underwriter

adjuster

examiner

senior underwriter

tradesman

Saskatchewan-Government-Insurance

My experience with SGI went downhill within 6 months of joining the company. It started great as the team is welcoming at first but then they go super quiet with you for no reason. Benefits are good and the only reason you should prefer SGI over other crown companies is if you're comfortable studying insurance for rest of your career. They will pay for your insurance courses (if you pass) but will basically keep pushing you to take more courses if you want to climb up the ladder. Studying is not the only sad part when you work for SGI, most of the management specially underwriting management lacks ethical boundaries and have no respect for privacy or work ethics. If you try to raise any concerns to HR or union they put you in one category and soft target you in every meeting trying to get you to speak up and keep you in their watchlist for the whole time even if you change departments. They will use every resource they have to find out more about your concerns indirectly. So, if you are someone who likes to lay low and keep quiet about your concerns then you should be ok working there but if ever speak up about them (even once) then say goodbye to your privacy. Management's surveillance standards has no boundaries and they're not at all transparent about what they monitor but trust me they monitor/watch everything - your screen, your work chats, calls, your social media outside work hours, even your personal devices if they get super interested in you but they will never be transparent to you when they give feedbacks. At first I was ok with being micromanaged as I used to mind my business working but then things got super creepy when my manager used to repeat my every activity from my social media and then he tricked me in taking my cell phone number after a work related event and since then my cell phone started acting up in all sorts of weird way. Management and employee relations work together and shows they promote diversity and care about mental health but if you ever find yourself in a situation where management pushes you to meet the employee health relations, don't say a word and find another job and leave. It's one of management's tactic to harass you, find out more information about your concerns by sending you to meet Employee's health relations and basically use that information to transfer you to another team or prepare a warning against you using information about your mental health. They also do this to somehow prove that you are not fit for the required job and will never accept that actually all the harassment is the reason employees mental health is impacted. Nothing is confidential in SGI (absolutely nothing). Union is not at all a support for employees, it doesn't even protect employees and basically agrees to what management says. Union just acts as a bridge in communicating with you about what HR or management expects out of you or conveys you their decision, union will do bare minimum in defending you in a difficult situation. Rather you will waste your time raising your concerns to union and in return they will do absolutely nothing specially if it involves a concern about a management personnel or a senior member of the team. Company is trying to implement a culture where they show employees feedbacks are important but none of the management likes feedback and don't like anyone raising concerns, in return they stop talking you when you raise any concern and no matter how productive you are they will ghost you out. Managers specially in Underwriting department (both Commercial and personal) don't have a sense of balance. Either they will creep you out by showing they know everything about your personal life or they will ignore you completely. Both ways you should trust your instinct as you will get tired of asking for feedbacks, management will never tell you anything directly and tell you everything is good but they will act differently with you the whole time. If you point out any wrong thing done by management they will harass you indirectly, verbally or show you the way out eventually. The hardest part of the job is not the work, mostly you will find helpful team members across the company and easy to follow training sessions and procedures but make sure to not trust the first person you meet as most managers have invasive attitude and they try to know you in and out so they can find a common topic to discuss with you in the meetings and then make a decision about your journey in SGI. With more and more people leaving the company because of micromanagement and not being able to speak freely, I hope it's a wake up call for SGI's management to respect employees privacy, re-evaluate their surveillance standards and become more involved with the actual work rather than silently watching employees personal affairs. Management in Underwriting/underwriting admin services is in dire need of some refresher training on treating employees with respect so they don't misuse their managerial power in dominating an employee that will eventually affect your mental health. Good benefits overall but you will end up asking yourself if it's worth the stress. 

