Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Staff | November 3, 2020 With so many Canadian employees working from home due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Canada Revenue Agency is adding home office furniture to the list of expenses employers can reimburse tax-free. Usually, the CRA only allows employers to reimburse up to $500 of personal computer equipment so that an employee can carry out their employment duties at home, without an employee receiving a taxable benefit. But this isn’t a usual year. Read: Google to pay work-from-home allowance to all global employees “The CRA recognizes the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many employees having to work from home, where they may not have the necessary computer or home office equipment to perform their employment duties,” said CRA spokesperson Etienne Biram in a statement emailed to Benefits Canada.  “The [agency] decided to extend this position to include home office equipment such as desks and chairs. However, it is important to note that the $500 reimbursement amount is in respect of each employee rather than each piece of computer or office equipment purchased.” Read the full article at BenefitsCanada.com

Kim Siddall  | November 3, 2020 As coronavirus cases rise across the country and some return-to-work plans become return-to-home plans, many employers are wondering how to help their employees adapt once again as the second wave of the pandemic slams into Canada. Will there be another lockdown this year? Will children be expected to learn remotely again while employees work? How can we, as employers, ensure that we’re better prepared for this ongoing crisis that still has no clear end date? The first wave may have acted as a catalyst for change within our organizations and caused us to take a hard look at how and why we do the things we do. It may have resulted in a radical shift in our core business, an accelerated digital transformation of business processes or delivery and most definitely changed the way employees interact with clients and each other.  Read: Five workplace changes that should stay post-coronavirus Where an organization hasn’t already started this exercise, now’s the time for a retrospective view of their response to the first wave. While it was definitely a time of rapid change and pivoting in response to that change, what went well?  Knowing what we know now, what would the employer approach or implement differently?...

Fayetteville Observer (NC) Nov. 3–Tracey Cathey McNeill, 50, of Raeford, surrendered Thursday to law enforcement officers on charges of wire and mail fraud, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The statement says McNeill devised a scheme to defraud the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and obtain disability, retirement and life insurance payments. Support local journalism with a subscription to The Fayetteville Observer. The benefits were for a person who was in McNeill’s care. The alleged fraud occurred between April 2015 and February 2017, according to the news release. McNeill received more than $90,000 in benefits from the two agencies, the release said. Advertisement If convicted, McNeill could face as many as 20 years in federal prison. Staff writer Melody Brown-Peyton can be reached at mbrowpeyton@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3568. ___ (c)2020 The Fayetteville Observer (Fayetteville, N.C.) Visit The Fayetteville Observer (Fayetteville, N.C.) at www.fayobserver.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Read the original article at insurancenewsnet.com

Staff | November 2, 2020 The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is part of a $53-million round of Series C funding for AddEnergie Technologies Inc., a Quebec-based operator of electric vehicle charging stations. The Caisse initially invested in the company in 2016 and again in 2019, alongside partners. This round of funding included MacKinnon, Bennett & Co. Inc., Business Development Bank of Canada, Fonds de solidarité FTQ, Export Development Canada and Investissement Québec. Read: Caisse invests in AddÉnergie’s expansion “CDPQ has played a part in AddEnergie’s development since 2016, driven by the desire to support the company’s growth and expansion,” said Kim Thomassin, executive vice-president and head of investments in Quebec and stewardship investing at the Caisse, in the release. “We were there as they penetrated the Canadian and U.S. markets and we are proud to reaffirm our commitment to AddEnergie as it pursues its expansion plan. “This investment aligns with our strategic priorities — not only does it support a Quebec company’s international expansion, it allows us to increase our holdings in low-carbon assets, which is a benefit to everyone.” Read: Caisse boosts investment in electric vehicle charging company Read the full article at BenefitsCanada.com

Staff  | November 2, 2020 The average gross income replacement ratio for a typical defined contribution plan member was up at the end of September, according to Eckler Ltd.’s latest capital accumulation plan income tracker. It found a typical male DC plan member retiring at age 65 at the end of month saw their gross income replacement ratio returned to 56 per cent from the all-time low of 53.1 per cent in March. For a female DC plan member, the ratio increased to 54.5 per cent from the all-time low of 51.6 per cent at the end of March. Read: Average CAP income replacement level remains steady in Q1: report “With three quarters of 2020 behind us, given the resurgence of COVID-19 cases and new lockdown measures that will continue to weigh on economies, uncertainty is likely to remain the theme for the rest of the year,” noted a press release. “The resilience of the equity markets following the sharp market contraction in the spring has helped push the recovery of retirement incomes toward pre-pandemic levels.” Since the tracker was introduced in 2006, the gross income replacement ratio for a typical CAP member has been trending downward. More importantly, however, this trend has also impacted...

