End of an era in insurance.
MacKenzie family’s Glace Bay company lasted four generations and 100 years
GLACE BAY — Like his father, grandfather and greatgrandfather before him, Donnie MacKenzie spent most of his work days connecting with clients.
But no more. After more than 45 years in the insurance business, the fourthgeneration Glace Bay-area broker has called it quits.
The automatic reply on his company email sums up his feelings on retiring from the family business that started in 1920 at the No. 3 Company Store in Reserve Mines.
It simply reads “Hi, I am officially retired! Yippeeee!” and directs clients to contact someone else at the firm.
For MacKenzie, the time had come to take his leave from the only career he has known.
Firstly, he had reached the so-called retirement age of 65 years. And, secondly, he recognized that times had forever changed in the insurance game and that it was the right time to step down.
“I’m the last dinosaur,” he laughs.
The MacKenzie family became involved in the insurance business in 1912 when “Little Jack” MacKenzie signed on with Mac’s Limited Insurance. Eight years later, he ventured out on his own and opened the first MacKenzie Insurance office in the No. 3 Company Store in Reserve Mines.
Little Jack, who was known for his community involvement with the Glace Bay school board, YMCA and Epworth United Church, died at the age of 71 in 1942. The business, which at that time had relocated to the top floor of the Glace Bay Town Hall, was handed down to his son, Donald (D.R.) MacKenzie, who once served as a Glace Bay town councillor.
D.R. was perhaps equally well known across the Maritimes in the harness racing community. Indeed, he was the owner of the legendary Bob Brook, a pacing horse that set a number of track records in the early 1960s.
The firm would then pass on to D.R.’s son Jack, who had cut his teeth as an insurance adjuster, after the former passed away in 1972 after 30 years at the company helm. Jack was recognized as an excellent hockey player who skated with the Glace Bay Miners and the Stellarton Royals.
Jack retired in 1982. His sons, Donnie and Gary, then took over the firm. However, Gary moved to Ontario where he works as a public health inspector.
That left the family business in the hands of Donnie, who like his father was a gifted athlete. He would later coach Morrison High School’s hockey team for a spell and also served as a coach in the Glace Bay Minor Hockey Association, as vice-chair of the Miners Forum and is the current vice-chair of the Friends of Renwick Brook.
But by the mid-1990s, the insurance industry was in a state of consolidation. Smaller brokerage firms were being absorbed by larger companies. In 1995, they became part of the MacLeod Lorway Group, another Cape Breton firm with deep family roots.
“It happened at a time when insurance companies wanted brokers to have at least three major companies to share the risk here in Cape Breton,” explained MacKenzie.
“So, the only option I had was to go along with a bigger firm as the time had come that insurance companies could save money by dealing with a big firm with smaller branch offices — it’s just like grocery stores which at one time were found all over the community, but now are limited to a couple of big national chain stores.”
The merger led to MacKenzie spending 25 years running the Glace Bay office of the MacLeod Lorway Group, which today has a presence in nine Nova Scotia communities, including five offices (Sydney, Glace Bay, North Sydney, Baddeck and Port Hawkesbury) in Cape Breton.
Calling it a wrap on a career that spanned almost half a century seemed the right thing to do for MacKenzie.
“The writing was on the wall — insurance rates kept going up and I was dealing with a lot of frustrated clients,” he mused.
“I’m going to take it easy — I golf and I’ve got a good road bike so I’ll be doing more biking and walking, and I plan to wear out my remote control for the next while.”