Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Staff | June 25, 2020 The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board are participating in the initial round of financing for Seattle-based Sana Biotechnology Inc. With the help of other investors, the initial financing comes to more than US$700 million. The financing is aimed at helping the company bolster its core platforms — gene delivery, immunology, stem cell biology and gene modification and control. “The commitment from this group of long-term investors enables us to concentrate on making discoveries that overcome the most important challenges to making gene and cell therapies that improve the lives of a broad swath of patients,” said Steve Harr, the company’s president and chief executive officer, in a press release. “I am proud of our progress to date in turning our technologies into potential therapies for serious diseases such as cancer, central nervous system diseases, heart disease and various genetic disorders.” Read: Tech, health care set to be winning sectors for institutional investors during, after pandemic In other investment news, OMERS Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, led a US$10.5-million series A extension funding round for U.S. residential real estate firm Landed. As part of the deal, Michael Yang, managing partner...

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is Part 2 of an interview featured in the July edition of InsuranceNewsNet Magazine between InsuranceNewsNet Publisher Paul Feldman and American Council of Life Insurers CEO Susan Neely. This year has been the worst of all possible worlds for life insurance, an industry that depends on predictability. Historically low interest rates are making it painful even to attempt projecting returns that will support products and sustain remotely attractive crediting rates. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic is hitting the primary age demographic that the industry serves, upsetting mortality tables. To top it all off, the face-to-face meetings that drive the industry’s sales are either banned or unwanted. Pack all that into a locked-down national capital filled with constant knock-down partisan battles and you have a good idea of what the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) is dealing with these days. But ACLI has a seasoned pro, Susan Neely, as its president and chief executive officer. She has been working in government and trade associations for nearly four decades. Neely was one of the architects of the Department of Homeland Security in the George W. Bush administration. Although she started with ACLI just about two years ago, she had...

Staff | June 24, 2020 The Ontario Pension Board has released a statement addressing the role it plays in standing against anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism. “I know some of you may be wondering why we didn’t share a message of support sooner,” read the letter from Mark Fuller, the OPB’s president and chief executive officer. “While statements of support matter, with an issue this important, we recognize that what’s really needed is meaningful action. Over the past month, we have been focused on listening, learning and having in-depth discussions about what we need to do.” Read: TSX-listed companies making little progress raising diversity on boards, executive teams: study The OPB has a diverse staff-level workforce, he noted, but the organization needs to do more at the leadership level. “I also recognize that real change will require taking a systemic view of our organization, programs and processes and challenging our current thinking, biases and ways of doing things. I have declared my commitment to further diversity and inclusion in a meaningful way to the board and our employees and the entire leadership team stands with me in this commitment.” Once the organization has had ample opportunity to listen to voices and experiences of Black, Indigenous and other racialized...

Staff | June 24, 2020 The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is appointing Karen Frank as senior managing director of equities. Based in the pension fund’s London office, she’ll take on the new role in fall of 2020. “Equities is an integral part of Ontario Teachers’ asset mix, contributing significantly to our ability to deliver on the pension promise to our members,” said Ziad Hindo, chief investment officer, in a press release. “Karen brings to the role significant leadership skills, diverse thinking and in-depth knowledge of global markets that will help us continue to scale our business internationally and build on our track record of success.” Read: Ontario Teachers’ investing in UAE-based gas pipeline infrastructure Frank joins the Ontario Teachers’ from Barclays, where she’s been chief executive officer at Barclays Private Bank since 2016. She was previously a managing director of investment banking at Goldman Sachs. In the new role, Frank will succeed the pension fund’s current head of equities Jane Rowe, who will take on the new role of vice-chair of investments as of Oct. 1, 2020. Read the full article at BenefitsCanada.com

Staff | June 24, 2020 While 87 per cent of Canadian employees who started working remotely for the first time during the coronavirus pandemic believe it will have a long-term impact on the way they work, just 22 per cent said their employer has confirmed working arrangements will be more flexible permanently, according to a new survey by technology solutions firm VMware Canada. It also found 17 per cent of employees said plans to return to the office haven’t been clearly communicated. However, 26 per cent of new remote workers said they don’t want to go back to the way they used to work before the pandemic. Read: Remote working, distributed workforces could be part of new normal post-coronavirus “Canadians want more choice and flexibility in how they work post COVID-19,” said Sean Forkan, vice-president and country manager at VMware Canada, in a press release. “The evolution in their thinking is outpacing that of employers — they want to know that flexible working is here to stay. The information gap or ‘virtual vacuum’ that has emerged is a key challenge for business leaders to address. The next normal will and needs to be a distributed workforce — employers need to enable working anytime, anywhere and with any technology because working...

