The Chronicle: Issue 2014-51, December 23, 2014


What's Going Through The Intersection of Insurance and Technology?

2014 Hits and Misses
As has been our wont since this blog began, we take a stab at predicting trends and directions for insurance and technology in Canada at the beginning of each year. We also commit to give an honest appraisal at year-end, and ask for your comment. It's time for the reckoning. For 2014, we highlighted specific areas and an overarching trend. We're going to grade ourselves, and we'd welcome your comments (good, bad, ugly) as well. We suggested that core systems replacements would continue, but that there would be increased governance, focussed on cost containment and benefits realization; we think we got this one right. If anything, we underestimated the movement to the cloud.

The Intersection: Insurance-Canada.ca Blog
The Intersection

an Insurance-Canada.ca Blog


13th Annual Insurance-Canada.ca Technology Conference

Welcome and thank-you to our 2015 conference sponsors:

IGATE as a Platinum Sponsor.
Silanis as a Silver Sponsor.
Brovada as a Silver Sponsor.
Canadian Insurance Top Broker as Media Sponsor.

13th Annual Insurance-Canada.ca Technology Conference
ICTC2015
“The Digital Customer Experience”
March 9-10, 2015


Wishing you and your loved ones a safe and happy holiday season

2014 comes to a close with the winter solstice and myriad celebrations of the dawning new year.

As we work through the process of finalizing our annual Insurance-Canada.ca Technology Conference (#ICTC2015) and Technology Awards (#ICTA2015), we now pause to reflect and enjoy.

The Chronicle will not publish next week but will return on Tuesday, January 6, 2015.

The Insurance-Canada.ca team wishes you and yours the best of the season.

– Kathryn, Doug, Patrick, Dave and Bobbi

Insurance-Canada.ca

Technology

IBM whitepaper: Shaping the future of insurance with IBM Watson
As the insurance market becomes digital, digitally savvy customers expect insurers to provide the same advanced customer experience during interactions as other industries such as retail. To meet these changing customer expectations, Life and Property & Casualty insurers are looking for innovative solutions that can enable them to shape the future of insurance by improving customer experiences. IBM Watson delivers this next wave of customer engagement capability to insurers through cognitive computing capability.

TEI/IET Mobility Newsletter: How Your Car Talks to Itself
Did you know that your car talks to itself all the time? and it does so in a standard, organized way? Any new car made since the early 1990s most likely features a Controller Area Network (CAN) bus – this specialized internal communications network has contributed immensely to how cars' components are controlled and communicate with each other. And CAN is not the only network – LIN, MOST and FlexRay are also present in the car – but these other networks have their own areas of specialty. Today's exploding use of communications within automobiles is changing the requirements, standards and expectations for internal communication.

Claims

Benchmark IME: Green Christmas, Global Warming, and Insurance Claims
I thought we would leave you with some thought-provoking and seasonally appropriate reading to ponder over the course of the Christmas holidays and during the potentially heavy rainfall predicted over the next several days. As of this week, according to global data from NOAA, it appears that 2014 will be the hottest year (globally) ever recorded. The consequences of global warming will impact every country in the world.

Adjuvantz adopts Symbility Health's Claims Connect Platform
Symbility Health Inc., a division of Symbility Solutions Inc. a global provider of cloud-based and smartphone/tablet-enabled claims technology for the property and casualty and health insurance industries, is pleased to announce that it has signed a contract with Adjuvantz, a leading Canadian healthcare organization offering medical support solutions to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and insurance industries. Adjuvantz will implement Symbility Health's Claims Connect® technology to manage their medical support programs and allow for a more effective and seamless collaboration between program managers, patients, insurance payers, and prescription drug fulfillment providers.

Celent report on Claims Systems Vendors: North American P&C Insurance 2014
Who are the leading claims systems vendors in 2014 in the categories of technology, functionality, customers, and service? In the report Claims System Vendors: North American P&C Insurance 2014, Celent profiles 31 core claims solutions. There are full profiles for 14 solutions, which are also ranked in the ABCD Vendor View. Another 17 have shorter profiles and are not ranked. The report also names the winners of the XCelent Awards.

Business of Insurance

ORION and itravel2000 partner to deliver unique and customized travel insurance
Two Canadian organizations are leading the way in protecting travellers. ORION Travel Insurance Company is pleased to announce a new partnership with itravel2000 and the launch of GoWise – a new travel insurance product. GoWise is a flexible insurance product which offers the right coverage for the right price. It is smart, simple and provides travellers both savings and security. The insurance coverage is tailored based on an individual's trip with the option of bundling products to save money.

Distribution

ICTA nomination: InsuranceHero.ca grows based on telecommunications footing
InsuranceHero.ca, an online insurance brokerage with a strong appetite to grow its digital footprint, needed of a customizable telephony solution. Sunwire's SolSwitch VOIP telephone system was the answer. This phone system provides a wide range of features including detailed analytics reporting, call recording, virtual fax machine, virtual extensions and flexible queue management. Through the use of the phone system, InsuranceHero.ca was able to reduce their errors and omissions exposure, save on long distance charges, reduce call wait times, and allow employees to work from home. As a result, InsuranceHero.ca has increased their provincial customer base and improved the overall client experience.

