Created by the coming together of La Capitale and SSQ Insurance in 2020, Beneva is the country's largest mutual insurance company with 3.5 million members.
The organization faced a dual challenge, integrating two distinct entities while navigating the increasing pressures on the Canadian insurance market. With strong positions in both property & casualty and life & health insurance — a rare combination in the Canadian market - Beneva needed a unified operational foundation to leverage this advantage, build resilience, and accelerate growth. The company chose Workday to standardize its people and financial processes, unifying its core business data on one cohesive platform to steer the new organization forward.
From legacy systems to a unified future.
The business integration of La Capitale and SSQ Insurance gave Beneva an amazing opportunity: to change everything. The two previous companies ran on a patchwork of legacy HR and finance systems. For Éric Marcoux, Property & Casualty and Corporate Services, keeping those systems wasn't an option. "They were old, and they were not evolving at the pace of business," he says. Beneva needed a modern, intuitive platform that could support its people first philosophy and its strategic decision to be a SaaS first company.
The clear choice was Workday. "It addresses our business requirements, it's simple to use and to deploy, and it's working very well," says Marcoux. This provided a unified platform to manage everything from financial reporting to talent management, creating the consistency needed to operate as a single, agile organization across Canada.
Workday brought a kind of magic to Beneva. Our finance, HR, and IT teams work together as a trio.
Property & Casualty and Corporate Services
Data-driven responses to industry headwinds.
With Workday as its operational core, Beneva is better equipped to tackle the key challenges facing Canadian insurers:
- Rising Costs: With increasing reinsurance rates and inflationary pressures, tight cost control is essential. Workday Financial Management provides leaders with real-time, drill-down data into expenses, salaries, and investments, allowing for faster, more informed decisions to protect profitability.
- Workforce Agility: The industry faces talent shortages, particularly for claims adjusters during peak catastrophe seasons. Workday HCM gives Beneva a centralized view of its workforce, enabling more effective resource planning and talent management to scale its response when members and customers need it most.
- Cross-Provincial Compliance: Operating across Canada requires navigating a complex web of provincial regulations. By standardizing HR and finance reporting in Workday, Beneva has simplified compliance and reduced the administrative burden on its teams.
We're confident it will only take a few months to do the next merge. The platform allows us to do this.
Property & Casualty and Corporate Services
“We are now capable of deploying new modules independently,” notes Marcoux, highlighting the self-sufficiency the company has gained. This agility is crucial as Beneva continues to consolidate its market position and adapt to the evolving needs of its members.
With Workday, Beneva has a scalable platform that fuels its growth strategy, including the planned merger with Gore Mutual. The company is confident to integrate the new entity in a few months—a fraction of the time it took for the original merger. "The platform allows us to do this," says Marcoux. "It makes it highly motivating to do more mergers and transactions in the future." Beneva is also using Workday's AI and automation capabilities to help employees focus on more strategic work. "We are investing in AI, of course, but it's really to help our employees so they can be focused on our clients," Marcoux says. “When you’re submitting a claim, you want to talk to a person.”
Looking ahead, Beneva plans to leverage the partnership with Workday to achieve its long-term goals: expanding its footprint in Canada, attracting new talent, and putting people first.