Insurers should have a clear understanding of their intended use case and whether their needs are best served by a Core-, CCM-, or DXP-CRM platform: Novarica Boston, MA (Oct. 27, 2020) – At least half of insurers now consider billing to be a customer service issue rather than a purely financial issue. Online self-service is a baseline expectation of competent providers, and more consumers than ever expect mobile self-service; these factors make billing a critical component of digital transformation. In its latest Novarica Market Navigator, Property/Casualty Billing Systems, research and advisory firm Novarica provides an overview of the available stand-alone billing systems for US property/casualty insurers, as well as detailed profiles of 15 vendor solutions. “Modern property and casualty billing solutions are maturing, giving insurance carriers better options for modernization,” said Martina Conlon, Executive Vice President of Research and Consulting and co-author of the report. “Insurers want to create ‘retail-like’ experiences as customers now expect ease of use and self-service even for complex transactions.” Each profile summarizes the vendor organization, technology, differentiators, client base, supported lines of business, deployment options, implementation approaches, upgrades/enhancements, and key functionality. Vendors profiled include: Axiom, Billing Management Services, Decision Research Corporation, Duck Creek Technologies, DXC...

London, UK (Oct. 28, 2020) – Solid investor appetite for new and mature opportunities in the InsurTech sector was again in evidence during Q3 2020, as US$2.5 billion was raised by InsurTech firms across 104 deals, up 63% and 41% respectively over the prior quarter. Deals included two US$500 million rounds, but the mid-tier funding gap for firms seeking investments in the US$20 million to US$50 million range has widened, according to the new Quarterly InsurTech Briefing from Willis Towers Watson, a leading global advisory, broking and solutions company. Six mega-rounds of US$100 million or more accounted for more than two thirds of total funding, including Bright Health, Ki, Next Insurance, Waterdrop, Hippo, and PolicyBazaar. Early-stage deal share grew to 57%, up 15 points to pre-COVID-19 levels, bolstered specifically by P&C start-ups. More than half of InsurTechs with a Q3 Series A round were raising capital for the first time and raised on average US$10.9 million. InsurTech companies seeking mid-tier Series B and C investments, however, saw deal share shrink by almost 9 percentage points. Non-industry investors including venture capital and private equity predominated in the smaller rounds, and re/insurers in the larger end. P&C sector investments predominated, but the...

Toronto, ON (Nov. 2, 2020) – Apollo Insurance Solutions Ltd. (“Apollo”) is pleased to announce that Marco Andolfatto has joined the Apollo team as Chief Underwriting Officer (CUO). Andolfatto brings 20 years of insurance industry experience to the Apollo team, most recently as Senior Vice President & Chief Strategy Officer at Totten Insurance Group, a subsidiary of Hub International. Over the span of his career, he has developed and launched a wide variety of insurance products ranging from cyber, pollution, and other specialty lines to P&C focused coverages. At Apollo, he will engage the insurance ecosystem to aggressively add to Apollo’s ever-expanding selection of forward thinking digital insurance products. Marco Andolfatto, Chief Underwriting Officer, Apollo “Marco brings the right combination of traditional insurance production and a forward-thinking approach to how the industry can improve,” said Apollo CEO Jeff McCann. “I am excited to accomplish great things with Marco as Apollo’s Chief Underwriting Officer.” Andolfatto has an impressive track record of driving organic and acquisition growth at some of Canada’s leading insurers and insurance intermediaries. “The Apollo team under Jeff’s leadership is trailblazing the insurtech revolution in Canada,” said Andolfatto. “I believe in their vision of surpassing broker expectations through the confluence...

Plug-in sensor helps detect electrical hazards in homes Ting helps detect home electrical hazards with easy-to-install sensor HSB provides the Ting Service to insurance policyholders HSB will help fund Whisker Labs IoT innovations for consumers Partners will develop expanded loss prevention technologies Hartford, CT (Oct. 29, 2020) – HSB, part of Munich Re, and Whisker Labs have announced they have expanded a partnership to provide Ting sensing technology to help home insurance customers detect electrical hazards and will develop other Internet of Things technologies for consumers. HSB, a leading reinsurer and provider of risk management and IoT services, is the exclusive supplier of Whisker Labs’ Ting sensor and monitoring solution to home insurance policyholders through HSB’s relationships with other personal lines property-casualty insurers. “We are always working to give our customers easy access to new technologies that will help them avoid expensive and inconvenient losses,” said Greg Barats, HSB president and chief executive officer. “HSB has been working with Whisker Labs for more than three years and we are excited about the results. Our relationship is an important part of HSB’s efforts to apply leading edge technologies that are changing the way we manage risk.” Under the new agreement, HSB...

New SMA Blog by Karen Pauli, Principal, Strategy Meets Action — Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been in almost every technology-based headline over the past 24 months. If an incumbent technology provider or a newly emerging InsurTech organization wants to grab attention – well, just insert AI in the first few lines of the description. Or, better yet, insert AI in the product or organization name. In fact, AI does hold exceptional business promise, and there are numerous proven use cases. But AI is a complicated topic. There are many sub-categories of AI, and one of the first steps in choosing the appropriate technology is to break down AI into consumable bites. SMA finds that there are six primary AI technologies in play within commercial lines organizations: machine learning (ML), computer vision, natural language processing (NLP), user interaction technology, voice technology, and robotic process automation (RPA). The big question is – which AI technologies drive the most value for commercial lines? Not surprisingly, there is a tug-of-war between AI for transformational purposes and AI for tactical purposes. According to commercial lines executives and managers, ML, RPA, computer vision, and NLP (in that order) will transform commercial lines the most. Given the...