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Originally Posted by Festivus
Yes, SGI operates insurance business in many other provinces. Strange to see a government of one province competing against private businesses in other provinces. Good for their revenue though, as some of that money comes back to SK.
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It really doesn't matter that SGI has some operations in other provinces. From their perspective, it makes no difference if the insurance is provided by Intact, Wawanesa, Aviva, or one of the big banks. The governments still take the same premium taxes on all policies. The only place it would really make a difference is perhaps Ontario, which is home to most of the insurance companies in Canada, and which would lose out on the corporate taxes that a private insurer based there might provide. As a crown, SGI doesn't pay corporate taxes in Sask, but it does pay a dividend to the provincial government in lieu of said taxes (on the competitive operations anyway)... and does provide jobs that would be highly unlikely to be in Sask.
SGI is present both in BC and Manitoba, but steers completely clear of auto insurance in both places so as not to compete with the other crowns (I believe just like in Sask, you can get a private top up policy, and just like in Sask, it's available through the crown corp or through a competitive market player).
Question for the Manitobans... Has this takeover sparked any debate about the remaining Manitoba crowns? With the uncertainty surrounding MTS, are people generally getting more defensive of MPI/Manitoba Hydro or is it not really having an impact at all? And yes... I know MTS hasn't been a crown for 20 years... But as a former crown that is still based on Winnipeg, it's close enough for people to emotionally treat it like one.
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I don't think Sasktel is in any precarious situation, really. This deal doesn't really change anything. This is only anecdotal of course, but people tend to like Sasktel as far as I can tell. Their fiber internet is also fantastic, though the roll-out has been slower than expected.
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Yup... The only crown that really tends to get much flack is SGI... And having some experience in the insurance industry, that would definitely be a "you have no idea how good you have it" type situation.