Gore Mutual Insurance Company was founded in Cambridge, Ontario in the 1830s and is one of the oldest continually operating businesses of its kind in Canada. Gore Mutual, or "The Gore" as it's known, provides property and casualty insurance to residents of Ontario and British Columbia. Coverage is offered for automobiles, homes, businesses, and more.  The Gore doesn't sell its insurance products itself; rather, they are sold solely by independent insurance brokers.  The company also funds the Gore Mutual charitable foundation to provide support to local communities.

Project Summary

Established and implemented a Business Continuity strategy and plan for this Canadian P&C mutual insurance company, to ensure corporate survival in the event of disaster.

Background

The Board of Directors had raised questions about the organization’s survival in the event of internal or external disasters similar to some notable examples at the time in the US.

Requirement

Establish a Business Continuity Plan for the head office in Cambridge.

Approach

• Document “current state” business processes, dependencies, requirements, service levels
• Document “disaster state” estimates for Impact of Outage of business processes, customer impacts, financial impacts
• Develop minimum requirements for recovery by department.
• Conduct workshops to determine by department, space and service requirements, furniture, supplies, staff, location
• Establish contingency measures to avoid delay in relocation, and acquisition of requirements
• Document and develop action plan for deployment. Affect implementation of plan