Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Staff | October 30, 2019 Canada’s defined benefit pension plans posted a median return of 1.6 per cent in 2019’s third quarter, according to Northern Trust Canada’s pension universe. “Despite a backdrop of persistent volatility, fear and uncertainty, Canadian pension plans displayed resilience in the third quarter,” said Arti Sharma, president and chief executive officer of Northern Trust Canada, in a press release. “Although returns moderated slightly from the previous two quarters, year-to-date the median pension plan remains in positive territory positioned at a healthy 11.3 percent.” During the quarter, markets felt the tumultuous effects of U.S.-China trade negotiation developments, Brexit, escalating tensions between the U.S., Iran and Saudi Arabia, civil unrest in Hong Kong, the crash of Argentina’s Merval equity index and a temporary inversion of the U.S. yield curve. However, North American stock markets ended the quarter with solid gains, noted Northern Trust. Read: Pooled pension fund managers see modest gains for Q3 2019 Canadian equities, as measured by the S&P/TSX composite index, generated a 2.5 per cent return, with nine of 11 sectors concluding in positive territory, with utilities and real estate  turning out the strongest gains. U.S. equities, measured by the S&P 500 index, posted a three per cent return, off...

Cambridge, MA (Oct. 28, 2019) – EverQuote, Inc., a leading online marketplace for insurance shopping in the U.S., is pleased to announce a partnership with Bold Penguin on the launch of its commercial lines marketplace. Bold Penguin is an insuretech innovator that increases speed-to-bind for commercial insurance through platforms that enhance connections between customers, agents, and carriers – reducing friction in the buying process. EverQuote will leverage Bold Penguin’s terminal and exchange infrastructure to rapidly accelerate its path to market while growing the market opportunity for online commercial insurance shoppers and providers. “We admire the technology and data platform that Bold Penguin has built to solve the biggest challenge in commercial lines insurance distribution today. We have great respect for Ilya, Ben and their team, and believe that working together we will have a larger impact on the commercial insurance landscape,” said Seth Birnbaum, CEO of EverQuote. EverQuote and Bold Penguin’s partnership will benefit from a shared sense of vision to make insurance simpler and more efficient, ultimately getting more people the coverage they need. The partnership will also take advantage of unique assets and areas of expertise of the two companies. “Bold Penguin was designed to be an enablement...

Aon’s latest Global Insurance Market Opportunities release By Emma Karhan, Kelly Superczynski, and Matt Wyckhouse The Internet of Things (IoT) promises to pioneer new ways for businesses to create value and organizations of all types are already benefiting from the new functionality and efficiency gains. However, the constant connectivity and data sharing through the anticipated 20.4 billion connected devices by 2020 (Gartner) also invites new opportunities to compromise security. Increasingly, connected devices for both personal and business use ushers in vulnerabilities that cyber-attackers can exploit. In fact, IoT devices are notoriously easy to infiltrate. NETSCOUT estimates that IoT devices are, on average, likely to be compromised within five minutes of connectivity to the Internet. The rise of IoT devices has introduced an overlap of the physical and digital worlds, increasing dependence upon devices for critical business operations like physical security, building automation, energy management, industrial processes and transportation. In the IoT era, physical damage – like destroying a data center, shutting down a machine in a production facility or crashing a vehicle – is now possible from digital attacks. These new and more prevalent IoT cyber risks present an opportunity for insurers to support organizations by raising awareness of risk...

SSQ positioning itself as leader in digital services with latest updates and improvements Toronto, ON (Oct. 29, 2019) – SSQ Insurance proudly unveils the latest versions of its Customer Centre and mobile app interface, reiterating its desire to position itself as a leader in digital services among Canadian insurance companies. In addition to auto and home insurance, SSQ Insurance plan members will now be able to access their group insurance in a safe, simple and user-friendly environment. The Customer Centre, which was already an online hub for general insurance, will now include group insurance. With simplified and single authentication, SSQ Insurance customers will be able to quickly and easily consult their general and group coverage in one place. The Customer Centre will also offer special group insurance features such as direct deposit, coverage eligibility, online claims and personal information self-service. These features, along with facial and fingerprint recognition, were added to the SSQ Insurance mobile app. A virtual assistant is also available to help users navigate the application. “By integrating group insurance services into its Customer Centre, SSQ Insurance is pursuing its mission of being a customer-centric company and shows once more how its customers are at the core of...

P&C insurers in the U.S. could save an estimated US$22-43 million by moving away from cheques to electronic payment methods for claim disbursements, a new Aite Group report reveals Boston, MA (Oct. 30, 2019) – Once P&C insurance carriers have ensured that any claim payout is not greater than necessary, the fund handover is anticlimactic, with most carriers either sending physical cheques or empowering local adjusters to cut cheques and deliver them to payees. Aite Group’s latest report, Business-to-Consumer Disbursements in the U.S.: The P&C Insurer Opportunity, examines evidence that suggests that U.S. consumers would be more than amenable to receiving claim disbursements through means other than a paper cheque. “While traditional payment methods will persist in the economy for some time to come, providing recipients with faster and more convenient digital payment methods improves the overall customer experience,” explains Jay Sarzen, senior analyst at Aite Group. “To that end, payers are beginning to adopt card-based instant and alias-based payment methods,” he adds. This Impact Report digs into data that supports the contention that P&C carriers can employ alternatives to traditional claim payment disbursement options and that consumers can accept them. It is based on a Q2 2018 Aite Group...

