Inductees

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Bruce Caughey was a dairy producer on Amherst Island. For 51 years, Bruce was a policyholder-director of the smallest of Farm Mutual Insurance companies – Amherst Island Mutual Fire Insurance Company. He was the driving force in the formation of the “Fire Mutuals Guarantee Fund” – the mechanism which links all Ontario Farmers’ Mutuals together – allowing them to progress and grow into one of the most financially secure insurance mechanisms in the world. This mechanism has been a key factor in gaining approval to offer all lines of property casualty insurance. The Ontario Farmers’ Mutuals are still owned completely by participating policyholders across Ontario. They are the fifth largest property insurers in the province and have their own re-insurance company – Farm Mutual Re-Insurance Plan – now the tenth largest re-insurer in Canada.

Mr. Caughey’s vision of the need for a guarantee fund for the Ontario Farm Mutuals came at a crucial stage of their development. His superior abilities as a speaker helped convince the Ontario government and the 52 farm mutuals of the day to commit company surpluses to the guarantee fund in exchange for protection provided by that fund. This action allowed the mutuals to discontinue “premium notes” which previously pledged personal assets of farmers participating in farm mutual insurance. Mr. Caughey continued his leadership by serving as a trustee and chairing the Farm Mutuals Guarantee Fund through its first five years of operation. Because of the guarantee fund, fifty of the fifty-two farm mutuals thrive in local communities across Ontario in an age of big business mergers, takeovers and amalgamations.

Bruce Caughey is a long-term member of the Holstein-Friesian Association of Canada. He was Secretary/Treasurer of the Amherst Island School Board, and a member of the Napanee District School Board as well as the Lennox & Addington County School Board. He spearheaded the building of a school on Amherst Island as well as bringing telephone service to the Island. He continues as Secretary of Loyalist Township Cemetery Committee, and is a member of the Presbyterian Church, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, and a past member of the United Co-operatives of Ontario.