Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Launching VELOⓇ, a cloud-based web application to aid banks, insurance companies and corporates in developing their climate risk needs Toronto, ON (Oct. 17, 2023) – Riskthinking.AI, an award-winning, innovative climate risk start-up located in Toronto, Canada, is pleased to announce the release of its product, VELO®. Climate change is no longer a “tomorrow” problem; today, businesses and governments worldwide are feeling its effects. The physical, economic, social, and natural assets we all depend upon are increasingly exposed to loss and disruptions associated with greater physical and transitional risk. It’s more important than ever that companies, financial institutions, and governments understand how, where, when, and why they are exposed to climate risk so that they can: Continue to thrive in this new environmental and regulatory environment. Generate strategies to mitigate/adapt to risks and capitalize on opportunities. Quantify and report their exposure to investors and other stakeholders. Yet, most organizations lack the critical data and models to facilitate this understanding. Dr. Ron Dembo, Founder and CEO of Riskthinking.AI explains: “It is a tremendous challenge to address, requiring access to a vast amount of data including the physical asset make-up of companies, forward-looking climate risk data across multiple hazards, and transition risk data...

Big Game Hunting, attacks on vendors, and data exfiltration rising as threat actors pursue bigger targets San Francisco, CA (Aug. 7, 2023) – Ransomware is entering a new era, as cybercriminals have begun shifting their tactics to bypass security controls by hitting critical vendors and seeking larger targets for extortions, Resilience found in its Midyear 2023 Claims Report. Among the key findings: Cybercriminals are returning to “big-game hunting.” Attackers are focusing on bigger targets, particularly those organizations with sensitive data that are able to pay larger ransom demands. Two recent examples are MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment. Third-party vendors become the lead point of failure. Vendor cyber risk has overtaken phishing attacks as the leading point of failure in cybersecurity. Resilience data shows third-party vendor incidents account for 28.9% of its clients’ all-time claims, ahead of phishing at 23.1%. Traditional ransomware expanding to encryption-less extortion. Threat actors are expanding on previous tactics in which they encrypted data and offered decryption keys in exchange for ransoms. Now, Resilience is seeing an increase in encryption-less data exfiltration attacks that threaten to publish sensitive material unless the criminals’ extortion demands are met. “While Ransomware remains a top concern for our clients, with data...

Toronto, ON (Oct. 13, 2023) – Crawford Technologies, provider of innovative document solutions that streamline, improve and manage customer communications, has announced it will update all of its solutions to be in compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2. This is the latest version of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards and guidelines for web content accessibility compliance. WCAG 2.2, released on October 5, 2023, is another step forward in ensuring that web, mobile and document content is accessible and inclusive to all. As a leader in document accessibility, Crawford Technologies is committed to proactively keeping its solutions up to date with the latest WCAG standards. The company plans to update all of its solutions within 90 days to ensure that users of its products and solutions are able to remediate and verify documents for compliance with the latest standards. “WCAG stands as the globally recognized benchmark for digital accessibility, continually adapting to incorporate emerging technologies and best practices. As the CEO, my commitment lies in ensuring that our company’s document remediation and compliance validation solutions remain current with the latest compliance standards,” said Ernie Crawford, president and CEO of Crawford Technologies. “Hence, it is of paramount importance...

Toronto, ON (Sept. 26, 2023) – As part of RIBO’s commitment to enhancing the standards and qualifications of insurance professionals, changes are being made to the entry-level exam for licensed insurance brokers. What’s Changing? Updates are coming to the entry-level exam that serves as the cornerstone for becoming a licensed insurance broker in Ontario. This move is part of ongoing efforts to ensure that new brokers possess the most relevant and up-to-date knowledge and skills required for the evolving insurance landscape. Exam Content: New competency profile: Creating a framework that outlines essential expectations for success in the Level 1 (L1) Acting Under Supervision broker role. Refreshed exam questions: Increasing the exam to 100 multiple-choice questions, offering a more comprehensive evaluation of critical subjects such as legislation and insurance product knowledge. New exam form: Introducing new questions to our exam including questions designed to evaluate candidates’ commercial insurance knowledge. Exam Fee: the fee for writing the updated entry-level exam will be adjusted to $300. Why the Changes? These modifications are the result of an extensive review of the level 1 exam, carried out in consultation with industry experts. The aim of the consultation was to gain deeper insights into the knowledge,...