History
As an artist and entrepreneur, I’ve always been a part of the independent workforce.
After being involved in a bicycle accident that changed my trajectory and left me in need of additional health insurance, I set out in search of a benefits plan that was affordable and accessible. I didn’t have much luck finding one.
During this time, many of my Creative Blueprint clients and friends were telling me that they wanted to launch new projects or become self-employed, but that they couldn’t make the leap for fear of putting themselves and their families at risk without traditional insurance coverage. Others were already committed to working for themselves, but were afraid of losing what they had worked so hard to build.
I knew this needed to change, and so COHIP began as a passion project. I worked to create the first Coworking Health Insurance Plan, offering health & dental coverage to a collective of independent artists, entrepreneurs and small businesses.
In the spirit of coworking, rather than extending the benefits plan exclusively to my artist and coworking members in Toronto, I decided to offer COHIP to all coworking spaces in Ontario. The first version of the plan was released in 2013 in partnership with Caldwell Insurance Services, Ontario Blue Cross and the Coworking Ontario Collective.
Soon after launching COHIP in Ontario, I began receiving calls from collaborative communities across Canada and around the globe. There was overwhelming demand for benefits within the independent workforce, and so I’ve been working to expand COHIP ever since.
In 2016 we added COHIP team member Devon Carr and made COHIP available to all members of collaborative spaces across the country. In 2018 we added COHIP team member Deb Champagne and expanded COHIP once again to cover all freelancers and independent workers in Canada.
We are currently working with international partners to create similar collaborative benefits programs in other countries. In Canada, we are always working to grow our membership, and to provide better services, plans, and rates for our COHIP members.
We believe that creative, independent and part-time workers should feel healthy and secure.
We believe that by working together we can achieve great things.
If you want to work for yourself in Canada, COHIP makes it possible.
Focus on your business and your family; the things that really matter.
We’ve got you covered.
Ashley Proctor
Founder