Pounded with mountains of snow and buffeted by 110 km/h winds, Nova Scotia brokers are bracing for an onslaught of claims – but one neighbouring New Brunswick broker says the 20 cms of blowing snow blanketing her city isn’t a big deal.
“We are living in Canada, and this is a Canadian winter,” says Heather Wilson, a third-generation broker and president and CEO of Wilson Insurance in Fredericton, N.B. “There should be no surprises here that we get snow. We haven’t done a mass email about a winter storm this year; and it’s been quite a year!”
Most of Nova Scotia closed down for the blizzard that made its way up the Atlantic coast this week. Most flights in and out of the Halifax Stanfield International Airport were cancelled; schools and universities closed, along with provincial government offices across most of the province.
Banks, credit unions and other businesses shut down, including Dartmouth’s Mic Mac Mall, and Bedford’s local favourite, Chickenburger.
After the ice storm that hit New Brunswick residents hard at Christmas, leaving many without power for days or even weeks, Wilson didn’t want to alarm clients unnecessarily. (See '
Record $3.2 billion paid out')
“Blizzard is a big word, and you don’t want to cry wolf,” Wilson told Insurance Business. “We received some information from our insurance companies, which we could have sent, but I didn’t think it was saying the right thing.” (continued.)
#pb#
Wilson’s acceptance of the weather shouldn’t be misinterpreted as nonchalance. Her approach is to be ‘proactive’ rather than ‘reactive’ with client education, instead sending out educational emails and mailers on a regular basis.
“We aren’t expected to get a lot of snow, not like what they’re getting in Nova Scotia,” she says. “At one point they were talking anywhere of 40 to 80 centimetres of snow in Nova Scotia. Here in New Brunswick they said 20 centimetres – which is just a good ski day. But it is coming down here – coming down sideways.”
The one piece of proactive advice Wilson has passed along to clients is about all of the warnings regarding snow load on the roof.
“We don’t want clients going up and risking injury to clear the snow off their roof,” she says. “We recommend that they hire a professional.”
As one of the companies in contention for Top 10 Brokerages in Canada, she is carrying on the family tradition as the third generation at Wilson Insurance, one of the largest insurance brokerage firms in Atlantic Canada.
“My father is still actively involved as CFO and chairman,” she says, “my grandfather has since passed on; but he was a young man when he set the brokerage up in 1930!”
Haven’t fill out the
Top Brokerage survey yet? You’ve only got until April 4 to enter.
