Lockton has appointed Catherine Lanctôt (pictured) as national leader for professional and executive risk (ProExec) and head of insurer relations for its Canadian business.
"Connecting executive risk advisory with insurer relations under Catherine's leadership gives our business a distinct competitive advantage," said Tim Ryan, Lockton's North American leader.
Based in Montreal, Lanctôt will build and direct Lockton's Professional and Executive Risks practice nationally, while also overseeing the firm's market management and insurer relations across all commercial lines in Canada.
This is a more senior hire than most of Lockton's recent Canadian appointments. Aon's Financial Services Group handles some of the most complex D&O, cyber and financial lines placements in the country.
Lanctôt has also moderated industry panels on D&O and executive risk trends for groups like the Insurance Institute of British Columbia and l'Association des Gestionnaires de Risques du Québec, pointing to a recognized profile in the market rather than an internal promotion.
Lockton's Canadian expansion has moved fast and started at the top. Stéphane Lespérance, a 24-year Aon veteran who served as its president and then president and CEO, was named CEO of Lockton's Canadian business earlier this year.
Fiona Terry joined soon after as managing director of Lockton's Canadian Global Solutions team. In July, Lockton added seven account executives and managers to that same Global Solutions practice, focused on multinational corporations operating in Canada.
Lanctôt's hire fills a different gap: rather than adding headcount for multinational clients, it puts senior national leadership in place specifically for professional and executive risk, one of the more technical, carrier-relationship-dependent lines in commercial insurance.
Pairing ProExec advisory with insurer relations under one person is a deliberate structural choice. It suggests Lockton wants its executive risk practice built around carrier access and program design from the outset, rather than developing client advisory first and market relationships later.
For a brokerage entering Canada as aggressively as Lockton has this year, someone with an existing national carrier network is arguably more valuable early on than technical advisory talent alone, since that network is hard to build quickly from scratch.
Competing brokers in the D&O and financial lines space, particularly Aon itself, should expect Lockton's Canadian ProExec practice to reach credible market presence faster than a typical greenfield build would allow.
