senior claims representative

actuary

claims representative

underwriter

benefits representative

Economical Insurance

Company growth is always an exciting time for many establishments, unfortunately with Economical, this growth has resulted in such a huge disconnect between the people at the top of the corporate ladder and the front of the line staff.

Work-Life Balance is virtually non-existent with managers actually encouraging their front of line staff to work unpaid outside of their standard working hours. Overtime is offered for specific departments/regions but not others, yet the company still refuses to acknowledge that the staff is overworked. Over the course of my tenure with the company, a large number of staff have either gone on some type of stress related leave or just walked out of the company due to the amount of out of office work that needs to be done. This also became very apparent during the pandemic when the company seemed to take every opportunity to for lack of a better term, "crush" adjusters on the floor and overwhelm them with work, in a lot of cases before they had even started their shift.

Salary/Benefits - Any questions about increase in pay to match the workload is brushed aside as "it's the same role". It's not rocket science that an increase in work load should at least have some consideration for an increase in pay but the company does not seem to agree with that. The benefits are fine, and depending on the options selected, offer a lot through Sun Life. To summarize though, anyone who starts at Economical can go anywhere else with their experience and should not be surprised to make 20% more than what Economical offers. Somehow though, the corporate team believe in their engagement surveys, that the compensation doesn't actually play a part in peoples' happiness/want to work for the company.

Job Security/Advancement - One of the company's goals is to retain top talent, and they do a good job at retaining a lot of people who are "lifers", people who are comfortable at their current position and are not looking for advancement. Unfortunately, the company does a terrible job at retaining people who actually want to advance in their careers. The company likes to brag about "hiring/promoting from within" but it's not uncommon for an auto adjuster to switch to a different department, but not get any type of pay increase. The company loves to show statistics about how jobs are filled through internal hires however a lot of this doesn't end up resulting in any type of compensation to the employee.

Management - Having worked in different teams at Economical, it is not uncommon for the managers to be just as overworked as the staff. There are always recommendations being made to make the jobs better seem to end at a certain point or is shut down before it comes to fruition or has any movement.  Any feedback/comments/issues never gets to where it needs to go.Job Culture - As previously mentioned, the company loves to show statistics about how they enjoy retaining top talent and showing how many internal hires were completed. The statistics that the company needs to be looking at should be the amount of people on unpaid stress leave, have left the company, or the amount of unpaid hours being brought in by front of line staff. Everyone is overworked, underpaid, and gets little to no support, but Corporate has the gall to "cordially invite" people to another "new" thing (The most recent one was a "private concert" via Zoom with a Canadian band). There's a lot of things the company does to "look good" on paper, but when actual issues arise, the only response is "contact Morneau Scheppel". The company ultimately doesn't care about the front of the line staff, but loves to say it does.

Summary - A lot of for lack of a better term, "corporate fluff" that looks good on paper, but a majority of the time doesn't affect the staff it's "supposed" to. A lot of the time when the company does anything, it's so they can congratulate themselves for their own "successes." The most recent "truth and reconciliation day" was used by the corporate team to take photos of themselves in orange shirts while looking unhappy.  Staff is asked to complete an engagement survey, but the corporate team's response to any issues brought to light is "if you don't like it, then leave". This is especially apparent when there's any issues brought up about salary and compensation. At the end of the day, people are leaving, and the company does nothing about it.  With the company becoming even bigger, it's very unlikely any of these issues will ever be fixed and the corporate team will just sit and enjoy their "hard earned" bonuses.  

If you're describing your experience at **Definity Insurance** (for example, in a job review or interview), you could say:

A Typical Day at Work

A typical day at Definity Insurance involves assisting customers with policy inquiries, processing insurance requests, handling claims-related questions, and collaborating with team members to resolve customer issues. The work environment is generally fast-paced, requiring strong communication, problem-solving, and multitasking skills. Definity emphasizes customer service and innovation across its insurance brands and operations.

What I Learned

Working at Definity helped me develop stronger customer service, conflict-resolution, and insurance industry knowledge. I learned how to navigate complex insurance policies, use various technology platforms, manage customer expectations, and work effectively in a performance-driven environment. The role also improved my time-management and communication skills.

