The consequences of the 2020 global pandemic have been mixed for British Columbia’s largest insurance brokerages, according to data collected on BIV’s Biggest Insurance Brokers in B.C. list (https://biv.com/lists).
Average employment at the top brokerages barely budged last year, falling 0.1%. In contrast, the median employment jumped 8.6% to 228 employees in 2021 from 210 in 2020.
The better growth performance of median over average employment is in line with previous results for the province’s largest insurance brokers. Over the past five years, median growth has outpaced average growth, with the median employment increasing 37.8% to 228 in 2021 from 165.5 in 2017. The average number of employees grew only 27.6% over the same period: to 405.6 in 2021 from 317.9 in 2017.
Average one-year growth on BIV’s list was 22%, indicating that despite the overall decrease in the average number of employees, many individual companies on the list posted staff increases. That number was pulled higher by No. 18 Apollo Insurance Solutions Ltd. Its number of B.C. employees increased 300% to 40 in 2021 from just 10 in 2020.
When Apollo is excluded from the rest of the companies on the list, the average growth on the list falls to 6.9%.
No. 1 Hub International had the largest five-year increase among the largest brokerages with five years of data. It grew 37.6% over the past five years to 2,139 employees from 1,554 in 2017.
