The Co-operators Group Limited is a multi-line insurance and financial services co-operative and is leading the industry with $41.7 billion in assets under management. With over 70 years of history, the Co-operators have membership from co-operatives and credit union centrals and extend to a number of communities representing a diverse set of sectors such as agriculture, finance, service, retail, health and labour.
To fulfill their mission to be where Canadians are, with the products that Canadians need, when they need them and however they want to buy them, they offer a variety of services. Subsidiary companies provide solutions for property and casualty insurance, life insurance, institutional asset management and brokerage operations. We were lucky to get the chance to sit down with them on a Friday afternoon over lunch to learn more about their organization, current projects and trends for the industry.
We learned the benefits of a co-operative, which is a business owned and democratically controlled organization run by the people who use its services. The user-owners are called members and benefit by the needs-based customized products and services, and the fact that profits are distributed to members based on the amount of business they conduct with the co-operative.
During the meeting, there were also a number of representatives from the Co-operative Housing Federation! We enjoyed learning how the co-operative model can be applied to a specific sector such as housing.
We thank Sara Cleland, Harvey Cooper, and all of the representatives from the Co-operators Group for the wonderful meeting, and continuous support of the programme!