Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

IQALUIT (Jul 20/98) - Hunter and Cathy Tootoo are tired of having no local insurance brokerage so they decided to hang out their own shingle.

Once the Nunavut Insurance Agency officially opens later this month, people will finally be able to purchase any kind of coverage they need right in their own territory.

Up until now, residents have been forced to buy policies from Yellowknife, Churchill, Manitoba or southern Canada.

"I got thinking about it when I first moved back to Arviat and it was such a pain to get insurance. There should be someone up here, especially with Nunavut coming," Tootoo said. He has set up a temporary office in his home.

After approaching all of the companies that sell insurance in the North, Tootoo said he decided to work with an existing brokerage firm.

"Arctic Insurance Brokers interested me because they're aboriginally owned by the Inuvialuit Development Corporation and Arctic Co-operatives Limited (ACL)," said Tootoo, who is the first Inuk licensed to sell insurance.

Also located in Inuvik and Yellowknife, Tootoo said his Iqaluit agency plans to carry policies for all personal lines of insurance including automobile, home and tenant packages, recreational vehicles and any kind of commercial coverage that is requested.

"I'd like to service all of Nunavut. I'm here, it's an Inuit-owned company and I can hopefully provide better service for all the communities," Tootoo said.

He noted that ACL bought into Arctic Insurance Brokers with the future plan of offering insurance services in their co-ops across Nunavut.

"One of their goals was to make it available at the community level."

Tootoo said he will offer competitive prices for his insurance policies and he added that his only real concern is making the companies he acts as a broker for understand the extremely high cost of living in Nunavut.

"The only difficulty will be dealing with companies in the south, making them realize things are a little different here. There's a formula for calculating the value of a home and that doesn't work up here. It doesn't come near the cost."