The Economical Insurance Group Profile

History of Economical Insurance Group

Economical Insurance is a Canadian insurance company founded in 1871. They provide coverage for casualties and property. Economical provides people with commercial properties, farms and personal insurance.

This Canadian insurance company was first opened in what was known then as Berlin, Ontario and is now known as Kitchener, Ontario. It began with a group of people living in a Berlin neighborhood who decided that they needed to form a group to help each other out when disasters occured and the neighborhood was enduring hardship. Many of the hardships people dealt with when this company was founded in 1871 included fire and lightning damaging the houses of neighborhood residents. The first insurance policy by Economical was issued to a family who’s farm and house sustained damage due to a fire. This policy was issued on November 25, 1871 and Economical Insurance has been helping the people of Ontario ever since.

In 1937 the Economical Insurance company bought the Western General Mutual Insurance Company, which was established in 1905 in Woodstock, an area of Ontario. When Economical Insurance purchased Western General they expanded to Quebec. Beginning in 1947, this insurance company began offer insurance to cover accidents, illnesses and car insurance. By this time, they were expanding their market to include the Maritime industry. In 1956, Economical Insurance expanded again by purchasing The Missisquoi and Rouville Insurance Company, based in Quebec. In 1968, Economical also purchased The Perth Mutual of Stratford and converted it from an insurance company to a stock company. Not content to remain stagnant, Economical Insurance decided to continue its expansion by purchasing the Waterloo County Mutual Fire Insurance Company in 1980. To make business less complicated, Economical merged its policies with the policies of The Perth Mutual of Stratford in 1983 and did the same thing with the Waterloo County Mutual Fire Insurance company as well. This merging of policies was executed in 1987.

In 1996, Economical made the decision to, once again, make the Waterloo Insurance Company a provider of group insurance. A year later, Economical and Western General completed a merge that resulted in its becoming the farm division of the group. A year after that they chose to have the Perth Insurance Company become a provider of special risk insurance. Continuing their expansion, Economical bought assets related to insurance from the Family Group of Companies of British Columbia. In 2000, Economical expanded once again by purchasing Federation Insurance. A year later they purchased the Hartford Insurance Company of Canada and changed its name to Langdon Insurance. Three years later, Economical merged with Langdon Insurance as a way to make broker partners and policyholder operations easier. In 2006, the United State’s first subsidiary, The Mattea Companies, merged with Economical.

In December 2010, the Economical’s board members decided to have the company engage in demutualization. This allowed them to gain better access to capital markets all over Canada. The purpose of this was to be able to compete with P&C companies that were not mutual companies.

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