Tom Hazell, president of Hazell Underwriting Group in Midland, Ont., says one central philosophy has carried him through his 45-year career: if you look after your clients, the commissions will look after themselves.

That philosophy has not altered, despite the changes he has witnessed during his tenure. Advancements in technology, the increasing sophistication of clients, the revamping of industry organizations, the development of new products and the demutualization of insurance companies have all transformed the marketplace.

But perhaps the change that had the most impact was demutualization because it gave the insurance industry increased credibility. “This business used to be very cannibalistic,” Hazell says. Certain advisors would sell a block of business at Company A, then switch to Company B, and have it rewritten there. By “churning” clients in this way, disreputable advisors could double their commissions.

“These guys were charlatans,” he says. “And the disconcerting thing was that company supervisors knew it.” Nobody tracked where the sales were coming from.

Demutualization changed that, making insurers accountable to shareholders for policy revenue and commission costs.

Looking back on his career, Hazell, 68, sees four stages. He grew up in Hamilton and set out to become a lawyer, following in the footsteps of his father, who had been a prominent criminal lawyer.

“Dad died way too early, when I was 16,” Hazell says. “And for all his success, he had little life insurance. He left behind a 46-year-old widow and two teenagers.”

Hazell’s father had suffered from a heart condition and might have been unable to get more insurance, he says. Hazell believes this experience contributed to his decision to become an insurance agent.

Hazell was one course short of completing his bachelor of arts degree at Waterloo College, now Wilfrid Laurier University, when his then-wife-to-be accepted a nursing job in Toronto three days before their wedding. They had to move — and he needed a job.

“I answered a bunch of want ads,” he says, including one from Great-West Life Assurance Co. A few weeks later, he got a call from Ron Saint, manager of a GWL office in north Toronto. Saint persuaded Hazell to meet with him.

“‘It won’t hurt you to have lunch,’ he told me,” says Hazell. “That was Nov. 1, 1961. I like to say I’ve been having lunch ever since.”

At that point in his life, Hazell had been fatherless for eight years. “Saint struck me as someone who cared about me,” he says. Saint was also a “dedicated insurance man,” who believed deeply in life insurance and the value it would eventually have for his clients’ families. He instilled this attitude in Hazell.

In the beginning, Hazell and his fellow trainees did a lot of cold calling. Saint insisted recruits spend Monday nights on the phone, lining up appointments. “We had the rest of the week to make money,” Hazell says. Saint also insisted recruits attend monthly meetings of the Life Underwriters Association of Canada. “He got us there by the force of his will,” Hazell adds. “The meetings usually involved product updates and sales tips.”

In 1963, Saint put Hazell in a supervisory position. “I lasted two years. I couldn’t stand not working with clients,” Hazell says.

The second stage of his career began in the 1970s, when he learned the value of building relationships with other advisors. Saint had been transferred and was replaced by former world champion figure skater Norrie Bowden. Bowden — whose dedication was infectious — became a key figure in Hazell’s life. “More than anyone, he was responsible for getting me involved in industry activities,” he says.

Hazell joined the Toronto chapter of the Institute of Chartered Life Underwriters, originally a LUAC organization for members who had earned the chartered life underwriter designation. In 1978, Hazell became head of the Toronto chapter of the ICLU. He became president of the Toronto branch of LUAC in 1989, and chaired the national ICLU from 1982-85.

The ICLU is still active, and sets and administers educational requirements for the CLU designation. But the Conference of Advanced Life Underwriters has become the organization that attracts cream-of-the-crop insurance advisors. CALU, Hazell says, was inspired by the 1983 federal budget, when then-finance minister Allan MacEachen proposed taxing the proceeds of life policies. A letter-writing campaign got that idea nixed, Hazell says, but advisors decided that a permanent lobbying organization should be established; in 1991, CALU was born.

@page_break@During this second stage of Hazell’s career, GWL moved its north Toronto office to the downtown business core. As a result, Hazell’s practice changed. His clients — previously tradespeople and their families — were now professionals and owner-managers who demanded more sophisticated solutions, so Hazell added financial planning to his practice.

