Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Staff | May 22, 2020 Shopify Inc. is moving the majority of its employees to permanent work-from-home arrangements and closing its offices until 2021. “Until recently, work happened in the office,” tweeted Tobi Lutke, chief executive officer of Shopify on Thursday. “We’ve always had some people remote, but they used the internet as a bridge to the office. This will reverse now. The future of the office is to act as an on-ramp to the same digital workplace that you can access from your [work-from-home] setup.” Going forward, the company will be digital by default. According to its careers page, Shopify employees will have a home office allowance. Connecting with fellow colleagues will be based on “when the sun’s up for everyone on your team.” Read: Remote working, distributed workforces could be part of new normal post-coronavirus Lutke said the move would allow the company to recruit talent from around the world that “otherwise couldn’t [work for the company] because of our previous default to proximity.” Shopify follows other technology giants in making the move to work from home a permanent one. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook Inc., said on a livestream on Thursday that as many as 50 per cent of the company’s employees could...

When you need to file an ERISA disability lawsuit because of a disability, you have two avenues you can take: Settlement or litigation. The two important things to know before you make that decision are that you usually get less if you settle, and litigation could take several years if you or the insurance company…

Staff | May 22, 2020 Canadians workers are proving resilient in the face of the hardships caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report by the Environics Institute for Survey Research in partnership with the Future Skills Centre and Ryerson University’s Diversity Institute. Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of Canadians said they feel confident in their abilities after the pandemic was declared, up from 61 per cent who said the same in an earlier survey. As well, 54 per cent said they feel they could bounce back quickly after hard times, up from 51 per cent before the pandemic. “It is encouraging that Canadian workers felt equally resilient and supported by the social safety net before and after the onset of the pandemic, but many do not feel that support as strongly,” says Andrew Parkin, executive director of the Environics Institute, in a press release. “One of our greatest challenges remains getting help to those who need it the most.” Read: 56% of Canadians say coronavirus negatively impacting mental health: survey The survey found workers feel less well-supported through employer-delivered skills training. Half (51 per cent) of workers said they’ve had no such training in the last five years, with low-income workers (42 per cent) less...

New SMA Blog by Mark Breading, Partner, Strategy Meets Action — P&C insurers are staying the course when it comes to their original digital and technology plans and investments for 2020. Many insurers report no changes to their plans, with some reshaping and a few accelerating, but very few pausing or retrenching. These are the big themes in SMA’s new research report, P&C Tech Plans in the COVID-19 Era: SMA Market Pulse Insights. 2021 plans may paint an entirely different picture, but for now, P&C insurers are moving full steam ahead. As might be expected, the plans vary significantly by line of business. Commercial lines insurers are much more cautious than their personal lines counterparts, chiefly due to the larger negative impact of the pandemic. Still, our SMA market pulse survey of insurance executives confirmed what we have been hearing from our clients: 95% of personal lines insurers are moving forward with their overall technology plans and investments, with only 5% retrenching. 75% of commercial lines insurers are moving forward with their overall technology plans and investments, with 25% retrenching or pausing. Our survey also showed that many of the insurers that are moving forward are reshaping and reprioritizing projects...

Canada Life Reinsurance is solidifying its position in the longevity reinsurance space through a new agreement covering 5.3 billion euros of in-force liabilities. Under the agreement with NN Life, a subsidiary of international financial services company NN Group, Canada Life Reinsurance will reinsure nearly 82,000 in-payment defined benefit pensioners. NN Group is active in 18 countries, with a strong presence in several European countries as well as Japan. The group provides retirement services, pensions, insurance, investments, and banking services to roughly 18 million customers. “I’m pleased that despite a significantly altered work environment due to Covid-19, Canada Life Reinsurance and NN Life’s teams worked together to complete this major transaction,” said Jeff Poulin, global head of Canada Life Reinsurance. “It will allow us to further expand and diversify our global longevity business in 2020 and beyond.” Echoing the sentiment, Canada Life Reinsurance COO Derek Popkes said: “We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with NN Life. Our commitment to the Dutch market and our strong financials make us a good partner in the Netherlands.” Follow WP on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter Read the original article at https://www.lifehealthpro.ca/rss/

Old Republic Insurance Company of Canada (“Old Republic Canada”) is a Canadianfederally licensed insurance company that has been providing insurance solutions since 1887.They are focused on being industry leaders in the underwriting and administering of customized,private label products for distributors of travel, child accident, as well as the underwriting of longhaul trucking insurance. Old Republic Canada encompass the entire Canadian operations of Old Republic InternationalCorporation (“ORI” on the New York Stock Exchange) which is one of America’s 50 largestshareholder-owned insurance businesses and currently ranks among the Fortune 500 list of thenation’s biggest companies. What Sets Them Apart? Service Dedicated unit in place to answer all claims administration inquiries Call centre: 80% of calls answered within 30 seconds, less than 3% abandoned Complaints: Any written appeal requests or complaints requiring response acknowledged in writing by the next business day Claims Request for claim forms: Requested claim forms are sent the same day Assessment of claims: Complete claims files are assessed within 5 business days Assessment of additional information: Claim file correspondence is initially reviewed within 2 business days of receipt Claim payments: Over 90% of travel insurance claims reported annually are paid Products A full suite of products to meet most...

