Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

London, UK (May 11, 2020) – Cyber risk analytics specialist CyberCube has launched “Broking Manager” – a new software-as-a-service application designed specifically for insurance brokers. “Broking Manager” facilitates quick and efficient client insight for both generalist and cyber specialist brokers. The product is built to help brokers quantify, understand, and explain to their clients, the sources and financial impact of cyber risk exposure. This development recognizes that insurance advisors need to be able to educate prospects and clients while demonstrating an understanding of their needs and exposures. Brokers are expected to align clients’ goals, budgets, and exposure to the appropriate limits and best-fit carrier policies. With cyber risk, this means understanding the types of scenarios that may cause financial loss and the costs that would drive losses. Knowing where a client can increase or cut back on premium dollars while still hitting their coverage goals is imperative to helping them optimize their budget. Broking Manager empowers brokers to instantly produce a cyber financial loss report on millions of companies, while providing rich information to help brokers articulate their clients’ cyber exposure. It does so by leveraging advanced models that draw on data from a large number of sources including behind...

MetLife is offering paid voluntary leave to its licensed healthcare workers who join the fight against COVID-19, the company announced today. MetLife medical professionals who volunteer will be deployed in two-week rotations to hospitals and other healthcare facilities in locations across the country. MetLife employs dozens of full-time trained nurses, behavioral health professionals, physicians and other medical workers to help patients on disability leave recover and safely return to work. Under this new program, which was created by MetLife’s Return to Health Organization in response to the strong interest voiced from MetLife employees wishing to help, these specialists now have the flexibility to volunteer to support pandemic relief efforts without impacting their jobs. “MetLife has a 152-year history of always being there when our customers and communities need us the most,” said Bill Pappas, executive vice president and head of Global Technology and Operations, MetLife. “The entire MetLife family is incredibly proud that our people want to use their training to make a positive impact. Whether it’s augmenting a local health center’s staff or filling in for a front-line medical worker in desperate need of a break, our goal is to help in any capacity needed.” Advertisement MetLife has a...

Kelsey Rolfe | May 11, 2020 As provincial governments start to lay out their plans for slowly reopening the economy, employers have a unique return-to-work scenario to handle. Appropriate sick leave and accommodation policies will be key pieces of the new normal, said Alex Boucher, principal and total health management leader at Mercer Canada, during a webinar on Friday. A second and possibly further waves of the pandemic are expected, so employers will need to have plans in place for situations where employees feel ill or have virus-like symptoms, he said. These include addressing questions around how long employees should isolate before it’s safe to return to work, whether asymptomatic employees who’ve come into contact with a coronavirus case should isolate and how long employees are paid or unpaid on virus-related sick leaves. Employers may also be required to consider how to handle an employee who lives with a frontline health-care worker and has the potential to be repeatedly exposed to the virus. Read: A refresher on Canada’s leave policies as coronavirus escalates Older employees and those with chronic conditions may be particularly concerned about returning to work, noted Boucher, as well as staffers caring for children or an elderly or at-risk family member. “If you don’t have an accommodation practice with clear steps...

Kelsey Rolfe | May 11, 2020 The union representing 400 Dominion Diamond Mines employees is attempting to guarantee that the company honours its multi-million dollar pension shortfall as it goes through a court-ordered creditor protection process. If the shortfall isn’t prioritized, the Union of Northern Workers said it’s concerned that active members and pensioners would all face reduced pensions. “How much that would affect those pensioners and the current participants is not known, and would have to go through the court process to wind up and assign those assets,” says union president Todd Parsons. Read: Will new changes to federal insolvency laws protect retirees? He said the union is attending all of Dominion Diamond’s court hearings to advocate for its members. “The union will take the position [that] the pension earnings should be a priority before creditors are considered, in the event that this company is unable to succeed.” According to its most recent valuation, Dominion Diamond’s defined benefit pension plan had $90.3 million in assets and a $99.5-million windup liability as of Jan. 1, 2019, leaving the company with a roughly $9-million shortfall. However, according to a sworn affidavit by Kristal Kaye, Dominion Diamond’s chief financial officer, the deficit had risen to $20.3 million as of...

Quebec-based La Capitale Insurance and Financial Services has announced that it is offering free COVID-19 hospitalization coverage for critical illness insurance policyholders and their loved ones. “La Capitale is listening to what its members need, and we believe that this type of coverage can help reduce the financial stress when a family member is hospitalized,” said Jean St-Gelais, Chairman of the Board and CEO of the firm. The free coverage is being offered to clients with individual critical illness insurance, not those who acquired CI insurance through their employer. Under the complementary coverage, the insured, their spouse, and children under age 18 who reside at the same address as the insured are entitled to a lump-sum amount of $2,000 for hospitalization expenses related to the novel coronavirus. The benefit is being automatically added to individual CI insurance contracts currently in effect. La Capitale clients who have individual CI coverage do not need to contact the company to avail of the free coverage, which will be available until July 31, 2020. La Capitale’s complimentary coverage for individual CI policyholders comes as other carriers provide support through reduced premiums on certain group benefits and provide access to free mental-health services. “Our mission...

