Presented to the Board or a committee
Tamberlow Pet Insurance Company
Board of directors and its risk committee
April 2019–present
Presents quarterly on marketing, distribution, complaints and conduct indicators as an executive; not a director.
Celeste Campbell · Chief Marketing Officer · Canada
How a board's decisions reach its customers
My contribution to a board
Boards approve prices, products and distribution arrangements, but they usually see those decisions as financial and risk papers. Customers meet the same decisions as a letter, a web page or a broker's explanation, often months later. I would help a board look at that second view. In practice that means asking how a change will be explained, who will have to explain it, what customers are likely to misunderstand and which measures would show whether they had. At Tamberlow I have reported complaint rates, decline reasons, cancellation patterns and broker feedback to directors, and I know how easily such indicators can be presented selectively. I would bring discipline about what they can and cannot show. I would not bring operating instructions. Management owns its marketing, and a director who rewrites campaigns from the boardroom is not helping anyone. My contribution would be questions asked early enough to change a decision, and attention to whether the answers were later borne out.
Committee contribution
| Capacity | Committees |
|---|---|
| Ready to join | Risk, including conduct and customer outcomes · Member or customer experience |
Capacity and preferences
- Time available
- 22 days per year
- Current directorships
- 0
- Sectors
- Mutual and co-operative insurance · Credit unions and member-owned financial services · Consumer services with long-term customer commitments
- Company type
- Member-owned or privately held regulated organisation with an independent board
- Company stage
- Established organisation reviewing how it explains price, cover or service changes to customers
The seat I am pursuing
I am looking for a first independent seat at a member-owned or regulated organisation whose customers depend on long-term promises: a mutual insurer, a credit union or a financial co-operative, preferably in Saskatchewan, Manitoba or Alberta. I would join a risk committee responsible for conduct, or a committee overseeing member and customer experience, under an experienced chair. I am not seeking a role advising management on marketing, and I would not treat a seat as an extension of my executive work. The board should want an independent perspective on how its decisions reach customers and be able to explain why a director with that perspective would strengthen it. A nomination process may well conclude that another candidate suits it better. My availability is about twenty-two days a year, and any appointment would depend on Tamberlow's consent and a full review of relationships.
Governance learning and readiness
IICA Independent Directors’ Databank: Not yet registered
The IICA Independent Directors' Databank is an Indian requirement and does not apply to Canadian appointments. I have not registered with it, which is why the status reads as it does. For a Canadian board I would follow the governance expectations of the relevant regulator and the organisation's own policies, with advice where they are unclear to me.
- I am completing a part-time director education course for co-operative and mutual boards, due to finish in 2026.
- I have studied OSFI's corporate governance guideline and how boards of federally regulated insurers oversee conduct alongside provincial market conduct expectations.
- My charity board term taught me to manage recusal and to read financial statements as a director rather than as a budget holder.
Board and committee exposure
Reported to a committee
Sallowbrook Mutual Insurance
Conduct and customer committee of the board
2016–present
Reported on Sallowbrook's customer communications until 2019 and, since then, on Tamberlow's renewal and first-claim communications.
Served as a director
Fairhollow Animal Rescue Society
Board of directors; chair of the fundraising committee
2018–2024
Volunteer director of a Saskatchewan registered charity; term completed in 2024. Withdrew from decisions on sponsorships offered by pet-care businesses.
Judgement in practice
Asking whether a smaller headline increase hides a change in cover
In 2024 a default deductible change would have made our renewal increase look smaller and protected retention. As a director I would ask the question I asked as an executive: if a customer read nothing, what would they discover at their next claim? A board should see the retention effect of each option, the expected complaints and the consequence for customers who take no action. It should also know which members of management prefer which option and why. I would not expect directors to choose deductibles. I would expect them to confirm that the company has chosen deliberately, treating the customer's likely understanding as evidence rather than an afterthought. A default may still be right in some situations, if notice is clear and the change benefits most customers. What matters is that the board knows which kind of change it is approving.
Counting the growth that a fairer practice costs
Our records review reduced surprise declines but raised early cancellations, and the cost landed on a growth plan already shared with our owner. Boards often hear about conduct improvements and growth shortfalls in separate papers, from different executives. I would ask to see them together. If an organisation adopts a fairer practice, its directors should approve the cost knowingly and adjust the expectations they set for management, rather than reward a team for volume while criticising it for complaints. I would also ask how the effect will be monitored, because an early cancellation rate can settle once partners understand a new practice. Making the trade-off explicit protects executives who make the honest choice and gives the board a fair basis for holding them to account.
My first year on a board
My first months would be spent listening before forming views. I would ask the chair to arrange time with the heads of claims, complaints and distribution, and I would read a year of complaint summaries and customer correspondence alongside the board papers. I would want to know how the board currently receives evidence about customers, and whether that evidence comes from the people who own the outcome or from someone able to see it independently. Where the organisation sells through intermediaries, I would ask to meet a few of them with management present. In my first budget cycle I would follow one significant price or product change from approval to the customer's letter. By the end of the year I would ask the chair for direct feedback on whether my questions were helping the board decide, and I would write down what I still need to learn about the organisation's regulatory obligations, particularly any that lie outside insurance.
Conflicts and their management
Pet insurance touches several industries that a board seat could involve. Tamberlow pays and partners with veterinary clinics, works with home-and-auto brokerages, sells through employers' benefit programmes and buys advertising and research. Sallowbrook, our majority owner, competes in Prairie property and casualty insurance. Before accepting any seat I would map those relationships against the organisation's customers, suppliers and competitors, and share the map with its chair and with Tamberlow's chief executive. I would decline a seat at an insurer competing with Tamberlow or Sallowbrook, or at a business with which either holds a material agreement. Where a conflict arose after appointment, I would declare it, leave the discussion and ask for my absence to be minuted. If such absences became regular, I would resign rather than remain a director unable to address the main issues. Confidential information from Tamberlow, including pricing and partner terms, would never be used in another boardroom, and the reverse would apply equally.
My independence statement
My employment at Tamberlow and its ownership by Sallowbrook mean I could not be independent of either company, any affiliate, or the brokerages and clinics with which we hold commercial agreements. For any other organisation I would set out my relationships in writing and ask the chair and the organisation's advisers to judge independence under the standards that apply to it. My own view of my independence is not the test.