Building better, stronger, faster by putting customers first
Insurance can be a dog-eat-dog industry where competition is fierce and independence often gets squashed. That is, unless, two entrepreneurial, independent companies – one in P&C, the other group benefits – decide to join forces in partnership that puts client service front and centre.
In the end, it’s about people – empowering them, serving them, supporting them, celebrating them and, above all, caring for them, no matter which side of the desk they’re on. If you remember only one thing in all of this, says Ben McDonald, remember that.
And by “all of this,” he means the recent partnership struck between Insurance Growth Network (IGN) and People Corporation, which, McDonald knows, will spark a lot of feeling within both companies.
“The founding principle of IGN is that you build a great company by investing in great people who, in turn, accomplish remarkable things,” says McDonald, CEO of IGN, a firm purpose-built to help small and medium-sized insurance brokerages grow organically and on their own terms. “The way I want to invest in people is very capital intensive, so it wasn’t a question of if we needed capital, it was what capital would we choose.”
For its part, People Corporation, a national leader in the group life and health insurance space, wanted to give its clients a more comprehensive insurance offering – the company takes great pride in its continual growth and adding value to its catalogue of products and solutions. “The question was, how can we serve our clients better?” says Paul Asmundson, chief corporate development officer with People Corporation. “Growing our property and casualty insurance solution is a priority, but we need the right partner.”
This is the story of how two Canadian-born-and-raised insurance companies, both with ambition to grow and both wanting to achieve that without sacrificing what each considers their best and most valued asset – their people, came together in a partnership designed to uplift everyone, from producers to clients. It is a partnership built on mutual respect and a genuine desire to build something better.
Ben McDonald, CEO of IGN
Paul Asmundson, Chief Corporate Development Officer, People Corporation
What’s the deal? How IGN and People Corporation found each other
To be clear, People Corporation was actively looking to enhance its property and casualty (P&C) offering, be that through acquisition or some form of partnership, and was well into its search before finding IGN.
“What we are looking for are well-structured organizations with proven track records,” says Brevan Canning, CEO of People Corporation, adding that they looked at a lot of potential partners during their search, but wanted an ideal match. “We are looking to expand our presence in the P&C space, specifically in the commercial and retail segment, and need to find the right partner to take the next step with.”
Meanwhile, McDonald was thinking about IGN’s path forward. The company’s platform for organic growth had seen rapid expansion of independent insurance brokerages across the West and, more recently, in Ontario under the CMB Insurance and Mango Insurance banners – the retail faces of IGN.
It’s worth noting that IGN was created to formalize the organic growth platform McDonald and his team developed through CMB. The two companies are not one and the same, but they do share the same roots. “I have owned the company since 2018,” says McDonald, explaining that financial partners behind the scenes have been instrumental in CMB’s growth and IGN’s creation. “From then, right up until 2025, we’ve had significant capital investment, and every nickel has been invested back into growth. There hasn’t been a single dividend paid since 2018 to ensure we have enough capital.”
The goal has always been to go national, says McDonald, but future growth would require further capital and he could see only three ways of achieving that: first, sell to a competitor, which was (and is) an absolute anathema to him, the entire ethos of IGN and something he simply would not do. Second, find some private equity, something he says came with too many strings attached in terms of changing the company’s organic growth model. “It would give CMB a chance to get to scale, sure, but the stress on the organization would be too much,” he says, adding he dismissed a lot of interested parties because he felt they didn’t offer the value he was looking for.
The third path turned out to be People Corporation. “I wasn’t looking for this, but they came in, liked our story and said we want to invest in what you have,” says McDonald. “We’re coming together to create something – a platform that will give success to all of us.”
At its simplest, what People Corporation brings to CMB is expertise in the group life and health industry with talent coast-to-coast that CMB can leverage to add value to its client base nationally. At the same time People Corporation can tap into CMB’s P&C expertise – the cross-selling opportunities go both ways. Obviously, there is more to this partnership at the boardroom and provider levels, but at the client-facing level, it means comprehensive, full-circle insurance offerings for the clients of both companies.
“IGN is one of the larger investments we’ve entered into within the last few years,” says Petriw. “Ben and his team have built a model that’s truly unique in the industry. IGN is coming in with their own critical mass – they’re driven and dynamic and they’re committed to their platform, transparency, and growth. The IGN culture and innovative edge will continue to thrive in our environment. There’s no plan to alter who they are.”
Bevan Canning, CEO of People Corporation
A meeting of values
Canning says this is a new kind of venture for People Corporation – a company that’s employed the M&A model effectively, but with an intentionality that marks it out as different. “Growth for growth’s sake is not the goal; delivering exceptional service is. We want to continually enhance the value proposition to our clients, and this partnership adds impactful solutions to our inventory,” says Canning.
“We started as an HR company in 2007 – a very people-focused field. We’ve centred our work on the concept of care and caring, and we focus everything we do from that lens. It differentiates us. The partnership with IGN is a different play for us. We can accelerate what Ben is doing, and we can learn, too, from his organic growth levers, EOS platform, and carrier relationships.”
That people-focused lens aligns with IGN’s own stated core values and provides the foundation of the partnership. Canning says that in their early meetings, he was struck by how deeply similar IGN’s values were to People Corporation’s own. “Our values are excessively client-focused,” he says. “We’ve evolved as an organization and our values have evolved too, but we always go back to our care of people. The majority of our competitors originated in the P&C space and if you talk to any of their leaders about success, you’ll learn their starting point is solving for risk. We start with caring for people, which ultimately solves for risk.”
He says that starts with empowering front-line producers to put clients’ well-being first. “The vast majority of client-oriented decisions are made on the front line, so we empower producers to do what’s best for their clients,” says Canning. In other words, producers from both companies will continue to have the power to be creative, build custom-fit products, and be supported in finding the best way to serve their clients.
From a more practical standpoint, Asmundson says the partnership will put more tools and opportunities into the hands of front-line producers in both companies, and knowing everyone’s under the same roof, so to speak, is helpful.
“If I’m a producer in People Corporation, and I’ve spent the last 10 years building up my book of clients that I’d love to bring P&C to, if I’m going to open my doors to someone offering that, I’d like to know they’re part of the family,” he says. “If you’re a new IGN producer, you suddenly have an expanded toolbox to help open doors. A warm lead is better than a cold lead all day long, and we’ll bring that to each other.”
McDonald says from a producer standpoint, IGN remains committed to its organic growth formula and empowering people to build and grow the independent brokerages they dream of. The partnership with People Corporation means the capital and support is now there to ensure it happens, that the future is on solid footing. “This partnership protects and enhances what we already have,” he says. “We will continue to invest in producers, build brokerages and support organic growth. That will not change.”