Intact Financial
Encyclopedia
Intact Financial Corporation is a Canadian insurance company; formerly the ING Group
subsidiary ING Canada. It is Canada's leading provider of property
and casualty insurance
(home, auto and business, 11% of the Canadian market). It also serves the private, public and commercial (trucks, snowmobiles) vehicle market, covers theft and vandalism, and provides other forms of business insurance.
Distribution is conducted through Intact Insurance, belairdirect, Grey Power and BrokerLink, each specializing in a different type of insurance-related service and product. The company operates under different subsidiaries; they include Trafalgar Insurance Company of Canada, Equisure Financial Network Inc. and Novex Insurance Company. Intact is considering using the $1 billion in excess capital it has (November 2010) towards expanding its presence in Canada through acquisitions (mid 2011 it acquired AXA Insurance's Canadian operations for $2.6 billion). Intact's investment portfolio, containing approximately $8.7 billion in invested assets, is managed internally by Intact Investment Management Inc.
In 2010 home and auto insurance subsidiary Grey Power (now called GP Car and Home) ranked first in the annual JD Power and Associates customer satisfaction study which measured customer satisfaction among private auto insurance companies. It was also the only company in the study to receive five out of five power circles in each category.
Though most business comes from Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and Nova Scotia, Intact is present in all Canadian provinces and territories except Saskatchewan (December 2010). The company also provides insurance brokerage services through its BrokerLink division.
Direct premiums written have grown every year since 2005 (the amount of money customers paid for policies written during the year). They totalled $4.498 billion in 2010 (5.2% growth for the year), $3.438 billion of that in the first nine months of 2010 (5.3% higher than that period in 2009); changes were the result of higher personal insurance rates (by 6.5%) and auto insurance premiums (7.3%) which was counteracted by commercial group account cancellations (caused a 3.2% decrease in P&C premiums in the last quarter of 2009). Net income was more than nine times larger in the first nine months of 2010 than the corresponding period in 2009 (net operating income was 74.4% higher). Fixed income securities
dominate investment assets (61.1% at the end of 2010, net of hedging).
s for $2.2 billion.
In June 2011 Intact Financial purchased AXA Canada for $2.6 billion (announced the last week of May). The deal raises the fraction of business coming from property and casualty insurance (largest in Canada). Although the addition of AXA Canada improves business stability (less reliant on Ontario's auto insurance market) Moody's
plans to lower its credit rating one notch down from Aa3 because of "less financial flexibility".
Intact's multi-channel distribution operates under four distinct brands:
Canada's largest home, auto and business insurance company distributes through a network of more than 1,800 insurance brokers from coast-to-coast.
With over 50 offices and more than 700 employees across Ontario and Alberta, BrokerLink is one of the largest P&C insurance brokerages in Canada. It writes approximately $500 million in premiums for more than 200,000 customers.
Operating in Ontario and Quebec, belairdirect is ranked #1 for brand awareness in direct-to-consumer P&C insurance. By leveraging the Internet, belairdirect continues to grow at a rate of approximately 10% a year.
The industry leader in providing car and home insurance to people with 25+ years of good driving habits, Grey Power distributes directly to consumers in Alberta and Ontario through call centres and the Internet. It re-branded as GP Car and Home in April 2011.
ING Group
The ING Group is a global financial institution offering retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, asset management, and insurance services. ING is the Dutch member of the Inter-Alpha Group of Banks, a cooperative consortium of 11 prominent European banks...
subsidiary ING Canada. It is Canada's leading provider of property
Property insurance
Property insurance provides protection against most risks to property, such as fire, theft and some weather damage. This includes specialized forms of insurance such as fire insurance, flood insurance, earthquake insurance, home insurance or boiler insurance. Property is insured in two main...
and casualty insurance
Casualty insurance
Casualty insurance, often equated to liability insurance, is used to describe an area of insurance not directly concerned with life insurance, health insurance, or property insurance. It is mainly used to describe the liability coverage of an individual or organization's for negligent acts or...
(home, auto and business, 11% of the Canadian market). It also serves the private, public and commercial (trucks, snowmobiles) vehicle market, covers theft and vandalism, and provides other forms of business insurance.
