As a young professional at UK-based NFU Mutual, Dan Demmar’s visit to two ICMIF members in Canada, Wawanesa and Beneva, is a standout example of the value in being part of ICMIF. Through ICMIF’s support – both in brokering international connections and providing leadership training for emerging talent – he took part in a two-week knowledge exchange on topics including climate change and sustainability. The experience showed just how powerfully mutual and cooperative values unite organisations across borders, enabling meaningful collaboration and shared learning.

In April 2025, I was given the immense privilege of being able to go over to Canada and take part in a knowledge-sharing exchange around climate change and sustainability. This was only made possible due to the considerable efforts from ICMIF, and the member partners we were connected with, Wawanesa and Beneva, respectively. Before I go any further, I’d like to personally thank all three organisations and the fantastic people I got to work with as part of this process.

To fully tell the story, it’s worth explaining how this opportunity came about. I joined NFU Mutual (UK) in September 2022, on their inaugural Risk Professional Trainee (Graduate) scheme. Having been through the process, I can confidently say the scheme offered is market-leading, and it gave me experience across a range of risk disciplines, including the Climate Change Risk team. As I was approaching my offboarding opportunity into a permanent role, my division (the Risk Division) announced that they would also be launching the ‘DRIVE’ initiative.

DRIVE, or, ‘Developing Risk Insights and Viewpoints Expertise’, was a division-wide opportunity with the aim of allowing the successful applicant(s) to identify topics / themes related to risk they would like to further explore, and then to propose a workplan to achieve this. It was intentionally open-ended, and I felt empowered to be creative and bold in my proposal. Many of my colleagues put forward excellent ideas; so much so, that they were approved and given the green light to be undertaken as part of business-as-usual activities. However, my proposal, and my colleague, Scott Beasley’s (related to AI Governance), were chosen to be the official DRIVE 2024 initiatives. It was now time to get planning!

Once the elation of being chosen wore off, it was quickly apparent that reaching out to another firm to establish a connection was a lot harder than we realised. We were helpfully pointed in the direction of ICMIF, and we liaised with NFU Mutual’s Head of Strategy to facilitate this. He and his team were incredibly helpful, and they were able to use the 2024 Biennial ICMIF Conference in Argentina to make some tentative enquiries on our behalf.

Concurrently, I had taken part in several of ICMIF’s Young Leader initiatives from my time as a graduate, which had given me a great set of contacts that I had been reaching out to as well. The ICMIF leadership team were keen to support me, and once we all sat around the same virtual table and aligned our priorities, it was agreed and approved that Wawanesa and Beneva would be excellent partners to work with.

My initiative was on the topic of climate change. Working closely with Wawanesa and Beneva, we agreed on three key topics for discussion:

• ESG framework and responsible business strategy
• Net-zero transition planning and emissions
• Sustainability regulation.

Apart from getting the time zones to align (Canada has six…), it was refreshingly simple to get agreement and planning completed with our partner firms. With ICMIF briefed and in support, senior managers from all sides in agreement and a mountain of sustainability reading that I’d kindly left myself for the plane journey, it appeared everything was now in place. My previous manager, the Head of the Climate Change team, was incredibly supportive and knowledgeable, which helped alleviate much of the looming anxiety and imposter syndrome.

Once April arrived, the experience of leaving felt slightly surreal. I’d planned two weeks, one with each firm, and had kindly been allowed to take some self-funded annual leave afterwards in Banff National Park. With the airline staff thankfully turning a blind eye to my overweight bag bustling with both snow gear and office clothes, I arrived in Winnipeg and prepared for Day One.

I think this is a good point for me to pause and thank the Divisional Assistants and other colleagues’ tireless efforts to sort out all the logistics of the visit. With flights and hotels across three locations in Canada, they really went above and beyond to ensure my experience was smooth and hassle-free.

Wawanesa were exceptionally gracious hosts, and I was met at my hotel by the kind faces I’d known only over Teams up until this point. After the usual introductions, coffees and walk-arounds, we settled into a regular rhythm, tackling a ‘big’ topic each day through a presentation from each side, complemented with softer coffee catch-ups, discussions, meals out, walks and ad hoc meetings with other senior managers keen to say hello. I was also taken around their Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, which was an excellent way to see the climate risks and mitigations that Wawanesa is supporting brought to life.

This format worked really well for all of us. A nagging concern I’d had would be how I could provide value back to the member firms who were hosting us, but the conversations felt truly two-way, and they were keen to understand far more about NFU Mutual than simply the topics we’d drafted up. We spoke about everything from carbon offsetting to emissions capture to the Consumer Duty and even politics (it was the election cycle in Canada at the time). One key point that kept recurring in conversations, no matter the level of person I was talking to, was the mutual proposition, and how we can really engage customers to understand the benefits of being with a mutual and the values simply working for one predisposes us to.

The time passed quickly, and I found myself in Quebec City, ready for Day One with Beneva. The value of the ICMIF relationship cannot be overstated here; the colleague who was responsible for organising my time with Beneva was actually somebody I’d met through the ICMIF Virtual Young Leaders Programme already, so it was great to be able to meet properly in-person.

We followed a similar format with Beneva, and I must thank all of the colleagues I met there for speaking in English for my benefit, as French is largely the language of choice day-to-day. It was really affirming to have colleagues request more time to speak with me, as we delved into some intriguing topics such as encouraging sustainability across supply chains, driving positive employee behaviours and comparing experiences delivering exceptional customer service. Again, the week passed far too quickly, and it was sad to be leaving such a great group of people and a lovely city.

I’ve got many more good things I could say about both firms, but I fear I’d need several blogs to do so! Overall, I think the people who facilitated, helped and hosted me were exceptional, and a credit to their organisations. An interesting realisation for me was that the visit was only the tip of the iceberg, and with the relationship firmly brokered, I’ve got lots of plans for ongoing collaboration and learning that can now drill down into supporting tangible ends, such as our team and business objectives on all sides. I really hope to continue the mutual value-add for many months to come.

Despite all of the conversations, the sights and everything else that made up this rewardingly rich experience, I was struck by one point between NFU Mutual, Wawanesa and Beneva in particular. We all have different distribution models, product offerings, geographical operations, risk profiles, regulatory environments and a multitude of other things that separate us. Yet, there is an intangible resonance between our organisations, and I really couldn’t tell at times that I wasn’t back home at NFU Mutual. Whether it was the language used, the supportiveness between colleagues, the empathy towards customers or the unspoken responsibility around members’ interests underpinning everything, the values from being in a mutual really do transcend every type of border. I think if you took the group of colleagues I met and placed them in NFU Mutual, they would keep calm and carry on, performing at their best as though nothing had changed. Perhaps the most valuable takeaway was a reminder for all of us working in mutuals and cooperatives: we have far more in common than we often realise – and that’s something to be proud of.