Two Canadian insurers ventured south on Wednesday, making purchases of American companies.
Intact acquired specialty lines provider OneBeacon Insurance for $1.7 billion while SCM Insurance Services bought out fellow claims management firm Nixon and Company for an undisclosed amount.
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SCM Insurance, headquartered in Edmonton, became attracted to the US market after its clients in Canada asked them to provide their adjuster and claims management technology services on the other side of the border.
“What we’re gaining from Nixon and Company is a very seasoned, strong platform, a like-minded vision, we’re getting a scalable footprint,” explained Bob Fitzgerald, CEO of SCM Insurance Services. “We can take our Canadian expertise, technology, management information and extend that into a new geography. We already have leadership positions in Canada in adjusting so, it’s more the innovations that have allowed us to dominate in Canada that we’re going to bring into the US.
“(Clients) like the work we do for them in the Canadian marketplace and they’d like to reap the benefits of that in the US.”
Nixon and Company, the St. Louis, Missouri, corporation that SCM bought, is a multi-lines adjuster and insurance response company servicing the American Midwest, complimented by its Claims Management Inc. subsidiary. Now Fitzgerald believes SCM’s platform can help take it to the next level.
“iADJUST, which is our proprietary claims management platform, is clearly the best in breed in the market and it’s been that way for quite some time,” he said. “Nobody has it - we’ve looked at the United States and we know that our system is better than what we’ve seen there.”
Meanwhile OneBeacon, the Plymouth, Minnesota, company that
Intact purchased, sells everything from entertainment to marine policies.
Intact believes that the swoop will give it new capabilities.
“While we continue to be well-positioned to participate in the consolidation of our industry here in Canada, the acquisition of OneBeacon opens up new and significant growth opportunities for Intact,” said Charles Brindamour, Intact CEO. “It bolsters Intact’s Canadian business with new products and cross-border capabilities. It allows us to deliver broker and customer experiences that are second to none, and better positions us to compete with international insurers.”
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