Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Staff  | June 3, 2020 If employee productivity increases by two per cent per year for the next decade, Canadians could enjoy a four-day workweek without giving up income or sacrificing their living standards, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute. “In light of the COVID-19 lockdown, there’s been a lot of talk about a possible four-day workweek in Canada,” said Steven Globerman, a senior fellow at the institute and author of the study. “But to achieve a four-day workweek where we actually work fewer hours while at the same time maintaining our current living standards, we need to be more productive.” Read: My Take: Making it work, four days a week With two per cent productivity growth per year, employees would even enjoy an inflation-adjusted cumulative 1.5 per cent increase in income, noted the study. But how realistic is it to aim for a two per cent annual increase in labour productivity? It would about double the productivity growth rate experienced in recent years. However, since labour productivity in Canada’s business sector increased at around two per cent a year from 1961 to 2012, the target isn’t unrealistic, said the study, noting the goal of returning to the country’s long-run productivity growth performance deserves a...

Staff  | June 3, 2020 Hub International Ltd. is acquiring Usefulideas, an employee benefits and group retirement consultancy based in Toronto. Joanne Rose, the organization’s principal and senior benefits consultant will join Hub Ontario, reporting into Matt Lievers, its president of employee benefits. Read: Hub International acquires two Canadian benefits firms “Usefulideas will be a great addition to our growing employee benefits and retirement team in Canada,” said Gregory Belton, executive chairman of Hub Ontario, in a press release. “The expertise and market relationships that Usefulideas has developed over the years will benefit our clients as they continue to seek a genuinely unique and differentiated service offering.” Read the full article at BenefitsCanada.com

Availability of a connector for Sefas’s customer communications management solution announced by Messagepoint Toronto, ON (June 1, 2020) – Messagepoint is pleased to announce the availability of a connector that enables its customers to leverage Sefas Designer, an end-to-end omnichannel customer communications management (CCM) solution, for communications composition. Sefas Designer is used globally by leading brands in financial services, insurance and healthcare sectors, primarily for critical and regulated transactional communications. The Messagepoint Connector for Sefas Designer makes it possible for Messagepoint customers to take advantage of Sefas’ high performance composition and post-composition capabilities. Messagepoint is an AI-powered content hub that gives business users control over the content within their CCM environments, simplifying and accelerating content authoring while also providing intelligent assistance for improving the quality of content. The Messagepoint Connector for Sefas Designer will enable Sefas customers to optimize their approach to content authoring, optimization and management for the purpose of creating more consistent, compliant and relevant customer communications. “The decision to partner with Sefas to build a connector between Messagepoint and Sefas Designer reflects Messagepoint’s focus of continuing to empower enterprises with choice and a broader range of world class options for composition,” said Steve Biancaniello, CEO of Messagepoint....

Most insurance carrier executives view maintaining loss ratios as the biggest obstacle to their success: Aite Group report Boston, MA (June 2, 2020) – While the loss ratio problem can be solved multiple ways, carriers often employ risk mitigation to address the issue. Still, it’s one thing to talk about enhanced risk mitigation in the abstract and another thing to face it in practice. For Aite Group’s new report, Gauging North American Carriers’ Views of Enhanced Risk Mitigation, we decided to go right to the source—insurance carrier executives—to gauge carriers’ receptiveness to the concept of enhanced risk mitigation. “Carriers have not been in a great position to look over their policyholders’ shoulders to ensure that they are avoiding risky situations and behaviors,” states Jay Sarzen, senior analyst at Aite Group. “In the past, helping policyholders avoid problematic choices has been limited to basic tactics, such as advising a business owner on how to establish good egress procedures. But the emergence of technology that enables enhanced risk mitigation, particularly telematics and advanced data analytics, have expanded carriers’ abilities,” he explains. This Impact Report is based on surveys conducted with executives at property and casualty insurance carriers in North America, and focuses...

Other intermediated industries have lessons for insurers, says Novarica: Centralization of data, analytics, and digital assets can allow insurance marketers to engineer consistent and personalized customer journey, following leaders in Pharma, Auto, and Wealth Boston, MA (June 2, 2020) – Like marketers in other intermediated industries, insurance marketers adopting the latest in marketing technology and digital analytics face the challenge of not owning the critical sales step in their customers’ lifetime journey with the brand. In a new report, Digital Marketing in Insurance: Lessons from Other Intermediated Industries, research and advisory firm Novarica looks to other intermediated industries such as pharma, auto, and wealth management for solutions and tactics. “Lack of control over the touchpoints between agents and prospective customers remains the principal challenge for insurers,” said Paul Legutko, VP of Digital Marketing and Analytics, and lead author of Novarica’s new report. “It is possible for marketers at any insurer to give some thought towards digital storage, online surveys, and basic website tagging—the more basic solutions for gaining visibility into the intermediated experiences.” Click here for the table of contents or to access the report. Report Summary Insurance marketers can look to other intermediated industries like pharma, auto, and wealth,...

