Issue 2002-34:   August 27, 2002

This newsletter is for members of the Canadian Insurance Industry, and those who serve it. The newsletter is published weekly, and notes information mostly about the use of the Internet and related technologies in the industry. Some is international, where we feel it is relevant to Canada.

For subscribe/unsubscribe details, see the end of this note.

Statistics and Reference

Recovery underway for P&C insurance industry but results still weak - IBC quarterly "Perspectives"

Financial results for the first half of 2002 for Canada's home, auto and business insurers show signs that a modest recovery is underway, but the situation is expected to remain weak for at least the next year or two. The latest edition of Perspective -- the Insurance Bureau of Canada's quarterly analysis of the financial performance of the property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry -- shows the industry has seen recent improvements. Press release and the full Perspectives in pdf at www.insurance-canada.ca/refstat/canada/IBCPersp200208.php.

Technology & e-business

Cyber Threat: There are unnerving new risks in the wired world, by Barbara Aarsteinsen, ci - Canadian Insurance Magazine.

The growing dependence on electronic exchanges, online transactions and automated processes means that information has become a key corporate asset and data flow a critical operating function. Communicating and interacting in cyberspace may be a wondrous thing but it’s fraught with perils. Article at www.insurance-canada.ca/ebusiness/canada/ciBACyber200208.php.

Sun Life Financial and IBM sign outsourcing agreement.

IBM and Sun Life Financial, Canada's largest life insurer, today announced the signing of a contract that calls for IBM to provide a wide range of technology services to Sun Life Financial over a seven year period. The contract is estimated at approximately CDN $250 million. More at www.insurance-canada.ca/ebusiness/announce/IBMSunL200208.php.

Seven Promising Trends for the Internet’s Future: Steve Butler, eMarketer.

Prospects for e-commerce: with the housecleaning that we’ve experienced since March of 2000, the table has been set for a new period of steady growth for the commercial internet. For example, among those dot-coms that have survived, most now have much more efficient operations, while traditional companies have a better understanding of how they can best use the internet to their advantage. And as many of the more tenuous projects have been cast aside, industry leaders have set their sights on the future with well thought out e-business strategies. Article at www.insurance-canada.ca/ebusiness/other/eMarketerTrend200208.php.

CSIO Insurance Portal Status Update

CSIO Portal status and project information at www.insurance-canada.ca/csioip/csioip.php.

Week ending August 23: CSIO and CGU have begun User Acceptance Testing of the rates in the ISI rating engine on the CSIO portal. Over the next two weeks six or seven companies should be testing their rates for Ontario Auto. In parallel ISI is loading the Ontario Property rates they have received. This testing is being operated on the Portal Staging or Final Test environment.

The Portal production environment has been upgraded and is ready now for performance testing.

Claims

Sysinct helps Corporate Management Group change the way the Private Investigation Industry Processes, Tracks and Manages Assignments.

"Our strategy was to change the way an industry processed, tracked and managed investigative assignments," said Brad Myers, president and chief executive officer, CMG. "In order to do this we had to develop an operating system that could handle the processing and tracking of investigative projects in a much different way than it was done in the past." More at www.insurance-canada.ca/claims/other/SysinctCMG200208.php.

Managing Relationships

Chubb & Son Expands Relationships with Customers via SAS Intelligence.

"As an insurance company, we have a great deal of data about our customers that is locked away in many different databases all over the organization," explains Jeff Hoffman, Chubb's vice president of business intelligence. "We capture details about policies, claims and many different interactions with customers, but they typically are stored in many different databases. SAS helps us unlock the power of that data and provides us with better information, both from a tactical and strategic standpoint, that will drive some of our business goals over the coming years, including revenue growth, operational efficiency and profit." More at www.insurance-canada.ca/relations/canada/SASChubb200208.php.

from Doug:

I suppose even the PR and Communications people need a holiday too - given the much lower volume of news items in the last week or two, they must be enjoying the wonderful vacation weather. I wish you a good week leading up to Labour Day weekend and then the beginning of school. Enjoy!

Sam Albanese from Albanese Financial Group is speaking at our Sept 13 seminar "Immediate Life Application Processing - The Winding Path." He will give us a nuts and bolts view of how technology is and will address some of the work issues in the life broker distribution channel in his presentation "The Real MGA World." More details at www.insurance-canada.ca/seminars/seminar20020913.php - join us.

Advertising

For information about advertising in our newsletter, visit www.insurance-canada.ca/advertise/adnewsletter.php or contact me.

NOTES/Subscribe/Unsubscribe:

You are being sent this note as a newsletter subscriber, a former attendee at one of our seminars, a person I thought would be interested, or someone who represents a firm with a presence on the Insurance-Canada.ca Web site at www.insurance-canada.ca If you know someone else who might be interested in this information, please forward this note.

Send a note to me if you wish to be added to, removed from, or have your address changed for this e-mail list, or if you have any problems with this message.