Aviva Canada results: Hard work pays off

Meanwhile, Aviva Canada’s speciality personal lines GWP increased by 3% to £724 million (approx. CA$1,225 million), with high-net-worth policy count up 13%.

“2021 was a really strong year,” said Storah. “It really is the result of several years of hard work to improve the performance of the business. We achieved top line growth across our business, including double-digit growth in commercial business because of rate, but also because of underlying policy count and customer growth. In personal lines, we grew even though we’ve had rate reductions in our largest market – Ontario auto.”

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Over the last three years, Aviva Canada has been strategic and deliberate with its growth targets. The firm has identified areas – both in terms of geography and business segment – where it is seeking market level growth, and areas where it wants to achieve above market growth.

“We don’t just want to grow everywhere; we want to grow in certain segments,” Storah explained. “To see that come through [in our results] over the course of 2021 was really positive.

“In personal lines, we’ve grown above the market in specific areas, including specialty personal lines, group and affinity business. In commercial lines, we’re deliberately looking for larger premium, larger account opportunities. And then our GCS business has expanded with multinational capabilities. Last year, we achieved a billion dollars of GWP in our GCS business alone, so it’s really great to see that kind of growth.”

Success in Aviva Canada’s commercial lines portfolio was helped by the hard rating environment, which has pushed up pricing over the past few years. The insurer also achieved strong organic customer growth, which Storah hopes to continue as rate growth tempers.

But the CEO did give the caveat: “I’m not going to call time yet on rate hardening ending because there are so many pressures on insurance rates at the moment – from inflation, from supply chain disruptions, from labour shortages – that it’s going to be interesting to see what happens in the commercial market from a rates perspective going forward.

“I maybe would have said, six to 12-months-ago, that we’ll start to see [the rate hardening] taper off, but I actually see as many, if not more, pressures in the short term that will keep commercial insurance rates going up.”

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Moving forward, it’s going to be more of the same from Aviva Canada, said Storah, in terms of providing the best possible service and solutions for brokers, customers, and partners, as well as ramping up the firm’s transformation initiatives around technology and sustainability.

“I think the Canadian insurance market is at its healthiest when there is stability, not volatility,” he said. “We need to keep working on: What are the longer-term needs of our customers? What kind of advice are they getting? Do they understand why rates have been going up?

“People can understand inflation. They experience the pricing pressures when they go to the grocery store, or they fill up their car with gas. I think our job is to make it easy and to support our partners so that people that need insurance understand what’s right for them, what they need, [and why it’s priced the way it is], as we get back to some semblance of normality in the world post-COVID.”