Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Rolling Meadows, Ill. (Aug. 5, 2020) – Canadian InsurTech Micruity has begun to establish itself as the demographic data clearinghouse for the $6 trillion 401(k) market. The need for Micruity comes from the need to make lifetime income accessible in the US equivalent of a Group RRSP plan, a 401(k) plan. With new lifetime income products being announced by firms like BlackRock, Wells Fargo Asset Management, and Lincoln Financial Group, there is a growing demand for a standard to communicate individual demographic data between a group plans administrator, a life insurer, and an asset manager. Micruity sits in the middle of these three stakeholders enabling each stakeholder to communicate with others through a single unique data pipeline to the platform. Recently, the Retirement Income Journal, one of the foremost publications for US retirement professionals, wrote an article about Micruity, entitled “The Key to Turning On 401(k) Annuities”. In the article, retirement professionals with deep domain expertise spoke about the need for a central clearinghouse and standardization to grow this space. To read the article and learn more about Micruity, please click here. About Micruity Since 2017, our focus has been to make pension-like insurance products accessible to mid-market individuals. We...

Rolling Meadows, Ill. (Aug. 5, 2020) – Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. is pleased to announce the acquisition of Edmonton, Alberta-based Insight Insurance & Risk Management Ltd. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Founded in 2013, Insight is a retail insurance broker serving clients throughout Western Canada. It has a diverse client base and offers particular expertise in serving the construction, real estate, hospitality, sports and entertainment industries. Alexis Harke and her team will continue to operate from their current location under the direction of Kevin Neiles, President, Western Canada for Gallagher’s retail property/casualty brokerage operations. “The Insight team is highly regarded and brings us a diverse and complementary client base, with particular strengths in the construction and sports industries, among others,” said J. Patrick Gallagher, Jr., Chairman, President and CEO. “We are delighted to welcome Alexis and her associates to our growing global team.” Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., a global insurance brokerage, risk management and consulting services firm, is headquartered in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. The company has operations in 49 countries and offers client-service capabilities in more than 150 countries around the world through a network of correspondent brokers and consultants. About Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. Arthur J....

API security awareness has not been an area of emphasis in the application developer community Boston, MA (Aug. 5, 2020) – API hacking does not require the advanced capabilities of a nation-state; even relatively inexperienced attackers can use basic tools to discover and exploit API traffic to perform credential stuffing attacks, exfiltrate databases, change account values, or conduct denial of service attacks on critical applications. This report identifies seven core competencies essential to security API development, deployment, and management, and provides recommendations for FIs, fintech companies, and InsurTech companies to improve their API security methods. Aite Group conducted teleconference interviews with 53 application developers and security professionals representing 31 FIs and fintech and InsurTech companies in North America, Europe, and India between mid-May and mid-July 2020. Interviews focused on current practices related to creating, testing, publishing, and maintaining internal and external APIs. This report also examines specific security training practices for developers and company processes associated with reporting API security issues. This 23-page Impact Report contains 14 figures and four tables. Clients of Aite Group’s Cybersecurity service can download this report, the corresponding charts, and the Executive Impact Deck. Click here for the online summary or to download the table...

Availability of a connector for Sefas’s customer communications management solution announced by Messagepoint Toronto, ON (Aug. 4, 2020) – Messagepoint is expanding its global presence into the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region with the establishment of a partnership with Customer Centrics International, an Australian consultancy that helps organizations deliver simplified, personalized, digitized customer communications. The move to expand into APAC highlights the demand Messagepoint sees in this region for modern customer communications solutions, particularly by organizations in heavily regulated industries, including financial services, insurance and healthcare. Messagepoint’s AI-powered products include Rationalizer, a solution for optimizing content and migrating it to new systems, and Messagepoint, a customer communications management (CCM) platform that enables intelligent business user content authoring, optimization and management to streamline business processes around these complex communications. “With our existing presence in North America and Europe, global organizations are already benefiting from the intelligent control that Messagepoint’s content and communications hub provides across all platforms and channels,” said Steve Biancaniello, CEO, Messagepoint. “Customer Centrics is aligned with Messagepoint’s guiding principle that the content in customer communications is what is so critical in driving positive customer experiences. We are very pleased that Rationalizer and Messagepoint have been selected as foundational technologies within...

DXC’s third-party administration expertise and digital technology capabilities will help ivari scale its operations and bring insurance solutions to market faster to capitalize on new opportunities Toronto, ON (July 21, 2020) – Life insurer ivari has selected DXC Technology, a world-class service provider with scale and experience in effectively bringing insurance solutions to market, to modernize legacy systems and provide policy administration and customer support services. ivari has entered into a 25-year agreement with DXC to advance ivari’s current platforms and operations, as well as provide digital new business capabilities. The agreement also has some ivari employees from the IT, New Business, Client Services and Operations teams transitioning their employment to DXC effective Sept. 14, 2020. With these additional skills and capabilities from ivari, DXC is establishing an insurance business process services delivery center in Canada. “This is a long-term relationship, and we foresee an exciting future for ivari and DXC,” said Todd Lawrence, ivari’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We are confident that this collaboration will help ivari continue to strengthen our offerings and deliver on our commitment to provide valuable insurance solutions to middle market Canadians.” “Together with ivari, DXC is leveraging its market-leading business process services experience...

