Portage Mutual Insurance Company's annual general meeting highlighted the pluses and minuses yesterday morning at Canad Inns in Portage la Prairie. President/CEO John Mitchell gives an outline of some of the highlights.

John Mitchell"Looking back, the auto product is very challenging for us," explains Mitchell. "We're a national company. But we're doing a lot of interesting things. We've got a lot of strategic initiatives we're looking forward to see take hold in the future. We've started them. We're very optimistic. There were some years through 2015 and 2017 that kind of laid the groundwork for this. Prior to that, there were some challenging years."

Regarding the red and the black, he notes, "One of the issue last year was the investment income, which is an important part of our business, and was really challenging. It's bounced back this year. So, that affected our overall profits last year. There's a new claim system we're putting in. We should have that done by 2020."

The gathering at the AGM

Mitchell says a number of other initiatives include efforts to grow business. They call it the 'Turn on the Taps' initiative. Groundwork's been laid, he notes, and they're in a good position to grow, adding they'll take advantage of their strong security to move ahead.

Mitchell says cyber issues were discussed, and says they spend much time in that field, with heavy investments for consumers' data protection.

Mitchell says for four years in a row they had an underwriting profit which had not previously happened for twenty years for their personal property line of business, adding that's a very challenging market.

"That was the first line with which we really started using actuarial sciences to set their rates," continues Mitchell. "And it's been a very effective tool. As well, our underwriters did a fabulous job of reshaping our books."