The unlikely trio of famed Canadian songbird Sarah McLachlan, indoor fireworks, and hundreds of insurance professionals were brought together by the Insurance Brokers Association of BC’s (IBABC) first-ever awards gala during its 70th annual conference.
Held at BC Place in Vancouver, the gala sought to recognize the standout players in the industry who have contributed to the success of BC brokers.
Special Risk Insurance Managers (SRIM), an MGA serving the Canadian specialty lines market, took home the award for Partner/Supplier of the Year, which highlights the value and services that suppliers provide to the insurance sector in the province. SRIM’s president and CEO, Mark Woodall, spoke to Insurance Business about what the accolade means for his company.
“When you’re recognized as one of the leading markets, for us, it’s a reflection on all the hard work and everything that we’ve done,” he said. “We strive on supporting the independent broker force – it’s our livelihood. We strive at being the best.”
Giving the broker a hand when they need it is one of the ways that SRIM distinguishes itself. Woodall says the MGA has a ‘one-ring policy,’ meaning that its employees aim to pick up the phone after only one ring. After all, in today’s digital world, a phone call means that a question is especially important or urgent.
Getting answers for brokers, no matter how they get in touch, is another crucial aspect of SRIM’s award-winning customer service.
“We do a lot of training. We’ll get a producer phone us and say, ‘I need to insure a hockey tournament’ and we’ll ask them, ‘what type of coverage are you looking for?’” explained Woodall. “We’ll actually educate them as to what in fact they need. We’ll work with and give them some risk management techniques. Some of them want waivers – we’ll help them produce a waiver. Some of them want safety techniques or we teach them how to write the coverage, and we do a lot of that in the specialty lines.”
If the SRIM team hasn’t written a specific risk before, they’ll do the research and find a way to do it so that the broker isn’t left hanging, according to the president and CEO, who underlines that his business doesn’t compete with the main market.
“We at Special Risk look at it this way: the run-of-the-mill broker will have 80% to 90% of the business that will go into the main market, whether it be your Economicals, your RSAs, your Intacts,” said Woodall. “Anywhere from five to 15% of their business doesn’t fit the typical marketplace. They have to find a home for it and that’s where MGAs are filling the void.”
SRIM started out insuring sports in 1985 when the mainstream insurers wouldn’t cover the risk because of the number of injuries and other risks involved in that area of business. On the MGA’s menu of products today, you’ll find resort programs, adventure tourism coverage, commercial cannabis – the list goes on.
The award from the IBABC is a symbol of the attention SRIM pays to the needs of the broker community and in turn, their customers’ needs.
“We turn around our quotes with 24 hours. A lot of our quotes to brokers are within the same day or within two or three hours,” said Woodall. “25,000 brokers in the province, and we’ll deal with them all. We don’t pick and choose.”