Management

Management is generally focused on supporting business goals, customer satisfaction, and employee development. Managers often provide coaching and performance feedback while encouraging employees to meet service standards and contribute to continuous improvement initiatives. Definity promotes a culture of doing the right thing for customers, partners, and employees.

Workplace Culture

The workplace culture is collaborative, professional, and customer-focused. Employees are encouraged to work as a team, embrace innovation, and support one another in achieving business objectives. The company places importance on inclusion and growth.

The Hardest Part of the Job

The most challenging aspect is handling difficult customer situations, especially when customers are frustrated about claims or policy decisions. Balancing high call volumes, service expectations can also be demanding.

The Most Enjoyable Part of the Job

The most rewarding part is helping customers find solutions and providing support during important moments. Building relationships with customers, receiving positive feedback, and working with supportive colleagues can make the role both satisfying and meaningful.


Disclaimer - This is based on my experience before Family was more absorbed by Economical. The company President (who played a big part in setting the company culture) and entire Claims department are now gone.

Family was great at offering people work/life balance: 35 hour weeks, birthday off, 3 weeks vacation, personal days off - though not flexible in the work-at home/ setting own hours area.

Pay was a bit less than industry standard - but was overall reasonable given the other company benefits. An annual company bonus certainly helped, as did relatively generous annual pay increases.

The Senior executives definitely did care about the welfare of staff, and it showed with regular outings and special events. 

BUT

The rate of staff turnover in general was relatively high.

The company departments were extremely siloed and the relationships among the department heads was very cliquish and potentially very antagonistic. Regular staff likely never saw this aspect of the company, but it was toxic to the overall wellbeing of the organization. Junior and middle leadership were directly affected by this dynamic, and while not involved, it could prove dangerous and intimidating for non-executive leaders to try and navigate this political swamp.

Overall: while some of this may or may not still be a factor in the company, I know that some of the leaders remain as well as many of the staff. If you do get an offer to work here, or see an opportunity to apply, by all means go for it.

Sigh. Where do I begin. Training and first few weeks of the job were promising and hopeful. Then here come the cracks. Started as a level 1 auto adjuster. 3 claims per day. Then management decided to turn it to 8 on a random Tuesday afternoon. Why is that you ask? Growing company and a high turnover due to the job's stresses. Even with them constantly hiring it is never enough. On the backend there are a million things you are tasked with. And if one of those things goes wrong you are to blame. Management keeps stressing on these audits. Garbage. There's a One Note they want you to follow word for word otherwise you get docked and fail these audits. Complete waste of time. The straw that broke the camel's back for me though was the complete disregard by management, and especially HR when I had a family emergency to tend to back in my home country and had to go on a sudden leave of absence. No support by any of these people. And I find that completely funny due to the line of work we are in. Getting people back on their feet following a loss. It's okay to be yelled at by customers on recorded calls, because they bring in the business. But when it comes time an employee needs help due to a loss of a loved one, god forbid. I asked for some extension for my leave of absence, no extra pay even, yet that was so difficult to grant. What happened to charity begins at home? I have jumped through hoops to keep your customers happy. Thank you Economical. You have been good for nothing. 2 years down the drain.

Definity went through a major transformation recently after which they paid adjuster ALOT to come aboard and pick up the pieces of the company they wanted to leave behind. Although they're making progress, it will take a long time before any significant changes affect the landscape of claims within the company.

Pros:
- High salary.
- Qualified managers.

Cons:
- Outdated systems with no signs of upgrading any time soon.
- Very heavy workload. A claims adjusters desk is always busy but at Definity its impossible to keep up because you're working with 4 or 5 systems that are not only slow but also very outdated. 
- Unrealistic expectations to meet internal deadlines.
- Unrealistic expectations to meet external deadlines. 
- Frequent and harsh auditing within the department which deteters the adjusters ability to care for the customer and focus more on meeting auditing expectations.
- Upper management makes important decisions and gives very little notice to front line staff. Their return to office policy changed and became mandatory overnight. Not to mention, it was cascaded to the company over the Christmas holidays. 
- Cultural landscape needs work. Although your peers are supportive, very hard to make friends, start discussions etc. 

