The Ontario Broker - Volume 23, Issue 3 - 11

Melanie Muise
President, Personal Lines
and Travel, Navacord
Don Stanton
Sr. Vice President,
McDougall Insurance
Brokers
Which provinces is your brokerage licensed in? And which Canadian
provinces do you have physical office locations in?
Navacord runs a decentralized model and operates under 50+ brands coast-to-coast.
We're licensed through our broker partners in every province and territory. We have
over 200 offices across the country, currently in every province except Newfoundland.
What's the number one benefit of operating nationally?
The value and power of our national strength have always been driven by our
ability to collaborate and share knowledge as one while operating in a way that
supports local diversity. While the cultural fundamentals are universal across
the organization, a healthy respect for the entrepreneurial spirit remains at
the heart of everything we do. It's this intentional approach and unique value
proposition that has driven-and continues to drive-our growth. We leverage
national strength and resources with the local touch service of industry-specialized
Navacord broker partners. The number one benefit of operating nationally is being
there for our clients in the community and truly understanding their risks.
What's the biggest challenge of operating nationally?
The biggest challenge with scale is culture and sustaining who you are at your core
as you continue to grow. With exponential growth, you're often moving from ad-hoc,
informal, reactive problem solving, to formal systems, structures and governance that
create minimum standards, consistency and efficiency while still being flexible and
proactive. Taking the time to invest in leadership development, digitization, training,
documentation, create playbooks, standards, benchmarks, and formalizing ways to
measure against those systems is key. Even more critical is communication. Effectively,
proactively and relentlessly communicating is the best way to sustain a strong culture
through growth and keep engagement high with your clients, employees, leaders,
capital partners and other stakeholders as you manage national expansion
If other brokerages are looking to expand nationally, what resources
do they need to best undertake this strategy?
The story of Navacord becoming national started in 2014 when two regional
brokerages (Lloyd Sadd in Edmonton, and Jones Deslauriers in Toronto) recognized
the importance of national presence. To thrive, brokerages need to be proactive
and think about creating scalability when expanding nationally. This means
investing in the skills, technology and practices to support future growth both in
new and existing geographies and products; readiness to face competitive threats
and shifting client demands; and identifying market trends and pivoting quickly to
maximize growth. Investment in people, culture, training, automation, continuous
improvement and shared services are all important areas to focus on. Access to
capital is also critical to fueling growth and investment in long term strategies.
Which provinces is your brokerage licensed
in? And which Canadian provinces do you
have physical office locations in?
McDougall Insurance and its subsidiaries are
licensed in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba,
Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI and
Newfoundland.
What's the number one benefit of operating
nationally?
We have many customers based in Ontario that
have out of province locations and operations. We're
also involved in association programs that have
members across the country.
What's the biggest challenge of operating
nationally?
Regulatory compliance. Maintaining and updating
insurance licensing and corporate registration is
expensive and very difficult. Each province has their
own rules and requirements. We don't have a license in
Quebec because it's almost impossible to obtain one.
If other brokerages are looking to expand
nationally, what resources do they need to
best undertake this strategy?
To obtain and maintain corporate registrations, it's
best to rely on a lawyer with a local presence. To
obtain and maintain the insurance licenses, it takes
someone a considerable amount of time and effort
to set up each provincial license. The person needs
access to a lot of corporate records (i.e. shareholder
registries, banking info, E&O carrier info, in some
cases police records, etc.), a degree of patience to
work with the bureaucrats in each of the provinces,
and they have to be informed and organized to
ensure they can keep track of license renewals and
required information that each province requires
licensees to provide as the brokerage corporate
information changes (i.e. changes of address,
changes of ownership, etc.).
Volume 23 | Issue 3
11
The Ontario Broker - Volume 23, Issue 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Ontario Broker - Volume 23, Issue 3
