In the earlier stages of her career, Colette Taylor (pictured), Sovereign COO, was aware of the gender disparity in the insurance industry but it was something she had come to expect and deal with as best as she could.
“It was always a consideration and so therefore never a consideration, if that makes sense,” she said.
“I mean, right from when I started broking in the late ‘90s/early 2000s, I was surrounded predominantly by men, especially in the commercial lines space.”
Having made the move from New Zealand to Canada for a change of scenery and other professional opportunities, Taylor admitted that while her stint in underwriting presented her more opportunities to work with women, other sectors in the industry were still heavily unequal in representation.
“At that point in time, I think I had just gotten so used to that being the situation that there was just this realization that this is the reality I live in,” she said.
During this time in her career, Taylor was more eager to prove her worth and value to her peers, rather than fight for greater representation in the office and boardroom, something she regrets in hindsight.
“I didn’t want to join a ‘woman in insurance group’, because I was not fond of actively segregating myself in the workplace,” she admitted. “Now I see this is an incredibly naïve position to have had, but at that point in time, society wasn’t ready to accept such a push for visibility.”
It always seemed like there was always one seat allocated for a woman within boardrooms and higher positions, which created an air of competition among colleagues, according to Taylor.
“Essentially, all of the females were in competition with each other, not the men though. There always seemed to be plenty of spots and opportunities for them,” she said.
This dog-eat-dog mentality resulted in many women looking to alter their professional demeanour and persona to become “one of the boys.”
“Women of an earlier generation, who I watched closely in my early years, felt like they had to show up as men, and that they couldn’t just be their authentic selves,” Taylor said.
“They would only wear a uniform of pantsuits and I recall one woman seemed to deepen her voice in meetings to try and mimic what else was going on around the table.”
Additionally, women often felt the unspoken pressure of needing to find reasons to leave or endure situations of locker room humour or partake in company activities that were only ever geared towards the interests of the men at the table.
“At the end of the day, that was just the standard work environment,” she said.
“You could choose to focus on your work or doing your job or you could let those things be a real distraction and weigh heavily on you. That’s not to say that I didn’t have moments where I felt this exact way.”
Taylor is grateful for the opportunity to be mentored by professionals who saw the potential in her as she ascended through the ranks of the insurance industry and was ultimately promoted to COO of Sovereign in 2022.
“Having started at a young age, it was a blessing to have the type of support from predominantly male leaders through those formative years of my career, who all recognized a potential in me and made an investment in supporting my development,” she said.
“No woman who got to any point of leadership in insurance could say that it wasn’t with the support or help from a male she encountered along her career journey. That’s not been a reality for the past decades in our industry.”
However, Taylor believes it is important that she utilizes her experience and insight to become a guiding figure for up-and-coming insurance professionals, especially women.
“It’s absolutely our responsibility as women leaders in insurance to create a better experience for those who are looking for growth and not let our earlier struggles influence how we show up and support them in achieving their goals,” she said.
While pushes for diversity, equity and inclusion have helped create a positive path forward, Taylor believes that there is still more that can and needs to be done.
“Now there is a lot more awareness on creating inclusive environments,” she said.
While there has been a marked increase of female professionals into executive-level roles in Canada’s insurance industry, there needs to be a more concerted effort to represent the diversity of citizenship throughout the country.
“In terms of other minorities, visible and non-visible, we’ve got more to do. While it’s a work in progress, I am hopeful that with more diverse representation confidently sitting in leadership positions, we will continue to drive progress"
