Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Calgary, AB (July 11, 2023) – Acera Insurance Services Ltd. is pleased to announce it has partnered with Rushton Agencies Ltd. Rushton Agencies is a trusted independent brokerage that has provided insurance solutions to individuals, farmers and businesses in and around Stettler, AB for more than 100 years. This transaction expands Acera Insurance’s operations in central Alberta, where it has had dedicated teams in Red Deer and Sylvan Lake for several decades. “The longevity of Rushton Agencies demonstrates that Canadians deeply value working with a local independent brokerage that puts their best interests first,” says Bruce Rabik, Chief Operating Officer of Acera Insurance. “We are excited to welcome Rushton Agencies to Acera Insurance as this partnership reinforces our commitment to strengthen the independent brokerage model across the country.” The Rushton Agencies transaction closed on June 30. While Rushton Agencies will fully transition to Acera Insurance in the coming months, its deeply rooted local presence and community support will remain. “We have worked diligently to find the right partner for this exciting evolution of Rushton Agencies,” says Steve Babcock, President of Rushton Agencies. “Joining Acera Insurance offers our clients the best of both worlds – Stettler maintains a local, independent brokerage...

Car safety tips for your pet — By The GOOD HANDS® Advice Team — Many pet owners consider their furry friends as part of the family, deserving of all the love and care a family member should expect. However, some pet parents might not be fully aware of how to protect their animal when in the car. While there’s lots of helpful advice for traveling by plane with animals[1], we’re going to focus on pet travel by vehicle. Pets should not be roaming freely in the car. They can distract the driver and be injured in an accident. After a collision, an injured or scared animal can be a risk to first responders or cause another collision if they run into traffic. In a 2023 survey[2], nearly half (47%) of Canadian respondents claimed to leave their pets unrestrained in their car. Further, 38% of respondents said they plan on taking their pets for a minimum one-hour road trip this summer and a quarter (25%) said they travel with their pet in a moving vehicle at least once per week. Carriers, harnesses and pet seat belts are safety measures to help ensure the well-being and protection of all passengers, not just...

Start Slideshow While it is not a topic that many financial planners are experts in today, cross-border estate planning is an increasingly important issue for wealthy global families. In fact, according to experts with Cerity Partners who specialize in international estate planning, the provision of such services represents a great opportunity for fiduciary financial planning firms looking to elevate their service and attract multigenerational clients. The firm recently hosted a webcast on the topic featuring Frederic Behrens, a New York-based partner at the firm, and Libby Dawson, a principal in the San Francisco office. According to the duo, international estate planning can become incredibly complex, and the failure to appreciate that complexity can lead to costly mistakes and disappointed clients. As Behrens and Dawson emphasized, a coordinated international estate plan is essential for families who face the possibility of a foreign-located decedent, beneficiaries in multiple countries or assets in different jurisdictions. According to the duo, global families — especially wealthy U.S. expats — who are creating an international estate plan need to understand relevant rules related to domicile, succession, generation-skipping transfers, gift tax laws in each country where distribution will occur, and where assets are held at the time of...

Start Slideshow Although last year represented “such a challenging time,” the registered investment advisor sector remained healthy, according to Lisa Salvi, managing director of business consulting and education at Schwab Advisor Services. That was especially true for what Schwab refers to as the “top performing firms” —  those that rank in the top 20% of its Firm Performance Index. Despite 2022’s challenges, RIA client growth “remained quite healthy” and was up 6% from the prior year, “in line with the five-year annualized growth rate,” Salvi told advisors and reporters on Thursday, during a webcast highlighting results of Charles Schwab’s 2023 RIA Benchmarking Study, released the same day. Meanwhile, “even though there’s some pressure” on assets under management, RIAs are “still able to attract quite a few new clients,” she said, adding: “When we look at the five-year AUM, revenue” and client compound annual growth rates, “results show that the RIA industry continues to be strong and we know that demand for advice is not going anywhere.” Addressing advisors about last year’s challenges, Salvi said: “The S&P 500 was off 20%, U.S. Treasurys ended the year in the red, there was volatility in the market conditions, inflationary pressures [and] geopolitical uncertainties. All of this...

London, UK (July 17, 2023) – The challenges that insurers face today will be familiar to institutions across the financial services industry. Customer engagement and retention in a digitalized, post-COVID world that has reshaped expectations and needs. Ongoing cost pressures that are now only exacerbated by inflation and the current market downcycle. The imperative to modernize legacy systems and architectures while maintaining operational stability and a high quality of service across multiple channels day-to-day. The commercial threat both from existing competitors and external disruptors, be those new players or game-changing technologies such as today’s increasingly powerful AI models. As insurers survey this dynamic and uncertain future landscape, data is one of the levers available to enact change and ensure their relevance to their customers. High quality data is the engine of transformation: giving form to opportunities, both current and emerging; illuminating behaviors and attitudes; and validating strategic and investment choices. For the insurance customers surveyed in our latest research, data is something they are overwhelmingly prepared to share to gain benefits: cheaper cover, more tailored policies and services, smoother processes and interaction. Data, and the hyper-personalization of products and omnichannel experiences it facilitates, are key to enhanced customer satisfaction and...

Malvern, PA (July 18, 2023) – While U.S. auto claim frequency has declined over the past 20 years, claim severity increased and then surged since the global pandemic began in 2020, according to a newly published report from the Insurance Research Council (IRC), a division of The Institutes. The IRC report, Trends in Personal Auto Insurance Claims 2002-2022, showed that claim severity accelerated beginning in the mid-2010s. During the pandemic years (2020–2022), claim frequency plummeted but claim severity skyrocketed, especially for vehicle damage claims, due in part to enormous inflationary pressures on replacement parts and auto body repair labor costs. Claim frequency for both physical damage liability and bodily injury claims declined more than 2 percent annualized over the 21-year period from 2002 to 2022, the IRC report indicated. “During the first half of the study period, the combination of declining frequency and increasing severity left average loss costs relatively unchanged,” said Dale Porfilio, FCAS, MAAA, president, IRC. Porfilio also serves as chief insurance officer of the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I). Porfilio added, “However, as claim frequency leveled off and claim severity accelerated, the average payment per insured vehicle for most coverages began to climb steadily until the 2020 drop...