RSA Canada: Everything you need to know
Corporate headquarters: 700 University Ave., Suite 1500A, Toronto, Ontario
Year founded in Canada: 1833
Number of employees: 2,900+
Office locations: Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland
Number of offices: 13
Key people: Karen Mican (SVP, claims), Ken Bennett (president of Johnson and SVP, lifestyle insurance), Paul Lucarelli (SVP, commercial insurance and global specialty lines), Robin Richardson (SVP, risk and chief risk officer), Heena Patel (SVP, internal audit)
Founded over 300 years ago, RSA Group is a general insurer working in over 140 countries and serving more than 17 million customers around the world. RSA Canada first opened for business in the mid-1800s as Royal Insurance during a time when fires were a massive threat impacting Canadians. Today, RSA is one of Canada’s largest property & casualty insurance companies.
The RSA Canada group of companies is comprised of Royal & Sun Alliance (RSA) Insurance Company of Canada, Quebec Assurance Company, Johnson Inc., Unifund Assurance Company, Western Assurance Company, Ascentus Insurance Ltd., Canadian Northern Shield (CNS) Insurance Company and RSA Travel Insurance Inc. CNS is solely focused on serving the insurance market in BC. Western Assurance offers coverage for homeowners, automobiles, condominiums, tenants, and boats through a distribution network of 100 independent brokers across Ontario. Johnson Insurance is headquartered in Newfoundland and Labrador, and its agents distribute insurance across Canada.
On the menu
RSA insures around a million cars and over half a million homes in Canada, and distributes a range of business, marine, and travel insurance products in addition to its home and auto offerings. Under its personal insurance lines, RSA also provides condo, leisure/lifestyle, such as coverage for watercraft and seasonal dwellings, and private client insurance geared at high-value insureds.
In its commercial lines offerings, RSA has a healthy appetite for small and medium-sized businesses across a variety of industries, and offerings in this space include individual rated commercial auto and property & casualty. Its P&C packages cover general liability, property, business income, crime, inland marine, and equipment breakdown, and provide trade-specific enhancements for certain segments. Insurance products span from auto trade and construction to bed & breakfast and realty packages, though unique solutions for start-up businesses, residential condo corporations, hospitality businesses, alongside other industries (depending on the province), are also available.
RSA’s Global Specialty Lines is meanwhile focused on covering large, complex and multinational risks. The suite of product offerings includes commercial auto, project construction, energy, equipment breakdown insurance, E&O insurance, executive & management liability, marine, national programs, property insurance, and others, and is intended for a diverse set of clients, from mid-market commercial customers who have regional insurance requirements to global clients that need admitted international paper.
RSA’s broker proposition
RSA believes strongly in the Canadian broker channel, maintaining local regional offices across Canada that support the brokers it serves. Through regional broker councils that the insurer holds across the country and its national broker survey, RSA welcomes insights from its ongoing partnerships. Broker training is a key part of RSA’s proposition to this distribution channel, and is carried out through its Making Partner program with Queen’s University, where brokers get in-depth technical training and access to a broker-focused education curriculum. RSA also finances loans to its broker partners.
Eyes on the road
RSA Canada has promoted initiatives focused on road safety and driver education in Toronto. Its TruceTO hub has a range of tools, resources and tips on road safety that include infographics, quizzes, a podcast, and educational videos.
The initiative is well-founded based on a survey from June 2018 conducted by RSA Canada that revealed pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers in Toronto agree that other drivers are the main cause of distress on the roads. Numbers from the Toronto Police Service Public Service Data Portal back up the concerns, indicating that 36 pedestrians, 13 drivers, and four cyclists were killed in collisions with vehicles in 2017. Meanwhile, RSA’s survey found that 57% of cyclists and 44% of pedestrians want their cities to invest in driver education.
Corporate responsibility
As part of the firm’s commitment to use its skills and knowledge to make a positive contribution to the market and the community, RSA Canada is implementing its Confident Futures strategy, which sets out how the company integrates responsible business practices into its daily operations. The strategy also paves the way in reaching its ambition of creating a future where customers can be more confident in managing the risks they face.
The strategy is focused on three areas:
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