Weak executive sponsorship poses biggest challenge to data governance: joint report by Novarica and IDMA Boston, MA (Oct. 29, 2019) – Carriers face various hurdles to achieve effective data governance, including weak executive sponsorship, lack of business unit support, and technology challenges. Data governance, however, is essential in efficiently using data to understand performance, generate insights, and remain in compliance with data privacy regulations. In its latest report, Data Governance: Current State, Objectives, and Challenges, research and advisory firm Novarica and nonprofit professional association Insurance Data Management Association (IDMA) present insights from a study of 61 carriers with various types of data organizations. “A major challenge for many carriers is obtaining organizational support for their data governance initiatives,” said Eric Weisburg, Vice President of Research and Consulting at Novarica and co-author of the new report. “Measuring the performance of data governance objectives, publishing a scorecard, and taking a use-case-driven approach that correlates business value to data governance can be helpful in this regard.” “Data governance will make or break an organization, and the insurance environment is no exception. Insurance companies must be quick to respond to trends and challenges in our industry if they wish to not only remain competitive...

Staff | October 30, 2019 Canadian institutional investors want their portfolio companies to reduce their reliance on single-use plastics, according to a new opinion survey by the Responsible Investment Association. The majority (81 per cent) of respondents said they believe it’s important for their portfolio companies to reduce plastic waste, while 75 per cent said they’d like to invest in solutions to address the issue. More than half (58 per cent) of investors also said companies will incur a reputational hit if they continue to rely on single-use plastic, while 70 per cent said companies that reduce the use of plastic will have better long-term investments. Read: Investment manager releases guide to ending plastic pollution in oceans In a broader sense, 72 per cent of respondents expressed an interest in responsible investing, up from 60 per cent in the 2018 survey. However, knowledge of responsible investing continues to lag. About three-quarters (72 per cent) of investors said they know little or nothing about it, which represents some improvement from the 81 per cent that said the same in 2018. The majority (79 per cent) of investors have expressed interest in the concept, saying they’d like their financial services provider to explain responsible investment options to them....

Cassandra Williamson-Hopp | October 30, 2019 With a wellness strategy focused on complete employee health, Nav Canada was recognized with the Sanofi Canada Wellness Pioneer Award at Benefits Canada’s Workplace Benefits Awards in Toronto on Oct. 17. The award is open to Canadian plan sponsors that have provided plan members with a wellness program for at least five years. It acknowledges an organization that’s developed innovative and effective health or wellness programs, demonstrating improved health outcomes for employees. “I think [Nav Canada was nominated] because of all the things we’ve done in the wellness space, focusing on mental health and our peer programs in particular,” says Lyne Wilson, the organization’s assistant vice-president of talent management. Read: Who are the winners of the 2019 Workplace Benefits Awards? The air navigation services provider has more than 5,000 employees. Its air traffic controllers are in safety-sensitive positions, requiring an intense, two-year training period, but once they’re on-boarded, most employees stay with the organization for their whole careers. Therefore, investing in employee health made good sense from a business perspective, noted the award entry. The organization’s peer support program includes critical incident stress management and chemical dependency education/rehabilitation programs — both of which have been in place for about 25 years. Further, it introduced...

Targeted News Service (Press Releases) LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Attorney for Central District of California, Nick Hanna, issued the following news release: A Hawthorne man was found guilty by a jury today of 14 federal felonies for intentionally driving his family off a wharf and into the water at the Port of Los Angeles in a scheme to collect money on insurance policies he had taken out on their lives. Ali F. Elmezayen, 45, was found guilty of four counts of mail fraud, four counts of wire fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, and five counts of money laundering. “Dissatisfied with his financial and family situation, Mr. Elmezayen fraudulently purchased millions of dollars in insurance on his common-law wife and disabled young sons, and then drove them off a pier in order to cash in,” said United States Attorney Nick Hanna. “These two boys deserved a loving father; instead they got a man who put his greed and self-interest above their lives.” “A jury found that Mr. Elmezayen intentionally put his children in a deadly situation from which they could not escape,” said Paul Delacourt, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “Today’s...

As the co-president of Canada Protection Plan, a leader in no-medical and simplified life insurance, Michael Aziz is a passionate advocate of simplicity. So it should be no surprise that two of the company’s life insurance plans have been updated for straightforward reasons. On Monday, Canada Protection Plan announced that it is increasing coverage under its newest product, the Express Elite Term Life plan, from $500,000 to $750,000. A no-medical life insurance product, the plan is available to clients between 18 and 60 years of age; applications can be filed over the phone or through an advisor, including an advisor-provided online platform, and it can be approved in days with clients receiving coverage promptly. “This is a product for healthy people,” Aziz explained to Life and Health Professional. “We’ve realized that $500,000 is a good face amount for most people. But for young people who are busy and don’t have time for medical exams, but still want more coverage to protect their needs, we could go up to $750,000 and cover more customers.” As a specific example, he noted that a young couple buying a condo in Toronto could carry a mortgage of up to $789,000; for those buying a house...