Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Aon’s Fall 2024 Update Toronto, ON (Oct. 7, 2024) – Aon plc, a leading global professional services firm, has released its Fall 2024 Canadian Insurance Market Update. While a competitive atmosphere continues as insurers strive for market share, the significant catastrophe activity Canada has faced in 2024, along with other factors discussed in the report, may lead to a quicker-than-anticipated shift back to a more conservative stance characterized by stricter underwriting practices and a focused risk selection process. “The complexity and rapidly evolving nature of the Canadian Property and Casualty (P&C) insurance industry makes it extremely difficult to forecast future state. While historical market challenges like inflation and interest rate volatility are stabilizing and easing market conditions, catastrophic events continue to pressure the Canadian marketplace,” said Russell Quilley, Head of Commercial Risk and Chief Broking Officer for Canada at Aon. “As of September, 2024 is already the costliest year on record for insured catastrophe losses in Canada with estimated total losses in excess of $7.6 billion.” Other key findings include: Increased competition has moderately eased market conditions, but auto theft and increasing cost of repairs continues to erode insurer profits in the auto segment. Remediations to portfolios resulted in overall...

GUS expands its network of Property Restoration professionals with arrival of Paul’s Walls and Sons in Belleville Lévis, QC (Oct. 1, 2024) – GUS, Canada’s largest 100% Canadian-owned and operated group of property restoration professionals, is delighted to announce the addition of Paul’s Walls and Sons to its network. With a strong presence in the community of Belleville and its surrounding areas, this new addition strengthens GUS’ position in Ontario and reaffirms its commitment to providing quality post-disaster services to a growing number of Canadians. Paul’s Walls and Sons offers a comprehensive suite of solutions for policyholders, including 24/7 emergency response, water, fire, smoke, and wind damage restoration, as well as mold remediation. Founded in 1999 by Paul Adams, the company has since been passed down to the next generation and is now led by Mackenzie Cairns alongside his business partner Trevor Kay. With over 25 years of experience in renovation and construction, the Tarion-registered company has built a strong reputation for its exceptional attention to detail and quality of work. Paul’s Walls and Sons stands out for its commitment to integrity, the professionalism of its team, and its client-focused approach. Their mission to provide transparent and high-quality service has...

Partnership with the leading insurance broker in Mexico provides a complete and seamless insurance, risk and compliance supply chain solution for North American clients Chicago, IL (Oct. 1, 2024) – Hub International Limited (Hub), a leading global insurance brokerage and financial services firm, is pleased to announce an exclusive referral and broker program partnership throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico with MAS Seguros, the largest trucking insurance broker in Mexico. The partnership is a response to Mexico’s growing influence in the global economy and a reflection of HUB’s and MAS Seguros’ commitment to expanding its capabilities to better serve clients doing business throughout North America. Due to changing global political relationships and policies*, there has been a significant move for manufacturing operations to Mexico, which comes with increased risk and insurance challenges when transporting goods cross-border. Organizations face regulatory compliance issues, crime, product damage, catastrophic weather events and accidents. Additionally, more transportation firms from Mexico are moving to the U.S. As a result, there is an emerging transportation and logistics need to manage risk and insure freight, property and assets while transporting goods into Mexico for manufacturing and then back to the U.S. and Canada. “The changing landscape of Mexico’s economy,...

2024 mid-year update also examines impacts of risk aggregation events Ransomware claims severity spiked by 68% to an average loss of $353,000 throughout the first half of 2024 San Francisco, CA (Oct. 9, 2024) — Coalition, the world’s first Active Insurance provider designed to prevent digital risk before it strikes, has published its 2024 Cyber Claims Report: Mid-year Update, which details emerging cyber trends and their impact on Coalition policyholders throughout the first half of 2024. The report found that ransomware claims severity spiked by 68% to an average loss of $353,000. “Although the frequency of using ransomware as an attack strategy actually decreased this half, we saw a marked spike in the severity and demand amounts, especially those associated with the Play and BlackSuit ransom variants,” said Rob Jones, Coalition’s Head of Claims. “Despite the increase, we were able to cut ransom demands in half through successful negotiations by our affiliate Coalition Incident Response, but the facts remain clear: the use and impact of ransomware remains as volatile as ever.” While high ransomware demands came back in vogue, funds transfer fraud (FTF) saw a notable decrease in both frequency (2%) and severity (15%). Even with this decline, Coalition successfully...

Start Slideshow The Medicare Advantage plan and Medicare Part D prescription drug plan annual enrollment period is set to start Oct. 15. Agents and brokers are about to find out whether the upcoming enrollment will just be a little rocky, due to government subsidy cuts, marketing rule changes and Medicare drug plan benefits design changes, or so chaotic it will affect the general elections and any conversations about insurance and financial services administration and marketing that go on in Washington. Many members of the Senate and House are already old enough to be using Medicare, and they all hear regularly about problems with the program. That means anyone who is trying to shape financial services policy or trying to shape federal financial services policy has a stake in Medicare program performance. One simple indicator is the number of Medicare drug plans willing to work with agents and brokers. The United States has about 3,102 counties, parishes and similar types of jurisdictions. CMS presents plan counts at the county level. The producer compensation spreadsheets show that the average number of county-level drug plan entries offering compensation for agents and brokers will fall 25% in 2025, to 49,992, or 16 plans per county,...