Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

Benefits Canada | August 16, 2019 While some pension fund managers swear by hedge funds, others would never sink in a single cent. After the 2008 financial crisis turned some investors sour, is it time to give hedge funds a second chance? Colin Spinney, treasurer at Dalhousie University: The Dalhousie pension plan once had a stand-alone allocation to hedge funds, or absolute return strategies. It had the following objectives: an annual real return of six per cent, volatility of between six and eight per cent and less than a 0.4 correlation to equity markets. Essentially, we were looking for equity-like returns with bond-like volatility with little correlation to stocks. When we made our allocation with a number of strategies, these objectives were being met. Then the financial crisis hit. Drawdowns were less than equity markets, but correlations were up and the resulting hit to returns was still significant. Read: Customized hedge funds growing in popularity: survey When Dalhousie first made these allocations, backing instruments such as treasury bills had real interest rates that were contributing to the real-return target. But with quantitative easing, negative real returns appeared, requiring higher returns to attain our six per cent real target. With the continuing negative real...

http://www.jaimehogge.com Kelsey Rolfe | August 16, 2019 In 2016, KPMG Canada’s benefits program was facing a perfect storm: the company was starting to see a change in its workforce’s needs; employees didn’t value some of its offerings, found the program difficult to understand and felt the pay and total rewards package weren’t competitive; and the organization’s new management team didn’t believe the program had a strong return on investment. All of these elements led to the creation of a business case for looking closer at the offerings and making some changes, says Lisa Park, KPMG Canada’s director of total rewards. Building value Beginning in November 2016, the company underwent a two-phase redesign, first tackling its base pay, incentives and recognition model, followed by its benefits offering. It started by considering what it wanted to achieve, says Park, and then came up with five objectives: to ensure the program was agile and could be easily adapted to changing business needs; that it was valued by employees; that it was inclusive of its multi-generational workforce; that it was easy to administer and straightforward for people to access; and that it could be measured against clear key performance indicators. Read: Developing a benefits plan to support...

Foresters will donate 1% of insurance amount – up to $100,000 – to the policyholder’s designated registered charity of choice Kitchener, ON (Aug. 14, 2019) – Nick Pszeniczny, CEO of Financial Horizons Group (FHG), and David Ho, CEO of TORCE Financial Group Inc. (TORCE), and VANCE Financial Group Inc. (VANCE) are proud to announce that their Managing General Agencies are joining forces to build on the strengths of their operations and advisor networks. “Ultimately, we believe that this creates great opportunities for advisors and their clients,” said Nick Pszeniczny, CEO of FHG. Headquartered in Kitchener, Ontario, FHG has offices in communities across Canada served by a team of more than 6,000 advisors. TORCE is a leading Managing General Agency in the Greater Toronto area, and VANCE is a leading Managing General Agency in the Vancouver area. TORCE and VANCE provide products and services which complement those offered by FHG. TORCE and VANCE have a team of 1,200 advisors who serve a diverse customer base in the Toronto and Vancouver markets. TORCE and VANCE will benefit from FHG’s offering of an extensive range of financial services and products to Canadian advisors by supporting local needs with the benefits of a strong...

Dual acquisition bolsters Intact’s leadership position in Canada, bringing its North American specialty lines platform close to its $3 billion annual Direct Premiums Written objective Deal adds attractive surety business and expertise on both sides of the border Enhances specialty lines with public entity capabilities and adds an MGA to the platform Expands Intact’s personal lines offering in Canada with high net worth products Delivers a return on capital above Intact’s threshold and immediate accretion to NOIPS Strong financial position maintained, with over $1 billion of capital margin after closing Toronto, ON (Aug. 15, 2019) – Intact Financial Corporation announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Princeton Holdings Limited to acquire The Guarantee Company of North America, a specialty lines insurer in Canada and the U.S., and Frank Cowan Company Limited, a managing general agent (MGA) focused on specialty insurance, for a cash consideration of approximately $1 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2019, subject to regulatory approvals. In Canada, the acquisition bolsters Intact’s position and adds new products for the high net worth customer segment. It meaningfully advances Intact’s North American specialty lines platform solidifying prominent positions in public...

Intact Financial Corporation announced Aug. 15 that it has entered into an agreement with Princeton Holdings to acquire The Guarantee Company of North America and Frank Cowan Company Limited for a cash consideration of approximately $1 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2019, subject to regulatory approvals.  The Guarantee is a Canadian-owned specialty lines insurer with customers in Canada and the United States. Intact says that acquiring the company will add “more than $560 million in Gross Premiums Written, including over $100 million in the U.S., bringing Intact’s annual North American specialty lines Direct Premiums Written close to $3 billion.” High net worth customer segment Intact says the acquisition will bolster its position in Canada and add new products for the high net worth customer segment. “It meaningfully advances Intact’s North American specialty lines platform solidifying prominent positions in public entity and surety,” says the company. Frank Cowan Company is an MGA that provides specialized insurance programs to public entities across Canada. Princeton Holdings will continue to retain full ownership of its other businesses: Cowan Insurance Group, Cowan Asset Management, and Fountain Street Finance. “The acquisition of The Guarantee Company of North America and...

