Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Staff | November 19, 2019 Nearly half (44 per cent) of Canadian workplaces now have formal policies on vaping at work, according to a new survey by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans. The new policies comes in the wake of the ballooning number of vapers globally; in 2018, 14 million people vaped, compared to seven million in 2011. Julie Stich, vice-president of content at the IFEBP, said employers’ vaping policies tend to align with existing smoking policies. “If a workplace doesn’t fall under the federal or provincial law, it’s up to the employer to decide whether to ban vaping at work, taking into consideration how e-cigarette use fits into the company’s culture and goals,” he said in a press released. “The evolving investigation into the outbreak of lung injuries due to vaping is also causing employers to look at this issue from a safety and well-being perspective.” Read: Should non-smokers get extra vacation time? In Canada, workplace smoking and vaping policies vary. More than half (54 per cent) of employers limit smoking to designated outdoor areas, while nearly a quarter (23 per cent) permit smoking outside of the building. Just 16 per cent prohibit smoking on the entire campus including parking and outdoor areas. Only four...

Dresden, ON (Nov. 18, 2019) – North Kent Mutual Insurance Company is pleased to announce it has launched an Online Quoting Solution (OQS) for consumers and their agents.  The solution, https://onlinequote.nkminsurance.com, provides secure web-based access through their current website, leveraging the software solutions provided by Cognition+, their longstanding information systems partner. OQS provides a quick consumer quote for personal lines automobile, homeowners, condo and tenant packages. It further provides a more detailed quoting tool for their agents so they may further assist clients on more complex requests.  An easy to use interface keeps the consumer anonymous until such time as they wish to proceed with their agent of choice.  The consumer can also download or email themselves a copy of the quote and arrange for initial contact with their sales representative. “We had two main objectives with this project,” said Henry Miller, President & CEO of North Kent Mutual Insurance Company. “First, we wanted to make sure that the consumer experience was easy to use and accurate as well as being able to be accessible on any device. Second, we wanted to give our sales distribution channel (agents) a powerful tool to assist them when working with clients on pricing. ...

 LINCOLN, Nebraska, (November 18, 2019) – Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. will now offer a new whole life insurance product, Ameritas Access Whole Life (Access WL). This product will replace Keystone Foundation Whole Life, an industry leader for short-term cash value that does not currently use the 2017 mortality tables. The product will be available Dec. 9. Access WL offers higher guaranteed cash values early in the policy and strong current cash values over the long term. It will be the first whole life insurance product by Ameritas to offer a non-direct variable loan option; dividends paid are not impacted by the presence of a variable loan. Other key features include: More flexible funding range — maximum funding up to 200% of the scheduled Flexible Paid-Up Rider premium without additional underwriting. Higher premium limits on the Flexible Paid-Up Rider. Policies are paid up by the later of age 75 or 25 years. The product also includes other features for more comprehensive coverage for the customer. The Level Term Rider is available for 10-, 15-, 20- and 30-year periods and provides clients more flexibility when using the Flexible Paid-Up Rider to build cash value. In addition, the product includes the Care4Life Accelerated...

What working Canadians can do now to ensure a financially secure future Sun Life survey finds nearly half (47%) of working Canadians believe there is a serious risk they could outlive their retirement savings 44% of working Canadians expect to be employed full-time at the age of 66[1] Nearly one quarter (23%) of Canadian retirees describe their lifestyle as ‘frugal’ Toronto, ON (Nov. 19, 2019) – Getting ready for retirement is a real concern for Canadians – financial woes are to blame. According to the 2019 Sun Life Barometer, nearly half (47%) of working Canadians believe there is a serious risk they could outlive their retirement savings. This is all too common for many retirees with nearly a quarter (23%) describing their lifestyle as ‘frugal’. Following a strict budget and refraining from spending money on non-essential items, 72% say their retirement is not what they were expecting. “We have a unique perspective on how Canadians are thinking and feeling when it comes to saving for the future. For most Canadians, managing day-to-day finances is hard enough, let alone worrying about planning and saving for the future,” said Jacques Goulet, President, Sun Life Canada. “Sitting down with a financial advisor and...

The Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation is aiming to give Canada’s commercial real estate a safe harbour ahead of a growing storm with a new report by Natalia Moudrak and Dr. Blair Feltmate Report outlines 20 measures that can be implemented by commercial real estate owners and managers to enhance flood-resilience of existing office towers, thereby reducing the potential for property damage, business disruptions and loss of life Waterloo, ON (Nov. 19, 2019) – As the commercial real estate industry strives to minimize its exposure to flood risk, a new comprehensive report from the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation provides a list of flood-resilience measures that can be implemented by commercial real estate owners and managers to enhance flood resilience and to reduce the potential for property damage, business disruptions, and flood-related injury or loss of life stemming from extreme rain events. Flooding is the costliest natural disaster affecting Canadians and is the lead driver in rising catastrophic insurable losses for the property and casualty insurance sector in Canada. From 2009 to 2018, insured losses averaged $1.8 billion annually, compared to $405 million annually from 1983 to 2008. “The commercial real estate sector has fallen victim to the ravages of...

