For Colette Taylor (pictured), a 28-year career in the insurance industry, which eventually led to her becoming the COO of Sovereign, was a far departure from her initial plans and desires for a career.
As an 18-year-old in New Zealand, she initially had dreams to pursue a career as a broadcast journalist working for a television news station.
“I thought, anchors on television typically have older, wiser faces, not 18-year-old faces. I figured I’ve got time on my side. I’ll earn some money then go back to university from there,” Taylor recounted.
While a career in insurance may have been a hard pivot from her dreams of broadcasting, what has kept Taylor in the field is an overarching sense of satisfaction and appreciation.
“Something I really value about insurance is that you can be respected for your expertise, knowledge and thought leadership in an industry that ultimately creates resiliency and improves the lives of people,” she said.
“I think, in some ways, things always happen for a reason, and you end up where you’re supposed to.”
In an interview with Insurance Business, Taylor spoke about how her career has matured throughout the years and how she ended up as the COO of Sovereign.
For the first four-to-five-years of Taylor’s career, she was able to move around between organizations and fill different roles that were vacant.
“I was being offered these opportunities, and so it was kind of a win-win situation,” she said.
However, she experienced one of a couple of pivotal moments in her career during a mentor-mentee conversation with a boss at QBE.
“He had said ‘up until now, everybody’s advocated for you, everybody has looked out for you and kind of managed your career. And there will come a point in time where you’re going to advocate for yourself,’” she recalled.
While she initially thought that this meant her mentor was not going to support her anymore, Taylor realized that this was a call to take destiny into her own hands and drive her career forward.
While there were thoughts of maybe now would be the time to enrol into university to pursue her broadcasting dreams, Taylor realized that she was being set up for a fulfilling career in insurance, and that it would be a shame to walk away without exploring all its potential.
“I don’t know if I actually had a moment where I thought I was going to double down on insurance, but I’ve always been very motivated when I enjoy what I do, and I enjoyed insurance,” she said.
After this moment of realization, Taylor was on a mission to gain as much knowledge of the industry as possible but had an insatiable desire to travel outside of New Zealand.
“I had worked with two fantastic leaders for a company called The St. Paul, in New Zealand,” she said.
So, she had brokered a deal that she would be working with them for 18 months and then be able to transfer to one of the company’s international partners, and with that, randomly chose Canada as her working destination.
As an underwriter, she moved into The St. Paul office in Toronto ready to start a new chapter in her career, while also being given a chance to underwrite products she had never done before.
It was during this time, in 2002, that the Canadian insurance market was undergoing hardened conditions, and it was becoming difficult for brokers to be able to explain to insureds why rates and premiums were escalating.
At the advice of some broker partners, Taylor decided to switch to a customer-facing position, back to her Marsh roots as an insurance broker, and use her underwriting experience to explain these hikes while also establishing continued trust with the insureds.
Then, the market softened after a turbulent few years, and, as Taylor noted, “I was not having as much fun,” which led her to think about how she could leverage her technical experience into new avenues, mainly strategic or corporate roles.
“This was a turning point in time, do I continue to pursue a career as a broker, perhaps seeking out ownership opportunities, or try something different,” she said.
This resulted in Taylor moving on to a contract position with RSA to learn portfolio management and think about execution from a holistic approach as opposed to a case-by-case basis — this turned into an eight-year gig.
During her tenure at RSA, Taylor was also able to get involved with leadership and advanced technical capability courses that allowed her to realize she enjoyed leading frontline underwriting teams and the people aspect of the industry equally.
When she eventually became the VP of specialty lines at RSA, Taylor believed she had found her dream job.
“I had very unique portfolios of business, some of which I was not a subject matter expert in,” Taylor said.
“But through that I developed a real passion for people leadership and the psychology of teams and business.”
In time, her evolution at her previous post reached its plateau; it was hard for Taylor to continue being the people leader she wanted to be or inspire a strategic vision.
She realized that it was time to transition into a new company, and with various firms reaching out to bait interest, she knew she would be fine.
Taylor admitted that, at first, she did not fully know or appreciate who Sovereign was, but after a timely reminder from her husband to approach the opportunity with curiosity, she decided to meet with the company to gain a better feel for the business and place in the industry.
One thing that attracted her to Sovereign was the fact that it was owned by The Co-operators and was not governed by stockholders like she was previously used to.
When meeting with Steve Phillips, an EVP of The Co-operators, she was immediately drawn to the very inviting office space and Sovereign’s entrepreneurial spirit at that point.
“We had diverse and interesting portfolios of business here, but all the infrastructure was very much in its infancy,” Taylor said.
While certain investments in technology or organizational changes needed to be done in order to keep-up with competitors, that has been part of the fun since joining the company initially as VP of specialty lines solutions.
“We’ve got a solid foundation of business to start from and yet it’s almost also kind of like being in startup mode with all of the changes that we’ve been able to implement into the business,” she said. “It’s the best of both worlds.”
While Sovereign’s specialty division was experiencing a profitable period, the same could not be said about its commercial portfolios, which inspired Taylor to make a leap of faith and to take the reins of a struggling business segment.
Taylor assumed this position six weeks before the pandemic hit, which was a challenging transition due to the new reality of having to work remotely and without that in-person communal company culture she and her colleagues had grown accustomed to.
“But the teams did a phenomenal job of what we asked them to do at a very difficult time,” she said.
“We’ve gone from strength to strength, coming out the other side of profitability challenges to having this major technology implementation, while still being able to launch new product wordings this year.”
While very ambitious by nature, Taylor never expected to become COO of the company, which was announced last year.
This adventurous spirit had Taylor admitting that: “I’m sure there is more that I’m going to want to do in the future.
“I’m going to have to keep challenging myself and growing and learning because that’s what I’m passionate about. But what that looks like I have no idea — I’m just open to it all.”
