Aviva Canada

Aviva Canada breaks new ground with Brand Employee Engagement Summits

Aviva Canada Inc. is one of the leading general insurance groups in Canada, providing home, automobile and business insurance as well as premier claims service to more than 3 million customers. Aviva Canada has over 3,000 employees, 40 locations and over 3,000 independent broker partners from coast to coast. Aviva Canada is a wholly owned subsidiary of UK-based Aviva PLC, the world’s fifth largest insurance group. 

Aviva Canada’s vision is to be the most trusted and valued home, auto and business insurer in Canada while delivering sustainable, profitable growth.

Historically the business in Canada has offered its products through the independent broker network and in 2004 extended its offering through President’s Choice Financial.

In April 2008 Aviva Canada introduced their brand promise directly to consumers to increase brand awareness and strengthen their position in the face of increasing competition. Concurrent with this launch, Aviva embarked on An “Employee Brand Engagement” plan designed with an overarching outcome that sees employees as icons and stewards of the brand and as beacons of change that will guide “brilliant customer experiences” at every level.

The SuMo experience was engaged to support this initiative which embraced the use of Appreciative Inquiry in its design framework.  An employee summit of 250 people across the enterprise was held in May 2008, followed by an enterprise-wide inquiry around “brilliant customer experiences”. This helped to focus the organization on understanding and celebrating what is working and then engaging teams at the operational level to use that knowledge to make “let’s change insurance” a reality. This initiative has been so successful that a second summit and inquiry is planned for April 2009, with ripple effects on having strength-based conversations for possibility throughout the organization.