Western Direct offers home and auto insurance shopping by phone and internet
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Narrator: On August 17, Western Direct Insurance, a new subsidiary of Western Financial Group, announced that it is setting its sights on the large, urban markets of Calgary and Edmonton through telephone and online sales and service of its home and auto insurance policies.
Scott Tannas, President and CEO of Western Financial Group, told ILSTV that by branching into online and telephone sales, Western Direct is making it easier for city dwellers to buy insurance.
Scott Tannas: It’s the culmination of a couple of years of thinking and planning around how we’re going to engage the other half of Western Canadians that don’t live in rural markets, that live in metropolitan markets where we don’t have offices and where, quite frankly in our view, the preferred methods for sales and service of home and auto insurance are different than they are in rural areas. Our rural branch network and the way in which we do business outside of the major cities is still very much centred around the branch, the people in the branch, the relationships we have and our standing in the community. But in metropolitan markets, it is for sure the most powerful medium for sales and service of financial services is call centres and internet. That’s what this product focuses around. It’s a good day. We’re nervous but excited about the potential for Western Direct.
Narrator: Western Direct is promoting the new offerings with its “Insurance is Boring. So we made savings easy” campaign. Scott explains why this may resonate with Canadian insurance shoppers.
Scott Tannas: I think it’s really a statement that says that shopping for home and auto insurance is not at the top of very many people’s favourite things to do. In fact, people don’t do it that often. What we want to do is get the message across that we’ve worked very hard with Desjardins to come up with a process that is quick to getting down to allowing the customer to make a decision. Quick in putting the information in, sufficient so that you can get a quote and move your decision making process along. That’s all of the insights that we gathered from customers, from ourselves even in our own personal experiences, is around that idea that this isn’t fun stuff. This is something that we need to do and we want it over with quickly so that we can move along. The campaign’s, I suppose, gives us whose careers are in insurance, it gives us a little bit of a twinge, but man, if you can’t laugh at yourself then you’re not going to go far in this business.
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