Headquarters: Essex, ON
Year founded: 1966
Total number of offices: 6
Number of employees: 62
Specialty: 70% commercial lines and 30% personal lines
Head leadership: Jeff Ives, president
Website: www.ivesinsurance.com
What makes your brokerage unique?
We are very specialized in our business segments and we have worked extremely hard to become the best at what we do. We are Lloyd’s coverholders and have internal binding agreements as well as open market placements. We were also one of the first in Ontario to develop captive insurance programs.
Our staff are required to obtain their CAIB, and many of them have CIP designations. We encourage them to pursue further education, and provide financial support for training and upgrading.
We also encourage our producers and staff to become specialists in their specific fields of business and try to not be a jack of all trades broker. We find that having specialists in a certain field can be a valuable resource for our clients.
In what areas of business has your brokerage experienced recent growth?
We have seen significant growth in our specialty lines of business. This also includes our personal lines, where our personal lines employees are specialists in that market.
Our medium-to-large commercial sector is also seeing significant growth. However, we have seen the most amount of growth in our staff. Overall, the brokerage is seeing growth in all sectors.
What has been a proud accomplishment for your brokerage and why?
I think what has made us most proud is our ability to be agile in an industry that is rapidly changing – by remaining segmentfocused, going paperless, learning about new and exciting products, adding these coverages into our clients’ programs for their exposures, disregarding legacy issues that hold us back and staying ahead of the curve and, quite frankly, just managing to stay in business. These are not easy to achieve in an industry that is changing faster than we have ever seen in the past 30 years. Our staff are incredible and they not only buy into our systems, they create them and they run with them. It is difficult, yet very exciting and rewarding to be a part of all of this.
What challenges did your brokerage experience last year and how did your team overcome them?
Last year was another year of rebuilding and realigning ourselves. This seems to be the same for the past few years. Everything changes so quickly – new computer systems, cyber cover, drones, driverless cars, paperless commercial files, constant downloading from our insurers, new competitors like Google, Lemonade, Microsoft and our insurers going direct. These are all challenges, yet we continue to grow and expand by finding ways to reinvent ourselves while addressing the needs of our clients.
Our team understands that our role is not to sell insurance; we are providers of important advice. As long as we can provide proper and correct advice to our insured and insurers, we will continue to survive and thrive in this industry as an integral advisor to our client base.
What are your brokerage’s plans for 2017?
We are looking again at continued growth within our specific segments of business, and looking forward to creating new and exciting programs and opening new markets for our clients. We are enjoying expanding our coverage lines globally as our clients grow and our abilities and expertise expand. 2017 is going to be a great year!
What five factors have contributed to your brokerage’s success?
- Incredible staff
- Ability to change
- Dismissing legacy issues
- Embracing technology
- Engaging with and listening to those around us
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