His career moved into its third stage in the mid-1980s, when GWL moved north again to Willowdale. Marcel Flammond, a Quebecer who’d worked in GWL’s head office in Winnipeg, was his new manager.

Flammond showed Hazell how the company and industry “really worked,” Hazell says. “He had an understanding of corporate political factors; he understood reinsurance; he understood product design; he wanted to get down into cases.”

When new products, such as disability insurance and critical illness insurance, came on the market, this deeper understanding of products helped Hazell’s business grow. He quickly added these products.

Hazell became a “true believer” in disability insurance the first time he facilitated a claim. His client ran a printing press and his policy paid out if he had an accident that prevented him from working. The client hurt his back while swimming. GWL refused to pay the claim because the client had hurt his back years before while playing hockey, but had forgotten about that injury when filling out the GWL application. Through phone calls and letters, Hazell persuaded the company to honour the client’s policy. “That made me a believer in the company, process and product,” he says.

Despite CI insurance’s high premiums, Hazell is a believer in this product, too. “A client can pay off the mortgage. An entrepreneur can protect his firm’s profitability,” he says. At the very least, because of the return-of-premiums option, “if it turns out only to be a type of forced savings, it’s not a bad deal.”

Hazell is a big believer in the advisor’s need for continuing education. In the days of captive agents, companies provided education and advisors focused exclusively on proprietary products. Now, a broader education can be obtained through advisor organizations and managing general agents. “Advisors are not spoon-fed any more, as we were,” Hazell says. “Now you can get a basic understanding of everything available on the market.”

Although he spent most of his career as a captive agent with GWL, and continues to sell that firm’s products, his clients’ needs have caused him to branch out. “You have to make sure you have the product the client needs. Not every company has the product to solve the problem,” he says.

Hazell holds the CLU, the chartered financial consultant and certified financial planner designations. But he still believes in teaming up with other professionals. “We don’t have all the answers,” he says. “But we know the people who do.”

Now in the fourth stage of his career, Hazell operates the company he formed in 1993 in Midland, north of Toronto. He and his second wife, Judy, moved to this smaller centre in 1991, but once a week he works out of a Toronto office space he rents from GWL.

Improved technology enabled the move. “The Internet allows you to learn about all available products in the marketplace. You could never do that before,” says Hazell. “Now you have the opportunity to help clients make the right choice.” New technology also allows him to keep in close touch with his Toronto clients: “With faxes and e-mail, insurers can get the information faster. We’re not waiting for the mail.”

He continues to believe in volunteering with advisor organizations. Under the mutual system, most insurance advisors were LUAC members. “LUAC membership was a great badge,” he says. “Not being a member meant you really didn’t care about what you were doing.”

But he is concerned about the lack of volunteerism in the “younger generation.” He says it was evident at Advocis’s centennial gala, this past January, that the most active members are over 50, and that Advocis must confront this issue.

He has made his contribution: both his children have followed in his footsteps. His son, Michael, 42, has an insurance brokerage, M.T.H. Financial Group, in Mississauga, Ont. His daughter, Judy, 44, is a human resources director at FundServ Inc. in Toronto.

Hazell has always been a dedicated community volunteer. He helped start two amateur football leagues and eventually became president of the Canadian Amateur Football Association in 1979.

In Midland, he has been active in his church, chairman of Canada Day events, and was chairman of the town’s centennial celebrations.

Thinking again of his father, he says: “What I remember most were the relationships he had. He had a good life. So have I.” IE





Put the client first and all else will follow



Tom Hazell began his insurance career in 1961. His first manager had a profound and lasting effect on Hazell’s business approach.

“He told me the policies had to fit the clients — not me. ‘Don’t you worry about the commissions,’ he told me. ‘The commissions will look after themselves’.” At that point, Hazell’s monthly draw was $325.

Forty-five years later, he still believes the client comes first. “You can make a good buck, but I don’t think you can be totally successful unless you care about the product and the people.”