The Economical Insurance Group

The Economical Insurance Group is a general insurer with a Canada wide presence. It is the largest property and casualty insurer in Canada. The group has 700,000 policy holders and 1,300 employees. It was founded in 1871 in Kitchener, Ontario as The Economical Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Berlin. The Economical still is a mutual society. It has $2.5 billion in assets and has more than doubled in size since 1998. It is still a mutual company

Subsidiaries

They have a number of member companies, including the Perth Insurance Company, The Mattei Companies, Federation Insurance Company of Canada, The Missisquoi Insurance Company, Western General, Waterloo Insurance Company, Westmount Financial and Family Insurance Solutions Inc. All Economical member companies sell their policies through independent brokers.

Federation Insurance Company of Canada

The Federation Insurance Company of Canada is one of Economical’s Quebec based companies, covering the same sort of auto and home insurance policies as the Economical and also selling them through an independent insurance broker network. They are based in Montreal and started as an independent mutual society in 1947 and joined the Economical in 2000.

Perth Insurance Company

The Perth Insurance Company is an insurer that specialises in hard to insure or “special risk” customers, whether for auto insurance or for home insurance. They offer the option for same company discounts with other members of the Economical Group, so that you can insure your high risk auto policy with Perth and insure your standard risk home insurance with Economical. They offer a similar upgrade option to the Economical once the risk profile has improved. They are based in North York, Ontario.

The Mattei Companies

The Mattei Companies are commercial insurers based in Seattle and serving niche markets in the Northwest United States. They joined the Economical Group in 2006 and are to date Economical’s only subsidiary outside Canada.

The Missisquoi Insurance Company

The Missisquoi Insurance Company is another Quebec based insurance company, and is one of the oldest insurance companies in Canada. It offers high end auto and home insurance to customers in Quebec and is based in Montreal.

Waterloo Insurance Company

Waterloo Insurance Company is Economical’s group insurance company. It works only with various types of work place based affinity groups such as skilled trade unions, professional associations and groups of employees. It offers a number of differences from other group insurance companies such as not charging interest or service fees on more convenient payment options and continuing coverage for members who leave the group with which they’ve insured. Like Economical they are based in Waterloo, Ontario.

Western General, a division of Economical Mutual Insurance Company

Western General are the farm specialists within Economical. They also offer auto insurance to their agricultural client base. They are based in Ontario and have a satellite presence in Alberta.