Staff | May 8, 2020 The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board are participating in a $390-million series-D round of financing for Grail Inc., a U.S. health-care company focused on cancer testing. The financing is aimed at boosting the company’s balance sheet to support its continued development, as well as the commercialization of its cancer testing method. Read: CPPIB invests in cancer drug royalties, food manufacturing “GRAIL is making significant progress with our blood-based, multi-cancer early detection test,” said Hans Bishop, chief executive officer at Grail, in a press release. “Nearly 80 per cent of cancer deaths result from cancers for which there is no screening test today and Grail’s mission is to change that through the early detection and localization of more than 50 cancers.” Read the full article at BenefitsCanada.com

Staff | May 8, 2020 MindBeacon Group is partnering with the Ontario government to make its online mental-health service available free of charge for everyone in the province. Beacon is a digital platform that guides individuals through a personalized course of cognitive behavioural therapy. Users complete the therapy with a registered health professional providing one-to-one guidance through digital messaging to help them build coping and resiliency skills over the course of several weeks. Read: MindBeacon launches digital mental-health programs to help Canadians with coronavirus-related stress “In the best of times, our Beacon digital mental-health service helps overcome the barriers of stigma, affordability and accessibility,” said Sam Duboc, chair and chief executive officer of MindBeacon Group, in a press release. “The COVID-19 pandemic has further demonstrated how vital a role this service can play in supporting our health system, our economy and our people.” Read the full article at BenefitsCanada.com

Martha Porado | May 8, 2020 As earnings season ramps up, broad market consensus is seeking the middle way, suggesting the likelihood of a U-shaped recovery, as opposed to a roaring revamp or a genuine depression. “I think what the market consensus is expecting is reasonable,” says David Souccar, portfolio manager for international equities at Vontobel Asset Management’s quality growth boutique. But with a measured base-case scenario, shocks to market expectations about how, and how well, the economy will return to normal could still have a material impact on stocks, he says. Institutional investors are watching with gritted teeth after many saw negative first quarter portfolio returns following years of steady gains. Read: Canadian DB plans return negative 7.1% in first quarter “If the markets start to see that the opening of the economy, if the consumer is hesitating to come back and they start to agree that things could take longer than 2020, I think there could be more downside. If they find the consumer is coming back faster, the economy is opening up faster, and by the fourth quarter of 2020 we could be back to where we were in the fourth quarter of 2019 — there could be upside.” Sectors are...

Kelsey Rolfe | May 8, 2020 Half of Canadian employees said their mental health has been negatively impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey by Teladoc Health Inc. The survey, which polled more than 1,500 Canadian workers, found women (57 per cent) were more likely to report a harmful impact on their mental health than men (43 per cent). More than half (52 per cent) of respondents between the ages of 18 to 34 felt their mental health had taken a hit. In comparison, respondents over the age of 65 — notably those most at risk of the virus — experienced the lowest mental-health impact, with just 37 per cent saying their mental health had worsened. David Sides, chief operating officer at Teledoc, says the high number of people experiencing negative effects doesn’t come as a surprise. “The burden that’s been placed on everyone, [with] working at home, childcare, you might be homeschooling — I can see why that’s the case.” Read: Webinar: Coronavirus and workplace mental health The survey also found an increasing number of Canadians are open to remote mental health-care solutions. Two-thirds (62 per cent) of respondents said they’re open to using virtual mental-health care, compared to 40 per cent...

Manulife and Sun Life have announced divergent Q1 results as unfavourable market conditions and COVID-19-related challenges weigh on insurers globally. On Tuesday, Sun Life reported a 7.4% rise in underlying earnings to $770 million, or $1.31 a share. That topped an average estimate of $1.11 given by 14 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Most of the company’s earnings for the period came before business shutdowns that were enacted in March. It reported an increase in underlying profit propelled by higher investing activity n Canada and the U.S. as well as an earnings increase in Asia. Notably, the company reported a 27% jump in underlying profit in its Asia business, compared with 8% and 7% in the U.S. and Canada, respectively. In an interview with Reuters after the company’s earnings report, Sun Life CEO Dean Connor said Canada’s second-largest life insurer is “doing more in terms of insurance and wealth” in China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam, though ongoing lockdowns in Southeast Asia and India could set the stage for a difficult second quarter. A statement from the company said that mortality and morbidity claims stemming from COVID-19 have represented less than 5% of its monthly average for mortality and disability claims paid,...