Ladies and gentlemen, madames et messieurs, good afternoon. My name is Bill Young, and I am the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Intact Financial Corporation. On behalf of the directors, I would like to welcome you to the 2024 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Intact Financial Corporation.
Je vous souhaite la bienvenue à l'assemblée annuelle des actionnaires d'Intact Corporation Financière. C'est un privilège pour moi de présider cette assemblée et de m'adresser à nos actionnaires. Please note that this meeting Veuillez noter que cette assemblée se déroulera en anglais et en français. Un service d'interprétation simultanée est fourni sur notre web diffusion, et nous répondrons aux questions dans l'une ou l'autre langue. En outre, un service de sous-titrage est disponible en cliquant sur le bouton CC dans le coin supérieur when you are in the English or French channel.
Should you have any technical support issues during the meeting, please refer to the FAQ page at lumiglobal.com/faq. As Chairman of the Board of Directors of the company, I will act as chair of the meeting as per the company's bylaws. I now call the meeting to order. I would like to draw your attention to the forward-looking statement disclaimer currently displayed on the webcast page. Certain forward-looking statements may be made during this meeting, and actual results could differ from these statements. Joining me today are Charles Brindamour, Chief Executive Officer of the company, who will deliver his report later in the meeting, and Stephanie Lee, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, who will act as secretary of the meeting.
My fellow directors, as well as members of the senior management team of the company, have also joined for today's meeting. Krish Seno and Arlene Arellano, representatives of Computershare, will act as scrutineers of the meeting. At this time, I would like to ask the secretary of the meeting to review the procedures for voting and for asking questions.
Merci, Bill. Thank you, Bill. If you have already voted by proxy prior to the meeting and you don't wish to change your vote, you do not need to vote again. Here is the procedure for shareholders and proxy holders who are attending the meeting today and who wish to vote during the meeting. Only shareholders and proxy holders who have logged on as shareholders with a username supplied by Computershare will be able to vote during the meeting.
If you are a shareholder or proxy holder who has not yet voted, or if you wish to change your existing vote, you may do so by clicking on the voting button at the top of the page in the middle of your screen. Voting is now open and will remain open until all voting matters have been presented. Those attending the meeting as guests are not able to vote. Following the closing of voting, I will announce preliminary voting results for each matter. Final voting results will be published by press release and will be available on the company's website as well as on SEDAR+ following the meeting. We encourage you to ask questions during the meeting.
Shareholders and proxy holders attending the meeting can ask questions in writing or alternatively live via telephone by clicking on the Messages button at the top of your screen in the middle of the page. Please note that to be able to ask questions, you must be logged in to the meeting as a shareholder using the username, excuse me, provided by Computershare. Those attending the meeting as guests will not be able to ask questions. If you wish to ask a question in writing, type your question in the message box, indicate whether it relates to a specific item on the meeting agenda or is of a more general nature, and then click the arrow icon button at the right side of the text box.
If you wish to ask a question in real time via telephone, type your full name and phone number in the message box, as well as the topic of your question, and indicate if it relates to a specific item on the agenda or if it's of more general nature, and then click the arrow icon button at the right side of the text box. An operator will contact you at the number you have provided and will connect your call to the meeting. I will then invite you at the appropriate moment to ask your question. We will address questions regarding specific agenda items at the time these items are presented. General questions will be addressed following remarks by our CEO. Questions of a similar nature may be grouped together in a single question.
If your question concerns a client matter, please include your contact information, and a member of our customer service team will get in touch with you following the meeting. Finally, if there are any questions we are not able to answer today, we will reach out to you personally after the meeting to ensure we answer your question. Thank you in advance for your support of these procedures.
Thank you, Stephanie. I have received satisfactory proof that the meeting notice calling this meeting to order was duly sent to all shareholders of the company under the Notice and Access regime, the whole in conformity with the bylaws of the company and with the corporate and securities laws of Canada. We have received proxies representing more than 79% of the over 178 million common shares outstanding. I hereby declare that the notice requirements have been met, that a quorum is present, and that this meeting is properly constituted for the transaction of business. I further direct that the secretary maintain the proxies and records of attendance with the official records of this meeting. The meeting is now open.
