Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Majority of 2024 Cyber Insurance Claims Stemmed from Business Email Compromise or Funds Transfer Fraud San Francisco, CA (May 7, 2025) — Coalition, the world’s first Active Insurance provider designed to prevent digital risk before it strikes, has published its 2025 Cyber Claims Report, which details emerging cyber trends and their impact on Coalition policyholders throughout the full year of 2024. The report found that ransomware claims stabilized in 2024 despite remaining the most costly and disruptive type of cyberattack. The majority of 2024 claims (60%) originated from business email compromise (BEC) and funds transfer fraud (FTF) incidents, with 29% of BEC events resulting in FTF. “Over the past year, our claims data clearly demonstrates one thing: Active Insurance works,” said Robert Jones, Global Head of Claims at Coalition. “Combining Coalition’s Active Data Graph, which provides a massive amount of data insights, with security tools and incident response helps Coalition prevent claims from happening in the first place. And, when matters were reported to Coalition, 56% were handled without any out-of-pocket payments by the policyholder. We believe that this proactive engagement is a critical aspect of reducing global cyber risk.” Ransom demands from threat actors decreased in 2024, dropping 22%...

Mark Abraham is the new CEO of RIBO Toronto, ON (May 1, 2025) – The Registered Insurance Brokers of Ontario (RIBO) is pleased to announce the appointment of Mark Abraham to the role of Chief Executive Officer, effective June 1, 2025 succeeding Patrick Ballantyne, who will be retiring from RIBO after 20 years of dedicated leadership and service to the organization. “I am thrilled to be able to make this announcement appointing RIBO’s fifth ever CEO,” said Thomas Watson, RIBO Council President. “Mark is assuming the role at an exciting time as we finalize our 2025 – 2028 Strategic Plan. He will lead our team and organization in the successful execution of that plan, enhancing the impact of our regulatory initiatives, strengthening connections with both consumers and the industry, and bringing forth increased efficiencies in day-to-day operations. As RIBO’s current Director of Finance & Corporate Services, Mark is able to hit the ground running in his new leadership role.” Mark is a seasoned leader with over 16 years of executive leadership experience across both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Prior to joining RIBO, Mark’s career spanned several industry sectors including post-secondary education, technical communications, public policy, and technology. With a proven...

By Mark Breading, Senior Partner of Transformation Services, ReSource Pro — Okay, the title of this blog may be stretching the point – innovation is certainly occurring in all segments of the P&C industry. However, a strong case can be made that insurtech MGAs – startups from the last decade-plus – are catalysts for change and a big factor in driving innovation in the insurance industry. Our research in this area with our partner InsurTech NY reveals how these innovators are evolving and contributing to industry transformation. Why are MGAs are driving innovation in the insurance industry? MGAs have always been known for their ability to identify key customer segments and create products and programs with their carrier partners to address unique risks for those customers. Incumbent MGAs are part of the product innovation picture as well. But it seems that the new models, new products, and new market approaches of the last decade have been spearheaded by insurtech MGAs. A few examples illustrate the latest activity in these spaces. Cyber insurance As the world becomes more digital and connected, cyber attacks have exploded for businesses and individuals. There have been over 20 startup MGAs in this space launched since...

Need for Contextualized, Reliable and Cost-Effective Solutions Is Driving the Shift Toward Small Task-Specific AI Models San Diego, CA (May 1, 2025) – Gartner, Inc. predicts that by 2027, organizations will implement small, task-specific AI models, with usage volume at least three times more than those of general-purpose large language models (LLMs). While general-purpose LLMs provide robust language capabilities, their response accuracy declines for tasks requiring specific business domain context. “The variety of tasks in business workflows and the need for greater accuracy are driving the shift towards specialized models fine-tuned on specific functions or domain data,” said Sumit Agarwal, VP Analyst at Gartner. “These smaller, task-specific models provide quicker responses and use less computational power, reducing operational and maintenance costs.” Enterprises can customize LLMs for specific tasks by employing retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) or fine-tuning techniques to create specialized models. In this process, enterprise data becomes a key differentiator, necessitating data preparation, quality checks, versioning and overall management to ensure relevant data is structured to meet the fine-tuning requirements. “As enterprises increasingly recognize the value of their private data and insights derived from their specialized processes, they are likely to begin monetizing their models and offering access to these resources to...

Erie Insurance Ranks Highest in Customer Satisfaction for Second Consecutive Year Troy, MI (Apr. 29, 2025) – The rate at which auto insurance premiums increased in 2024 declined to less than 2% at year-end from 13% at the beginning of the year. But, even as auto insurance customers in the United States have gained some pricing relief, the percentage of customers shopping for insurance year over year jumped to 57% from 49%, according to the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Insurance Shopping Study.SM “Auto insurance rate taking reached multi-decade highs in the first quarter of 2024, which put record numbers of customers into the market shopping for lower-priced policies as the year progressed,” said Stephen Crewdson, managing director of insurance business intelligence at J.D. Power. “As rate activity began to fall in the second half of 2024, many shoppers were successful at finding lower-priced policies. That combination of increased shopping and less rate taking created a bit of a snowball effect for much of the year, but we are seeing signs that shopping rates are starting to normalize. A potentially bigger concern for the industry right now might be the increased interest many consumers are showing in embedded insurance providers, like...