“Nothing changes.” That’s the overriding message that Victor Canada, formerly known as ENCON Group, Inc. wants its Canadian broker partners to understand. The long-standing managing general agency (MGA), which (unknown to some) has been part of the global Victor Group since 1986, officially rebranded as Victor Canada on October 21, 2019.
The move follows the larger global unification and rebrand of The Schinnerer Group to Victor Insurance Holdings, which was announced in 2018. Shortly after ENCON’s name change, Victor Group’s US unit, Victor O. Schinnerer and Company, also announced its rebranding to Victor US.
Periods of change inevitably spark uncertainty. For many of ENCON’s broker partners in Canada, the two key questions they’re asking are: “Have you been bought?” and “What’s going to change?” These questions are fair. As a successful brokerage well before joining ranks with Victor Group to initiate MGA capabilities, ENCON has never really shouted its ownership from the rooftops. It didn’t need to because the ENCON brand has been strong in Canada since the 1960s.
To some, with little prior knowledge of the global Victor Group, the sudden rebranding to Victor Canada will have come as quite the surprise. But as Ted Bellinger, senior vice-president, business development at Victor Canada, asserted: “Nothing changes. The ownership is the same. It’s the same people, the same product offerings and the same level of service that we’ve always provided. It’s just a rebrand.”
Understanding that, some people have asked the MGA: “Why would you change your name now? You’re so well-known in Canada.” It’s all to do with the wider rebranding of The Schinnerer Group to Victor Group. By bringing all of its global units under one unified global brand, Victor hopes to grow into a world-leading MGA/MGU and enable greater networking and knowledge sharing between the countries where it does business.
“From a global perspective, this rebranding will enable us to leverage our global position much better,” Bellinger told Insurance Business. “If you have clients that have needs internationally, there are more opportunities for us there. A lot of our coverages already extend worldwide, but they’re for Canadian-domiciled companies. But now, if a client has operations in different jurisdictions, I think it will be easier for us to find a strong solution for their needs.
“The global rebrand also gives us more ability to work with other Victor units. We’ve always had a very strong relationship with Victor US [formerly known as Victor O. Schinnerer and Company]. They offer some exciting products in the US that we don’t yet have in Canada. Moving forwards, I think it will become easier to bring those products into Canada, and vice versa, so we don’t have to totally reinvent the wheel. We have partners and sister companies operating under the same brand, so the opportunities around leveraging our global position and bringing in new product offerings are quite prominent.”
Aside from having a new name and access to greater global capabilities, it really is “business as usual” at Victor Canada, according to Bellinger. They’re following the phrase: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” And nothing was broken at ENCON. Therefore, Victor Canada isn’t suddenly going to start copying Victor US or changing its culture or its well-established distribution model.
“Part of our success over the years is in how we operate. The American way of doing business is different to the Canadian way, which is different to the British way. Every Victor company will have its own little quirks that work for them,” Bellinger added. “For us in Canada, our success has been in our relationship with our brokers. They know us and they trust us. Change is inevitable, but I don’t see us changing our culture or how we operate. We’ve been very successful for a long period of time, so changing our operation now doesn’t make any sense.”
