Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Each player’s move was projected on a large screen mounted above the stage. To prepare, William Graif, an associate engineer at Deutsche Bank, studied his opponents’ past games. He played his first rated tournament when he was about 5 years old and from then on, he said, chess has always been a “part of my life.” “When I was little and mostly throughout my childhood, I wanted to compete,” Graif said. “I wanted to be the best.” Chess competitions have taken him to Turkey, Vietnam, Hungary and Portugal. While he still has a competitive spirit for chess, he now focuses more on “enriching other people’s lives through the game of chess” and has taught at summer chess camps for kids. Over the 10 rounds played across the weekend, teams typically won or lost all four of their matches. In the two rounds Susquehanna faced off against Goldman, the investment bank lost each time except when Len Ioffe, a managing director, played to a draw against Nan Zhao, a quantitative researcher at Susquehanna. The winning team from Chessify included two grandmasters, Zaven Andriasian and Gevorg Harutjunyan, along with Tigran R. Sargsyan and Ani Harutyunyan. The tournament experience helped draw players in...

2023 Vara New Mexican Rosé ($19) : At this pioneering winery, the first rosé from New Mexico-grown grapes blends 70% cabernet sauvignon with 30% refosco. It shows that a juicy, savory pink wine can emerge even from a harsh desert climate. 2021 Fiol Prosecco Rosé Extra Dry ($18): I sampled this just-launched, sophisticated, light coral-pink wine last week. It’s smoother and more subtle than most rosé proseccos, with berry and floral aromas and a soft, salty-fruit taste. Perfect pool drinking at only 11% alcohol. 2021 Mallea Vineyards Rosé of Grenache ($20): Check out the label on this lively rosé with cherry-ish flavors from a new, small Santa Barbara, California, collaboration between viticulturalist Erik Mallea and winemaker Justin Willet; they aim to produce Rhône varietals from organic grapes. The label art echoes the messages Basque shepherds in the American West carved into tree bark in the 19th and 20th centuries. NV Missing Thorn by Aaron Pott Sparkling Rosé Alcohol-Removed Wine ($24): Super pleasurable to sniff and sip! A new line of nonalcoholic wines created by veteran Napa winemaker Aaron Pott has debuted. The sparkling rosé boasts rose petal, citrus and brioche aromas that remind me of older vintages of Champagne. The taste is succulent and citrusy,...

Kansas City Life Insurance Co. has filed a suit that focuses attention on a potential data security threat: administrative assistants who work from home. The company alleges that a woman who previously worked as an assistant for life insurance general agents, or distributors, accumulated about 200 life insurance policies and policy correspondence files in her home in Monmouth County, New Jersey, while working from home, from late 2022 through October 2023. After she was terminated, in 2023, she mailed about 50 of the files to the policyholders, as she was instructed, but she burned about 100 files and kept 50 others, according to a complaint the company filed against the former administrative assistant, Melissa Halbach, earlier this month in the U.S. District Court for New Jersey. “Defendant has further reported that the policies remaining in her possession are not stored in a secured or locked way, but are sitting in a room in her home that is accessible to family and visitors,” Kansas City Life says. The policy files include Social Security numbers and medical histories along with names, addresses and telephone numbers.

“What we see is that the amount of time you are saving depends on the degree to which you want to invest in workflow efficiency,” Wolefsen said. “Fully outsourcing the investment management piece is particularly powerful.” Investors are demanding so much more from their advisors today, Wolfsen said, in part because they are experiencing incredible information access and incredible ease-of-use technology in all the other parts of their lives. They are used to having a wealth of real-time information at their fingertips and the ability to make decisions and changes instantly. “Advisors are being asked to deliver their services in new channels and in new ways, and they are also being asked to deliver more services,” Wolfsen said. “It’s not just investment advice, but also financial planning, retirement planning, trust and estate work, taxes and more. They are expected to be able to bring it all together into a single, actionable financial picture. “That’s where companies like Orion come in,” she added. “We can be their technology extension and handle the R&D and development work so they can focus on being great advisors and connecting with clients.” Navigating Consolidation Asked for her view on the likely pace of mergers and...