Canada’s insurance sector is still grappling with a shrinking pool of experienced professionals, a shift that is forcing carriers to rethink everything from underwriting workflows to broker relationships, according to SGI Canada COO Andrew Voroney (pictured).
Voroney said insurers are still feeling the effects of the post-COVID “talent cliff”.
“The experience in the industry across all lines isn’t what it used to be,” he said. “We’re rebuilding the tenure, we’re rebuilding the acumen.”
He added that the talent challenge isn’t just about recruiting new people but retaining mid-career professionals who are essential to underwriting discipline. As workloads rise, many experienced staff are burning out faster, while junior employees are being asked to take on complex files earlier than in previous generations.
“It creates a pressure sandwich,” Voroney said – one that requires better tools, clearer workflows, and a renewed commitment to developing people before they are stretched too thin.
With fewer seasoned underwriters and adjusters, productivity and expectations have shifted. Brokers expect faster responses; customers expect seamless digital service. The industry is trying to meet those expectations while rebuilding its bench strength.
As insurers respond to staffing pressures, operational capacity is becoming a central concern. SGI Canada is nearing completion of a major systems overhaul, which Voroney said is designed in part to reduce administrative strain and allow staff to focus on underwriting quality and broker service.
“Finding efficiencies is really key,” he said. “There’s not one person in the industry who’s going to sit back and say, ‘I’ve got extra time.’ We are all pushing our people to the limits.”
He warned that excessive workloads have a direct impact on underwriting quality and client experience.
“When the pile on their desk gets too high, it’s hard to qualitatively think about the risk,” he said. “It’s hard to deliver service in a high-quality, relationship way.”
Operational efficiency, he said, is no longer just a cost issue – it’s a talent sustainability issue.
Beyond internal operations, Voroney said broker relationships are playing a growing role in shaping insurer decision-making across the industry.
“We’ve been highly focused on service, and that’s served us very well,” he said. “But the spot where we’ve really won in helping accelerate our growth is on that broker-partner relationship side.”
Rather than dictating direction, SGI has been building strategy jointly with brokers.
“We really believe in building our strategies together – understanding where brokers need to go and ensuring we’re working on things that support that,” Voroney said. “If we’re enabling our brokers to be successful, we get to go along for the ride.”
And that collaboration now shapes more than just distribution strategy. Voroney said brokers are increasingly influencing SGI Canada’s product design, appetite decisions, and even its approach to risk selection. He noted that the most successful insurers in the next decade will be those that treat brokers not as downstream channels, but as frontline intelligence – the people who hear market pressures first and understand client pain points long before they show up in loss ratios or renewal trends.
Asked what SGI values most in a broker partner, Voroney didn’t hesitate.
“Values alignment,” he said.
He rejects transactional, self-serving relationships.
“We need to ensure that we’re both in a spot of give and take, and wanting each other to be successful,” he said. “That comes down to trust. Like any relationship.”
Voroney said attracting new entrants to insurance remains essential as the sector rebuilds experience levels and institutional knowledge.
Voroney laughed when asked how he ended up in insurance.
“I grew up thinking I’d either be a rock star or a stockbroker,” he said. “Somehow the insurance industry felt like a nice middle ground.”
He sees the industry’s greatest strength in its career diversity.
“Almost whatever you want to do, you can find that role in the insurance industry,” he said. “It’s an exciting industry where things change rapidly.”
And he wants new entrants to understand something fundamental:
“Society can’t function without insurance. Be proud of that.”
Looking five years out, Voroney’s ambition for SGI Canada is succinct:
“I want us to be the easiest insurance company to do business with. Period.”
He said the company is now rebuilding the systems, structure, and capacity needed to deliver on that standard – and that the foundation is finally strong enough to support it.