At this time, I would like to remind everyone attending that the minutes of last year's annual and special meeting of shareholders, along with the meeting agenda and other documents, including the management proxy circular, and annual financial statements, are available by clicking the Documents button in the middle of your screen at the top of the page, as well as under the Investors tab of the company's website. For the purpose of this meeting, I will ask Stephanie Lee, who is a shareholder, to move all proposals. The first order of business is the receipt of the company's financial statements for the year 2023. Copies of these financial statements were made available to shareholders who requested them, along with the annual meeting documentation.
Copies are also available on our website and may be obtained from the secretary's office or the investor relations department of the company. Can the secretary confirm whether any questions have been received with respect to this matter?
No questions on this matter, Bill.
Thank you. I confirm that the consolidated financial statements of Intact Financial Corporation for the year ended December 31st, 2023, and the auditor's report related to these financial statements have been hereby received by this meeting. The next item of the meeting is the appointment of the auditor. Management, the audit committee, and the board of directors of the company have recommended the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP, as the company's auditor for the 2024 fiscal year and until the next annual meeting. Can the secretary confirm whether any questions have been received with respect to this matter?
No questions received on this matter.
Thank you. May I have a proposal in this regard?
My name is Stephanie Lee, and I am a shareholder of the company. I would like to move that Ernst & Young LLP be appointed as auditor of the company for the year 2024 and until the next annual meeting.
Thank you. I would like to remind all shareholders and proxy holders in attendance that voting is currently open and will remain open until the last voting matter has been presented. We will now proceed with the election of the directors of the company. 13 directors are nominated for election at this meeting. All directors proposed by management of the company were elected by the shareholders at last year's annual and special meeting. Please also note that in accordance with the company's Advance Notice By-Law, it has been confirmed that no other director nominations were received by the company. Can the secretary confirm whether any questions have been received with respect to the election of the directors?
No questions.
Thank you. May I have a proposal in regard to this matter?
My name is Stephanie Lee, and I am a shareholder of the company, and I hereby propose the following persons as directors of the Board of Directors of Intact Financial Corporation as of this meeting, and to remain in that function until the next annual meeting: Charles Brindamour, Emmanuel Clarke, Janet De Silva, Michael Katchen, Stephani Kingsmill, Jane Kinney, Robert Leary, Sylvie Paquette, Stuart Russell, Indira Samarasekera, Frederick Singer, Carolyn Wilkins, and William Young.
Thank you. Voting is currently open if you wish to do so and will remain open until the last voting matter has been presented. The next item on the agenda is the vote on the resolution relating to the renewal of the executive stock option plan, initially approved at the annual shareholders' meeting of May 12th, 2021. More information on the executive stock option plan can be found in Section 3 in Schedule A of our management proxy circular. Can the secretary confirm whether any questions have been received with respect to this matter?
We have not received any questions on this matter.
Thank you. May I have a proposal in this regard?
My name is Stephanie Lee, and I am a shareholder of the company. I propose that the resolution to renew the executive stock option plan, as set out in Section 3 in Schedule A of the management proxy circular, be approved.
Thank you. Voting remains open if you wish to vote on any of the matters presented and will close following the presentation of the next matter. The next item on the agenda is the advisory resolution relating to the company's approach to executive compensation. The board of directors believes that shareholders should have the opportunity to fully understand the objectives, philosophies, and principles that the board of directors has used and integrated to make the executive compensation decisions. It is the board of directors' intention that the shareholder advisory vote will form an important part of the ongoing process of engagement between shareholders and the board of directors concerning compensation. The board of directors has recommended shareholders approve the non-binding advisory resolution. Can the secretary confirm whether any questions have been received with respect to this matter?
No questions, Bill.
Thank you. May I have a proposal in this regard?
My name is Stephanie Lee, and I am a shareholder. I move that the following resolution be approved. Be it resolved on a non-binding and advisory basis, and not to diminish the role and responsibilities of the board of directors, that the shareholders accept the approach to executive compensation disclosed in the company's management proxy circular, made available in advance of the 2024 annual meeting of shareholders.
Thank you. We will now be closing voting. I invite those shareholders and proxy holders who have not yet cast their votes but wish to do so to complete voting now. Voting is now closed. I will now ask the secretary to report the preliminary voting results.
