It’s a 180-turnaround story that every struggling company would long for. Ten-years-ago, non-standard automobile insurer York Fire & Casualty Insurance Company was well and truly stuck in a rut. It was drowning after years of poor results and its future prospects looked dim. However, a strike of fortune in 2008 when York Fire & Casualty was acquired by property & casualty insurance giant, La Capitale General Insurance, started one of the most significant industry turnarounds in recent years.
Following the acquisition, York Fire & Casualty was immediately rebranded to Unica Insurance Inc. and was reinvented as a niche carrier with a strong focus on commercial lines and VIP personal insurance solutions. As part of this reinvention, the Ontario-based firm re-focused its broker strategy, reducing its broker partnerships from 240 in 2008 to just 97 in 2019.
Nicole Burrell, director of broker communications at Unica Insurance, explained: “At Unica, our strategy of focusing on specialization means we want to align ourselves with more commercial-heavy brokerages or those with more of a niche, high-net-worth personal lines offering. Not all the brokers we worked with in the past had that specialization, so we’ve withdrawn from some of those relationships.
“Our strategy has changed the types of brokers we’re aligning ourselves with, but once we establish those partnerships, we’re now able to offer so much more. And this strategy is working. We now have more volume of business with 97 brokers than we did when we had 240 brokers – and that’s all to do with developing stronger partnerships with key brokers.”
Broker / carrier partnerships work two ways. Unica could not have relied on brokers to help facilitate its successful 10-year turnaround without supporting them in return – and this priority is not lost on the firm. Burrell and her team are constantly looking to alleviate broker pain points and improve transactional efficiency. With parent company La Capitale’s help, they’ve invested in technology for the broker channel, while also improving their internal systems to iron out any kinks in the operational chain.
“One pain point we’ve addressed is that brokers don’t always know who to talk to or who to contact at their insuring partners. Many brokers dislike the idea of the carrier call centre, where they have to tell their story over and over again,” Burrell told Insurance Business. “What we’ve done for our broker partners is provide them with a dedicated underwriter, so they know exactly who to reach out to.
“Another pain point I hear from brokers at times is the lack of flexibility they receive from carriers. As cliché as it sounds, they’re asking us to think outside the box and accept that things aren’t black and white when it comes to rules. So, at Unica we are willing to listen to the story behind every account, and even though at face value, we might look at it and think: ‘Oh no, we should walk away from this,’ we know that sometimes it helps to dig a little bit deeper and look into the story.
“This approach has been helpful in terms of building out niche programs with selective workers. If we find a broker who has expertise in a certain commercial area, maybe it’s time for us to start talking to them about creating a program and giving them a specialized focus to build on.”
After a decade of hard work, laser-focused strategizing, and, frankly, some difficult conversations with more than 100 brokers, Unica is “in a really strong position,” according to Burrell. The insurer recently came away with the coveted ‘P&C Insurer of the Year’ award at the Insurance Business Canada Awards 2019 – an accolade testament to its successful reinvention.
“It’s been a positive change for Unica,” Burrell added. “From where we were financially 10-years-ago to where we are today, we’ve truly made leaps and bounds. We couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve achieved.”