PROS:
Difficult to get your foot in the door; once you do, and clear your probation, it can be quite worthwhile to stay, depending on your ambitions and priorities.
SGI does value employees' personal development and 100% funds any CIP, FCIP, and business-related courses and education.
The health, dental, life insurance benefits and vacation days are standard for government/crown employees. Vacation starts at 3 weeks a year, increases to 4 weeks a year after 8 years of service, and so on.
The pay is quite generous once you move past the clerical positions. Compared to similar roles nationally, SGI is amongst the higher paying employers. SGI also gives all employees an annual 'bonus' based on their years of service and current salary.
There is ample free parking within any department that is not downtown.
CONS:
The workload is usually quite heavy, so most employees are overworked, stressed to meet deadlines, and not trained adequately enough when entering any new roles. There is no succession planning for positions management knows will be vacant within xxx days.
It is quite difficult to get the vacation days you want unless you have the seniority for it or have planned a year in advance and pre-booked everything with management.
One common issue is the micromanagement and low morale within most departments. Most departments have a "keep your head down and keep working" type of work environment. The corporation claims to value all employees' input, but this is simply not true. Front-line or lower-level employees can easily get black-listed for speaking up when they see something wrong.
Finally, one common point of angst among many employees is that any promotions (if not based on seniority, due to the unionized environment), are based on an "aptitude & knowledge" test, which 9 times out of 10 has absolutely nothing to do with the actual job requirements and duties. Senior management claims that all internal job postings are fair/equitable, but I find this simply to not be true.

Felt unsecure after getting hired. Finding out youre not doing what you were hired for. Became a janitor instead of a tradesperson. Noone wanted to help train you, youre on your own once you walk in. Youll take company courses every other day, emails and accountability is all they push at you.Were treated like youre in grade school even doing the simplest tasks at your job.  Was told by some good luck moving up here, gotta wait your turn. Others simply say I’m not getting paid to train anyone, so you just wander around and try to figure it out on your own.And discovered i was hired at the lowest pay band, i took a 10.00/hour paycut to join, forget it. I wish theyd have a try before you hire day, id have avoided this career move knowing what i know now.  Managers noplace to be found to discuss a concern, but will email  you reminding you to do another online course. They push mental health but all that place gave me was anxiety everyday. Its a different culture…Think carefully before you join!!

This company is okay if you are the type of person that wants to learn all the time and spend your free time going back to school. If you don't have a degree, you will not go far in the company. I've seen people who don't have business degrees run departments and they don't know what they are doing. As well SGI also gets rid of hardworking people who make one mistake and "tells them they aren't ethical enough to work here". Temporary or Term people are not safe here, so be careful when applying here. As well if you try to apply for a permanent job here, you aren't priority because of seniority. 

Management sees production as a competition to be had between the locations, the Regina location management will boast that you've done a million more in production than the others and then tell you how you are going to be faster. The work assignment is all based on next up unless you're friendly with the bosses, so you might end up taking apart rusty crusty trucks for a week straight. It's not uncommon to have a vehicle with only 2-3 hours allotted to dismantle, which includes the time to get it into your bay and have your bay cleaned up afterwards. Unless you hit their efficiency right away forget about staying as all the auto tradesperson jobs start out as term.

A typical work day in the Call Centre was to answer calls from the public, licence issuers, law enforcement and various businesses within Saskatchewan and also  from outside agencies in Canada. This was a very fast paced environment, and sometimes very stressful. It was the last position I held and it was very satisfying.

I also worked in many areas of the corporation and learned a lot about insurance and how insurance works. 

Most of the management were pretty good. The only flaw is that they moved around the corporation and the employees really didn't know why. Sometimes they would keep a manager in a position for a long time and other managers would move around. Some were good, some were not.

So much to learn but very slow and less training, many things come when you start handling which you have not learn in training. They should chnage the way they trainned now. Good support from your seniors. They do understand the things.

The company is very focused on a culture change but it is manufactured by another company. Everyone is so worried about climbing up a ladder they forget to come to earth and care about their current jobs. Head office is a very problamtic place that showed sexisim, homophobia, and racisim with few mangers making it great but being outnumbered and HR mostly concerned about silencing issues then fixing it. The new "Everyone can be a leader" is their new cover all to shift responsibility.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Helping customers navigate a stressful situation.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Confronting customers who are lying about the accident circumstances.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It can be stressful and hard to leave at the office.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Deal with a Schedule of customers and or body shops to interact with each day.

Overall SGI is a very good place to work. The culture of each department depends on what kind of leadership style the manager has. It can be positive and negative. Great benefits and work-life balance depending on the position. Some departments like claims can be very stressful however managers are actively looking for ways to help their people. Overall, I would recommend this place to work. 

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Underwriter 4 salaries reported	$66,439 per year
Adjuster 5 salaries reported	$77,852 per year
Examiner 3 salaries reported	$66,122 per year
Senior underwriter 5 salaries reported	$81,057 per year
Tradesman 4 salaries reported	$51,135 per year

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