Going concern

Gregg Hanson, FCA
President and CEO,
Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company

Company profile: With the investment of 20 farmers fronting $20 each, Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Co. was started in 1896 in the tiny village of Wawanesa, Man., where it is still based today. From its humble beginnings in a small rented room above the local drugstore, it is now one of the largest property and casualty insurers in the country, employing more than 1,800 people throughout Canada, California and Oregon. It has more than $3 billion in combined assets and more than $1.5 billion in annual premiums. Owned by policyholders, it partners with more than 1,300 independent brokers in Canada.

Hot factor: While it took the company 95 years to reach $1 billion in assets, it took only the past 13 years to triple that amount. Wawanesa consistently earns an A+ (superior) rating for its financial strength and stability from agency A.M. Best and has ranked among Manitoba Business Magazine’s 50 fastest-growing companies for the past 15 years.

Cool projects: Wawanesa is in the midst of a technological overhaul, developing a flexible, company-wide policy management system that will bring Windows-based, real-time functionality to all aspects of the business. It is also working on an electronic data interchange with its brokers, so they can feed client information electronically to the company’s main system and eliminate current paper-based processes.

In his own words: “We like to think that we’re a little company that happens to write a lot of business and we like to keep that family-type atmosphere. We’ve been working with multiple generations of brokers and they really sense the tradition we represent.”
                 
Rosalind Stefanac