High satisfaction driven by investments in digital, servicing and product expansion: J.D. Power 2019 U.S. Small Commercial Insurance Study Costa Mesa, CA (Aug. 15, 2019) – Small business owners have never been more satisfied with their insurance providers, according to the J.D. Power 2019 U.S. Small Commercial Insurance Study,SM released today. The all-time high satisfaction score of 844 (on a 1,000-point scale) follows three years of stagnant satisfaction levels and is the result of insurance company investment in technology, servicing, product expansion and dedicated infrastructure designed to support small business customers. “Insurers have focused on improving their approach to the small commercial market and it shows,” said David Pieffer, Practice Lead, Property & Casualty Insurance Practice. “Technology has become an increasingly critical component in the small commercial insurance offering. Digital channels are now more influential than ever before in shaping commercial customer experiences and this will be an important area of focus moving forward as technology continues to evolve rapidly and more customers interact with their insurers via electronic channels.” The 2019 U.S. Small Commercial Insurance Study is based on responses from 3,221 small commercial insurance customers. The study, now in its seventh year, examines overall customer satisfaction among small...

New SMA Blog by Mark Breading, Partner, Strategy Meets Action — Say what you will about the InsurTech movement; it still seems to be chugging along quite nicely. InsurTech has had its ebbs and flows since emerging out of the FinTech movement in the 2012/2013 timeframe. And at various points, pundits have been eager to pronounce the movement dead. But as Mark Twain famously said, “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” There are endless reports and analyses on a daily, monthly, and quarterly basis regarding the state of InsurTech. By most measures, the levels of funding, partnerships, POCs, and real results have continued to grow over time. So, we can see what InsurTech is doing in 2019. But what might it be like in 2025? There are several possibilities (which I will enumerate before making my prediction) for the future of InsurTech. These possibilities include: InsurTechs fade into oblivion. In this scenario, the majority of the 1500+ startups from the past few years will have ultimately failed, and new entrants will slow to a trickle. More importantly, there will have been little lasting impact on the insurance industry. A few InsurTech startups prosper, grow, and have an...

Consumer-focused advisor experience unifies data silos, unconnected applications, and disparate client data to dramatically improve the customer experience Québec, QC (Aug. 14, 2019) – Breathe Life, a provider of consumer-centric digital transformation solutions for the insurance industry, has introduced the Advisor Experience portion of its end-to-end platform for insurance distributors to modernize the way personal insurance is bought and sold. The Breathe Life platform provides a unified experience and data model for insurance companies to empower agents from the back-end Advisor Experience to the front-end Consumer Experience. The Breathe Life Advisor Experience is specifically designed for insurance carriers who want to provide their financial advisors and clients with a great digital and omnichannel experience. La Capitale Insurance and Financial Services is the first carrier to implement the solution. “We believe that Breathe Life’s dynamism and agility will enable La Capitale to fulfill the promise it has made to its partners, namely that it is fast and easy to do business with La Capitale,” noted Martin Delage, Executive Vice-President of Individual Insurance and Financial Services for La Capitale. Financial advisors continue to play an integral role in insurance distribution and client satisfaction. According to a report by research firm LIMRA,[1] having...

The patients’ and the opposition’s concerns have been heard. The Ontario government had announced in April that it would stop covering medical costs of Ontarians who travelled outside Canada. Now, some Ontarians are spared. The government reversed its policy by announcing that Ontarians with chronic kidney disease who require regular treatment by hemodialysis would continue to be covered by the province if they need to travel outside the country. A program with a dedicated budget “Once we introduced our proposal to wind down the Out-of-Country Travellers Program, we heard from dialysis stakeholders and patients that it is difficult and prohibitively expensive for Ontarians receiving dialysis treatments to obtain health travel insurance,” Travis Kann, spokesperson for Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott told Insurance Journal In response to the outcry, the Ontario government is launching a new program with a $700,000 annual budget, to be managed by the Ontario Renal Network. Starting Jan. 1, 2020, dialysis patients can receive “the same reimbursement rates as currently provided through existing programs,” which amounts to $210 per dialysis treatment received out of country. “Victory” for patients “When the Ontario government announced that it was eliminating coverage of dialysis treatment received by Ontarians abroad, we asked...

In case there are charges of impaired driving or DUI on you, then it is not just that your license will be suspended; you will face other penalties too. Therefore, it becomes necessary to understand the possible consequences of the conviction by seeking the help of Vaughan DUI lawyers or the lawyers of the concerned area. According to the Criminal Code in Canada, impaired driving is considered to be a criminal offense. This implies impairment because of the influence of alcohol or drugs. This is otherwise referred to as DUI, i.e driving under the influence. A person is not allowed to drive if he has a blood alcohol ratio exceeding 80 mg per 100 ml of blood.  In such cases, he can be charged for a declining breath sample, driving leading to death or harming someone, etc. People become stressed out, are unable to think with clarity because of such incidents and fail to take any decision. Doing anything hastily can lead to the worsening of the situation. So, it is essential to consult the lawyers in Vaughan or Mississauga. You should opt for the reputed Mississauga DUI lawyers so that they can help you overcome the hurdle through their...