How Western Financial Group drove a 15% lift in personal lines EBITDA

Western Financial Group is one of Canada's largest national insurance brokerages, operating more than 180 branches from coast to coast and managing more than 300,000 personal lines policies. With a team spread nationally and a book of that size, consistency and scale determine whether the operating model works.

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The challenge

Delivering the standard of service Western had built its reputation on was nearly impossible at that scale. Each client conversation required 30 minutes of manual preparation, comparing the current and prior term line by line across premium, coverages, and limits. Across a national team built through acquisition, that workload multiplied, service standards varied from branch to branch, and at-risk clients were hard to spot.

The gap to Western's retention target represented millions in premium at risk of leaving the book.

The turning point

Morgan Mackenzie, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Strategy, Partnerships & Transformation, brought firsthand experience from the front lines to the evaluation. When she first started her insurance career, she had done the manual service work herself. She knew exactly what it cost in time, in energy, and in missed client moments.

“As someone who was previously on the front lines, I cannot imagine doing another manual review for a customer.”
_{- Morgan Mackenzie, SVP, Enterprise Strategy, Partnerships & Transformation}

Her goal was to remove the administrative work that consumed advisors' time and locked them into tasks that didn't require their expertise, not to remove advisors from client relationships. She wanted to free the team for more valuable client conversations and revenue-generating work.

Seeing Quandri's end-to-end automation in action was a turning point for Morgan. Brokers started their days with reviewed, remarketed, and policy-specific emails drafted and ready to send.

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The shift

Western piloted Quandri in select branches before expanding nationwide, and the branches still waiting started asking when they would get access.

The policy work that once took 30 minutes now takes three. Quandri reads each policy, remarkets those at risk, surfaces cross-sell and upsell opportunities, and drafts personalized client outreach, all queued before account managers log in. Advisors walk into every conversation with talking points at the ready, and clients who had never heard from their advisor now receive timely, personal communication that's relevant to their policy.

For newer advisors, the platform compressed the learning curve. Coverage gaps and flagged items are surfaced automatically, reducing E&O exposure and helping less experienced team members conduct thorough reviews and deliver informed, attentive service to clients from day one.

The results

Western tracked retention before and after implementing Quandri and saw a 2.3% lift, worth $1.5 million in marginal revenue from their existing book. That is not new business. It is $1.5 million in revenue they stopped from walking out the back door. They also uncovered an additional $2 million in untapped upsell revenue sitting in their book, and this is where automation will be focused next. Both retention and revenue continue to climb as adoption deepens across the brokerage.

Quandri added a 15% increase in EBITDA to Western's personal lines book, worth $2.5 million in margin. This came through the additional revenue and the redeployment of 14 full-time roles from administrative work back into client relationships.

The numbers tell part of the story, but the shift also showed up in client behavior. Inbound calls increased after proactive outreach went out. Clients were calling because there was something meaningful to discuss, rather than leaving quietly at renewal because nobody had reached out.

For a brokerage serving a book this size, every client now gets a proactive, personal touch, and it shows up directly in EBITDA. Western didn't add headcount to get here. They changed how the work gets done, and the results followed.

“We've achieved exactly what we wanted with Quandri: delivering a better client experience, driving more revenue, and doing it with less people. This is what AI should deliver.”
_{- Morgan Mackenzie, SVP, Enterprise Strategy, Partnerships & Transformation}

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