Marie-Lucie Paradis | belairdirect

Marie-Lucie Paradis, senior vice-president, direct distribution, belairdirect

For Marie-Lucie Paradis, a senior executive at belairdirect, building and maintaining a robust talent pipeline is key to bringing young women into the Canadian property and casualty insurance industry and advancing them into leadership roles.

“We’re a big believer that insurance is not about things, it’s about people,” she tells Canadian Underwriter in an interview before International Women’s Day in March. “We want our people, our employees, our leaders, to represent the diversity of the communities we serve.

“So, when assessing the pipeline, we’re looking [to see], ‘Does it mirror the society in which we operate, and do we create opportunities [to create a diverse workforce]?’”

Companies must be deliberate in their approach to reach out to women, she says.

“For example, a long time ago, I would say more than a decade ago, we took deliberate action to remove bias and barriers from job postings, to ensure we were not preventing women from applying for certain roles,” says Paradis, who first started working for Intact Insurance in 2002. She is now the senior vice-president of direct distribution at belairdirect.

Once women are recruited into the organization, the company’s policies and procedures intend to “increase their visibility everywhere in the organization,” she adds. This is to “make sure our top–talented women are visible in our succession plans, not only at the top, but at all levels of the pipeline. Because if you want visibility at the top…the health of the pipeline is crucial.”

Mentorship

Companies need to support the professional development of women at all levels, Paradis says. And that means exposing them to several different areas of the company to give them a broad view of the organization as a whole. That promotes strategic thinking skills, as she notes.

“Focus on the development of talented woman through mentorship,” she advises. “We like to rotate people from one department to the other, to expand their understanding of the business, and to expand their skills. It brings a different vision. I’ve been through it to myself, and this is how we support growth, development and readiness to take on increasingly senior mandates for both women and men.”

To support women making a jump into senior leadership levels, companies should present opportunities in a way that reinforce the possibility to raise a family and have a career.

Paradis herself came to Intact because she was attracted to the idea of building relationships with customers and helping people in times of need.

“I started in the insurance industry in 1997, working as a part-time sales agent while studying,” she tells CU. “I’m more of a sales-and-claims person. As most of my colleagues back then, I lived in Montreal, and I was brought [in to handle] claims during the Ice Storm in January 1998.

“I remember everyone came to claims to answer phone calls and settle freezer claims. And this is when I realized what insurance was all about. This experience was a game-changer for me. It really made me realize the importance of the industry [in] making sure we get people and businesses back on track. I was attracted to the industry because of the help-relationship we have with customers….

“To me, insurance is a wonderful industry for women. We can thrive, for sure. I’ve been in the industry for 27 years. It’s exciting and we need to accelerate that base of understanding.”

David Gambrill

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