Washington, DC (July 23, 2020) – Alcohol-detection systems that stop people from drinking and driving could prevent more than a quarter of U.S. road fatalities and save upwards of 9,000 lives a year, a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows. “We haven’t made much progress in the fight against drunk driving since the mid-1990s,” says Charles Farmer, IIHS vice president of research and statistical services and the author of the paper. “This is something that could put a real dent in the alcohol-impaired driving problem.” Alcohol has been a factor in 30 percent of U.S. roadway deaths every year for the past decade. Meanwhile, police arrest about 1 million people a year for alcohol-impaired driving. Systems that can detect the percentage of alcohol in the driver’s blood and prevent the vehicle from moving if it is higher than a predetermined limit could slash those numbers. Moreover, the technology is already available in the form of an ignition interlock attached to a breath-testing unit. Many jurisdictions require these interlocks for people convicted of alcohol-impaired driving. In a 2009 survey of U.S. drivers, nearly two-thirds of the respondents said they would support the installation of similar systems in...

Insurers are differentiating themselves with distribution management improvements, expansion into new geographies, and growing their underwriting appetites: Novarica Boston, MA (July 28, 2020) – In a new research report underwritten by Equisoft, Novarica presents the findings of an interview series conducted with mid- to large-size US life insurance carriers to identify the key drivers for policy administration system modernization projects, as well as the major factors that determine their success. “For 60% of insurers surveyed, improving digital and new business capabilities stand out as the key drivers for modernization, followed by improvements in productivity to allow faster and more fluid underwriting processes and workflows,” said Tom Benton, Vice President of Research and Consulting at Novarica. Additional key findings of the report: Data accessibility feeds into the key drivers for modernization. Life insurers are exploring new business capabilities that leverage predictive analytics to replace fluid underwriting. Integrations are the most time-consuming part of the project. Developing a robust end-to-end test strategy and using automated testing tools ensures applications and integrations are working properly. One of the challenges life insurers face is balancing the need to launch new products quickly with the long-term goal of converting legacy products to the new platform....

Insurers are differentiating themselves with distribution management improvements, expansion into new geographies, and growing their underwriting appetites: Novarica Boston, MA (July 28, 2020) – Commercial lines insurers are intent on maintaining underwriting discipline as they grow the book of business. More insurers are using data, AI, predictive analytics, and business rules to apply underwriting expertise consistently and make better underwriting/pricing decisions. In a new report, Business and Technology Trends: Commercial Lines, research and advisory firm Novarica provides an overview of commercial lines carriers’ business and technology issues, data about the marketplace, and almost 20 examples of recent technology investments by commercial lines carriers. “The impact of COVID-19 varies by commercial market,” said Martina Conlon, Executive Vice President of Research and Consulting and co-author of Novarica’s new report. “Many commercial insurers are fast-tracking digital initiatives to respond to immediate customer and agent needs and generally improve internal efficiencies.” Among the key findings of the reports are: Commercial lines insurers continue to invest most heavily in distribution across digital, data, and core. Support for agents remains key to customer acquisition and retention, and direct sales capabilities will grow more important for small business products and program business. Insurers are leveraging new data...

Canada’s life-insurance industry has turned in better-than-expected results for the second quarter as major companies managed to score key wins. Manulife’s core profit for the quarter handily beat analyst estimates as favourable policyholder experience and market impacts helped its underlying profit reach $1.6 billion, up from $1.45 billion last year, reported Reuters. The company’s reported net income took a beating, however, with a second-quarter showing of $727 million – just half the figure reported a year ago – because of lower interest rates and tightening credit spreads. Annual premium equivalent sales also declined by a reported 13% for the second quarter. In spite of improvement in underlying earnings, lower volumes of new business and lack of core investment gains led to a cap on growth. Focusing on the company’s global wealth and asset management unit showed assets growing nearly 7% year-on-year, but lower fee revenues and tax benefits led core earnings to fall by 4%. Meanwhile, Sun Life’s Q2 results were marred by a 22% decline in Canadian insurance sales, reported the Canadian Press. Across all markets, insurance sales were down by $619 million, or 6%. “[I]t’s better than the minus 20 per cent we mentioned on the first quarter...

The Canadian Press | August 7, 2020 Ontario’s overworked and underpaid personal support workers will soon be receiving government assistance, the province’s premier said Thursday as he heaped praise on a group who have been on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19 in long-term care homes. Doug Ford said recent conversations with PSWs at his mother-in-law’s long-term care home in Toronto shed light on the conditions many are working under. He said he’s aware that many go unpaid for their overtime hours. “They are grossly underpaid in my opinion,” he said at his daily news conference. “We’re going to sit down and we’re going to come up with a solution to support these people.” Ford didn’t offer an estimate as to when a plan of action might be ready or any measures it could contain. But personal support workers have figured prominently in the fight against COVID-19 since the outbreak shifted into high gear in Ontario, prompting the government to impose new rules as case numbers soared in long-term care homes and other congregate-living facilities. Read: Canadian employers increasing safety measures but not pay for frontline workers: survey In mid-April, nearly a month after a provincial state of emergency was first declared,...