TIPI Insurance Partners, Canada’s largest Indigenous-owned and led commercial insurance brokerage, has entered into a co-brokering agreement and alliance with Marsh Canada.
Under the agreement, Marsh and TIPI, part of the TIPI Group of Companies, will serve public and private-sector organizations, Indigenous governments, organizations and sponsors of large-scale infrastructure, defense and natural resources and energy projects.
The two organizations also expect to explore opportunities to share technical insurance and brokering knowledge through joint client teams and company secondments.
TIPI Group of Companies’ CEO, Nathan Ballantyne, in conversation with the Insurance Portal, says TIPI has identified a number of major projects but also opportunities in federal procurement programs built around Indigenous participation. “My hope is that the government will make good on this and put in parameters that are actually going to move the needle in terms of Indigenous participation in the economy. The onus is on us to find out how we can insert ourselves into these discussions, into these bigger projects that we’ve historically never been part of,” he says.
Ballantyne adds that the opportunity began to present itself 18 months ago.
“We’re a very niche player. It’s a niche market that we occupy, and we were in a place where we wanted to access markets for larger risks. First Nations communities, as I’m sure you know, have gotten into the realm of big business,” he says. “Historically [these were] small startup enterprises. Now communities are into oil and gas plays, pipeline discussions, big, mega mining projects. So naturally we had a desire to have access to markets to be able to play in that space.”
Marsh Canada, he adds, was a relatively new face in the market TIPI operates in. “It’s a very narrow class of business,” he says. “There’re only a few insurers that will actually write the types of risks that we write. For many years now, we had a few key relationships but Marsh, being kind of new to the space, [that] was intriguing to us, as well.”
Today, co-brokering is what the two companies are focused on, but both are calling the relationship a strategic alliance. “This is our way to basically form the business relationship, an entry point then to have bigger conversations around how we can come together in other ways. Those are to be defined,” he says. “It’s a bigger thing.”
He adds that the work the two companies are planning to do together is part of both organization’s growth strategies going forward. He also notes that the timing is unique, as global capital is being attracted to Canada for investment in infrastructure.
Enriching communities
“By engaging in this space and coming together with Marsh, we hope that we continue to enrich communities, bring dollars back to create wealth in those communities through the work that we do,” he adds.
TIPI Insurance Partners is part of TIPI Group of Companies, which also includes group pension and benefits operations, First Nations trust services, human resources and management consulting, recruitment and employee retention support, organizational training and Truth and Reconciliation education and advisory services. The limited partnership company where units are held by various First Nations communities, has about 100 employees.
“We can bob and weave a lot in terms of what our clients and prospective clients want and need, which is also interesting for me when it comes to Marsh, because they have deep pools of people skills which I’m very much looking forward to learning [about],” Ballantyne says.
In the last year Ballantyne says the company brought on an additional ten communities on as new unitholder partners. Although the company historically has been closed to such activity to prevent share dilution, the CEO says it is now in a place where expanding ownership is a possibility. In the coming two years he says he plans to add more that are aligned with the company’s growth prospects – that is, those in key geographies close to opportunities, with good portfolios of economic development ventures and some sophistication.
A significant milestone
“This alliance represents a significant milestone in advancing Indigenous economic participation,” the CEO said in a statement about the agreement when it was announced. “It will bring Indigenous voices and expertise to more major projects, create new opportunities for our people and generate economic returns that flow back to our First Nations shareholders.”
In his conversation with the Insurance Portal, meanwhile, Ballantyne says he sees the new arrangement taking the company to the next level, “and really throwing jet fuel onto what we’ve already built,” he says. “It’s very unique. There’s nothing else like it in Canada.”
