Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Ontario-based benefits and retirement consulting firm Hub’s latest acquisition Chicago, IL (Oct. 4, 2019) – Hub International Limited (Hub), a leading global insurance brokerage, announced today that it has acquired ProCorp Financial Inc. (ProCorp Financial). Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Based in Ottawa, Ontario, ProCorp Financial is a boutique benefits and retirement consulting firm, specializing in estate planning, group benefits, life insurance, critical illness insurance, disability insurance and others. “We are thrilled to welcome Hugh and the ProCorp Financial team to Hub,” said Gregory Belton, Executive Chairman of Hub International Ontario Limited (Hub Ontario). “ProCorp Financial has a comprehensive array of product offerings that are well aligned to further expand our employee benefits solutions in Canada.” Hugh Doyle, President of ProCorp Financial, will join Hub Ontario and report to Matt Lievers, President of Employee Benefits & Retirement, Hub Ontario. The move continues to reinforce Hub’s ongoing Canadian employee benefits growth and services strategy[1] to expand its best-in-class employee benefits and retirement solution to address the challenges clients are facing, including in retirement. “What I found most compelling about Hub is their continued growth and strategy to provide the highest quality of employee benefits and pension solution to clients,”...

Lacking key information about insured property makes the process of getting home insurance quotes more annoying and less accurate Toronto, ON (Oct. 1, 2019) – A recent home insurance survey conducted by LowestRates.ca found that the majority of Canadians don’t know key details about their homes, meaning when it comes time to get home insurance, their initial quote might not match the final price. This also means comparing prices to get the best rate is often time-consuming and a pain. The survey found that 59.24% of respondents do not know the replacement cost of their home — essentially, what it would cost to replace the structure they inhabit. Many homeowners mistake this as the price they paid for their home when they bought it or what they could sell their home for now. The survey also found that 30% of Canadians don’t know what year their property was built, 43% don’t know what the square footage of their property is when including the basement and one in four don’t know how close the nearest fire station is to their home. Knowing this information is crucial to getting an accurate home insurance quote. “These results are pretty surprising,” says LowestRates.ca’s Co-Founder...

Enhancing local projects to better protect Canadians from the effects of climate change​ Halifax, NS (Oct. 4, 2019) – Hurricane Dorian hit Atlantic Canada on September 7 causing over $105 million in insured damage, according to Catastrophe Indices and Quantification Inc. (CatIQ). Seventy per cent of this amount is for damage to personal property, 25% is for damage to commercial property and the remaining amount is for damage to automobiles. Insured damage* by Province: New Brunswick – $22.5 million Newfoundland & Labrador – $2.5 million Nova Scotia – $62.2 million Prince Edward Island – $17.5 million Quebec – $300,000 Grand Total: $105 million * Initial estimates Hurricane Dorian wreaked havoc from the Bahamas to Atlantic Canada in early September. The weather system travelled through Atlantic Canada from September 7 to 8, 2019,and the cleanup lasted much longer. Halifax, Moncton and much of Prince Edward Island suffered a large portion of the damage, though damage reports were widespread across Atlantic Canada. On September 7, Dorian became a post-tropical storm but maintained hurricane strength when it made landfall to the southwest of Halifax, with estimated sustained winds of 155 km/h. On the morning of September 8, the system hit the northeastern Gulf...

Alethea Spiridon | October 4, 2019 While employers want workplace cultures that make employees feel good and included, gauging and quantifying that experience can be difficult. Toronto-based company Receptiviti Inc. is aiming to help employers create and maintain “people-first” workplaces that make culture a priority, recognizing it’s a foundational part of organizational health and business performance. To do this, it’s analyzing language across contexts and over time; instead of focusing on how people say things, it’s focusing on what they say, particularly through emails. Read: Does artificial intelligence have a place in human resources? “If we can figure out how to measure these things, these intangibles, and what those differences are, we can actually start creating environments that we associate with great cultures, because we actually know what the constituents are at the end of the day, or what the ingredients are,” says Jonathan Kreindler, co-founder and chief executive officer at Receptiviti. The application is user-interface based and is integrated with Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft 365, Gmail, Slack or Skype — anywhere information flows in the organization. It generates daily reports of the data collected, but Kreindler recommends employers review the data weekly or monthly as opposed to a very granular, daily analysis. The findings can help employers become more self-aware of...

Staff | October 4, 2019 Two more organizations are joining the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology pension plan’s DBplus. The University of Saskatchewan and Federated Colleges Non-Academic Pension Plan, represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 1975, has joined the plan as part of its latest collective agreement. Effective Sept. 1, 2019, 1,300 plan members will join the CAAT plan on a go-forward basis. “The CAAT DBplus plan has proved to be a timely solution to the long-term financial sustainability challenge we were facing with our non-academic defined benefit pension plan,” said Cheryl Carver, associate vice-president of people and resources at the University of Saskatchewan, in a press release. Read: The Canadian Press and Postmedia join CAAT’s DBplus plan “DBplus ‘ticked all the boxes’ for us as an employer in terms of cost certainty for our institution while providing our employees with a competitive pension plan. The team at CAAT has been there every step of the way through the implementation process and we are looking forward to working with them for years to come.” Community Living Toronto also intends to merge its previous defined benefit pension plan into the CAAT’s DBplus plan, pending regulatory approval. Its 700 employees will be part of the the plan...

