Insurer Beneva wants to grow in Ontario with the merger of Gore Mutual

The Quebec mutual insurance company Beneva wants to grow its business footprint in Ontario by merging the damage insurer Gore Mutual, which is based in Cambridge, on the western outskirts of the greater Toronto metropolitan area.

Announced Tuesday, this agreement to merge one of the oldest mutual damage insurance companies in Canada – Gore Mutual, founded in 1839 – with the largest mutual insurance company in Canada – Beneva since the merger of La Capitale and SSQ, completed in 2023 – aims to combine mutual insurance companies with a business volume of nearly eight billion dollars, assets of 27 billion and a workforce of 6,100 employees in Quebec and Ontario.

Also, in the opinion of their managers, this merger of Gore Mutual within the Beneva group and its trademark “will strengthen a highly diversified, resilient and financially healthy company”, and which will be “an even more solid option and resilient in terms of damage insurance, both for brokers and for Canadian consumers. »

In fact, the merger and integration of Gore Mutual’s business activities into Beneva will be carried out through its small insurance subsidiary already established in the suburbs of Toronto: Unica Insurance.

As for the 300,000 mutual customer members of Gore Mutual, they will join the 3.5 million of their peers at the Beneva mutual. This final stage of the merger transaction between the two mutuals is planned in one year, at the beginning of 2026.

Until then, a series of regulatory and legislative approval steps will have to be completed by the two mutual insurance companies, including the adoption of private bills by the Canadian Senate and the National Assembly of Quebec.

Despite the apparent complexity of such a process, the president and CEO of Beneva, Jean-François Chalifoux, has full confidence in its completion without a hitch.

Especially since this Gore Mutual merger agreement results from intensive discussions over the past two years between the two mutuals while Beneva completed its own merger process between its two original mutuals: La Capitale and SSQ Assurance.

Among these conclusions, the president of Beneva notes that “our mutual insurance companies would be stronger [en Ontario] by uniting rather than continuing as competitors. »

Also, regarding Gore Mutual’s business plan, the observation that “it is increasingly difficult for smaller mutual damage insurance companies to effectively face the ‘headwinds’ which are intensifying with risks linked to climate change, management of technological and labor challenges, as well as access to limited capital for a mutual. »

In the opinion of Jean-François Chalifoux, it is in such a business context that Beneva can “position itself as a platform of experience in grouping smaller mutual insurance companies”.

Thus, after the merger and integration of Gore Mutual, Beneva intends to “continue to be open to other mutuals” in the property and personal insurance sector in Canada.