Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Partnership with one of Canada’s largest travel insurers will drive insurance innovation Customers’ claims will be paid in real-time, during their trip, using their mobile phones Cork, Ireland (Aug. 26, 2019) – Blink, one of the fastest-growing Travel Insurance InsurTechs in the world, has announced that it has entered into an agreement with Manulife, one of Canada’s largest travel insurers, to support the roll-out of tailor-made insurance solutions to its customers. Blink, acquired by CPPGroup Plc in 2017 and based in Cork, Ireland is quickly becoming one of the most innovative and successful providers of flight disruption solutions to insurers across the globe. It offers customers a proactive, real-time service that meets the speed and convenience that modern customers demand. Since its inception in 2016, Blink has formed a number of distribution partnerships in large markets across North America, Asia and Europe. Manulife offers travel insurance through many distribution channels across Canada and is a leading international Financial Services group that helps people make their decisions easier and lives better. It operates primarily as John Hancock in the United States and Manulife elsewhere. Announcing the partnership, Paul Prendergast, CEO of Blink said: “We have been working with Manulife to develop...

New survey identifies the 10 most common dangerous driving behaviours in the country New York, NY (Aug. 23, 2019) – A new ValuePenguin.com survey found almost all drivers (90%) admitted to dangerous driving behaviours within the past year. And while some of these behaviours – such as eating, talking on the phone or changing the music – may seem harmless, 94% of car crashes are caused by human error and dangerous driving behaviours. More worryingly, many drivers who engage in dangerous driving activities do so without legal ramifications — more than one-third of licensed drivers said they have never been pulled over for a traffic violation, despite engaging in dangerous driving behaviours. Key Findings: Cell Phone Use Is The Biggest Danger On The Roads: As a group, cell phone use accounts for a large portion of dangerous behaviours that drivers admitted to committing: 58%, 27% and 24% of drivers reported talking on the phone, reading texts and sending texts, respectively. This is all in spite of the fact that 20 states along with the District of Columbia have issued bans on handheld cellphone use, with more states following suit. Other Dangerous Driving behaviours: While cell phone use collectively accounted for...

The Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC) announced Friday that mutual fund and exchange trade fund (ETF) sales rose in July, gaining 0.6 per cent and 1.3 per cent respectively, compared to June 2019. Although year-to-date sales numbers for mutual funds are lower than they were in July 2018, coming in at almost $8.6 trillion for the year, down from the $15.2-trillion year-to-date numbers reported in July 2018; year-to-date ETF sales numbers of $12.3-trillion were considerably higher compared to the $10.8-trillion in net sales reported at this time last year. For the month, mutual fund assets increased by $9.5-billion to reach $1.57 trillion at the end of July 2019.  ETF assets meanwhile, increased by $2.3-billion to reach $183.8-billion.  In mutual funds, equity mutual funds net sales reached $460-million, recovering from the $1.4-billion in net redemptions the category suffered in June. Bond funds recorded $1.4-billion in net new sales for the month, up from $1.1-billion sold in June. Balanced fund sales declined from $662-million in net new sales posted in June to just $314-million in net new sales for July. Net redemptions of equity ETFs slowed in July compared to June 2019.  Investors redeemed $152-million in July, an improvement over the...

Boston, MA (Aug. 23, 2019) – Strategy Meets Action (SMA), a leading insurance advisory firm, and The Digital Insurer (TDI), the world’s largest digital insurance platform, are announcing their partnership in the North American P&C insurance market. SMA and TDI together bring world-class information and actionable insights on the digital transformation that is underway and offer a new set of transformation services geared to accelerating strategies and plans for insurers. “Combining SMA’s deep North American industry expertise, thought leadership brand, transformational insights, and extensive network with TDI’s global platform, knowledge services, and community creates a powerful set of transformational services for insurers and vendors,” said Deb Smallwood, SMA CEO and Founder. Their first formal project is a joint global research project on transformation technologies in insurance. This global study will assess insurer strategies, plans, and adoption of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, the IoT, wearables, and many others. The survey is available at this link. Results will be published and delivered via a webinar hosted by TDI. According to Hugh Terry, Founder of The Digital Insurer, “We are really pleased to be partnering with SMA to enable us to provide new products and services to North...

The Future of Insurance: Optimization, Growth and Innovation Morristown, NJ (Aug. 22, 2019) – Majesco, a global leader of cloud insurance software solutions for insurance business transformation, today announced the release of a new research report, The Future of Insurance: Optimization, Growth and Innovation. The report highlights the forces that have been putting tremendous pressure on insurance to transform to a digital, outside-in, customer-first industry, accelerated by the rise of InsurTech beginning in 2015.  By taking a two speed strategy, by modernizing and optimizing the business for speed of operation and by creating a new business of the future for speed of innovation, insurance leaders are creating innovative products, services and business models by redesigning organizational and business model structures.  These leaders are embracing digital technology and data and analytics to better understand, underwrite and service their customers with tailored products and services that are more personalized than ever and meet the under- or unmet needs of a rapidly changing market. As noted in Majesco’s Strategic Priorities research, incumbent insurers who are embracing the changes and new opportunities – the Leaders – are advancing at a greater pace than Followers and Laggards, putting them at increasing risk of irrelevance.  But...

