Two years after Intact Financial Corporation acquired RSA Canada (and some other operations outside Canada), value creation from the acquisition has exceeded expectations, Intact’s chief financial officer said during an earnings call last week.

“We estimate that annual RSA synergies has hit a run rate of $315 million in the quarter,” Intact executive vice president and CFO Louis Marcotte said during the 2023 Q2 earnings call on Aug. 3. “We remain well on track to achieve our target of at least $350 million and approximately [a] 20% net operating income per share increase by mid-2024.

“The estimated IRR is still north of 20%,” Marcotte said, referring to the internal rate of return, a financial analysis metric used to estimate the profitability of investments.

The second quarter of 2023 marked the second anniversary of the RSA acquisition. Policy conversion in all specialty lines in Intact’s Johnson affinity business “is substantially complete and retention levels remain high,” Marcotte said. He expects policy conversions to be largely completed in 2024, with claims conversion and systems decommissioning still estimated to be completed in 2025.

Intact also recently rebranded Anthony Insurance and Johnson Insurance to Intact’s belairdirect subsidiary. Johnson Insurance reported on its website that beginning this fall, its car and home division will gradually rebrand to belairdirect, with the group benefits and travel divisions rebranding happening “in the future.” Anthony Insurance will also rebrand beginning this fall.

Belairdirect reported in late June it would add to its product shelf by introducing “a new, enhanced suite of advanced digital tools,” but did not elaborate.

“This [rebranding] further bolsters the strength of our direct brand across the country,” Intact CEO Charles Brindamour said during the earnings call. “I was also pleased to see that BrokerLink remained very focused on consolidating distribution, successfully reaching agreements in 17 transactions so far this year.”

Most recently, BrokerLink closed its largest acquisition of 2023 with Access Insurance Group, effective July 1. The deal allows the brokerage to expand its Alberta footprint in Edmonton, Lacombe, Red Deer, Stony Plain, Lloydminster and surrounding communities. Access Insurance has provided personal and commercial insurance to western Canada for more than 40 years.

Overall, Intact had a 92.2% combined ratio (discounted) in 2023 Q2. Its undiscounted combined ratio was 4.1 points higher at 96.3%.

Intact saw an elevated combined ratio (undiscounted) of 119.2% in its Canadian personal property segment in the quarter, driven in part by twice the expected level of Cat losses. The undiscounted combined ratio for Canadian personal auto was 91.2%, while Canadian commercial lines stood at 89.5%.

The insurer’s expense ratio of 34.3% in 2023 Q2 was 1.4 points higher than last year, “mostly due to investments in technology and to support growth in Canada.”

Feature image by iStock.com/years