2017 ICTA Winners and Nominees

Sonnet

Sonnet Puts The Focus On The Customer

Sonnet, an innovative Canadian digital direct insurer, puts the customer in control. By simplyfing the purchase experience and empowering customers to make informed decisions, Sonnet changes the way Canadians feel about insurance. Economical Insurance in collaboration with Deloitte, launched Sonnet in May 2016 with personal home insurance, adding personal auto insurance in August 2016.

Sonnet has been recognized as a game-changer for its innovative combination of advanced data and analytics with Guidewire, a best-in-class insurance software solution. While an intricate back-end environment delivers fast, fair and reliable technology, the consumer interface is simple and streamlines the quoting process. Sonnet is currently the only solution in Canada that allows customers to bind insurance and self-serve directly online.

Technology by Guidewire and Deloitte.

Mitchell & Whale

Engaging Consumers with an AI-based Chat Bot

Mitchell & Whale, in collaboration with ProNavigator, built an online insurance chat bot to interact with the public. This provides a new way for insurance consumers to interact with their insurance broker in a chat interface, which is being heralded as the next era of interaction on the web.

Artificial intelligence posing to make a material difference in all our lives in the coming years. We are now well suited as a brokerage to participate in this trend, while making it available to all other brokers to use.

As these tools progress and get smarter it will make a huge disruption in the way insurance brokers operate.

Technology by ProNavigator.

The Guarantee

Guarantee GOLD Watermark Helps Customers Reduce the Risk of Water Loss

It was GUARANTEE GOLD®'s mission to address the water challenge beyond merely promoting water mitigation options and moving to provide a bold solution for internal water damage that every homeowner's assets are exposed to. For this type of water exposure, the AquaTrip® device is our preferred solution to offer protection for our clients' assets.

We designed a pro-active program that addressed the hurdles a client faces when installing water mitigation devices: awareness, accessibility and affordability which became the service pillars of the GOLD Watermark program.

GUARANTEE GOLD's long term goal is to make water mitigation devices a common installation in the homes across Canada to help reduce the impact of water claims and to change the way Insurance companies participate in the shared challenge of water risk mitigation in the homes they insure.

Technology by DC Pro.

Go Insurance

Go Insurance Supplements Auto Dealership Services

The business of insurance is changing, with consumers demanding anytime, anywhere access to information and service. Embarking on a digital transformation partnership with Applied Systems, Go Insurance has aligned their business strategy to today's customer service expectations by providing instantaneous omni-channel service throughout the policy lifecycle, enabling Go Insurance to deliver greater value to the end insured and generate profitable growth.

Technology by Applied Systems.

Sharp Insurance

Sharp Insurance Pushes the Bounds as a Digital Broker

Sharp Insurance is constantly striving to reinvent how people think and feel about insurance. Sharp Insurance has a strong focus on digital innovation which they believe is the future of insurance in Canada. As the first to develop a mobile app and portal for clients to access pink cards and insurance information, Sharp Insurance continues to push the boundaries on what is possible for streamlining service and new, innovative product offerings for clients.

More recently, Sharp Insurance has been testing a new, custom designed, leads management tool that is proving to help the brokerage contact more leads faster, and bind more policies.

Technology by Sharp Mobile.

Surex Direct

Surex Direct Leverages a Digital Strategy for Growth

Surex Direct is Canada's fastest-growing online insurance brokerage. Receive up to 10 offers in 5 minutes. Review and verify your offers with your personal broker, sign and purchase your policy online through e-signature, and have instant proof of insurance. Insurance made simple.

BrokersTrust

Brokers Trust Digitally Transforms Payments to Insurance Companies

Complementing a focus on the customer, Brokers Trust is constantly addressing improvements internally and with our insurance partners and other parties. Bringing a systems approach and technology to bear on the processing of payments – the transfer of both funds and the remittance information – to insurance companies and MGAs has been another step in our digital transformation journey.

Brokers Trust looked to the ClearPay system and to the integration supplied by Applied Systems for our Epic BMS. The system was adopted in June 2016 and is used to pay the majority of our insurance companies and MGA partners.