ICTA nomination: RSA Travel Insurance champions traveller happiness
At RSA Travel Insurance, we are on a journey to Champion Traveller Happiness. We share in the joy of travel and always take the traveller's eye view. We know the trip, not just the traveller. We always have the traveller's back, and we aspire for the industry. These are the commitments that drive our business, and they were at the forefront of the development of our new quote tool and customer-facing website.

Applied Systems delivers single system for independent agencies and brokerages to manage benefits and P&C lines of business
Applied Systems has announced the general release of Applied Epic 2014, the fastest-growing agency and brokerage management system, to the U.S. and Canadian marketplace. Applied Epic 2014 seamlessly incorporates powerful new capabilities into the core application, including functionality to manage benefits, built-in process management features for managing workflows called myEpic, and improved insurer connectivity and download support.

Policy Management

ICTA nomination: IAAH Implements Modern Core Systems in Record Time
In May 2014, Industrial Alliance deployed, after only 2 years of team work, EIS Suite as the cornerstone of a technology transformation focused on quickly developing and introducing new products to its expanding distribution network and implementing multi-channel customer service. EIS Suite's customer-centric design and the modern, highly-configurable and flexible architecture are key benefits. We are seeing significant benefits in terms of product agility in a very competitive market, staff and agent productivity and effectiveness, and superior customer service.

ICTA nomination: Intact Puts Risks in Their (Proper) Place
In 2014, Intact Financial and DMTI Spatial worked together to create and roll out a new visual user interface to enable 1,200 underwriters to make more informed and faster decisions regarding new and renewal policies. The system leverages geocoding to ensure that address data associated with one property is extremely accurate. It also provides type-ahead functionality to reduce data-entry times and visually presents internal and external risks to underwriters in real-time. Efficiencies achieved during the quoting process resulted in a 15% reduction in processing time making the payback period for this project 6 months. In addition, better risk segmentation will lead to better risk selection and lower claims costs. This will positively impact Intact'a loss ratio as well result in premiums that reflect a customer's specific exposure.

OneShield launches new, specialized core system software portfolio
OneShield, Inc., the leading core systems software provider of OneShield Enterprise for the global P&C and General insurance industry, has launched a new portfolio of software solutions designed specifically to meet the unique needs of niche market providers of insurance services and products. OneShield Market Solutions will provide enterprise-class, time-tested and proven core system insurance software solutions through standalone, subscription-based and cloud-based business models.

Marketing

eMarketer: Where is personalization at the end of 2014?
It seems like everywhere we've turned this year people have talking about the need for personalization. But October 2014 polling by Econsultancy in association with Adobe found that personalization efforts were still far from advanced.

Consumer Information

TIRF poll shows Canadians complacent about drinking and driving
A new Road Safety Monitor (RSM) poll conducted by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) and sponsored by Beer Canada and the Toyota Canada Foundation reveals that the percentage of respondents who regard drinking and driving as a major road safety concern has consistently decreased from a high of 88.0% in 2006 to 73.1% in 2014. The public opinion poll conducted in October and November 2014 investigated the attitudes, behaviours and actions of Canadians in relation to drinking and driving as well as trends.

IBC shares top 10 home safety tips to ensure a happy holiday season
Insurance Bureau of Canada offers its top 10 safety tips to Canadians this holiday season. “While the holiday season is fun, it's important to keep your home safe for you and your loved ones. We encourage you to review the tips below and share them with your friends and family,” said Ralph Palumbo, Vice-President, Ontario, IBC.

CLHIA pans Ontario's stance on defined contribution pension plans
The Canadian life and health insurance industry is extremely disappointed with the suggestion in the Ontario government's consultation paper on ORPPs that existing workplace plans, such as defined contribution (DC) plans, would not be considered “comparable.” Contrary to the impressions left by the Ontario government's paper, DC Registered Pension Plans have proven to be an effective way for Ontario workers to save for retirement.

IBAO urges safe and sober driving this holiday season
The Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario has partnered with Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving to promote safe and sober driving this holiday season. For many Ontarians, the arrival of the festive season means attending numerous holiday parties and get-togethers where alcohol is served. There are simple steps Ontario drivers can take to avoid tragic vehicle collisions this winter.

In The Community

Economical and its employees raise money for United Way agencies across Canada
Across the country, employees at Economical Insurance dug deep and pledged more money than ever in support of United Way, the company's signature charity. At the end of a fun-filled national campaign from November 17 to 21, a record-setting grand total was raised through the unprecedented participation of 67% of employees. "As a company, we came through in a big way to not only beat our participation target, but exceed the dollars we'd hoped to raise as well. Together, we made company history," said Karen Gavan, Economical's president and chief executive officer.

The Co-operators awards Impact Fund grants to Canadian students' sustainability projects
The Co-operators has awarded grants to 26 young Canadians leading innovative sustainability projects at universities and colleges and in communities across the country. The funding provided through The Co-operators Foundation's IMPACT! Fund, supports sustainability solutions and practices that positively impact Canadian communities and affect change.


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