Economical opens new processing centre in Kitchener, Ont.

Economical Insurance has opened its new national processing centre at the company’s Riverbend facility in Kitchener, Ont., which it calls a “major milestone in its business transformation program.”

Hiring for the new centre, which officially opened Monday, began in March to fill more than 140 new jobs, which the insurer says demonstrates its commitment to the Waterloo region, where it is based.

“This national processing centre is a key pillar of our new operating model, which is making our underwriting operations more automated, consistent and agile,” Tom Reikman, Economical’s senior vice president and chief operating officer commented in the announcement.

“We have implemented new technologies to automate processes and established a new organization structure to bring consistency to our processes. These changes are enhancing our productivity, efficiency and effectiveness.”

“Effective today, we are managing all personal and small commercial business through this centre,” added Pamela Marson, vice president of underwriting transformation with Economical.

“The business flowing through here is the automated, low-touch policies that require little to no handling by an underwriter. This will allow us to be very competitive in personal lines and simple commercial lines (including IRCA), with greater pricing sophistication, higher flow-through, and superior service. Just as importantly, we have underwriters — both personal and small commercial — and underwriting processing teams at the national processing centre dedicated to specific regions. They understand their regions, and know their brokers.” 

Economical added that under its new operating model, it will continue to have local presence across the country. “Being close to our broker partners is an absolute fundamental to our business model,” Reikman said. “Our mid-market underwriters, like our claims and business development teams, will continue to operate out of our local branches. This will allow our underwriters to dedicate more time to one-on-one interaction with broker producers. Our underwriter’s mission is to work closely with our broker partners to find solutions.”