Wawanesa Insurance Company

No one knows what the Indian name Wawanesa means, but each description clearly pictures the scenic area perched on the bank of Manitoba's Souris River, where the village of Wawanesa was established in 1889.

The new mutual start-up costs were hard. At the end of the first year, the company's surplus was only a meager $ 5.96. For the next couple of years losses remained high.

At the end of the century, the company diversified its coverage extending it to farm equipment farm buildings, schools, and churches. Operations also expanded into the new provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Wawanesa quickly emerged as a service centre with the new mutual insurance company as the local largest employer. The pioneer values of the hamlet were transmitted to the company. The values of thrift, fairness and hard work have been carried on to this day as a corporate ethic.

A century later, the company's head office is still in Wawanesa.

By 1900, Wawanesa was protecting more than $1 million with of property. The largest claim paid that year was $1000; the smallest was $3. A year later, the firm moved out of its tiny premises to a new building overlooking the beautiful Souris River valley. Wawanesa soon had a staff of five, including a salesman who traveled the Prairie's.

The directors take an active role in running the company. The leadership of two men, A.F.Kempton and C.M.Vanstone, was responsible for the successful development of the company over the nearly fifty year period.

The company also set up an innovative system of honorary directions. Scattered around the countryside, they kept an eye out for new business, and for suspicious claims. As policyholders in a mutual it was in their interest that company not be defrauded.

The company's promise of lower costs and fair dealings resulted in the fact that by 1907, the value of property insured by Wawanesa had jumped to $20 million.

Three years later Wawanesa became the largest Mutual Fire Insurance Company in Canada. Growth was steady throughout the years of the First World War. Shortly after the War Wawanesa underwent a leadership change. Alonzo Kempton was the venture some entrepreneur that the new enterprise needed. He had turned the Mutual into an industry leader but new times demanded a different kind of person, to face a different set of challenges.

Charles Morley Vanstone, a medical doctor, became managing director in 1922. His precise mind would be sorely needed in the face of harsh economic climate in Canada through the early 1920's.

Hard times stimulated the company to diversity further, and to build its financial reserves.

By 1925 economic conditions had improved so that in 1926, Wawanesa took a major step forward offering, for the first time, coverage on private buildings in towns and cities. Two years later insurance was offered on automobiles. In 1929, these expansion years culminated with the granting to Wawanesa of a Dominion of Canada charter. This meant the company could now offer coverage in every province. The year 1930 marked by the opening of Wawanesa branch offices in Vancouver, and in Toronto.

Within five years, branches were opened in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Moncton-giving Wawanesa coast-to-coast coverage in Canada. A difficult time of the Great Depression of the 1930's had little effect on Wawanesa.

It now offered broad coverage and had access to its own cash reserves learning the lessons of previous slumps. Wawanesa actually expanded during this period while other businesses shrank or collapsed.

All measures were taken to reduce staff costs.

The Depression had taught Wawanesa that it was possible for a well-managed company to prosper in the most difficult times. Dr.Vanstone took great satisfaction in knowing that the Canada-wide reputation of Wawanesa was that of a "straightforward organization, free from chicanery and all forms of trickery".