Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Partnership to automate the quote process by ensuring the Western Canadian insurer’s coverage offerings are available at the point of quote Mississauga, ON (Dec. 14, 2023) – Applied Systems is pleased to announce a partnership with Peace Hills General Insurance Company to enable real-time quoting for commercial lines. The partnership will provide Peace Hills Insurance’s coverage options at the point of quote in Policy Works®, creating a digital commercial lines lifecycle that accelerates quote-to-bind time for Peace Hills and Applied’s combined independent brokerage partners across Western Canada. “The manual commercial quoting process can often be clunky and time-consuming for brokerages, causing friction with policyholders and insurers,” said Chad Shurnaik, Vice President of Underwriting at Peace Hills Insurance. “Collaborating with Applied Systems allows us to seamlessly connect our broker partners with our policy offerings through simpler, more efficient workflows, improving their productivity and customer satisfaction.” In collaboration with CSIO and insurer partners, Applied has created an end-to-end commercial lines distribution solution. Applied’s standardized commercial workflows allow brokerages to digitally submit a quote request directly from the application to multiple insurers and eliminate the need to re-key data into insurers’ portals. Insurers can then identify and streamline packages that are most suitable...

73% fear their vehicle will be stolen Toronto, ON (Dec. 14, 2023) – Auto theft is a crisis right across Ontario, but Brampton residents are feeling it most acutely, according to a poll commissioned by Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC). “The auto theft crisis is creating unsafe communities – 73% of Brampton residents are concerned that their car will be stolen. And with good reason. The number of theft claims in Brampton increased 133% between 2018 and 2022, and the cost of those claims skyrocketed nearly 400%,” said Amanda Dean, Interim Vice-President, Ontario, IBC. “Vehicle thefts in Brampton outpace the auto theft rate in other parts of Ontario by about 20%. That’s saying something considering Ontario has the highest rate of auto thefts in the country. While we need a whole-of-society approach that includes all levels of government, insurers and auto manufacturers to solve this crisis, there are steps you can take to prevent your vehicle from being stolen.” IBC encourages drivers to follow Équité Association’s layered approach to protection, which consists of four categories: simple steps, anti-theft devices, vehicle immobilizers and tracking devices. In general, the harder a car is to steal and the less expensive it is to...

High green premiums mean that further investment and regulation are required to ensure cleaner products and services are commercially viable Paris, France (Dec. 13, 2023) – Many of the technologies able to address climate change are already available and will play a critical role in helping businesses reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That is according to the Capgemini Research Institute’s latest report, Climate Tech: Harnessing the power of technology for a sustainable future, which found that three quarters of organizations say they will not achieve their sustainability goals without climate tech. However, close to eight in ten (77%) executives suggest that product costs are likely to increase due to the green premium attached to these technologies and they are unwilling to pay this markup. Expectations are high for climate technology to contribute to decarbonization Growth in key climate technologies, including renewable power and electric vehicles (EVs), has helped accelerate decarbonization efforts around the world. Other climate technologies such as low-carbon hydrogen, carbon capture and alternative fuels are becoming available and, if scaled, could help businesses achieve their sustainability goals. According to the report, executives expect climate tech to contribute to 37% (on average) of their organization’s decarbonization or net zero goals,...

Accenture and Google Cloud will provide AI managed services to scale generative AI, including deployment of Gemini, Google’s newest and most capable model New York, NY (Dec. 13, 2023) – Accenture and Google Cloud are pleased to announce a new initiative to help businesses adopt generative AI to improve operations, create new lines of businesses, and build unique customer experiences. Accenture and Google Cloud will create a global, joint generative AI Center of Excellence (CoE) that will provide businesses with the industry expertise, technical knowledge, and product resources to build and scale applications using Google Cloud’s generative AI portfolio and accelerate time-to-value. This is the latest step in Accenture and Google Cloud’s work to help organizations reinvent their businesses with generativeAI and unlock new growth opportunities. The new CoE will help enterprises determine the optimal large language model—including Google’s latest model, Gemini—to use based on their business objectives. With improved performance, efficiency, and state-of-the-art capabilities, Gemini can significantly enhance how large enterprises build and scale with AI to complete highly complex and common tasks. The Gemini Pro API is available in public preview now, with Gemini Ultra coming early next year. The new CoE will combine Accenture’s deep model customization...

Gartner’s Legal, Compliance and Privacy Hot Spots Survey Identifies the Top Trends Concerning Professionals in Assurance Functions Stamford, CT (Dec. 13, 2023) – Rapid generative AI (GenAI) adoption is the top-ranked issue for the next two years for legal, compliance and privacy leaders, according to a recent survey by Gartner, Inc. In a September 2023 survey of 179 legal, compliance and privacy leaders, 70% of respondents reported rapid GenAI adoption as a top concern for them. “Increases in capability and usability have prompted rapid and widespread company adoption of GenAI,” said Stuart Strome, director, research in the Gartner Legal, Risk & Compliance Practice. “While AI regulation is still being developed, however, uncertainties and unforeseen risks abound. Businesses will have to contend with these challenges to ensure ethical and legal use of this powerful new technology.” Gartner experts have identified four key areas that legal, compliance and privacy leaders need to address. 1. Limited Visibility into Key Risks The ease of adoption, widespread applicability, and the ability of GenAI tools to perform a range of different business task mean that assurance teams will have limited visibility into new risks. “New processes to detect and manage these risks will take time to...

London, ON (Nov. 24, 2023) – Stanley Mutual Insurance Company is pleased to announce they have successfully implemented the Cognition+ enterprise platform for their mutual insurance operations. Cognition+ provides Stanley with a full suite of integrated Underwriting, Claims and Accounting functionality in a Cloud environment.  The Cognition+ Cloud ensures a high availability, cost effective and secure solution while simplifying accessibility for all users. Cognition+ enables a myriad of opportunities for Stanley to extend their processes to other stakeholders beyond their current insurance operations and enhance workflow, rating, underwriting, and claims efficiencies. “We’re thrilled with the result of this project.  The collaboration between our team and the experts at Cognition+ made the transition to both a new system and the cloud a resounding success.  Through this project we’ve been able to streamline processes in all areas, bring our teams closer together through digital workflows, and ensure we have access to the data we need to run our business now, and into the future. Cognition+ has lived up to their promise of delivering within project timelines, and our team stepped up to lead this transition.  We are future-ready,” stated Greg Dunlap, President & CEO of Stanley Mutual Insurance Company. “It’s great to...