Revival of Relationships

In a potentially alienating world of hyper-competition, ‘power to the people’ may well be the motif guiding Peace Hills Insurance president and CEO Diane Brickner.

Brickner grew up on a Saskatchewan farm and dreamed of a destiny in interior decorating. But after attending school in Calgary, she abandoned the dream of finishing homes and instead followed her cousin into the world of selling home insurance.

Brickner still remembers her cousin, who worked at the Saskatchewan Mutual Insurance Company at the time, advising her: “If you want to get a job, they’ll hire you because they hire farm girls: they think farm girls have a better work ethic.”

Following her cousin’s advice, Brickner went for an interview at Saskatchewan Mutual and was hired on the spot. She worked in Saskatchewan for awhile and then followed her cousin to Edmonton. In 1981, Brickner’s destiny led her to Peace Hills Insurance, which is poised to celebrate its 25th anniversary on July 16, 2007.

Forming close personal ties with staff, as well as establishing good working relationships with brokers – and even competitors – is key to Peace Hills’ longevity, Brickner said in an interview conducted at Independent Brokers Association of B.C.’s May 2006 convention in Vancouver. “[Former Peace Hills president and CEO] Bill Holt is a wonderful man and a terrific friend and he taught me a lot, but I think the most important thing he taught me was that if you can’t have fun in this business, then why are we even here?” Brickner says.

Brickner appears to have fun identifying other people’s interests and providing for their needs. In her capacity as chair of the Insurance Institute of Canada, for example, Brickner and the IIC consulted with the insurance industry and students before overseeing a revamp of the Chartered Insurance Professional (CIP) designation program. Brickner credits these revisions for the CIP designation of up to 1,800 students in Canada thus far in the academic year. During Brickner’s watch, the number of CIP courses has been reduced from 12 to 10. In addition, the curriculum has been refined to reflect the specialist interests of the modern student.

KEEPING THINGS PERSONAL

Brickner cites the creation and maintenance of personal and business relationships for the steady growth of Peace Hill’s business. Established at the initiative of the Samson Indian Nation and Band in Alberta, Peace Hills Insurance began as a CD$2.5-million operation in 1981. Today the company has 150 employees, offices in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver, and writes CD$125 million annually in premium.

The largest portion of Peace Hills’ book is personal lines; about 40% of its business is in commercial, auto, property and farm.

“Peace Hills is owned by the Samson Indian Band,” Brickner recalls. “Twenty-five to 26 years ago, they were looking at business ventures in which to diversify and invest, because all of their money was coming from oil royalties – the oil and gas industry. They were looking at ways of investing in other businesses, so they started a trust company and an insurance company.”

But the investors didn’t know how to start an insurance company on their own. They sought expertise from Tom Sadd, an Edmonton broker who at the time was president of the local brokers association. Sadd contacted Rex Anthony in Newfoundland and they developed a charter and a business plan, which they presented to the Samson Indian Nation and Band.

Sadd and Anthony offered to manage Peace Hill Insurance for the first couple of years, until the company’s reinsurance was in place and more people were trained to take over. Bill Holt became the first president and CEO, Brickner was the general manager, and Brenda Simioni was the personal lines manager.

The company appeared poised to “have fun,” as Holt exhorted, but there was a hitch, Brickner says. Heavily reliant on federal government funding for start-up costs, the company first few months in 1981 saw its wheels spinning, with nowhere to go.

HURRY UP AND WAIT

At the time, the federal government held in trust the royalties the Samson band received from the province’s oil and gas companies. The idea was that Peace Hill Insurance would put together a budget and in turn the federal government would release funds for the company’s CD$2.5-million start-up costs.

“It took awhile for this CD$2.5 million to be released from the federal government,” Brickner recalls.

As of February 1982, the company had established its rates and formulated its policy wordings; all it needed was the seed money. But the first cheque from the feds didn’t arrive until July 1982.

“We’d come to work, we’d chat and go home exhausted,” Brickner recalls of those times. “It was a tough couple of months….None of us wanted to take holidays because as soon as that cheque came we were in business.

“It’s interesting to look back now. The day the cheque arrived, we had two applications for business on our desk. We processed those. We had two filing cabinets that were absolutely empty. We had this massive office that was absolutely empty. Brenda typed up the [first] policy, and I filed it in the filing cabinet. We toasted it with champagne. And we’ve never looked back since.”

Now Brickner is looking ahead to July 16, 2007, the 25th anniversary date of the company’s first official policy. “We’re planning a big shindig,” she says, noting the venue for the 25th-anniversary “shindig” has already been booked for next year. When asked for more details, Brickner says with a laugh: “Can’t tell you, or I’d have to kill you.”

EVERYONE KNOWS YOUR NAME

Why has it been so much fun for Brickner to work at Peace Hill Insurance? Several employees who started with Brickner in the beginning are still with the company, she notes. Such longevity has given the office a kind of family feel.

“When you are a small company and you know your employees so well, you know when one of your employees buys a new house or is getting married and having a family and you feel responsible for those people,” Brickner says. “We’re a close, tight company.”

Strong personal connections and loyalty are in fact partly responsible for the company’s ability to resist the contemporary push towards consolidation, Brickner notes. “We’re very fortunate because we have built a relationship and a base with our brokers that is very solid and we haven’t had a lot of our books of business sold,” she says. “I was talking to a broker last week and he said a company had approached him to buy a Peace Hills book of business and he said: ‘How could I do that? They’re my family. They’re part of my family and I just couldn’t do that.'”

Still, Brickner says, there is a need to establish better communications and relationships between competing companies. “Twenty years ago, 15 years ago, companies used to meet on a regular basis and exchange information,” she says. “It wasn’t information that was privy or information that was personal about a particular broker or that type of information, but we exchanged information about our [policy] wordings…There was a relationship that companies had: we had friendship, trust, respect.

“Today the respect is still there, but it’s become more cutthroat. It’s become more competitive. And that’s unfortunate. I feel bad about that, because I think it benefited the industry to have that [more cooperative] relationship among the insurance companies, and I think that’s lost.” The IIC has definitely benefited from Brickner’s contacts with the industry and CIP students, however.

“From a marketing standpoint, I think it was obvious to us that we needed to streamline the [CIP] program,” Brickner says, noting increasing competition in the education field coming from brokers associations and private organizations.

“When an adjuster takes the institute program, [for example,] of course they want to have something directed in their field and it’s not all generalized. When we looked at making chan
ges to update our program and talked to our members and students, it was obvious we needed to make those changes, because as the industry changes, the education has to change with it.”

The program includes five mandatory courses, three courses within certain areas of specialization – underwriting, broking, or adjusting – and two elective courses. Changing the number of courses from 12 to 10 has “spurred a lot of people who maybe hadn’t finished their courses to complete their program and graduate,” she said.