Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Staff  | August 26, 2020 Quebecers are more likely to start taking benefits from the Quebec Pension Plan at age 60 than other Canadians with their Canada Pension Plan benefits, according to a new study from the Institute for Research on Public Policy. While deferring benefits is financially advantageous for some, the study found it might be prudent for single people and lower-wage earners to take their benefits right away. In April 2019, the Canadian Institute of Actuaries proposed the government raise the eligibility for CPP and QPP benefits from age 60 to 62, as long as the pension provided to the 62-year-old would be the same as under the current system. It suggested the change would enhance the financial security of retirees and encourage people to retire later, alleviating anticipated labour shortages. Read: New report calls for updated retirement age to reflect reality of today’s workforce The IRPP report also noted that raising the eligibility age would have the intended positive effect on most household incomes, but not on all. “Leaving aside the possibility of receiving social assistance, more than half of 60-year-old Quebecers would benefit from raising the eligibility age. Overall, the average gain — in after-tax, present value terms calculated at age 60...

Chris Gandy Many white advisors may have never asked a Black advisor what it’s like to be a minority in the industry. So Chris Gandy told them what it’s like. Gandy is president and founder of Midwest Legacy Group in Chicago and president of NAIFA-Chicagoland. He spoke on “The Disparity And Opportunities,” an online discussion of diversity and inclusion, part of a series of online sessions by the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors. Gandy’s presentation wove his experience in the financial services industry with the current COVID-19 pandemic and racial unrest in the nation. When Gandy entered the industry in 1999, he was coming off a short stint playing pro basketball in France and looking forward to life off the court. But he was the only Black advisor in his training class of 10, and found his unique set of challenges getting started. One big challenge was that his natural market, the Black community where he lived, did not have a lot of money. Another challenge was being told in his training class that he wouldn’t make it in the business because “your people don’t buy life insurance, they don’t understand it and they definitely don’t keep it...

How should investors react to stock-market volatility like what the COVID-19 outbreak has caused? Since the deep and drastic downturn in equity markets during the first quarter, we’ve seen a diversity of responses. On one hand, there are the retail investors who have flocked to online brokerages, with many taking on outsized bullish positions that might not stand up to rigorous fundamental analysis. On the other hand, you have the more conservative crowd who are cashing out and, in some cases, getting more exposure to haven assets like gold. But as noted by Selene Soo, director of Wealth Insurance at RBC Insurance, it’s often best to take a Buddhist-like approach. To be more specific, an equity investor who takes the middle path, succumbing to neither fear nor greed in the midst of uncertainty, is likely to enjoy gains in the long term. “During times of heightened volatility, making changes to investment plans might not be the best idea,” Soo told Life and Health Professional. “I think it’s important for investors to stay the course and really stick to the plan that they prepared with their advisor.” She acknowledged that market downturns, like the one we saw during the worst of...

Canada Life is backing a new initiative that aims to support good mental health among Canadian workers as they deal with the realities of COVID-19. Through the newly launched Break Box initiative, 285 businesses and not-for-profits – including organizations that Canada Life works with year-round – will be receiving boxes of “thoughtfully designed, practical and educational resources” to aid in promoting good mental health at work and at home amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and recovery. The kits are to be prepared and sent in collaboration with Workplace Strategies for Mental Health, a leading source of free and practical tools and resources to deal with workplace mental-health issues, as well as the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. ‘ “Many Canadians are facing stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic and re-opening efforts,” said Mary Ann Bayton, director of Collaboration and Strategy, Workplace Strategies for Mental Health. “Whether people are working from home or adjusting to a new work environment, taking a break can help support mental well-being by improving focus, decision-making, information retention and creativity.” To disrupt the rut of today’s digital reality, the organization said it deliberately chose to distribute physical, tangible boxes of resources to Chamber of Commerce members and not-for-profits....

Staff  | August 25, 2020 Ivanhoé Cambridge, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec’s real estate arm, is entering into an agreement with real estate logistics specialist LOGOS Group to acquire a development site in Australia. The organization plans to develop the site, located in one of Melbourne’s key infill northern industrial suburbs, into a $230 million logistics estate with LOGOS acting as the manager and developer. The former distribution centre will be transformed to deliver more than 120,000 square metres of modern logistics assets as the LOGOS Broadmeadows Logistics Estate, according to a press release. Read: Ivanhoé Cambridge forms partnership for investment in Indian logistics facilities “This transaction continues our strategy for logistics in the [Asia Pacific] region and our partnership with LOGOS,” said George Agethen, senior vice-president of Asia Pacific at Ivanhoé Cambridge, in the release. “We remain focused on assembling a sizeable portfolio in Sydney and Melbourne, which has shown remarkable resilience through the COVID‑19 pandemic. We are confident that we will deliver an environmentally leading estate that will meet the demands of our users for the long term.” The estate, which is aiming to start construction in early 2021, will be focused on supporting the core logistics sectors of e-commerce, distribution, food and cold storage. “This is a strategic acquisition for our business as a number of our...