Staff | November 19, 2019 The Canada Pension Plan isn’t taking sufficient action to address climate change, according to a new report by the Corporate Mapping Project and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Specifically, the report said the CPPIB isn’t investing with the goal of limiting the global rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius. “Within its public equities portfolio, the CPPIB has over $4 billion invested in the top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel reserve holders,” said James Rowe, associate professor in the University of Victoria’s School of Environmental Studies and a co-investigator with the Corporate Mapping Project, in a press release. “To stay within 1.5 degrees, these companies can extract only 71 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, yet the companies the CPPIB is invested in have 281 billion tonnes in reserve, meaning they have almost four times the carbon reserves that can be sold and ultimately burned to stay within 1.5 degrees.” Read: CPPIB sustainability report shows increased investments in renewable energy The report argued the continued profitability of some of the companies in which the CPPIB invests depends on their overshooting appropriate carbon budgets. It also suggested the CPPIB’s disclosure efforts are insufficient, in terms of exactly how it integrates environmental, social and governance...

Companies that shift from AI experimentation to execution achieve lasting ROI and competitive agility New York, NY (Oct. 3, 2019) – Three-quarters of C-level executives believe if they don’t move beyond experimentation to aggressively deploy artificial intelligence (AI) across their organizations they risk going out of business by 2025, according to a newly released study from Accenture. The report, titled AI: Built to Scale and produced by Accenture Strategy and Accenture Applied Intelligence, is based on a global survey of 1,500 C-level executives across 16 industries designed to understand how companies are implementing AI across their organizations. The research found 84% of C-level executives believe they won’t achieve their business strategy without scaling AI, yet only 16% have made the shift from mere experimentation to creating an organization powered by robust AI capabilities. As a result, this small group of top performers is achieving nearly three times the return from AI investments as their lower-performing counterparts. The report reveals the secret to success for these top performers centers around three key elements: a strong data foundation; multiple dedicated AI teams; and a C-suite-led commitment to strategic, organization-wide AI deployment. These companies demonstrate their deep commitment by scaling AI at a...

BCAA Winter Driving Survey Burnaby, BC (Nov. 13, 2019) – BCAA’s newly released Winter Driving Survey shows that while a large percentage of British Columbians are nervous about driving in ice and snow, many are still not taking steps to prepare their vehicles for winter. The BCAA survey, conducted by Insights West, reveals 43 per cent of drivers admit to being nervous behind the wheel when bad weather hits. Yet 32 per cent take a ‘wait and see’ approach to readying their vehicles for winter, and a further 21 per cent wait until the last minute or have no plans to prepare their vehicles for winter at all. Not unexpectedly, the survey shows that drivers are least prepared in typically less snowy parts of the province, such as Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island. However, BCAA Automotive Manager Josh Smythe urges drivers not to stick their heads in the sand, or should we say in the snow, when it comes to the reality of winter, no matter where they live. “Chances are, no matter where you are in the province, at some point you’re going to hit bad weather,” he says. He adds that it’s not just snow; but darkness, fog,...

Allianz and Microsoft to reimagine the insurance industry experience with Azure to streamline insurance processes Microsoft will partner with Syncier, the B2B2X insurtech founded by Allianz, to offer customized insurance platform solutions and related services Munich, Germany (Nov. 14, 2019) – Allianz SE and Microsoft Corp. have announced a strategic partnership focused on digitally transforming the insurance industry, making the insurance process easier while creating a better experience for insurance companies and their customers. Through the strategic partnership, Allianz will move core pieces of its global insurance platform, Allianz Business System (ABS), to Microsoft’s Azure cloud and will open-source parts of the solution’s core to improve and expand capabilities. Syncier will offer a configurable version of the solution called ABS Enterprise Edition to insurance providers as a service, allowing them to benefit from one of the most advanced and comprehensive insurance platforms in the industry, reducing costs and centralizing their insurance portfolio management. This will increase efficiencies across all lines of insurance business, resulting in better experiences through tailored customer service and simplified product offerings. “Teaming up with Microsoft and leveraging Azure’s secure and trusted cloud platform will support us in digitalizing the insurance industry,” said Christof Mascher, COO and...

New Data-as-a-Service offering provides automated decisioning, data enrichment, and real-time claims monitoring Santa Barbara, CA (Nov. 12, 2019) — Carpe Data, a provider of innovative emerging and alternative data products for the insurance industry, is pleased to announce the immediate availability of ClaimsX, Carpe Data’s new Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) claims decisioning platform. “The core premise of Carpe Data is to build data products to unlock operational efficiency and drive automation,” said Max Drucker, CEO for Carpe Data. “ClaimsX pulls all the pieces of the claims process together by providing automated decisioning, data enrichment, and monitoring throughout the entire claims lifecycle, from FNOL to resolution.” Through sophisticated data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI), Carpe Data’s ClaimsX platform refines complex social, web, and publicly available data from previously unstructured sources to support automated claims decisioning and provide monitoring capabilities for property and casualty (P&C) insurers, enabling rapid resolution of low risk claims and reduction of end-to-end cycle times. ClaimsX delivers powerful data enrichment by providing access to actionable information, like claimant email and phone intelligence, employment and web presence, and vehicle information, including sales and aftermarket add-ons. Additionally, ClaimsX allows insurers to follow injury claims throughout the entire lifecycle to confirm loss facts...