Thank you. I received the preliminary scrutineer report. The final results will be filed on SEDAR+ and made available on the company's website, as well as via press release following this meeting. The following are the preliminary results. Ernst & Young has been appointed as auditor of the company for the year 2024 and until the next annual meeting by at least 92% of votes cast. All directors nominated for election have been duly elected with at least 97% of votes cast and will hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed. The company's resolution to renew the executive stock option plan was approved with at least 94% of votes cast, and the advisory resolution to accept the approach to executive compensation was approved by at least 96% of votes cast.
Thank you. We have now completed the official business of the meeting and will now hear reports from myself and the Chief Executive Officer. This will be followed by a question-and-answer period. As a reminder, if you are a shareholder or a proxy holder and wish to ask a question, you can submit a written question or enter your name and phone number to be contacted and ask a question in real time via telephone by clicking the Messages button in the middle of your screen at the top of the page. I will now deliver my report. Intact's story in 2023 was one of strength and resilience. The business, along with our customers, experienced record-breaking natural disasters, from ice storms to flooding to the worst wildfire season ever recorded in Canada.
I am pleased to say that Intact demonstrated its ability to not only endure these challenges, but to deliver another year of outstanding performance. Delivering on our purpose means helping our customers and society be resilient during periods like 2023. At the same time, progressing on our core objectives is essential for Intact and the board. The business was successful on all counts. We are a customer-driven organization, and we strive to have our customers be our advocates. In 2023, our customer service was strong, a clear example of our expertise in helping people navigate difficult events. 71% of customers in Canada share that because of their claims experience with us, they are promoters of Intact. We are clearly headed in the right direction to achieve our goal of having three of four customers as our advocates.
Despite higher-than-expected extreme weather events, we achieved mid-teens operating ROE and maintained a strong balance sheet. We are off to a good start in 2024. The business delivered a strong first quarter, with mid-teens operating ROE and solid results across our geographies. Turning to the U.K., 2023 was an outstanding year for the operations in that market. We made extraordinary progress in achieving what we set out to do when we acquired RSA in 2021, which was to de-risk the business and set it up for sustainable success and outperformance. The board would like to acknowledge the tremendous efforts of the U.K. team to redirect RSA's focus. Among other achievements, the shift towards commercial lines positions the company as a top-tier player in the U.K. commercial lines market and provides an excellent opportunity to build on RSA's existing outperformance in commercial lines.
The role of the board is to help management sustain outperformance in all areas of the business over the long term. In 2023, the board devoted a significant amount of time analyzing key societal and industry trends and guiding management to make sure Intact is well positioned to continue to outperform. The trends that captured most of the board's attention this year were climate change and technology, data, and AI. Climate change will define how business, communities, and all of society function over the next century. We are reviewing extreme global warming scenarios to ensure Intact can continue to thrive in this environment, deliver on its financial objectives, while offering a solid value proposition to its customers.
The board is also encouraged by the unflinching focus Intact has on its climate strategy, whether that's positioning the business to continue to meet the increasing needs of customers or helping communities adapt and build their own resilience against climate change. We've also made meaningful progress towards our longer-term goals, such as achieving net zero by 2050. Two years ago, the board worked with the company to build a Resilience Barometer. The Barometer measures how many stakeholders recognize us as leaders in building resilient communities. Last year, our Barometer read 57% in Canada, up 3 points from 2022, and it was 53% globally. We are proud of this progress, but we also know Intact can meet its goals of having three of four customers and stakeholders recognize us as leaders in building resilient communities. We will continue to work to meet this ambition.
Technology, data, and AI is another trend that keeps us busy. Intact has been ahead of the curve on this, and we're proud of the company's leadership in this space, particularly the use of predictive AI for risk selection, pricing segmentation, which sets us apart from our competitors. Intact has also developed strong governance and ethical guardrails to protect people and their data, and we will continue to monitor this closely. Generative AI has recently made its way into the mainstream, and the board will be there to provide guidance as Intact explores using generative AI as a tool to enhance the customer experience. One of my responsibilities as chair of the board is to engage with shareholders and listen to their feedback. Last year, board colleagues and I met with 10 of our top 20 shareholders, representing approximately 38% of our investor base.