PR Newswire Given this year’s tax deadline is extended to July 15, now is an ideal time for consumers to reevaluate their retirement plans, assess how COVID-19 has impacted their financial goals and develop a strategy to optimize taxes in retirement. According to the 2019 Tax-Efficient Retirement Income survey conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of The Nationwide Retirement Institute® among U.S. adults age 50+ who are currently retired or planning to retire in the next 10 years, a third of  current retirees (35%) did not consider how taxes would affect their retirement income when planning for retirement. As a result, many express regrets, with a third of retirees (32%) reporting they wish they had better prepared for paying taxes in retirement. “With many Americans already reviewing their finances while submitting their taxes, as well as assessing how COVID-19 has impacted their financial goals, it’s an ideal time to also examine their plans for taxes in retirement,” said Eric Henderson, president of Nationwide’s Annuity business. “The reality is many older adults are not considering or knowledgeable about taxes in retirement.” The survey found two in five future retirees (38%) are terrified of what taxes will do to their retirement...

By Greg Boutin, CEO, Relay Platform — In our last blog post, we spoke about how Relay differs from other so-called “Placement Platforms”; now, let’s talk about the benefits. There are many, but they can be categorized in five main ones: CAPACITY: Relay provides a faster, more attractive way for cedents and brokers to structure stronger, cleaner submissions for capacity providers, which increases success rate and turns into more opportunities closed. This is becoming even more compelling in the context of scarcer capacity. COST: Relay digitizes a previously manual part of the process and reduces transaction costs overnight for capacity seekers, brokers and providers. Relay can achieve up to 50% transaction cost reduction (this does not include broker fees, although certain brokers are willing to review their fees for cleaner submissions) by eliminating the back-and-forths for information, which drives efficiencies through the value chain. Relay also eliminates the hidden cost and risk of poor and lost records due to an over-reliance on emails; For reinsurers, Relay provides its basic quote service in Fac for free, unlike all other commercial platforms. Relay also offers better integrations, including turning email, pdf and ACORD forms into structured data, and is actually used in...

New policy responds to increase in online events under social distancing London, UK (June 23, 2020) – Specialist insurer Beazley has launched a contingency policy designed to cover event organizers if a transmission failure disrupts or cancels a virtual event. Streaming live events is not new in itself, however with social distancing rules in place to reduce the spread of COVID-19, many major events have been either cancelled, postponed or moved online. Beazley’s virtual events transmission policy supports organizers whose success relies on technology platforms providing seamless transmission or broadcast to their audiences. If an event is cancelled due to transmission failure, the policy covers first-party losses including organizational costs, expenses, or gross revenue from advertising and ticket sales. The cover is available on a global basis and offers limits of up to $10m. Mark Symons, contingency underwriter at Beazley, said: “For a long time, many events, from business conferences through to music festivals, have had an online element, which has been covered by endorsement to an event insurance policy. However, as a result of the coronavirus we are seeing far more events either being reorganized or created from scratch for purely virtual audiences. Even with lockdown easing, we expect...

Long-term care (LTC) insurance might be a tough sell as a stand-alone product, but the idea of LTC coverage bundled with life insurance still appeals to many consumers. That was the takeaway from new research released by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, which is based on a survey of 1,250 US adults aged 30 through 60 conducted in November. As reported in ThinkAdvisor, around one third (32%) of the consumers polled said they’re considering buying insurance that would cover chronic care or LTC. Just over a fifth (22%) said they believe they already had that type of coverage. Separating the respondents by age group, MassMutual found that younger consumers were more likely to be interested in LTC coverage. Among those between 30 and 40 years old, 42% expressed interest in that benefit, compared to just 36% of 41- to 50-year-olds and 26% of 51- to 60-year-olds. Survey participants with incomes from US$75,000 to US$100,000 were also more likely to be interested in getting LTC coverage than higher-earning respondents. Researchers attributed that partly to the fact that 29% of those earning more than US$100,000 in household income reportedly already had some form of chronic care or LTC insurance protection. Of those...

SSQ Insurance is joining the fast-growing trend of digital life insurance issuance with three new simplified life insurance products. “The launch of these products is part of our strategy to continually innovate our digital offering in line with market needs,” Éric Trudel, senior vice-president for Strategy and Product Management, SSQ Insurance, said in a statement. The three new products, which the insurer said will allow customers to apply for and get coverage in under 60 minutes, include: Simplified Term Life – offered with 10- or 20-year terms and a maximum insurance amount of $500,000; Simplified Whole Life – comes with a maximum insurance amount of $249,999; and Guaranteed Issue Whole Life – comes with a maximum coverage amount of $50,000 Aside from requiring no medical exam, the new life insurance products are offered through a paperless process. Advisors can sell the products remotely via a secure electronic application and e-signature, with the ability to send digital contact details to customers. The Simplified Term Life and Simplified Whole Life products also come with an extreme disability benefit, through which 50% of the initial insurance amount may be payable in advance up to a maximum amount of $250,000. The benefit is paid...