Canadian Underwriter
Feature

Passion Play


October 4, 2016   by Angela Stelmakowich, Editor


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Dale Rempel Award of Excellence

Tara Chammartin is passionate about a lot of things: golf, professional development (PD) and, of course, being a broker.

That interest may be, in part, because these passions share some commonalities.

“The golf game is good overall for a person because it really teaches you how to be patient,” says Chammartin, operations manager for La Salle Insurance and Travel Services Ltd. in Winnipeg. “It doesn’t matter if you’re having a good game or a bad game; it still takes patience and focus and a commitment. It’s kind of like being a broker. It really is,” she says.

When passion combines with recognition, though, things can seem all the more meaningful. So it was with great honour that Chammartin discovered that her efforts to advance PD among brokers had been recognized with an award in the name of a long-time mentor, Dale Rempel, who passed away in 2012.

Rempel

Tara Chammartin, recipient, 2016 Dale Rempel Award of Excellence; operations manager, La Salle Insurance and Travel Services Ltd.

Chammartin is the recipient of the 2016 Dale Rempel Award of Excellence, established three years ago by the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada (IBAC) to acknowledge an individual who has demonstrated commitment and support of broker education, learning and PD.

“I am super-honoured, very excited,” Chammartin says. “To have this award in his name is extremely, extremely rewarding to me.”

The two met when Rempel was PD chairperson with the Insurance Brokers Association of Manitoba (IBAM), and Chammartin, then in her early 20s and in the industry for just a handful of years, was serving as the PD representative for IBAM’s Young Broker Network.

An original member of the network, “Manitoba was the first province in all of Canada to start that and I was there from day one,” she says with pride. “That is where I became very involved and my passion grew for the industry in itself.”

Rempel’s support and encouragement only serve to help fuel that passion even further.

“I saw his involvement with what he was doing as far as PD for brokers across the country was, and I was kind of there along by his side,” says the current IBAM president, a role she assumed this past April. “I learned a lot from him. He’s kind of the one who really motivated me, I think, to become so involved and so I did.”

UNPLANNED DESTINATION

Broker, IBAM president and brokerage partner were certainly not ambitions Chammartin had when she applied for a receptionist job at Confederation General Insurance in 1994. “It’s not something you come out of high school saying, ‘I want to be an insurance broker,'” she says, laughing.

That view quickly changed. After a couple of months at the brokerage, “I was like, ‘This is kind of neat.’ I thought, ‘This could really be a career.'”

Tara Chammartin, recipient, 2016 Dale Rempel Award of Excellence; operations manager, La Salle Insurance and Travel Services Ltd.

Tara Chammartin, recipient, 2016 Dale Rempel Award of Excellence; operations manager, La Salle Insurance and Travel Services Ltd.

And so it began. Chammartin says that she poured all her effort into working, opting to do her fundamentals within the first year. “Then I started my (Canadian Accredited Insurance Broker designation) CAIB 1, CAIB 2, CAIB 3, CAIB 4. It just kind of all progressed,” she says.

Chammartin remained at the brokerage for about eight years before weighing her options as to her next move.

By that time, she already knew Rempel. She began working at Rempel Insurance Brokers in Morris, Manitoba in 2001, staying there for just shy of a decade.

But with about a 45-minute daily drive each way to work – and her daughter becoming increasingly involved in dance, classes for which were in Winnipeg – Chammartin says that things just did not work schedule-wise, so she made the decision to find another position in the city.

“It was hard,” she says of leaving Rempel Insurance. “It was probably the hardest decision of my life, because I very much enjoyed working with Dale and, I mean, he was my biggest mentor,” she says.

“I would have never dreamt in a million years that I would have been an insurance broker. So to be in this for over 20 years already is, I think, a testament as to my passion and my dedication to the industry,” Chammartin says.

She left Rempel Insurance as operations manager and currently serves in the same capacity at La Salle Insurance and Travel Services. Why?

“I love working with people; I enjoy dealing with the clients. That’s not stuff I want to give up,” she emphasizes.

Beyond the clients, though, is the ability to lead staff, “so teaching them, engaging them to learn more and giving them my experience,” she adds.

It is experience that Chammartin is eager to pass along, as demonstrated by her years of delivering courses and volunteering at the provincial and national levels.

She has served on IBAM’s Young Broker Network Committee, Conference Committee and Professional Development Committee, holding the position of chair at the last for more than eight years; organized the professional development aspects of IBAM’s 2015 and 2016 conventions; joined IBAM’s executive in 2014 and is current president; served as Manitoba’s PD representative on IBAC’s PD committee for about six years; and taught CAIB 1 and CAIB 3 course for many years.

“I enjoy teaching people about the industry, sharing my passion of the industry with them, which kind of engages them to become passionate about the industry,” Chammartin says. “When I teach my classes, I think everybody knows that I’m a very passionate person about the industry in itself.”

YOUTH MOVEMENT

Getting people excited about and engaged in the industry is essential – and a big part of that is attracting young people to the channel. “It’s great to see and attract new people to the industry because they’re going to be the ones who carry it forward,” Chammartin points out.

Tara Chammartin, recipient, 2016 Dale Rempel Award of Excellence; operations manager, La Salle Insurance and Travel Services Ltd.

Tara Chammartin, recipient, 2016 Dale Rempel Award of Excellence; operations manager, La Salle Insurance and Travel Services Ltd.

Noting that her brokerage employs quite a few young people, “it’s great because of their attitude, they’re upbeat

and they have a lot to offer as far as technology goes. They have ideas, they’re creative,” she says.

“I’m a huge supporter of education, so I’m constantly giving the okay to our staff to go ahead” with CAIB or beyond. “Let’s see how we can continue to grow you and build you because the more experience and learning they do, it just makes them a better broker all around,” she says of brokers.

“There’s nothing more rewarding than taking somebody who has no experience in the insurance industry, engaging them to take the necessary education to get their licence requirements, etc., and then training them while still furthering their education,” Chammartin maintains.

Brokers have “the opportunity to deal with clients face to face, and I think people still enjoy that. Maybe the younger generation, not right now, because they’re not familiar with it, will also learn to embrace that because you go to an expert for a reason,” she suggests.

With things changing so quickly, so is the face of the competition. But Chammartin welcomes all that.

“Healthy competition is great. I’m not scared of online competition, personally, because the service that we offer as brokers will outshine a 1-800 number or an online quote any day,” she says.

What does the future hold for Chammartin? She says she would certainly be open to doing more with IBAC at the national level, although for the immediate future, her hands are full being IBAM president and a new partner of an expanding business (her brokerage recently acquired two new locations).

That may leave little time for golf. “Sometimes I have some good games and sometimes I have games I don’t want to talk about,” she laughs.

Regardless what the scorecard reads, Chammartin is still on her game.


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