We discussed strategic priorities, board changes, succession planning, and our social impact and ESG strategy. This provided excellent insight into what our shareholders expect of us. I look forward to continuing these discussions this year. We continuously review and adapt our governance practices. Our practices remain strong. I am pleased that Intact is once again recognized as one of Canada's most respected companies by The Globe and Mail. 2023 was certainly a year filled with important wins, also unique challenges. I'd like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to many of those who helped steer us to the strong position we're in today. To my board colleagues, thank you for your counsel and commitment. Your guidance played this an essential role in Intact's success. I look forward to continuing to work with you for this year.
To Charles Brindamour and his executive team, you have done an exceptional job planning for the unexpected, navigating obstacles, and leading the business to sustainable success. You give me the utmost confidence that Intact will continue to outperform. To Intact employees, customers, brokers, and shareholders, I thank you for your continued loyalty and support. As I mentioned at the beginning, in 2023, Intact's story was one of strength and resilience. I have no doubt that this story and the company's ability to thrive will continue for many years to come. Thank you. I will now invite Charles Brindamour to deliver his remarks.
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. With the convergence of wars, affordability of life, and natural disasters, 2023 was a tough year for society. Given we exist to help people, businesses, and society prosper in good times and be resilient in bad times, it was a demanding year for Intact. Despite this adversity, our teams rose to the challenge. This environment energizes us and plays to our strength. Resilience is the name of the game for us, and ours was on full display this past year. Globally, 2023 was the hottest year on record, and it brought the impacts of climate change and extreme weather into sharp focus. We paid out more than CAD 1 billion as a result of natural disasters to get our customers back on track.
While this was twice the level expected, we had strong underlying performance across most business lines and markets. Our strength enabled us to deliver for our customers, brokers, and employees while investing in climate resilience in our communities. Financially, we have clearly shown we can withstand extreme events with an operating ROE of 14% and a total capital margin of CAD 2.7 billion. Resilience, however, is not enough to outperform. That is why we accelerated investments in our long-term strategy, and we were opportunistic with the conditions at hand. Strategic advances were solid with, for example, large technology deployments globally, digital accelerations and big distribution advances in Canada, AI deployments, bolstering segmentation, and an aggressive transformation in the U.K.. We also took advantage of high inflationary and high interest rate environment to de-risk the organization and acquire a competitor in the U.K..
While we're winning as a business, we want to be helping the communities where we live and work. Our social impact game plan and our climate strategy are indeed in full swing, and they're well laid out in our recently released Social Impact Report. When all was said and done, we were not happy with our financial performance and total shareholder return in 2023, but the organization is stronger today than at the beginning of last year. That strength is evident in our Q1 results, released after market close yesterday. While we were not satisfied last year, we're proud of our track record over the last decade. Net operating income per share... compounded at 12% annually, and our ROE outperformance was 680 basis points on average.
We also delivered annualized shareholder return of 14% during this period, outperforming the TSX 60 benchmark by 600 basis points. These results demonstrate our resilience in a changing world. We're building Intact by taking an outside-in approach when it comes to strategy. We explore deep trends, as Bill was talking about, that impact society. We ask ourselves, "How can we use our competitive advantages to make the most of this changing environment?" That's what we call offense when it comes to strategy. Our ability to build a resilient organization is also directly connected to our understanding of these trends. That's what we call defense. As we look ahead in 2024, we're well-positioned among the key trends we observe, some of which I will highlight briefly now. We believe consumers will determine who wins on the market. Their expectations are changing fast.
Our challenge is to keep pace, and technology is a key driver of success. Customers are increasingly connected, and they expect easy interactions where they're understood, whether it's in person or digitally. Amid affordability challenges, consumers are also shopping more and trying to find value for money. We think that inflation will be stubborn, and we adjust our prices accordingly, but we also use our advantages, thanks to our size, our supply chain advantages, and wide range of offerings to enhance the experience and alleviate inflationary pressure for customers. Consumers embrace technology, and we observe an explosion in data, which means that artificial intelligence is more and more important. One-third of our competitive advantage is through pricing and segmentation.