My department lost a lot of great customer service focused people because they are all about the numbers. They want people to push out work- whether is it correct or not. They are not about rewarding excellent customer service and are more about shaming people for not being productive.

People are not valued especially in my department. Our team lead shames us daily for poor production and favours those who can pound out the work with a lot of mistakes.

I have been bestowed a lot of responsibility in my area for mentoring new team members, training on new systems, working on special assignments, loaned to other areas for assistance and then turned down for promotions when I am a perfect fit. I am undervalued and over used. Not compensated for the amount of extra work I do.

The employee morale is super low and the company has no clue or intention to make it better. We are losing more than we are gaining.

A great starting point for a new grad looking to make some money but not somewhere you want to spend the rest of your life and time away from your family for 30 years.  High turnover due to undervalued employees

The role of a Claims Adjuster with The Economical Insurance Group,  enabled me to utilize my existing customer service experience, as well as branch off into a well-rounded individual where I was able to apply multi-tasking abilities and organizational skills. These skills included, but were not limited to, data entry, organization, negotiation, liaison with other internal and external departments where I authoritatively confirmed coverage details, and communicated with third parties. This allowed claims to  finalized and handled smoothly from inception to settlement. Also adhering to strict company and industry regulations was a must for success in this role. Prior to this position, as a Claims Assistant at Economical's Head Office, I maintained many departmental  files and systems. I was the main point of all external and internal  communication for any claims related issues or appointments that entered  office. Furthermore, I learned to balance financial claim reserves, and was authorized to submit payments, cheques and US Drafts to our clients.

Despite three years of unmitigated work from home and several previous attempts at return for office (starting in September of 2020) that had to be postponed due to safety concerns, senior leadership has decided to force all employees in office 2 days a week, even if no one in their local office works for the same business unit.

Since announcing this in mid-december corporate leadership has disappeared, moral has evaporated.

The business "leadership" refuses to discuss safety concerns, many people are frightened and leadership is completely unresponsive to questions or concerns.

The stated reason for bringing people back in, maybe it will improve collaboration and communication.

They're endangering their employees lives because maybe it might make some things better, and don't have the good grace to even be present to attempt to justify their disdain for the safety of their employees, who's performance they have been nothing but positive about during the last 3 years.

They have destroyed anyone ability to feel safe or valued.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Truly an employee-focused company. There are clear goal expectations for the year that if you achieve you can get up to a 10% bonus, which I really appreciated. The SLT are intelligent and truly inspiring. They actually deserve to be leaders of a multi-billion dollar company. My team is just superb. The culture is so open and fun. Everyone is looking to support where they can, and truly are friendly and welcoming. It's a great company to work at because we all actually enjoy working here and have a shared goal. One of our company values is 'we work together to win together' and I truly believe it's lived up to and not just empty words. There is an open recognition program and it's truly rewarding to be appreciated on such a visible platform. It's hybrid but I enjoy coming in because of the people.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
It depends on your department, but I work in a department where it's hard to show the numbers of how we're reaching KPIs. High expectations, unclear way of communicating successes.

The workload is ridiculous with unrealistic SLAs.  Teams continue to operate short-staffed while Management expects staff to do more with less. 

The more productive a team member, the more work is dumped on to that person.  A leader in HR who is the worst control freak and very toxic to the entire department has been rewarded for her bad behaviour by way of promotions.

Any attempts to think outside of the box and be innovate are shot down because it is not considered part of the "process".  Executives are more concerned about their bonuses rather than how their toxicity is affecting the culture.  Turnover is through the roof.

If you want a reasonable workload in an environment where your ideas are respected, look elsewhere.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Senior claims representative 3 salaries reported	$84,700 per year
Actuary 14 salaries reported	$105,657 per year
Claims representative 15 salaries reported	$67,737 per year
Underwriter 23 salaries reported	$79,863 per year
Benefits representative 8 salaries reported	$72,981 per year

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