Edmonton, AB (Aug. 22, 2019) – Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) commends the Alberta government for providing new funding to help protect communities in southern Alberta from the impacts of flooding. The $7.6 million investment in this regional stormwater management project was made available through the Alberta Community Resilience Program, to support the Cooperative Stormwater Management Initiative and will help relieve ongoing flooding issues. The project will use new and existing infrastructure to reduce localized flooding after intense rainfall events by more effectively collecting, storing and moving stormwater throughout the region. “Residents in southern Alberta have seen the devastating effects of flooding,” said Celyeste Power, Vice-President, Western, IBC. “As the frequency and intensity of severe weather events, such as floods, are escalating, we want to work with the government on adaptation measures like this one to better protect Albertans. IBC and its members applaud the Alberta government’s investment.” “Last year, insured damage from severe weather across Canada reached $2 billion, the fourth-highest amount of losses on record,” continued Power. “However, unlike the 1998 Quebec ice storm, the 2013 Calgary floods or the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, no single event caused the high amount paid out for 2018’s losses. Instead, Canadians...

Port Hope, ON (Aug. 23, 2019) – Flooding is Canada’s costliest and most frequent natural disaster. Communities are looking for solutions to mitigate the costs and damages caused by flooding to businesses and residences. Today, Member of Parliament for Northumberland—Peterborough South, Kim Rudd, on behalf of the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, the Honourable Ralph Goodale, announced $150,000 in federal funding to the Province of Ontario to support updated flood mapping of the Lake Ontario shoreline under the National Disaster Mitigation Program (NDMP). Additionally, Ganaraska Region Conservation Authority, Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority, and Lower Trent Region Conservation Authority are each contributing $57,500, which is being funded by the benefitting municipalities, in support of this project, for a total project value of $322,500. This funding is helping create a shoreline management plan through updated flood mapping and hazard assessment of the Lake Ontario shoreline, covering a 130-kilometre reach from Ajax, Ontario to Brighton, Ontario. The resulting plan will recommend management practices to help prevent and/or mitigate the effects of Lake Ontario on the surrounding shoreline communities and guide future land-use decisions. The Government of Canada cost-shares up to 50 per cent of eligible expenses for projects submitted by...

Business Wire Life insurance sales are stagnant, but profits are still being made. Total income in the U.S. life/annuity industry essentially remained flat in the first half of 2019, dropping slightly to $422.4 billion compared with $424.6 billion in the same prior-year period. This financial review is detailed in a new Best’s Special Report, titled, “First Look—First Half 2019 Life/Annuity Financial Results,” and the data is derived from companies’ six-month 2019 interim statutory statements that were received as of Aug. 22, 2019, representing an estimated 95% of total industry premiums and annuity considerations. According to the report, a $24.9 billion increase in premiums and annuity considerations in first-half 2019 was negated by a $26.0 billion decline in other income. These significant swings were largely the result of modified coinsurance agreements and the recapture of retrocessions from foreign affiliates at American General Life Insurance Company, United States Life Insurance in the City of New York and Hannover Life Reassurance Company of America. In addition, pre-tax operating gain declined 4.9% from the prior year to $25.0 billion. A $1.2 billion increase in federal and foreign taxes and a $3.8 billion reduction in net realized capital losses boosted total industry net income by...

Staff | August 26, 2019 As private market assets become larger and more important allocations in pension plan portfolios, the methods for effectively benchmarking performance will become more relevant to the institutional investment community, according to a recent report by Callan. While several methods exist to measure manager and asset performance, it can be difficult for investors to get their hands on robust data, as private partnerships tend to be far less transparent than their public counterparts. The report analyzed the evaluation process for private equity asset classes in two contexts: how the asset class impacts the value at the total plan level relative to a policy benchmark; and how the asset class and constituent managers perform at the asset class level compared to asset class specific measures. Read: Taking a longer-term approach to private equity It highlighted the vintage year concept, which suggests that to compare the performance of private partnerships, they must be similar in age. “Evaluating a three-year-old partnership against one that is eight would be akin to comparing a second-grader to a high schooler — the development stage and capabilities will be markedly different,” noted the report. Further, it said benchmarking methodologies and return calculations differ from public securities. A time-weighted return calculation is most suitable for assessing...

Over the past several decades, advances in medicine and better living conditions have helped more Americans live longer. According to a LIMRA analysis, a 65-year-old couple has a 50% chance of both members living past age 80. But older Americans increasingly need caregiver help — and often it falls on family members to provide that care. A recent LIMRA study finds 36% of adults (ages 18-64) say they have been or currently are unpaid family caregivers. That’s 77 million Americans. Among these, 43 million currently provide care to a family member. Life Insurance Despite the important and valuable service caregivers provide, only 41% of current caregivers own life insurance. When you consider the cost of hiring someone to replace a caregiver if they should die, it is worrisome that more caregivers don’t own life insurance. The benchmark rate of life insurance ownership in the U.S. for this age group equals 58%, which is 19 points above the mark for caregivers, according to the LIMRA/Life Happens 2018 Insurance Barometer. Yet, LIMRA’s study of unpaid family caregivers clearly shows these consumers understand how important it is to own life insurance. Seventy-eight percent say they should have life insurance. This is a 37-point...