To make the most of that change and reinforce our advantage, we've been investing for more than a decade in data sources and predictive AI techniques. We need to move faster. The arrival of generative AI is another step, is another change in AI adoption. There is a significant power that we can harness through the deployment of large language models. That being said, we have to remain cautious, careful, because consumers want trust, transparency, and data security. Cybercrime is also on the rise, and it could be set to exceed $10.5 trillion in 2025. Risk management is our business, and this is a growth market for us. On the other hand, we are doubling down to protect our systems and data, as well as that of our consumers and customers.
Let's spend a minute on climate change, the defining trend of the century. Major weather events have been increasing by more than a factor of four over 30 years. We've been on the front lines, getting our customers back on track. We've managed to grow profitably and help de-risk society in the exercise. After transforming our products, the data we collect, our pricing and service models, as well as the supply chain, more than a decade ago, we clearly see that we have turned this headwind into an opportunity. The next decade won't look like the last one. In fact, in 2023, we began modeling more extreme global warming scenarios to stress test the resilience of our products. We believe that following these tests, our value proposition and our action plans will allow us to grow profitably while protecting customers and staying relevant for them.
It's going to be a tough period for society, though. I'm optimistic about achieving net zero in 2050, there'll be headwinds to overcome, that's why it's critical to double down on helping society adapt to more extreme weather events. We need an all-of-society approach, Intact has an important part to play by sharing our expertise, scaling resources with customers, communities, as well as government. It's in that environment that we pursue our goals and our game plan. Sustained outperformance requires not only a future-proof strategy, also disciplined, high-quality execution and the agility to be opportunistic. We must be clear about what we want to achieve and how we're going to get there. For us, success boils down to three ideas. Firstly, we want our customers to be our advocates, at least three out of four.
We want four out of five brokers to value our specialized expertise. Secondly, we want our people to be engaged. This means achieving Best Employer status in our engagement survey and our people reflecting the diversity of communities we serve. Finally, we want to be one of the most respected companies where we operate. First, by outperforming our peers by 500 basis points of ROE every year, and growing our net operating income per share north of 10% per year over time. Respect is also about our investment in the community, and we aim to have three out of four stakeholders see us as leaders in building resilient communities, and we want to achieve net zero by 2050. We'll get there by delivering on our strategic roadmap. Let me outline some key highlights of that roadmap.
In Canada, we aim to expand our leadership position to one in three Canadians. Our strategy has been delivering outperformance for decades. Still, there's much more we can achieve. Creating leading customer experiences is critical to success. Increasingly, customers want to interact digitally. We're making investments. We're seeing the results. In 2023, for example, our top-rated mobile app saw over 23 million visits. We had CAD 282 million in web sales, a 75% lift over the previous year. Lead claims expertise and supply chain management are key in creating great customer experiences. Nearly two-thirds of our property claims were handled by our Rely Network. Almost half of those by Onsite, our owned restoration firm, with almost 50 locations across the country. In auto, claims we're delivering faster turnaround times to our 32 Intact-branded service centers.
The proof is in the promoters. At the conclusion of a claim, we survey thousands of customers per month about the experience they've had with us. As Bill mentioned, in 2023, 71% of customers with claims indicated that they're promoters of Intact. Consolidation and scale and distribution are also key building blocks of the Canadian strategy. Johnson and Anthony Insurance became part of belairdirect as one national brand in the direct channel. The RSA integration will be complete about six months ahead of schedule. BrokerLink closed 20 acquisitions, growing the business by 18% and surpassing CAD 3.5 billion in direct written premium. I mentioned affordability concerns for customers earlier. We welcome the opportunity to work with Alberta to make auto insurance more affordable. The best way to improve affordability is to address the costs that put pressure on rates.
Legal costs are a prime and the main example. Between 2018 and 2022, over $1.2 billion of the premiums Albertans paid went to legal costs associated with claims. When a claim is litigated, approximately 38% of the settlement goes towards legal fees, while only 15% goes to the consumer for pain and suffering. Alberta is an important market for us. More than 650,000 customers in Alberta rely on our 3,000 employees, who live and work there, to protect their homes, vehicles, and small businesses. We look forward to working together to finding solutions that are good for Albertans. Overall, in Canada, we're keeping up the momentum in 2024, and we remain on track to grow our direct written premium to $20 billion by 2027, with 5 points of combined ratio outperformance.