Technology by ClearPayand Applied Systems.

Cira Health Solutions

Digital Transformation for IME Processing

Effective Independent Medical Evaluations (IMEs) must be transparent and accurate with the ability to deliver results quickly for insurers. Cira's iAssess™ technology platform ensures service speed and clinical oversight with a high level of visibility and detail within a single system environment. The online system revolutionizes medical file progression from initial referral to final report. Secure online access through stakeholder portals gives Cira employees, clients, and medical assessors the ability to track referrals, manage assessor schedules and medical files, and oversee all workflow 24/7. This results in better communication between stakeholders, improved efficiency, reduced administrative time, and timely IME reports.

Everest Canada

Everest Insurance: Improving the Money Flow

Everest Canada adopted ClearPay to simplify the collections of premiums and reconciliation data from insurance brokerages and to make it easier for brokerages to do business with Everest Canada.

The primary functions of ClearPay are to convert a manual cheque based incoming payment process to electronic payments and standardize incoming remittance advices. This makes the collection and reconciliation process more efficient and secure for Everest Canada. The ease of adoption for brokerages benefits them as well, as brokerages can take a once and done approach to payments from their broker management systems and do not have to adopt any specialized banking services. ClearPay is the first and only service that brokerages have available to issue payments electronically from within their broker management system.

ClearPay functions with major broker management systems and takes little to no technology resources to deploy at brokerages and carriers.

Technology by ClearPay.

GroupHEALTH Benefit Solutions

Improving Efficiency, Capturing New Opportunity with Smart Forms

GroupHEALTH Benefit Solutions exchanged its manual enrollment process for a digital, online version, that lowered costs, radically improved customer experience, and encouraged upsell for higher-end products.

With Xpertdoc Customer Communications Management (CCM) platform combined with their unique Smart Forms technology, GroupHEALTH could appeal to its customers with a pre-filled online enrollment form and finalized with eSignLive's e-signature tool for a complete end-to-end solution.

Technology by Xpertdoc Technologies and eSignLive by Vasco.

Imagine Financial

Imagine Financial's Travel Navigator™ Provides Assistance to Travellers

Travel Navigator™ is a web dashboard and mobile application that travels with Imagine Financial Ltd.'s insurance policy holders. Travel Navigator™ is the only app in the industry to offer a full range of information, real-time alerts, and assistance services with a focus on the traveller's health, security, and well-being. It is compatible with iOS and Android devices. Members can access real-time information on their mobile device, or download trip packs to access them offline anytime. Travel Navigator™ has enhanced the services of Imagine Financial Ltd. by increasing the number of win rates on competitive bids and providing policy holders with an all-in-one platform with integrated features and services.

Technology by Ingle International Inc.

LowestRates.ca

Technology Enables High-Quality Lead Generation

LowestRates.ca is a Toronto-based FinTech company that uses proprietary quoting technology to help Canadians shop for insurance, mortgages, credit cards, and car loans. By providing options from the country's most trusted financial institutions, LowestRates.ca has enabled over 1.5 million Canadian consumers to make smarter financial decisions since launching in 2012. As proof that their technology is resonating with users, LowestRates.ca was selected as the 4th fastest-growing 'New Growth Company' in Canada by PROFIT and Canadian Business magazines in September 2016, with a 2-year revenue growth of 1,754% and annual revenue of over $5M.

TD Insurance

TD Insurance Uses Photos to Reduce Auto Insurance Quote Time

To capitalize on the growth of the mobile marketplace a redesign of the mobile and tablet version of the Auto Quoter was required. With the introduction of the redesigned quoter, smartphone customers can take a picture of their driver's license barcode. The photo is interpreted by TD Insurance to prefill questions including claims details in Ontario (up to 17 fields) in the quote request form. This leads to an improved customer experience by reducing time and effort required to obtain a quote, and it increases accuracy. TD gains a competitive edge through innovation by being the first insurer to introduce “take a picture”

Technology by Kanetix.

Insurance-Canada.ca offers congratulations to all the nominees. Join us at ICTC2017 to discover the winners.