Chicago, IL (June 3, 2020) – Hub International Limited (Hub), a leading global insurance brokerage, is pleased to announce that it has acquired 838517 Alberta Ltd., o/a HB Consultants. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, HB Consultants is an independent employee benefits consulting firm that specializes in group insurance programs, benefits communications, wellness solutions and risk management services. Darrin Heise, President of HB Consultants, and Elizabeth Harris, Employee Benefits Advisor at HB Consultants, will join Hub International Insurance Brokers, a division of Hub International Canada West ULC. The move continues Hub’s momentum in expanding its best-in-class employee benefits and retirement solutions to address the challenges clients are facing, including in benefits, total health and benefits communications. About Hub’s M&A Activities Hub International Limited is committed to growing organically and through acquisitions to expand its geographic footprint and strengthen industry and product expertise. For more information on the Hub M&A experience, visit WeAreHub.com. About Hub International Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Hub International Limited is a leading full-service global insurance broker providing property and casualty, life and health, employee benefits, investment and risk management products and services. With more than 12,000 employees in offices located throughout...

Insurance products remain solidly profitable, but big change is coming in who sells them and how they are sold, one leading industry analyst predicts. More fee-based products, new channels and growth in direct-to-consumer sales are some trends Chip Roame expects in the coming years. Roame, managing partner of Tiburon Strategic Advisors, characterized insurance products as being in a natural transition phase. “We still think the industry needs to consolidate quite a bit,” Roame said, adding that more products will be pushed out through other channels besides agents. “As these products are more widely available, I think that drives pricing, that drives competition, that drives profit … that drives a lot of things.” Overall, insurance is about a $2 trillion industry, Roame said during a recent webinar. That is split between life/health ($1.2 trillion in 2019 premium) and P&C ($708 billion). But the relationship is reversed when it comes to profits, Roame noted. P&C sales accounted for about 61% of the industry’s $102 billion profit. MetLife remains the king of insurance, writing $103 billion in 2019 premium for about a 5% share of the market. State Farm followed with $66 billion in premium. Roame shared several key points and predictions about...

Kelsey Rolfe | June 3, 2020 A group of more than 80 global investment managers with a combined $10 trillion in assets under management is calling on Alphabet Inc. to implement board-level oversight for human rights risks. The Investor Alliance for Human Rights, which includes co-filers Hermes Investment Management, Loring, Wolcott and Coolidge, Robeco and Canadian responsible investing firm NEI Investments, is advancing a shareholder resolution for Google’s parent company to establish a human rights risk oversight committee. Shareholders will vote on the resolution at Alphabet’s annual general meeting on Wednesday. Proxy advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. and Glass, Lewis & Co. have voiced their support for the resolution. Read: What’s the role of the proxy advisor as rules shift? The resolution noted that Alphabet’s products and services have “transformed our daily lives and the global economy,” but pose human rights risks around the proliferation of digital surveillance and privacy violations. They also have demonstrated the potential to exacerbate existing biases, facilitate the dissemination of disinformation and allow for harassment, hate speech and incitements of violence. “[Alphabet’s] very business model itself is so intertwined with human rights risk and we’ve seen what those are — around . . . right to privacy, freedom of expression, impact on elections,...

Aside from triggering a great outpouring of demand for life insurance, the coronavirus crisis has forced the industry to confront a truth it’s denied for decades: companies need to update the technological infrastructure underpinning their quoting and illustration processes. That’s what’s happening from the vantage point of Matt Essick, chief marketing officer at Ensight. An insurtech platform provider with a strong claim to leadership in the U.S. permanent life insurance space, the company also offers support for term life insurance products and annuities, and is expanding to accommodate long-term care products as well. “Life insurance is probably 10 years behind property and casualty products when it comes to being presented and marketed to the consumer in an interactive, digital manner,” Essick said. Fallen by the wayside While the life industry has been strongly focused on upgrading internal policy administration systems, he said it has fallen by the wayside with respect to how it does sales and marketing. The quoting process, for example, has remained largely entrenched in its traditionally complex form; illustrations have remained similarly challenging for agents and consumers alike, given continued reliance on materials that can run anywhere from 20 to 45 pages long in PDF form. “That’s...

BMO Insurance has enhanced its offering of guaranteed investment funds (GIFs) with new investment, guarantee, and no-load sales charge options. “During these unprecedented times, we continue to develop solutions to safeguard the financial wellbeing of our clients,” said Steven Cooney, senior vice president and head of Individual Life and Annuities, BMO Insurance. The BMO GIF portfolio now includes two new funds. The BMO Concentrated Global Equity GIF, which focuses on stocks whose earnings and cash flow growth rates are more sustainable than the market average, invests directly in the high-conviction BMO Concentrated Global Equity Fund. Meanwhile, the BMO Concentrated Global Balanced GIF caters to more risk-averse investors by coupling the performance potential of the BMO Concentrated Global Equity GIF with peace of mind from fixed income. BMO Insurance has also announced that the 100% death benefit guarantee on its GIF 75/100 Plus offering will be extended from age 80 to age 85, providing older clients with enhanced opportunity for estate preservation and wealth transfer protection. And with a new no-load sales charge option, BMO Insurance is offering financial advisors greater flexibility to offer clients access to their funds at any time without being hit with any surrender charges. “The recent...