Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

New survey by Pacific Prime Hong Kong (Oct. 14, 2019) – A global study of 100 countries conducted by insurance brokerage Pacific Prime found that 97 countries witnessed increases in average international health insurance premiums for both individuals and families. Of the 100 countries, the average international health insurance premiums for individuals ranged from USD $8,887 in the US to USD $2,728 in Thailand. Meanwhile, the average international health insurance premiums for families ranged from USD $26,883 in the US to USD $10,842 in Thailand. The following are the key findings of Pacific Prime’s 2019 Cost of International Health Insurance For Individuals and Families report: Top of the list: The US remains the country with the most expensive health insurance premiums. This is largely a result of the country’s notoriously high cost of healthcare. Region with the most expensive premiums: The Americas remain the most dominant region in the top 20 most expensive countries list. The region was able to pack up to 15 countries into the list, which includes 29 countries due to many having the same average premium. Big jumps in premium rankings: Canada saw average health insurance premiums inflate by 7% for individuals and 5% for families,...

Hubio now offers Regulatory-Reporting-as-a-Service Toronto, ON (Oct. 10, 2019) – Hubio Technology, a provider of Property and Casualty (P&C) insurance solutions that enable frictionless transactions, is pleased to announce the launch of regul8 v10, the next generation of its industry-leading regulatory and statistical reporting platform. New architecture: regul8 has been rearchitected to leverage container technology to simplify the configuration and management of its infrastructure and enable maximum flexibility in deploying on cloud or on-premise.  The platform now also offers robust monitoring capabilities and allows for easier scaling, especially on cloud infrastructure.  Existing regul8 customers will benefit from a conversion accelerator to ensure rapid migration of their code. Regulatory-Reporting-as-a-Service: the new architecture now enables new support models to lower the TCO and improve spend predictability for insurance carriers.  Regulatory submission management is now also offered as a full Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) solution, with cloud deployments. Data and analytics: regul8 now offers built-in dashboards to enable better tracking of metrics, reconciliation and operational statistics.  A new error analytics module enables insurance companies to extend their data governance capabilities and take corrective actions relating to data quality. Error correction: error correction has always been a key feature of regul8 and it has...

Hartford Courant (CT) A federal court judge has ruled that an insurance company doesn’t have to pay an East Haddam man the $257,000 insurance policy belonging to his murdered wife even though no one has been charged in her 2018 death. Judge Victor Bolden recently ordered the Zurich American Life Insurance Company to place Sandra Kalosky’s insurance benefit into an escrow account rather than pay it to her husband Robert Kalosky. Bolden said since the March 2018 homicide is unsolved the insurance company is in an untenable position. “If Zurich paid the benefits to Mr. Kalosky, and then Mr. Kalosky was then found to be disqualified, Zurich may face a claim from Ms. Kalosky’s step-son or sisters,” Bolden wrote. “On the other hand if Zurich paid the benefits to Ms. Kalosky’s step-son or sisters, and the murder subsequently was solved in a manner that made it more likely then not Mr. Kalosky wasn’t the murderer, Zurich would face a claim from Mr. Kalosky.” Sandra Kalosky, 56, was found beaten to death in her home on North Moodus Road on March 23, 2018. State police have said little about her death other than that she died of blunt trauma to the...

BOSTON — The American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) today elected its chairman, officers and board of directors at the 2019 ACLI Annual Conference. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, Gen. John Kelly, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin, and ACLI President and CEO Susan Neely are among featured speakers at the event. ACLI’s member companies serve the financial and retirement needs of 90 million American families. The chairman and board of directors lead the association and develop policy solutions that empower all Americans with the information and tools they need to succeed in their financial futures. Principal Financial Group President & CEO Dan Houston was elected ACLI chairman for the next year. He succeeds JoAnn Martin, CEO of Ameritas Mutual Holding Company, who will serve as ACLI immediate past chair in 2020. “Dan is a visionary leader and a passionate advocate for solutions that help families address their financial and retirement security needs,” said Neely. “Under his leadership, ACLI will advance the industry’s critical mission to help Americans build a financial safety net that protects them through all stages of life.” ACLI also selected Ted Mathas, chairman & CEO of New York Life, as chairman-elect. He will become ACLI chairman in...

St. Charles County Journal (MO) When it comes to feelings about finances, working Americans are practically split down the middle, according to a recent study. Fifty-five percent of employed Americans feel they are on the right track to achieving financial well-being, while the other 45 percent feel they are not headed in the right direction, according to the recent Lincoln Financial Group Measuring Optimism, Outlook and Direction (M.O.O.D.) of America study. So what are those individuals on the right track doing so well? The study found five key factors – behaviors and influencers – in their lives that correlate to positive feelings about money. “Right trackers” differ from their counterparts who are not on the right track because: • They are more likely to have created formal financial plans – more than 70 percent of them, in fact. • They are forward-looking in general, with nearly 100 percent saying they are focused on the future. Also, 90 percent of those in the “right track” camp say they feel in control of their lives. • They exercise more. Those with positive feelings about money tend to be active. About 80 percent of this group exercises at least once a week and typically more often....