Staff | May 21, 2020 The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System is closing its previously announced investment in fibre technology company Deutsche Glasfaser Holding. The German company is a provider of gigabit internet connections through fibre-to-the-home to more than 700,000 households and 5,000 businesses across the country. The investment, alongside partner EQT Infrastructure Fund IV, was announced in February 2020. “This closing underlines both our ongoing interest in Germany as a high-quality jurisdiction and our continuing interest in telecommunications-related opportunities,” said Ralph Berg, global head of the OMERS Infrastructure, in a press release. “While we celebrate today’s success, our worldwide search for further solid investment opportunities maintains a steady pace.” Read: OMERS investing in German internet infrastructure, PSP in cloud security platform As previously announced, Deutsche Glasfaser will be combined with EQT Infrastructure Fund IV portfolio company Inexio to form a fibre-to-the-home player in rural Germany. “Our thesis continues to be that investing in the development of telecommunication infrastructure will generate, as the rollout approaches completion, strong and stable cash flows that are a good match with our long-term obligations towards our OMERS members,” said Philippe Busslinger, head of Europe at the OMERS Infrastructure, in the release. The news marks the pension fund’s third infrastructure investment in Germany, following...

Expect more grumpy old folks as companies have to turn away older applicants while COVID-19 plays out. The life insurance industry finds itself in an awkward position of finding increased demand from consumers intensely aware of mortality during a pandemic, just as companies have to restrict products because of the mysterious, novel coronavirus. The coronavirus is most dangerous to the elderly, who are increasingly shut out of life insurance because of the uncertain risk that companies cannot underwrite. The restrictions have busy independent agents and marketing organizations scrambling to find companies that will accept their applicants. A partial list of carriers who have suspended fully underwritten life policies. A spokesman for Mutual of Omaha notes that the company still offers non-underwritten whole life policies to those over the age of 70. The squeeze made mainstream news when The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that consumers were being turned down. Life companies depend on predictable mortality tables to price products, a process that’s been turned upside down by the pandemic, said The American Council of Life Insurers. “There’s no question that COVID-19 has raised underwriting challenges,” said Whit Cornman, ACLI director of media relations. “Information from a variety of...

U.S. life insurance application activity was down 3% year-over-year in April, according to the MIB Life Index — the second consecutive month of decline. On a monthly basis, April is showing diminished activity from historical April volumes due to COVID-19, MIB said. Application activity in April was off -5.5% from that of March. Year-to-date, the MIB Life Index remains above par at 0.6%, but is well off its year-to-date peak of 4% at the close of February 2020. April’s Life Index age groups patterned much as they did in March with younger buyers, ages 0-44 off -0.7%; ages 45-59 showed improvement from March, off -2.4%; and ages 60+ showed further declines, off -9.7% year-over-year. April’s age groups distinctly display pandemic purchasing preferences with younger ages showing a greater comfort with online life insurance purchases, MIB said. There was a sharp dip in older buyers (60+), showing the impact of COVID-19 on face-to-face sales and product changes at carriers. Advertisement Ages 60+ led all other age groups in YOY application activity in 2019. Year-to-date, ages 0-44 are up 2.4%, ages 45-59 are off -1.1% and ages 60+ are off -1.7%. Read the original article at insurancenewsnet.com

Kelsey Rolfe | May 21, 2020 Defined contribution pension plan sponsors may face workforce planning challenges coming out of the coronavirus pandemic as older plan members whose account balances were hard hit by this year’s market volatility delay their retirements. “We saw a lot of presenteeism coming out of the [global financial crisis] — are we going to see that again?” asks Janet Rabovsky, an independent investment consultant. “[We could] see older workers not retiring when they should and basically stop the advancement for people that should be progressing in their career. . . . Certainly, all you need to do is go back to the recession [in] the late ’80s and early ’90s, where it was very difficult to get jobs; people went back to school because there was nothing out there. We saw some of that in the [global financial crisis] as well.” Read: 2020 CAP Member Survey: Retirement savings, financial well-being in the era of coronavirus In Benefits Canada‘s 2020 CAP Member Survey, plan members expressed concern for the impact of the coronavirus crisis on their savings and planned retirement age. Two in five (43 per cent) said the recent market downturn has impacted their target retirement age, with 12 per cent saying...