Cassandra Williamson-Hopp | October 4, 2019 For institutional investors looking at farmland, various strategies are available that span a range of asset classes, from real assets to private equity to venture capital, said Bernice Miedzinski, president of Starbridge Capital Ltd., during a webinar hosted by the Canadian Investment Review this week. Lower risk strategies include buying land and leasing it back to farmers, while higher risk strategies assume some operating risk. “You really have to, as an investor, dig more deeply to make sure you understand what is the strategy from a risk-return perspective,” said Miedzinski. Read: Where do Canada’s farms belong in institutional portfolios? Farmland will also fit into pension plans’ asset allocations in different ways, she noted. Some very large pension funds will include it in a separate natural resources bucket, while most small- and medium-sized pension funds will include it as part of a real assets bucket, together with real estate and infrastructure. “If you have a low-risk strategy where you’re getting some income every year, you have unlevered farmland, which could be part of a liability-driven investment strategy because it’s a great long duration asset,” said Miedzinski. Agriculture is a great portfolio diversifier because it has low or negative correlation with...

Toronto, ON (Oct. 4, 2019) – Thomson Reuters is pleased to announce that it has acquired FC Business Intelligence (FCBI), a global business-to-business events specialist. FCBI delivers high-end conferences and exhibitions to diverse sectors including energy, insurance, pharmaceuticals, transportation, travel, strategy and technology. Its offerings help senior business professionals stay at the forefront of change through insight sharing and networking with peers. The business will be rebranded Reuters Events and will be operated as part of the Reuters News division of Thomson Reuters. “This acquisition allows us to combine Reuters globally trusted brand, scale and editorial excellence with FCBI’s deep expertise in highly specialized events for professionals,” said Michael Friedenberg, president, Reuters. “As Reuters Events, they will help us to accelerate our growth and deliver on our mission to provide trusted intelligence that helps humans and machines make smart decisions. Moreover, this will create a new platform for our world-class journalism. I am thrilled that FCBI is joining Thomson Reuters.” “We’re delighted to be joining the Reuters family, hugely excited by Michael’s vision for the future of Reuters Events and Reuters News and very much looking forward to the journey ahead,” said Piers Latimer, chief executive officer, FCBI. “In combination,...

PR Newswire Robert Gaddy, president of Apex International, said an explosive Wall Street Journal story on insurance magnate Greg Lindberg is full of errors and misrepresentations. Apex is a security firm and a Lindberg company. The WSJ story claims Lindberg used the company to follow women he was involved with or wished to know. Gaddy issued this statement: “The Wall Street Journal story published today appears to be based on a disgruntled ex-employee of the firm who was terminated and was sued for breach of contract, theft, misappropriation, fraud and for making representations that falsified his military record. What he has apparently told reporters at the Wall Street Journal is no more credible than the resume he gave us. The result is an unfair story containing inaccuracies that appears to be based largely on unsubstantiated words and/or false stories of a source who has demonstrated that he lacks credibility. Likewise, based on the information I have seen, the allegations from an unnamed source of a “hole” in the balance sheets of Mr. Lindberg’s insurers are false. The fact is the North Carolina Department of Insurance said recently that there are no defaults with loans to Mr. Lindberg’s companies and said this week that...

Staff | October 3, 2019 SSQ Life Insurance Co. Inc. is adding pharmacogenetic testing to its group insurance offering. Pharmacogenetic testing helps determine how a person’s DNA reacts to prescription drugs, which makes it easier for doctors to choose the most effective medications for their patients. SSQ said it expects the offering will make it easier for plan members to access the best treatments and help plan sponsors keep their drug plan spending under control. Read: SSQ Insurance partners with genetic testing company “Since the treatment of disease is evolving toward personalized solutions for individual patients, pharmacogenetics is quickly becoming a must,” said Éric Trudel, SSQ’s senior vice-president of strategy and product management, in a press release. “We wanted to develop a product adapted to this reality and make it available to our customers across Canada.” Plan sponsors can choose whether to add the new offering to their group benefits program and select their reimbursement maximums. In order for plan members to be reimbursed, the test must be physician-prescribed and carried out in an authorized Canadian lab. SSQ will not have access to the test results, the company said. The new offering follow’s SSQ’s pilot project, announced in June 2018, to offer some plan members on disability leave...

Toronto, ON (Oct. 3, 2019) – CSIO is pleased to announce that Applied Systems has integrated the My Proof of Insurance solution with the latest release of Applied Epic. The Integration enables brokers to send customers digital policy documents for personal and commercial lines, including proof of auto insurance (eSlips), without leaving the management system. “Since the integration of My Proof of Insurance with Applied TAM back in November 2018, we’ve received excellent feedback from brokers on efficiencies and customer satisfaction gained,” says Steve Whitelaw, Vice President, Industry and Partner Relations. “Now with this latest integration, we are further demonstrating our commitment to the Canadian market to provide our customers with choice and the ability to provide digital, seamless experiences to their consumers.” “Brokers want to provide the best possible customer experience and for many consumers, that means providing insurance documents digitally, including their pink cards,” says Catherina Smola, President and CEO of CSIO. “I congratulate Applied Systems on their second product integration with My Proof of Insurance, demonstrating their continued commitment to streamlining brokers’ workflows.” Applied Epic users can participate in a walkthrough of the integration, including a demo of the My Proof of Insurance solution. A live webinar...