Distribution is conducted through Intact Insurance, belairdirect, Grey Power and BrokerLink, each specializing in a different type of insurance-related service and product. The company operates under different subsidiaries; they include Trafalgar Insurance Company of Canada, Equisure Financial Network Inc. and Novex Insurance Company. Intact is considering using the $1 billion in excess capital it has (November 2010) towards expanding its presence in Canada through acquisitions (mid 2011 it acquired AXA Insurance's Canadian operations for $2.6 billion). Intact's investment portfolio, containing approximately $8.7 billion in invested assets, is managed internally by Intact Investment Management Inc.
In 2010 home and auto insurance subsidiary Grey Power (now called GP Car and Home) ranked first in the annual JD Power and Associates customer satisfaction study which measured customer satisfaction among private auto insurance companies. It was also the only company in the study to receive five out of five power circles in each category.
Though most business comes from Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and Nova Scotia, Intact is present in all Canadian provinces and territories except Saskatchewan (December 2010). The company also provides insurance brokerage services through its BrokerLink division.
Direct premiums written have grown every year since 2005 (the amount of money customers paid for policies written during the year). They totalled $4.498 billion in 2010 (5.2% growth for the year), $3.438 billion of that in the first nine months of 2010 (5.3% higher than that period in 2009); changes were the result of higher personal insurance rates (by 6.5%) and auto insurance premiums (7.3%) which was counteracted by commercial group account cancellations (caused a 3.2% decrease in P&C premiums in the last quarter of 2009). Net income was more than nine times larger in the first nine months of 2010 than the corresponding period in 2009 (net operating income was 74.4% higher). Fixed income securities
Fixed income
Fixed income refers to any type of investment that is not equity, which obligates the borrower/issuer to make payments on a fixed schedule, even if the number of the payments may be variable....
dominate investment assets (61.1% at the end of 2010, net of hedging).
History
Started out as the Halifax Fire Insurance Association in 1809. In the 1950s, Dutch insurer Nationale-Nederlander (NN) established itself in Canada by acquiring the Halifax Insurance Company; Dutch immigration to Canada attracted Nationale-Nederlander to the country. Nationale-Nederlander made its first major move in the 1970s when it took over Quebec insurers Commerce Group and Belair which was then followed by Western Union of Alberta. In 1993 Nationale-Nederlander's Canadian businesses were consolidated and renamed ING Canada. In 2004 it completed the takeover of Allianz Canada and went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange (70% of shares were owned by ING Groep). On February 23, 2009 the company became independent of ING Groep and immediately became known as Intact Insurance Company. Three months later, on May 13, 2009 shareholders approved a name change to Intact Financial Corporation (IFC). ING Groep sold all of its 70% share of the company to institutional investorInstitutional investor
Institutional investors are organizations which pool large sums of money and invest those sums in securities, real property and other investment assets...
s for $2.2 billion.
In June 2011 Intact Financial purchased AXA Canada for $2.6 billion (announced the last week of May). The deal raises the fraction of business coming from property and casualty insurance (largest in Canada). Although the addition of AXA Canada improves business stability (less reliant on Ontario's auto insurance market) Moody's
Moody's
Moody's Corporation is the holding company for Moody's Analytics and Moody's Investors Service, a credit rating agency which performs international financial research and analysis on commercial and government entities. The company also ranks the credit-worthiness of borrowers using a standardized...
plans to lower its credit rating one notch down from Aa3 because of "less financial flexibility".
Business and business segments
In 2009, 49.7% of direct premiums were related to personal auto insurance, more than twice as much as the second most important source, personal property (23.8%). Commercial property and casualty was 19.0% while commercial auto was 7.5%.Intact's multi-channel distribution operates under four distinct brands:
- Intact Insurance
Canada's largest home, auto and business insurance company distributes through a network of more than 1,800 insurance brokers from coast-to-coast.
- BrokerLink
With over 50 offices and more than 700 employees across Ontario and Alberta, BrokerLink is one of the largest P&C insurance brokerages in Canada. It writes approximately $500 million in premiums for more than 200,000 customers.
- belairdirect
Operating in Ontario and Quebec, belairdirect is ranked #1 for brand awareness in direct-to-consumer P&C insurance. By leveraging the Internet, belairdirect continues to grow at a rate of approximately 10% a year.
- GP Car and Home
The industry leader in providing car and home insurance to people with 25+ years of good driving habits, Grey Power distributes directly to consumers in Alberta and Ontario through call centres and the Internet. It re-branded as GP Car and Home in April 2011.