When Renato Rodrigues was named country manager for AXA XL in Canada in December 2020, he expressed his excitement about moving from Brazil to Canada to “take on [a] new challenge.” But COVID-19 travel restrictions threw a wrench in the plan, and Rodrigues (pictured) had to wait for many months before relocating with his family from Sao Paulo to Toronto.
As a leader from afar, Rodrigues’ preparation for the Canada country manager position was unique. He said: “I did my research. I watched Canadian TV, and I even got into hockey just to make sure that I could connect with not only the team at AXA XL, but also with clients and brokers.”
Rodrigues is a seasoned insurance leader and a long-time AXA XL employee. Prior to taking the Canada position, he served as AXA XL’s regional leader for insurance in Latin America, and he was country manager for AXA XL Brazil for seven years before that. In his current role, he leads AXA XL’s business strategy and overall insurance operations in Canada, overseeing four offices in Toronto, Calgary, Montreal, and Vancouver.
Even with such an extensive leadership resume, Rodrigues admitted it was “an interesting challenge” to meet everyone in a virtual environment, despite how welcoming and collaborative everyone was. “It’s just not the same when you’re not even in the country,” he said.
When COVID regulations allowed and Canada relaxed its border restrictions, Rodrigues made the move from Brazil – and he’s been on the move ever since, travelling from coast-to-coast to “see and experience first-hand what Canada is all about”.
“When I got here and really merged into society and started to understand the day-to-day challenges that our clients are experiencing – that’s when you get a better perspective,” he told Insurance Business at the RIMS Canada conference in Halifax, which was his first visit to Nova Scotia. “It’s been excellent. When things started to open up, I was able to travel more, and I’ve visited different regions of the country.
“We don’t always appreciate how diverse Canada is, even on the [insurance] industry side. I went to Calgary and Edmonton, for instance, where the industry is very energy-related, and then in Vancouver, it’s more middle market and there’s a lot of service-related industries, and then Quebec is different again. By travelling, meeting people, and experiencing these things first-hand, I now have a better understanding and more appreciation of what our clients are going through in different cycles and segments of the economy in Canada.”
While every company is impacted differently by risks, there are a few prevailing themes causing headaches for businesses across Canada today.
“We’ve been paying a lot of attention to inflation and how that’s impacting insurance to value and the cost of claims,” said Rodrigues. “Supply chain disruptions and logistics problems are causing delays in getting businesses back up and running after a loss, which is also impacting business interruption coverage. The shortage of labour is another big problem for our insureds, just like it is for the insurance industry.”
Despite the challenges caused by COVID-19 and other ongoing issues around inflation, supply chain disruption, and labour shortages, among other things, AXA XL has had a stellar few years in Canada. With a focus on mid-sized to large multinational companies, the commercial insurer has increased its gross written premium from $250 million in 2018 to over $700 million in 2021.
“It was really impressive growth, and that came by really focusing on what we do best, which is the large, more complex risks,” said Rodrigues, who acknowledged that hard market conditions and rate increases also factored into the company’s growth. “We’ve tripled our book of D&O over the past three years, and we’re seeing a lot of opportunities coming from the reopening of the economy, especially in construction, where there’s a backlog of work that needs doing.
“Cyber is a product that’s growing faster than others for us, and we’re also seeing more opportunities in political risk, trade credit, and commercial bonds. We just added an underwriter in Toronto for commercial bonds, and that has been a very successful line for us because of the way the economy has rebounded.”
The great potential of the Canadian marketplace in the post-pandemic years is not lost on Rodrigues. Under his influence, AXA XL Canada has been holding leadership meetings in different locations across the country, with the aim of meeting colleagues and business leaders in different locales, and really understanding the unique opportunities and challenges in every province of Canada.
“I’m very excited about Canada, the prospects here, and the way the market is behaving,” he said. “It’s a very mature market, but there’s so much opportunity, and the growth prospects for the insurance industry are very exciting. I think there’s so much more we can do to help Canadian businesses continue to thrive.”