In the U.K. and Ireland, the transformation we've navigated in 2023 was nothing short of extraordinary. We focused the footprint of the business on areas where we can win, setting it up for sustainable outperformance. We de-risked our balance sheet by completing a GBP 6.5 billion pension buy-in with Pension Insurance Corporation, the largest transaction of its kind at the time in the U.K. We exited the U.K. personal lines business where we lacked scale. We became one of the largest players in U.K. commercial lines through the acquisition of the brokered commercial lines business of Direct Line Insurance Group . Despite executing on these significant transactions, we made excellent progress on our strategic roadmap in the U.K., including delivering two new IT systems, improving controls, and launching our Leadership Success Factors. I'm optimistic about what the future holds for this business.
Across geographies where we operate, we're building a specialty solutions global leader. Six years ago, we entered the U.S. specialty lines, now through organic and inorganic growth, including meaningful contributions from the RSA acquisition, specialty lines drives almost 30% of IFC's direct premiums written. Beyond our core competency in risk selection, pricing, and claims, winning in specialty requires deep technical expertise, specialized product offerings, and strong distribution relationships, and we're making great progress. Our strong bench of seasoned talent has on average, 25 years of underwriting experience. We're leveraging our sophisticated capabilities in data, pricing and segmentation, and applying this across a product offering that spans more than 20 verticals in four distinct markets. We're building on our distribution expertise. We already own several successful managing general agents, totaling more than CAD 1 billion in direct premiums written.
We entered 2024 with more than CAD 6 billion in direct written premium in specialty lines, growth momentum at 9% and an 88% combined ratio. This is excellent progress against our ambition of CAD 10 billion with a sustained sub-90 combined ratio by the end of the decade. I'm confident our roadmap will get us there.
Across all these business units and geographies, we continue to transform our competitive advantages. First, we aim to be the best AI insurance shop in the world. With our 500 experts, we have deployed more than 370 models into production. We're building on our strong foundation in personal lines, and we began in 2023 to accelerate AI deployment in commercial and specialty lines. Secondly, our deep claims and supply chain expertise is on full display in Canada, where we have a considerable advantage. That expertise is also contributing to our performance in specialty lines, where dedicated experts settle complex and highly technical claims. In the U.K. and Ireland, the successful deployment of a new claim system will improve the customer experience and contribute to our performance.
Third, 2023 was a standout year for our capital and investment management teams. In addition to their support in reshaping the footprint in the U.K. and internationally, these teams also successfully navigated a changing economic environment. Investment income was up 45% year-over-year, and 80% of our investment strategies outperformed their respective benchmarks. Over the last five years, our investment portfolio has outperformed our industry peers by approximately 150 basis points. That is an important contributor to our outperformance. With a strong balance sheet and a top-performing in-house team, we're well positioned to continue outperforming and capturing future growth opportunities. Our people are also part of our competitive edge.
They are at the heart of everything we do, and they are our greatest strength, which is why we're investing in our workforce and growing our talent pool at the pace of our business ambitions. We now have a global team of more than 30,000 employees. As we grow, it's equally important that our employees are engaged in the work they do. Engagement leads to success. We have three pillars in our people strategy. We strive to be a best employer, a destination for top talent and experts, and to enable our people to thrive. We're proud to have been named a Kincentric Best Employer in Canada for the 8th consecutive year and the 5th straight year in the U.S.. Our engagement results have also increased by 6 points in the U.K. compared to 2022. We, of course, we will strive to see further improvement this year.
Specialized experts and leadership capability. In 2023, 77% of our manager and above vacancies were filled internally, Intact's bench remains very strong, with seven successors available for each senior leadership role. Finally, day in, day out, we're investing in communities through our climate strategy and our social impact agenda. Our climate strategy aims to leverage our strengths at the intersections of helping and winning. With our social impact game plan, we aim to make a difference on climate resilience, economic resilience, and community well-being. To highlight just some of our progress, we've committed to double our adaptation efforts because the problem is accelerating, so our efforts need to also increase. To that end, we've been working with the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo for over 10 years on practical solutions to project communities.
