Insurable Interest Canadian Insurance Blog

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) released on June 14 two publications: the CSA Business Plan 2016-2019 Achievement Highlights and the CSA Business Plan 2019-2022. The CSA Business Plan 2019-2022 sets out the priorities of its members over the course of the next three-year period. In it, the CSA members have highlighted forty initiatives “that continue to address industry participants’ needs and promote market integrity and investor confidence in Canada’s capital markets,” stated the organization. In particular, the new business plan includes projects such as the elimination of undue regulatory burden and the streamlining of regulatory requirements without reducing investor protection or impeding the efficient functioning of capital markets. It also includes projects to better manage the impact of new and emerging technologies and communication tools on Canadian capital markets, says the CSA. Meanwhile, the initiatives outlined in the 2016-2019 Achievement Highlights report demonstrate “the collaborative efforts of CSA members to successfully deliver on our objectives,” stated Louis Morisset, Chair of the CSA and President and Chief Executive Officer of Quebec regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers. “Many of these initiatives, both completed and on-going, have led us to understand, evolve and sharpen our strategic objectives outlined in the CSA Business...

IG Wealth Management announced on June 13 a number of changes to its mutual fund and iProfile offering. These changes include management fee reductions on certain funds; risk rating changes to three funds and investment strategy changes to IG Core Portfolio Class – Growth and iProfile Pools. Effective on or about June 30, 2019, the annual management fee rates for the following funds will be reduced, as indicated below: Fund name Series Existing management fee New management fee IG Mackenzie Ivy European Fund A and B 1.95% 1.90% C 2.00% 1.95% JDSC and JNL 1.70% 1.65% U 0.85% 0.80% IG Mackenzie Ivy European Class IG Mackenzie Ivy European Class II IG Mackenzie Ivy European Class III A and B 1.95% 1.90% JDSC and JNL 1.70% 1.65% U 0.85% 0.80% IG Mackenzie Ivy Foreign Equity Class A and B 2.00% 1.90% JDSC and JNL 1.75% 1.65% U 0.90% 0.80% IG Mackenzie Global Precious Metals Class A and B 2.00% 1.90% JDSC and JNL 1.75% 1.65% U 0.90% 0.80% The company also announced that effective immediately, the risk rating classifications of the following funds have changed, as indicated:  Fund Previous rating New Rating Investors Global Financial Services Fund/Class High Medium to High...

FDA pilot program explores innovative and emerging approaches for the tracing and verification of prescription products Toronto, ON (June 12, 2019) – IBM, KPMG, Merck, and Walmart have announced that the companies have been selected by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be included in a program in support of the U.S. Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) that addresses requirements to identify, track and trace prescription medicines and vaccines distributed within the United States. The program is intended to assist drug supply chain stakeholders, including FDA, in developing the electronic, interoperable system that will identify and trace certain prescription drugs as they are distributed within the United States. “Our supply chain strategy, planning and logistics are built around the customers and patients we serve,” said Craig Kennedy, senior vice president, Supply Chain, at Merck, which is known as MSD outside the U.S. and Canada. “Reliable and verifiable supply helps improve confidence among all the stakeholders—especially patients—while also strengthening the foundation of our business.” Each company brings unique expertise to the project, which will create a shared permissioned blockchain network that allows real-time monitoring of products. The proposed network is intended to help reduce the time needed...

Stamford, CT (June 13, 2019) – Three-quarters of organizations surveyed by Gartner, Inc., increased customer experience (CX) technology investments in 2018. Customer analytics continues to be one of the biggest investments, with 52% intending to increase funding in 2019, focusing on customer journey analysis, customer needs analysis, voice of the customer (VoC) and digital marketing. Gartner’s 2019 Customer Experience Innovation Survey gathered data from 244 respondents in seven countries in North America, Western Europe and Asia/Pacific, across a wide range of industries — 26% were from Australia and New Zealand. The objective of the study was to understand the priorities, technology investments and high-stakes situations faced by organizations in their CX initiatives. The survey reveals that when organizations grow in CX maturity, a greater focus of technology investment is placed on increasing customer understanding and delivering accurate actions by analyzing data. At the same time, CX programs expand from a core team to a wider group of employees. The requirement for change management makes employee training tools an important technology investment. According to the survey, the top five CX project priorities in 2019 are metrics (64%); VoC (50%); increasing speed of product and service launches (45%); product proliferation and personalization...

Verisk’s new Cyber Underwriting Report uses machine learning, stochastic modeling, and historical data to provide robust information on variety of risks Jersey City, NJ (June 12, 2019) – Verisk, a leading data analytics provider, has announced the launch of its Cyber Underwriting Report, a new InsurTech solution that can help insurers underwrite a wide variety of risks in the growing cyber market with increased speed and precision. The report is designed to help insurers underwrite policies in a range of industries where cyber risks are constantly changing and historical data is limited. Verisk’s Cyber Underwriting Report helps address these challenges from both an insurance and cybersecurity perspective by leveraging nearly 100,000 historical cyber events, combined with machine learning and sophisticated stochastic modeling, to provide estimates of the frequency and financial impacts of potential cyber incidents. Within seconds, the report gives underwriters a cyber risk score for a company they are underwriting, a peer score to provide context, and a profile describing critical business and technology characteristics. “Underwriting cyber has become a major challenge for many insurers trying to make informed decisions about a risk that can be hard to evaluate,” said Prashant Pai, vice president of cyber solutions at Verisk....

