When Edmonton-based Canadian Western Bank (TSX:CWB) announced earlier this month that it had achieved its 88th consecutive profitable quarter, it noted that some of its good fortune stems from Vancouver-based subsidiary Canadian Direct Insurance.
That insurance-seller topped its strong 2009 financial performance by posting a record $6.7 million profit on $53 million in revenue in the six months that ended April 30.
“Our first six months are winter months,” Canadian Direct COO Colin Brown told Business in Vancouver June 9. “Certainly in the three years preceding this year, we would have been reeling.”
A mild winter in B.C. and Alberta helped Canadian Direct. It sells insurance for home and automobiles, and the number of claims for both those classes of insurance are heavily influenced by the weather.
Canadian Direct launched in the mid-1990s when it was sold only automobile insurance in B.C. and was owned by Vancouver-based HSBC Bank Canada. It branched out into selling home insurance in B.C. in 1998 and into home and auto insurance in Alberta in 1999.
HSBC then sold the company to Canadian Western.
Brown said Canadian Direct has hired 20 new staff so far this year and has a total of 265 employees.
Much of the company’s sales come via the Internet, but in 2009 it launched a new revenue stream by underwriting white-label insurance products to Sussex Insurance and Hub International, which would sell them under their own names.