Never Content: How Mavericks and Outsiders Made a Surprise Winner of Maritime Life

Robert W. Sexty is a professor of commerce and business administration
at Memorial University of Newfoundland and the author of Canadian
Business: Issues and Stakeholders.

Harry Bruce, veteran journalist and author of other corporate histories,
was well placed to write a history of Maritime Life Assurance Company,
covering its first 80 years to 2002. Both the author and the company are
based in Halifax, giving Bruce access to corporate records as well as to
current and past executives for interviews.

The first nine chapters focus on the “mavericks” who founded
Maritime Life and ran it for its first 47 years. We learn how the
company survived (and thrived) against great odds during a period when
it was viewed as an “outsider” by the central-Canadian insurance
establishment. In 1969, John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance of Boston
acquired Maritime Life (the relationship with these American
“outsiders” is described in the following six chapters), but allowed
the company to operate autonomously, which proved to be a successful
strategy for both. Chapters 16 to 24 examine why Maritime Life became a
“surprise winner” following its acquisition of Confederation Life
assets and its takeover of Aetna Canada despite competition from larger
insurance companies. The final two chapters describe how Maritime
Life’s small size and innovative approaches to doing business made it
so successful in the life insurance industry.

The author has told a good corporate story—one that provides an
excellent background to understanding the introduction of yet another
outsider when Manulife Financial Corporation of Toronto purchased John
Hancock in 2004. The issue now is whether or not the new owner, whom
Maritime Life had outmanoeuvred in the competitive marketplace, will
allow the company to continue doing its own thing in Halifax.