The Chronicle: Issue 2015-25, June 23, 2015


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

CAA Insurance and ACE PRS: Future in the Present Tense
On March 31st, ACE announced the launch of a high net worth personal insurance program for Canada through ACE Private Risk Services, with auto coverage provided by CAA Insurance Company (Ontario). The following day, CAA Insurance unveiled CAA Distinct, a comprehensive risk management solution for high net worth CAA members, enabled by a strategic relationship with ACE. We were intrigued by these relationships and how their approach aligns with future technology trends.

If Suppliers Don't Think Insurance is Innovative, Do We Care?
When a supplier rep first walks into an insurance office, the surprise is evident. Regardless of the sophistication of the organization, the rep is likely seeing large groups of people working with text-based screens doing to what appears to be clerical work. She even sees desks with paper on them! And when the rep starts to talk about customer interaction, she finds out there are layers of intermediaries that are using different systems to process the same information that's being handled already by the insurer. And if mobile comes up, the rep finds out that some one in IT has produced an app, but it's still in test. It looks like something out of the 20th century!

The Intersection: Insurance-Canada.ca Blog
The Intersection

an Insurance-Canada.ca Blog


Business of Insurance

KPMG Survey: Insurers unprepared for potential disruption caused by autonomous vehicles
Although the automotive and technology industries are moving swiftly to bring autonomous vehicles to market, the vast majority of insurers believe the potential impact is too distant in the future to begin preparing, according to the results of the Automobile Insurance in the Era of Autonomous Vehicles Survey conducted by KPMG LLP, the U.S. audit, tax and advisory services firm.

PwC: In the global insurance industry, disruption is the new reality
The pace of change in the global insurance industry is occurring more rapidly than could have been envisaged, concludes a report just published by PwC. The report concludes that the industry is at a pivotal juncture as it grapples with changing customer behaviour, new technologies and new distribution and business models. In 2010, PwC began carrying out scenario analysis of the trends reshaping insurance and what the industry would look like by 2020, drawing on interviews with more than a thousand executives worldwide. The report, Insurance 2020 and Beyond: Necessity Is The Mother Of Reinvention, findings of which will be unveiled at the IIS Global Insurance Forum in New York, reviews ongoing developments against PwC's initial projections. It looks ahead to the major trends that will develop in the global insurance industry over the next five years and beyond, and how businesses can design their strategy to face the future and capitalise on them.

Towers Watson: Insurers make progress on using risk appetite to build links with business operations
Many more insurers across the globe now consider risk appetite and risk tolerance statements, the foundational elements of enterprise risk management (ERM), highly important to their company's ultimate vision for their ERM program – a sizable increase compared to 2012. Only risk culture ranked higher in importance. Yet insurers also recognize they have work to do around their risk appetite and risk tolerance statements. More than half expect to make further changes to both in the next two years, according to findings from global professional services company Towers Watson's eighth biennial Global Enterprise Risk Management Survey.

Sun Life Financial to acquire Bentall Kennedy Group
Sun Life Financial will acquire Bentall Kennedy Group, a premier real estate investment manager operating in Canada and the U.S. which provides specialized real estate investment management and real estate services, including property management and leasing.

Telematics

Verisk announces strategic alliance with IMS
Verisk Insurance Solutions, a leading source of information about property/casualty insurance risk, has announced a new strategic alliance with global connected-car company Intelligent Mechatronic Systems Inc. (IMS), a leading provider of comprehensive insurance telematics services. Verisk Insurance Solutions is a Verisk Analytics business.

Policy Management

EIS Group introduces ISO electronic rating content integration with PolicyCore system
EIS Group, a global provider of insurance core systems, has announced the availability of ISO rating data within the company's policy administration software system – PolicyCore™ – through integration with ISO Electronic Rating Content (ERC). Insurers using ISO ERC in PolicyCore will be able to accelerate the introduction of new insurance products and make product changes more quickly, significantly reducing the time and cost of product configuration and maintenance. ISO is a Verisk Analytics (Nasdaq:VRSK) business.

Marketing

Gartner: Organizations are changing their Customer Experience priorities
Organizations have changed their customer experience (CX) priorities for 2015, according to a recent survey by Gartner, Inc. Leading CX priorities for 2015 are projects aimed at improving consistency across channels and acting as “one” unified organization. The survey took place in January 2015 among a Gartner-managed panel of 289 IT and business leaders. Respondents were responsible for CX projects, working on CX projects, or were familiar or indirectly impacted by such projects.

BMO introduces Canada's first National Wealth Index
BMO Wealth Management has launched a first-of-its-kind national Wealth Index, which provides a snapshot of Canadians' financial situations and measures their ability to manage their wealth. The inaugural BMO Wealth Management Index ranks residents of each province out of a score of 100 on who is most successful in managing their wealth. This is determined by looking at a variety of criteria, including: having, reviewing and maintaining a financial plan; household debts and assets; retirement savings; having insurance in place; estate planning components; rainy day savings; and the sustainability of their current financial situation.

Distribution

CSIO announces consumer eDelivery solution with epost
The Centre for Study of Insurance Operations is pleased to announce eDelivery, a new solution that allows broker and insurer members to leverage CSIOnet and eDocs to deliver personal lines policy documents to insureds through Canada Post's epost™ platform. An epost digital mailbox allows users to conveniently manage their financial documents in one place with one login and one password. By integrating with CSIOnet, eDelivery enables CSIO members to send an insured's policy as epost mailers to meet the expectations of today's consumers for enhanced security, service excellence and paperless communications.

Velocify study: Agencies using technology heavily plan to invest more
Velocify, the market leader in cloud-based intelligent sales automation software, and Insurance Technologies Corporation (ITC), a leading provider of marketing, rating and management software and services, have announced the results of a joint study which examined trends in technology usage and benefits to insurance agencies. The study revealed that larger, more successful agencies tend to be more frequent users of sales and marketing technology. Additionally, their investment in these tools is likely to grow, compared to smaller agencies and to those whose revenues are stagnant or shrinking. The results indicate a technology-related performance gap in the insurance industry.

Consumer Information

British Columbia government launches distracted driving penalty consultations
Are distracted driving laws in B.C. tough enough? Government is considering raising penalties for distracted driving and is now asking British Columbians to offer their input with the launch of a four-week consultation that will run through July 16, 2015. A new distracted driving public consultation website will collect comments as British Columbians consider whether B.C.'s current fine of $167 and three penalty points is sufficient to deter a behaviour that is now the second-leading contributing factor in motor vehicle deaths on B.C. roads.

RBC Insurance poll: Perception of distracted driving habits varies among drivers
While most Canadian drivers admit to engaging in distracted driving behaviours, they're much quicker to point the finger at other drivers. According to a recent RBC Insurance survey, 72 per cent of Canadians admit to some form of distracted driving behaviour, yet almost 90 per cent have noticed the distracted driving of others.


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