Don Roach’s Retirement

Friends and family gathered at Quotes in Toronto on May 28 to celebrate the retirement of Don Roach. The roughly 110 guests regaled stories of Roach’s time in the insurance industry — and with 47 years in the industry, there were definitely more than a few to tell. Roach spent the first seven years of his insurance career with a few different outfits before settling for the next 39 years at Aon. He started off as a “plebe” doing marine insurance claims, he joked during a follow-up phone call, before moving through the different roles to assistant manager and then vice president. Roach moved over to the general claims department about 20 years ago and spent the remainder of his career there, working as the assistant manager and retiring as the vice president. What will he miss most? “Basically my friends,” Roach said. “The people that I have associated with over the years, they are a good bunch of folk and I’ve made a lot of good friends. It’s not that it’s over. I’m going to keep in touch with a lot of the people and, in fact, I may even be back in the industry doing some contract work or part-time work depending on what comes up.” •