When life throws you lemons, make lemonade. Challenging scenarios are sent to test us and only the strong can turn a negative into something positive.
When the forestry company Melanie Stefiuk worked for closed down, she had to sell her vehicle and cancel her car insurance. When she went to her local broker to cancel her policy she had the initiative to drop off her resume. She was hired, and a few jobs later is now a highly successful insurance broker.
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Melanie currently works at
HUB International Insurance Brokers in British Columbia as a Strata account executive and she features as one of Insurance Business’ elite brokers of 2017. We caught up with Melanie to find out how she reached this point in her career.
How did you get started in the industry?
I worked for a forestry company that had gone out of business and subsequently I had to cancel my car insurance and sell my vehicle. When I went into my local autoplan broker to cancel my policy, I dropped off a resume at the same time. I was hired a couple of weeks later as a receptionist. It took me three cities and working at a couple of brokers and one insurer before I actually took my first “insurance” related job in Burnaby at HUB in the spring of 2002.
What are the best parts of your job?
Hands down my favourite part of the job is when people approach me and tell me that I’ve been able to explain things to them in a language they can understand with a fun flair. Insurance has the reputation of being a lot of doom and gloom and being serious has its place but, I find it’s easier to hold a crowd by keeping the subject matter light and entertaining. Doing things this way has enabled me to become close friends with many of my clients.
What challenges have you faced in your role?
The main challenge in the strata industry is market capacity. There are very few players who will entertain strata business, and, depending on construction, age, etc., that number can be even smaller. The other challenge we have is for the most part, we don’t deal with the end user of our product; we deal primarily with property managers who then deal with the strata councils.
What advice would you give to someone working their way up the insurance ladder?
Surround yourself with mentors and colleagues you can learn from but also enjoy working with. I’ve been very blessed to have a few mentors who have been in the industry for many years. Their knowledge and guidance has helped elevate me to the successful person I am today.
If you weren’t working in insurance, what would you be doing?
I would likely be running some type of animal therapy - dogs in children’s or senior’s hospitals, or animal therapy for children and adults with autism.
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Melanie Stefiuk
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