Life insurance sales are stagnant, but profits are still being made. On Feb. 1, 2020, New York will apply Regulation 187 to all life insurance sales in the state. It remains to be seen whether carriers and producers are ready for it. The biggest challenge is the lack of a suitability standard for life insurance, said Cailie Currin, CEO of Currin Compliance Services. “There at least was already a general understanding of what suitability means on the annuity side and of what a good process looks like and that gave them a considerable head start when it came to applying this regulation,” said Currin, speaking during a LIMRA webinar. Regulation 187 was finalized in 2018 and took effect Aug. 1 of this year for annuities. It sets a best-interest standard for annuity and life insurance sales. It also mandates enhanced disclosure and documentation, required of the producer and insurance carrier, as well as training programs. ‘So Much To Do’ Currin is not sure an added six months is enough time for everyone to establish processes for selling life insurance under the new rules. “There’s so much to do and only a little bit more time and I think life companies...

Company demonstrates significant broker demand for premium finance integration with Applied Epic Mississauga, ON (Oct. 11, 2019) – Applied Systems is pleased to announce that FIRST Insurance Funding of Canada (FIRST Canada), the industry leader in insurance payment solutions, has become a Platinum Integration Partner. FIRST Canada’s elevation within the Applied Partner Program reflects the significant broker adoption of its premium finance integration with Applied Epic®. FIRST Canada’s certified integration enables Applied Epic users to provide broker-specific premium finance plans along with policy proposal, directly within the management system. Applied Systems and FIRST Canada jointly deliver a broker-centric workflow that improves operational efficiency and reduces administrative costs, while enhancing the client experience. “Now brokers can provide payment plans at the point of sale – and receive real-time updates,” said Stuart Bruce, CEO, FIRST Canada. “We’re honoured to be Applied’s Platinum Integration Partner and together, enable new connectivity and automation for brokers and their clients from within Applied Epic.” The Applied Partner Program is a technology and industry partnership program focused on increasing the availability of best-in-class software and enhancing automation and connectivity across the independent insurance distribution channel. The Applied Partner Program is open to leading technology providers and organizations...

New York, NY (Oct. 9, 2019) – Retail is at an inflection point with consumer privacy, and nearly half of consumers say they feel they have lost control of their data, according to the results of Deloitte’s new U.S. Consumer Data Privacy study. Key takeaways from the survey include: Today, more than ever, consumers are at a greater risk for a data breach; 1 in 3 Americans has been exposed to a data compromise. Nearly half of U.S. consumers (47%) feel they have little to no control of their personal data. The vast majority (86%) of consumers believe they should be able to opt-out of the sale of their data. Consumers are willing to share their personal information in return for benefits to them, but retailers should walk a fine line not to betray consumers’ trust. Why this matters for retailers and consumer facing companies Deloitte’s “U.S. Consumer Data Privacy” study surveyed 2,000 consumers to gain insights into their concerns about data privacy and their expectations for retailers to protect it. Deloitte also surveyed 201 retail executives on data privacy to understand how retailers differentiate across a series of privacy tenets. Nearly 3 in 4 consumers (71%) are willing to...

Staff | October 11, 2019 Montreal-based virtual health-care services platform Dialogue Technologies Inc. is launching the second phase of its stress management and well-being program. Available to Canadian employers, the program aims to ensure plan members have access to doctors, nurses, medical specialists, psychologists, psychotherapists and social workers. These specialists “[work] together as a team to offer a personalized treatment plan and provide the right resource at the right time in response to the patients’ needs,” noted a press release. Read: Majority of Canadians suffering from a mental-health issue, sleeping disorder: survey “More and more employers want to offer better and easy-to-access support to prevent and treat mental illness,” said Anna Chif, co-founder and chief strategy and product officer at Dialogue. “We are proud to have developed a program with outstanding results specifically tailored to respond to the workplace mental-health needs.” In its first phase, the program was made available to plan members through SSQ Life Insurance Co. Inc. and other insurers. Up to 20 per cent of patients who had access used it to assess their risk of suffering from high stress levels, anxiety or depression, noted the press release. The second phase was informed by thousands of mental-health consultations undertaken in the first phase. Read:...

Gartner 2019 Hype Cycle for Blockchain Technologies Stamford, CT (Oct. 8, 2019) – The Gartner Inc. 2019 Hype Cycle for Blockchain Technologies shows that blockchain is sliding into the Trough of Disillusionment. The market will begin to climb out of this Trough by 2021, as technology advances and pragmatic use cases uniquely supported by blockchain continue to roll out. The Trough of Disillusionment highlights technologies and markets where interest has waned as experiments and implementations fail to deliver (see Figure 1, below). “Blockchain technologies have not yet lived up to the hype and most enterprise blockchain projects are stuck in experimentation mode,” said Avivah Litan, distinguished analyst and research vice president at Gartner. “Blockchain is not yet enabling a digital business revolution across business ecosystems and may not until at least 2028, when Gartner expects blockchain to become fully scalable technically and operationally.” Figure 1: Hype Cycle for Blockchain Technologies, 2019 For blockchain to become mainstream, Gartner said users shouldn’t have to worry about picking the right platform, the right smart contract language, the right system interfaces, and the right consensus algorithms. Additionally, concerns about how users will interoperate with partners that use different blockchain platforms for their projects must...