2024 Executive Outlook | Tina Osen, Hub International

Tina Osen, President, Canadian Region, Hub International

2024 will continue to amplify the escalation of risk.

Climate change, geo-political risk, cybercrime, and inflationary pressures will continue to magnify the need for the insurance industry to provide insurance and risk solutions to individuals or businesses. Canadians will need help to navigate these risks, and they will look to the industry to respond with capacity in these difficult times. Strong collaboration across our industry will become increasingly important as we work to support continued capacity and ensure we will be there to respond to consumers’ needs.

This provides an opportunity for brokers to be strong risk advisors and focus on more value-creation for their clients. It’s never been more important to provide education to clients and support proactive solutions to avoid risk or at least mitigate exposure to risk. We must help drive strategies to create more resiliency for Canadian businesses and individuals, which ultimately will support healthier economies and quicker post-loss recoveries.

Accelerating the use of technology to support strong, data-driven solutions in this business will be imperative. In addition, a strong customer-centric mindset must be at the core of any business decisions. The importance of modernized technology will be key to unlocking this potential.

Lastly, Canadian demographics continue to show a shrinking workforce in Canada. Businesses managing to strike the right balance between recruiting phenomenal new talent and upskilling existing talent will have a distinct competitive advantage. Those leveraging technology to: 1) support continued development of talent; and 2) create an efficient workforce, allowing talent to be used for more meaningful client interactions, will excel and outperform the industry.

David Gambrill