Wawanesa: A Prairie Heritage - Wawanesa Mutual Insurance, The First Policy and Expansion

Wawanesa is a farming community situated in a beautiful valley in southwestern Manitoba. The village was founded in 1889 and the Mutual just years after in 1896. Alonzo Kempton, a former Nova Scotian, was selling insurance to farmers for a large Eastern company. He realized that it might be more affordable for farmers if they were to form a mutual insurance group. Kempton held a meeting and convinced the farmers in attendance that a mutual insurance company would be to their advantage.

The Company was granted a provincial charter in September of 1896 and a small room above the local drug store became its first office. The first policy was handwritten and was issued for a threshing machine. The machine was insured to $600 at a premium of $24.

Farmers could only pay their premiums after harvest so the Mutual was only solvent during late fall. The directors had to secure personal notes during the summer in order to meet expenses and make payouts. The company could not have survived without this bold risk taking.

Though its first policy was hand written, the Mutual soon adopted a standard form contract.

As time wore on many sorts of farm implements and buildings were insured by the Wawanesa Mutual. Interestingly, insurance was no longer granted for the wooden threshing machines that had originally sparked the creation of the Company. The wooden machines were prone to breaking down and burning up so payouts on the machines were too frequent and too costly.

The Wawanesa Mutual was founded in order to insure threshing machines such as the one seen here. The threshing machine was crucial to early farming operations. In the early days many farmers did not own their own threshing machine, but rather worked with their neighbours to harvest everyone's crops.

After only a few years of operation, the Wawanesa Mutual left its home atop the local drugstore and erected an office building at the end of 4th street. The new office building was just the beginning of the Mutual’s expansion. By 1922 the Mutual was selling policies in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and as far away as the Northwest Territories.

In the first years of the 20th Century, the Wawanesa Mutual left its office above the local drugstore and built this office building to house its expanding operation.

In 1922 the management of the Mutual was turned over to Dr. C. M. Vanstone. Dr. Vanstone had been the Wawanesa area’s medical doctor from 1881 until 1912. In 1912 he had left the community and moved west to import purebred horses. He returned to Wawanesa when he learned that the Mutual needed a new director. His measured and pragmatic business sense helped the Mutual survive and prosper in the years to come.

The History | The Gallery | People | Mutual Insurance | The Community

Neighbouring Communities | The Museum | About Us | Home