ICEF2024 Presentation Topics

Welcome and Introduction — 8:30am

Time For A Re-Do: Top 10 Trends for Insurance in 2024 and Beyond

Denise Garth

– Denise Garth, Chief Strategy Officer, Majesco

Insurance helps consumers and businesses undertake higher-risk, higher-return activities, powering growth and change. With change, comes new opportunities and challenges. Customers demand new products to manage their risks, new experiences that make it simple, fast, and efficient to buy insurance, new channel options that expand reach and ease of buying, and new value-added services that extend the value of the insurance product. While most insurers have been on a continual quest to optimize the business, their efforts have often been incremental and short-sighted. Many replaced their core systems over the last 10 years as part of a transformation strategy, but most were on-premise with significant customization. This has resulted in upgrade challenges, increased costs, limitations on digital capabilities, difficulty in launching new products, and lackluster user experiences for employees and customers. It's time for a redo.

Insurance businesses – insurers, MGAs, brokers – must move beyond the legacy and internal mindset of "this is how insurance is done," to one that recognizes the world has shifted and we must as well. Research finds companies that both prioritize innovation and make sure that they are ready to act are widening the gap over less capable competitors by delivering new products, entering new markets, and establishing new revenue streams. The laggards struggle to make headway beyond incremental improvements. Insurers need to double down on investing in a new business model and technology to ensure the right formula for profitable growth and be a leader in the future of insurance. During this presentation, attendees will learn about ten trends for insurance companies and how they are key to the right formula.

Providing a Platform for Brokers and MGAs to Innovate

Greg Purdy

– Greg Purdy, CEO, Rival Insurance Technology

With extensive experience in the Canadian insurance industry using technology and data to advantage, Greg undertook the creation of a platform to give MGAs and brokers a competitive advantage – the new flagship product of Rival Insurance Technology. This session will tackle questions including:

• Where are competitive advantages to be found?
• What is the key ingredient a business needs to get there?
• What are the tools innovators will most likely need to deploy?
• Is enhancing a customer's innovation capabilities now the most important feature enabled by a technology provider?

Innovating Insurance For Agriculture

Robin Shufelt

– Robin Shufelt, CEO, First Acre Insurance

In the highly technical ag industry, farm insurance needs to be progressive. Differentiation from First Acre Insurance™ is changing the norm with modern and fully customizable ag insurance solutions. Launched in February 2024, First Acre Insurance developed a new state-of-the-art platform along with different coverage solutions to offer insurance brokers and their agriculture clients a rejuvenated way of doing business.

A technologically driven company, First Acre is changing the way insurance is delivered to brokers and farmers by:

• Keeping pace with advancements and staying ahead of farmers' needs;
• Giving brokers round-the-clock access to quote, bind and issue insurance policies, enabling them to serve their clients at any hour and the entire process can be done in as little as 30 minutes.

In this session, Robin will discuss how innovation is a key part of the strategy, both in operations – including broker and customer relationships – and in the insurance product itself.

Robin's educational background in innovation and her previous work experience in insurance innovation help position First Acre as a premier insurance provider to the Canadian Agricultural sector, which is itself undergoing major transformation.

Climate Change and the Urgency of Resilience

Kathryn Bakos

– Kathryn Bakos, Managing Director - Finance & Resilience, Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation

This presentation will examine how climate change is intensifying extreme weather events, escalating financial costs, and the urgent need for adaptation. Kathryn will highlight the well-informed standards and guidelines developed to enhance Canada's climate resilience, emphasizing that their implementation has been too slow. The session will underscore Canada's critical need for rapid adaptation and demonstrate how the insurance industry is uniquely positioned to help mitigate these impacts.

GenAI: Progress and Potential at Aviva Canada

Fahad Shaikh

– Fahad Shaikh , VP - Data Science, Engineering and R&D, Aviva Canada

Until late 2022, analytics, AI and data science were having an increasing impact in many parts of the insurance business, from marketing through claims and reinsurance. These tools fell under the auspices of data scientists, who enabled their value for others across the organization.

Then GenAI arrived, opening up a new world of potential across the spectrum business, but especially in insurance, given its dependence on data.

Fahad will discuss Aviva Canada's Gen AI journey thus far, sharing the lessons learned, the opportunities created, and some potential pitfalls. With brokers key to Aviva's success, what might Gen AI bring their way?

How Embedded Insurance Is Revolutionizing The Industry

Josh Reznick

– Josh Reznick, Chief Operating Officer, Foxquilt

Embedded insurance is revolutionizing the insurance industry by integrating insurance seamlessly into the customer journey of other products and services. Embracing this technology is not only a strategic imperative for insurers but also a key enabler of customer-centricity in the digital age.

Technological innovation has enabled a full-function, underwritten process while ensuring customer needs are at the forefront.

This session will dispel misconceptions about embedded insurance, illustrate its value proposition to the business of insurance, and discuss why embedded insurance is predicted to grow dramatically.

Leading Change: Nurturing Innovation in the Insurance Industry

Daniel Sourani

– Daniel Sourani, Innovation Lead, TD Insurance

Innovation can be incremental or radical, architectural or disruptive. In one sense, any change is an innovation to the person or process involved, to the department or company, to the industry in a geography such as Canadian insurance.

What does innovation look like today, and how is it changing? In this mix of presentation, case studies and discussion, Daniel will consider different aspects of innovation, from ideation through implementation and ongoing refinement, success factors, culture and more.

Easing the Pain of a Bad Flight

Patrick Doyle

– Patrick Doyle, Chief Commercial Officer, FlightClaim

FlightClaim has developed an innovative virtual traveler assistant platform Peace of Mind, that follows a traveler's journey and advising them of their rights when they face disruptions like delays, cancellations, denied boarding or baggage challenges. The platform in real-time also build and files the claim for compensation with the airlines for the traveler so they really can travel with Peace of Mind. FlightClaim has also built a subrogation platform that can help insurers reduce claims costs and recover money from airlines for flight disruption claims that they have settled.

Innovation Minute: Managing Construction Risk With IoT

Michael Fadalti

– Michael Fadalti, Director - Project Development, Brickeye

Brickeye deploys construction IoT and data analytics technology to help insureds (owners/developers, general contractors) and insurance brokers de-risk high-rise and institutional building projects. A technology-enabled water mitigation plan is developed before placing Builders Risk and Wrap Up Liability policies.

The job site IoT platform enables real-time alerts and automated loss controls that mitigate water damage during construction for the benefit of insureds and insurers.

GenAI: The Newest Gadget In Your Toolkit

Denise Garth

– Denise Garth, Chief Strategy Officer, Majesco
– Daniel Sourani, Innovation Lead, TD Insurance

GenAI exploded onto the scene less than two years ago, and its impacts are already being felt in every corner of business operations.

Its potential applications in insurance appear to be almost boundless, touching the whole insurance spectrum from consumer to reinsurance company.

Hear about some of the uses in play today, and the associated challenges.

Meanwhile, the innovation of the GenAI tools themselves continues at a rapid pace. Learn from expert perspectives on what may be coming, and how the current and possible future tools may alter the insurance business.

Networking Reception