Martha Porado | August 25, 2020 The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan posted a negative return of 0.4 per cent in the first half of 2020. “The pandemic has brought some specific challenges,” said Jo Taylor, the plan’s president and chief executive officer, on a conference call on Tuesday. “Global economic growth has come to a standstill, job losses have spiralled upwards, consumer and worker confidence are at all times lows and stock markets remain volatile, inflated and uncertain.” However, given the dramatic headwinds, the pension fund is weathering well, he added, noting its exposures to large retail real estate, airports and the energy sector were sore spots for the period. Read: Ontario Teachers’ posts 10.4% gains for 2019, focuses on maintaining certainty The plan spent the years leading up to the coronavirus pandemic fortifying the portfolio against a potential downturn in equities, noted Taylor. “After 10 years of continuous economic expansion, we felt it prudent to plan for a downturn. The key components of that defensive positioning were an increased exposure to fixed income and a more managed exposure to equities.” And this higher exposure to fixed income was part of an “important cushion for the portfolio during the March collapse in global financial markets,” said Ziad Hindo, the...

Staff | August 25, 2020 While intangible assets like human capital and culture are increasingly at the forefront of employers’ concerns, frameworks to manage these factors are lagging, according to a new paper by Willis Towers Watson and the World Economic Forum. As the world resets to a new reality amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, it noted, it will be critical to an organization’s success to create concrete methods for measuring the performance of these factors. The crisis allows for comparisons of different employers’ reactions in terms of their human capital, said the paper. Where government supports allowed, such as in the European Union, employers typically held on to their workforces as much as possible. In other cases, it became necessary to put workers on furlough, with most employers choosing not to set specific time limits on those arrangements. Others set up reduced work weeks, among many ad hoc solutions. And these actions were accompanied by pay cuts, with more organizations cutting C-suite salaries than workers’ compensation at large. Read: Employees less confident in employers’ ability to provide benefits With this backdrop, employers are rethinking “how, where and by whom work is done,” the paper said. “By designing with the constraints of today’s business environment in mind, organizations are...

Staff  | August 24, 2020 iA Financial Group is partnering with Homewood Health to provide plan sponsors with access to the latter’s employee assistant program. The EAP, available à la carte, is now offered as part of the insurer’s health and wellness offering, called Well-Balanced. “We are confident that this partnership will provide our clients and their plan members with the professional support they need to help them address issues that affect their mental health and well-being,” said Andrée-Anne Bourgeois, director of products, marketing and communications and group benefits and retirement solutions at iA Financial Group, in a statement to Benefits Canada. Read: iA Financial Group introduces online group benefits enrolment tool Read the full article at BenefitsCanada.com

Staff | August 24, 2020 Toronto-based disease prevention technology company Newtopia Inc. is introducing a product suite aimed at preventing, reversing and slowing the progression of three chronic conditions. Targeting plan members of employer-sponsored health plans, the tools aim to assist users with hypertension, type 2 diabetes and weight management. They combine human interaction, virtual care, digital tools and data science to deliver personalized programs. The heart health product encourages users to increase their physical activity, gives them nutrition recommendations, helps them stop smoking and provides stress management tools. Read: What are the top chronic diseases in the workplace? The type 2 diabetes prevention offering is personalized to help the user improve their health, reduce their blood glucose and lower their insulin resistance by adjusting their nutrition and incorporating low glycemic foods into their diet. It also features a daily cardio and strength exercise routine and techniques to improve sleep. The weight management offering teaches users about healthy food options and gives them education and tools around insulin resistance and cardio and strength exercises. It also aims to generate awareness around emotional eating, focus on stress and sleep management and support behavioural change. “Now more than ever, it is vital for organizations to ensure the health and safety of their population,” said Jeff...

The InsurTech startup, known for its instant, scalable insurance policies, will build a new type of coverage to protect small businesses from COVID-19 and future pandemics Toronto, ON (Aug. 11, 2020) – Thimble, the InsurTech startup that helps small businesses succeed on their own terms, has been selected to the Lloyd’s Lab innovation accelerator program, where it will develop solutions to support the market to respond to COVID-19. Throughout the pandemic, many small businesses have learned that their business interruption insurance does not cover losses related to COVID-19. This has resulted in severe blowback on the industry, along with multiple lawsuits pitting small and midsize businesses against their insurers. As part of Lloyd’s Lab, Thimble will tackle this issue head on. The startup, known for its instant insurance policies of flexible duration, will develop low-limit parametric contingent business interruption coverage to protect businesses from COVID-19 and future pandemics. By doing so, Thimble will position insurance as a “first line of defense” that pays small businesses immediately if specific criteria are met– essentially providing an “instant stimulus” while governments figure out the rest. “Traditional insurance policies do not work for pandemics because most policies will pay out at the same time,”...