New Book, The Big Zero by Accenture Strategy, shows how companies can shift resources to fund innovation and growth New York, NY (June 12, 2019) – With sustainable growth increasingly difficult to achieve and cost-cutting efforts not enough to spur it, organizations need a new approach to meet their business goals. A new book from Accenture highlights how instilling a “zero-based mindset” (ZBx) can help companies release funds that can drive innovation, growth and competitiveness. The Big Zero: The Transformation of ZBB into a Force for Growth, Innovation and Competitive Advantage – co-authored by Kris Timmermans and Christopher Roark of Accenture Strategy, along with Rodrigo Abdalla – shows how a transformation of employees’ behaviors toward aligning investments and costs around the strategic priorities of the organization can help boost competitive agility by ensuring lasting and sustained growth. A zero-based mindset is an organization-wide approach centered around forensic visibility into resources that allows companies to take non-working money and reinvest it to ignite growth via new products, capabilities, services and skills. The approach calls for action in four areas: zero-based spend (ZBS), zero-based organization (ZBO), zero-based commercial (ZBC) and zero-based supply chain (ZBSC). A zero-based mindset helps companies shift resources to...

Vancouver, BC (June 14, 2019) – Apollo is pleased to announce that it now offers the world’s first insurance policy that is 100% free of gluten. This was achieved through a complete digitization of the entire insurance purchasing process. “There’s no gluten on the internet,” says Apollo CEO Jeff McCann. “By taking the insurance policy from its physical form, which is full of gluten, and translating it into a cloud-based digital form, Apollo is able to guarantee that there is no way gluten could possibly contaminate the policy.” The insurance policy was tested in a third-party lab, which confirmed that there was no gluten whatsoever contained in the final product. Apollo is interested in partnering with Beyond Meat to offer a vegan insurance policy later this year. About Apollo Insurance Apollo is Canada’s largest small business insurance marketplace. Through the Apollo Exchange, brokers can quote, bind, and issue policy documents for hundreds of classes of small businesses from Canada’s leading carriers. Brokerages are also able to white label the platform and sell directly from their brokerage website. Learn more about Apollo in the InsurTech Spotlight. For additional information, visit apollocover.com. Source: Apollo Insurance Tags: Apollo, industry first Read the original...

Life insurance sales are stagnant, but profits are still being made. By Lloyd Lofton “In the bottom floor of Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle you will find a store called Amazon Go. It’s a store of the future where customers shop for groceries, pick items up and just walk out of the store without standing in a checkout line or interacting with a store clerk.” I wrote that opening in an article last year titled “Is There An ‘Insurance Go’ In Our Future?” I explored ways businesses are engaging consumers and why carriers need to see the agent as a customer and provide them tools, resources and methods to represent their products in the way the agent’s consumer wants to buy those products. My Enlightenment I worked in the home office of a large Midwestern insurance company several years ago, helping run their captive shop. It was 2004, ecommerce was hitting its stride and Palm Pilots were popular with agents. I remember sitting in a meeting with marketing, product and legal discussing why we needed to start looking at these types of tools when someone from marketing asked me, “But will agents actually use something like this with people?” It was...

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) is encouraging Canadians to be aware of the signs of financial abuse of seniors as part of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (WEAAD) on June 15, 2019. Through a variety of online resources and activities across Canada, the CSA, its members and other senior-focused groups are highlighting the issue and the need to recognize, report and stop financial abuse of seniors. “Awareness is the first step in recognizing and stopping financial abuse of seniors,” said Louis Morisset, CSA Chair and President and CEO of Quebec regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers. “With a growing senior population, it is more important than ever to help safeguard our aging communities who may become increasingly susceptible to financial exploitation and fraud.” The CSA said Canadians can help prevent financial abuse of seniors by, among other things, talking about financial matters with aging parents and friends and learning to recognize and avoid investment scams. The CSA website provides information and resources about fraud prevention. The regulators also urged Canadians to investigate every investment opportunity or sales pitch as well as the person promoting the investment before handing over money. “If unsure about an investment, consider seeking out independent, third-party...

The Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare announced June 12 that it is recommending that Canada implement universal, single-payer, public pharmacare. In a statement, the Council recommended that the federal, provincial and territorial governments work together to set up “a universal, single-payer public system of prescription drug coverage in Canada to ensure everyone has access to the drugs they need to maintain their physical and mental health.” Canadian drug agency The Council also recommended the establishment of a Canadian drug agency, which would be responsible for developing a national list of prescription drugs (formulary) beginning with an initial formulary of common or so-called essential medicines by Jan. 1, 2022 and expanded to a fully comprehensive formulary, to be in place no later than Jan. 1, 2027. The Council says that such a system would provide access to prescribed medicines “for all Canadians, including the estimated one in five who are either uninsured or underinsured.” It estimates pharmacare would result in substantial savings for governments, businesses, and individual Canadians. “Once implemented, pharmacare’s stronger negotiating power, lower administrative costs, as well as other improvements will save taxpayers an estimated $5 billion annually. Savings for individual Canadians and their families will...