Last year, we established a relationship with Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust to provide nature-based solutions to areas most affected by flooding in the U.K. We've made a commitment to net zero by 2050 and halving our operations emission by 2030. In 2023, we set an interim intensity target for our investment emissions, our most material scope three category, to reduce by 40% by 2030. In Canada, our employees donated over $2.4 million through our annual Generosity in Action campaign. Across our RSA business in the U.K. and Ireland, our employees have raised over GBP 260,000 and have volunteered over 8,600 hours. We've also just launched the first of its kind partnership in Canada with Wildfire Defense Systems for our Wildfire Defense Systems for our personal lines property customers in BC and Alberta.
It is a pilot project that will help protect customers' homes in the event of a nearby wildfire. This service will be at no additional cost to our customers. I encourage you to read our recently released Social Impact and ESG Report for more highlights. What gets measured gets done. Bill referenced our Resilience Barometer and current results in his remarks earlier. I echo his summary, a solid start with much work to do still. While 2023 was a tough year for society, our business demonstrated remarkable resilience, and we're off to a strong start in 2024, as our Q1 clearly demonstrate. Throughout the year, we'll maintain discipline and continue to advance our strategic roadmap everywhere we operate. Inspired by our purpose and guided by our values, we're using our resources, scale, and expertise to help society and win in the marketplace.
We have the people, the strategy, the tools, and the opportunities to grow earnings and outperform now and over the long term. I want to thank our customers, brokers, employees, and you, our investors, for your loyalty as we work hard every day to deliver for you. Thank you.
Thank you, Charles. We will now address any general questions from shareholders and proxy holders. As a reminder, if you wish to ask questions, you can submit a written question or enter your name and phone number to be contacted and ask a question in real time via telephone by clicking the Messages button in the middle of your screen at the top of the page. Questions of a similar nature may be grouped together in a single question. If your question concerns a client matter, please indicate and include your contact information, and a member of our customer service team will be in touch with you following the meeting. If there are any questions we are not able to answer today, we will reach out to you personally after the meeting to ensure we answer your question. Can the secretary confirm whether any questions have been received?
We have a question via telephone, Bill. It is from Kiera Taylor. Kiera Taylor, please go ahead and ask your question.
Hello. My name is Kiera. I'm with Investors for Paris Compliance. I have a two-part question. In Intact's recent ESG report, it was noted that measuring insurance-associated emissions is important to the company and is being incorporated into emissions measurements. And as you said, "What gets measured, gets done." But there was no timeline or action plan that was enclosed. The first part of my question is: when can shareholders expect to see these things? The second part of my question, also regarding underwriting, Intact said it will review the transition plans of energy clients and engage with energy customers who have an unsatisfactory transition plan. Canadian banks are now starting to disclose those, the specific criteria they use for such assessments and to disclose on the aggregate, how their clients are doing.
When can we expect to see this kind of disclosure from Intact? Thank you.
Kiera, thank you very much for your question. Two excellent questions. First of all, on disclosure, the insurance-associated emission, first thing one needs to understand is that the standards around the insurance-associated emission is quite new. In fact, it was published in late 2022. Our intention is to publish for the first time in 2026 on the 2025 insurance-associated emission. It very much align with regulatory requirements in the regions where we operate. You know, as we gain expertise there with that new standard, obviously, our appetite and our underwriting standards are evolving. Moving maybe to the second part of your question.
I think that, you know, this is work we started to do on the investment side of the house, and I think there's a good body of experience there in terms of engaging, in this case, with investees, but we can learn and leverage as we engage with customers. A few points I think that are important to keep in mind. First, our exposure to the traditional energy sector on the insurance side of the house is very low relative to others. I would say that based on our assessment, Intact Financial, as an insurer, would be outside of the top 20 insurers for that sector here in Canada.
That being said, we think it's important to be at the table, and we state in our 2023 Social Impact Report, our approach, when it comes to that. Our engagement with customers very much focused on emission disclosure, on their net zero ambitions, but more importantly, on their strategies. We think that this, over time, will become an important underwriting factor and source of information, and we'll integrate that into our underwriting practices, because we think it'll be an important element to outperform. We will assess as we move along emerging industry practices, obviously, and further enhance our disclosure in 2024. Thank you very much for your question, Kiera.
Bill, we have no further questions.
Thank you, Stephanie. We have now completed our agenda for this meeting. I declare the meeting closed, and thank you for attending. Have a great day!