome with our government representatives, but we do need to continue working at it,” Rose said.

“The banks haven’t stopped working, so we do need to maintain awareness among the membership that, politically, this issue has not really been resolved yet.”

In keeping with its mandate, TIC participated in the June lobby day with the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada (IBAC) in Ottawa.

“This was a more coordinated effort, in that we lobbied on the Bank Act with MPs in their offices in Ottawa, and it was very successful,” Rose recalls. “We got confirmation from all the main parties in Ottawa that they were supportive of the position that the banks should not be granted any additional retailing powers.”

Subsequent to the joint efforts of the TIC and IBAC, the federal government released a White Paper that did not mention the possibility of extending the banks’ powers to retail insurance. But Rose observes the legislation may not be passed until next spring.

“The Bank Act is still there,” Rose said. “It is not resolved yet and we can’t ignore it. The problem is, even though the government has come out with its White Paper – which doesn’t mention anything about giving the bank extra insurance retailing powers – it hasn’t been passed yet, and we can’t relax until the legislation is actually passed.”

Rose notes the Canadian Bankers Association’s bid to gain more power in the insurance marketplace will never truly be eradicated: the Bank Act review is cyclical, mandated every five years.

Rose says banks are currently interested in retailing personal lines products – a sector of business that is of less significance to TIC members, who mainly represent the commercial insurance market. Each TIC member must collect a minimum of CD$20 million of premium in commercial lines in order to qualify for membership. Still, the TIC regards a bank monopoly over the insurance industry as a real concern.

“The Canadian marketplace isn’t that huge, so if the banks do infringe upon that [personal lines] portion of the insurance marketplace in a big way, we could see a lot of the investment capital withdrawn from the Canadian [insurance] marketplace [overall].” Rose said.

“In turn, this would reflect negatively on commercial availability: there wouldn’t be the same amount of capital available for investment, and there could be a restriction of the commercial marketplace. So it’s not just personal lines that we’re talking about, it’s an issue for all insurance brokers and companies.”

BUILDING BUSINESS CONTINUITY

Business continuity, catastrophe and disaster preparedness are common themes in the story of today’s global insurance industry. In response, TIC recently introduced a disaster-planning program stemming from issues discussed among its technology committee members.

“Disaster planning includes technology, but its not only technology,” Rose explains. “The whole idea has grown into a coordinated effort, so that the entire board has input on the project.”

A projected increase in the likelihood of major disasters, based on the current trends of climate change and uncertainty, influenced the creation of the new project, Rose said.

“It may be a pandemic, the long term shutdown of the transit system or a natural disaster, but if for some reason a large part of downtown Toronto were to shut down, we need to know how to collectively handle things like claims,” she explained. “We need to determine arrangements we can make in advance … that would ensure continuity within our businesses and the protection of our clients.”

Rose said the project, rooted in technology circles, needs other partners in the industry – particularly within the claims sector – to become involved if it is to evolve successfully.

In addition to the new business continuity project, Rose said TIC is looking to develop a more comprehensive member survey. The survey, which will be directed by a new TIC committee, will include feedback on services provided by various insurers.

Overall, the goal of the member survey is to accumulate more statistics over time.

“The difficulty is going to be quantifying these statistics, but that is something that we are working on,” Rose said. “This will be a value-added for the membership and also would be useful information for the insurers.”

While change is on the table for much of TIC’s future, some things will remain traditional, such as TIC’s annual Black Tie dinner. Last year’s special celebration recognized the association’s 50th anniversary – a format that Rose said will not be duplicated this year. “This year we’ve reverted to more of a traditional format. The speaker is going to be Stewart McLean of CBC Radio.”