Canadian insurance brokerages are chasing “optimization,” but instead of streamlining work, they’re overwhelming staff with bloated systems, mismanaged tools, and constant change - driving burnout, not efficiency.
What’s meant to simplify client service is doing the opposite. With every insurer, regulator, and client adding their own set of requirements, brokers are stuck navigating duplicate tasks, compliance clutter, and workflows that feel more like obstacle courses.
With more than two decades in the industry, Amanda May (pictured), vice president at McCAM Insurance, knows that bad systems don’t solve problems - they just shift the burden. At McCAM, she’s redefining optimization by moving away from metrics and focusing on how people connect, with clients and with their work.
“When I think about optimization, I think about cutting the clicks,” May said. Brokerages often talk about streamlining, but in practice, they pile on tasks that drain time and energy. May called it a workflow labyrinth - what starts as a simple request quickly unravels into a gauntlet of forms, follow-ups, and friction.
The pressure isn’t just internal. External demands from insurers and regulators make it nearly impossible to control the pace or volume of work.
“We have to send commission declarations, privacy consent forms, PAC forms,” she said. “The challenge is when you try to implement things within your own system, it’s everybody outside of you that’s directing what the workload is.”
Sometimes, the pressure is self-inflicted. Brokerages chase operational upgrades but ignore the human impact of implementation. New tools come with new demands -onboarding, adapting, and troubleshooting - which quietly burden staff.
“Anytime you introduce any type of new technology. You’re still bringing in change,” May said. “It’s a new rhythm, a new technique that they’ve got to adopt and get comfortable with.”
A renewal survey rollout meant to improve engagement created more problems than it solved. Not only did the team have to follow up with every respondent who clicked “yes,” but even the wording of the survey triggered confusion.
“We had to reword some of the questions. They were saying yes to things when the answer was no.” These hiccups highlight a critical blind spot: change management doesn’t end after a rollout. Systems and language need to evolve in real time, not just during launch windows.
“You’ve got to be willing to make those adjustments,” she said. “And it’s not the first three to six months. It’s a constant thing.”
Too often, leaders underestimate the toll of these “small” changes. When new demands stack without removing old ones, it leads to burnout. Retention becomes a branding campaign rather than a meaningful effort to support staff.
That disconnect is especially stark for younger employees, who reject rigid metrics in favor of meaningful work. May doesn’t see this as fragility, she sees it as forward-thinking.
“The customer is not calling in and caring about the call times,” she said. “They want to feel like they’re having a meaningful conversation with somebody.”
McCAM shifted away from hard metrics toward evaluating how brokers engage with clients. “When we do an audit, it’s not about metrics. It’s about behaviors,” she said. “People contact you for one thing, but if you listen, you’ll understand what they need is something different.”
That same philosophy extends to how McCAM handles internal communication. Rather than rely on templated emails or robotic scripts, the team is encouraged to personalize their outreach.
“I don’t believe in completely structured emails where everything is cut and paste,” she said. “Add your personality, add a little twist.”
This focus on connection informs how McCAM approaches career development as well. Many new hires enter the insurance world as a second career. They aren’t looking for static roles—they want meaningful growth and diverse challenges.
“You have to have career paths,” May said. “You don’t want that to be your only purpose in life.”
To meet that expectation, McCAM avoids rigid job descriptions. “This page doesn’t summarize what a person is capable of and what they can do,” she said.
Employees are encouraged to lead projects or step into responsibilities that align with their strengths, regardless of their interest in management roles. The aim isn’t to push everyone up a ladder - it’s to keep them engaged and fulfilled.
“For some people, I want to do the same thing every day. But for most of us, they want a little diversity. They want to be challenged.”
That challenge must be tied to purpose. Otherwise, it just becomes more grind.
“It’s our job as employers to look at what the skill set people bring to the table, what makes them unique, and help them find career paths within the company,” May said.
Brokerages rely on sophisticated tools, but many still overlook the need to rethink how their systems support people. The best systems can’t compensate for a lack of human-centric design.
“Technology is not to automate us,” May said. “It’s actually to help us engage more.”
The burnout plaguing brokers isn’t an innovation problem. It’s a systems problem. Until firms start aligning their operations with how people think, work, and grow, they’ll keep losing talent not to competitors, but to exhaustion
