INSURANCE INDUSTRY NEWS

Intact Acquires The Guarantee, Frank Cowan
Intact Financial Corporation is pleased to announce that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Princeton Holdings Limited to acquire The Guarantee Company of North America, a specialty lines insurer in Canada and the U.S., and Frank Cowan Company Limited, a managing general agent (MGA) focused on specialty insurance. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2019, subject to regulatory approvals. Read more.

Breathe Life Introduces Advisor Experience
Breathe Life, a provider of consumer-centric digital transformation solutions for the insurance industry, has introduced the Advisor Experience portion of its end-to-end platform for insurance distributors to modernize the way personal insurance is bought and sold. Read more.

U.S. Small Businesses Have Never Been More Satisfied With Their Coverage: J.D. Power
Small business owners in the United States have never been more satisfied with their insurance providers, the J.D. Power 2019 U.S. Small Commercial Insurance Study has revealed. Read more.

U.S. Independent Channel Having Record Year
Agents and brokers in the independent insurance channel just posted their best second quarter (Q2) results since 2013, according to Reagan Consulting's Q2 2019 Organic Growth and Profitability survey. Ample organic growth across all business lines coupled with a hot M&A market yield a healthy outlook for the future of the industry. Read more.

Cyber Security Certification Program Launches
The Government of Canada has launched the CyberSecure Canada certification program and announced funding for TechImpact to help the organization with a talent development pilot for the cybersecurity sector. CyberSecure Canada is a voluntary cyber security certification program that will help small and medium-sized organizations achieve a baseline level of cyber security. Read more.

Paychex Launches Cyber Liability Protection
To help safeguard businesses against the unforeseen costs associated with cyberattacks, Paychex, Inc., a leading provider of integrated human capital management solutions for payroll, HR, benefits, and insurance administration services, is now making cyber liability protection available to U.S. clients through Paychex Insurance Agency and AXIS Insurance Company, a leading cybersecurity insurance carrier. Read more.

Munich Re Launches Automated Damage Detection
Munich Re has announced a new suite of hurricane response tools to help insurance companies assess widespread property damage after a hurricane and improve their customers' claims experience. Read more.

Introducing Quadient Archive & Retrieval
Quadient, the award-winning leader in Customer Communications Management, is pleased to announce the general availability of Quadient Archive & Retrieval, a high-performance, highly scalable technology solution that enables businesses to meet compliance standards and improve customer experience by providing quick access to historical documents and data across all channels. Read more.

Chubb Expands Water Damage Coverage To Canadian Homeowners
Chubb has launched its Overland Water Coverage offering to Canadian homeowner insurance clients. This newly enhanced and expanded water risk management solution is designed to offer an add-on coverage for Chubb Masterpiece® home insurance policyholders. This coverage complements the existing water damage coverages, such as sewer back up, found in the base policy. Read more.

Stratford Launches Insurance For BC Drivers
There's a new player in BC for optional car insurance. Newly launched Stratford Underwriting Agency offers better prices for an estimated 80% of British Columbians and more options on optional coverage for a wider range of drivers. Read more.

Foresters Unveils Charity Provision For Term Life
Foresters Financial™ has announced the addition of its Charitable Benefit Provision to its Term products in Canada. For Term insurance policyholders who select the benefit, Foresters will donate an additional 1% of the basic insurance amount to the designated registered charity when a claim is paid. This charitable contribution will not reduce the death benefit to the beneficiaries in any way. Read more.

Humania Assurance Acquires Tour+Med Assets
Humania Assurance is proud to announce the acquisition of all of Tour+Med's assets. Tour+Med is a renowned player in the Canadian travel insurance business, whoses personalized approach answers the needs travellers who are declined coverage by other carriers due to age or pre-existing medical conditions. Read more.

FirstOnSite To Acquire JPL Disaster Recovery
FirstOnSite Restoration, Canada’s leading independent disaster restoration services provider, has strengthened its presence in the National Capital Region with the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire JPL Disaster Recovery, a company with more than 50 years of experience and expertise in disaster restoration in the National Capital Region. Read more.

Brookfield Business Partners to Acquire Control of Genworth Canada
Brookfield Business Partners LP has announced an agreement to acquire an approximate 57% controlling interest in Genworth MI Canada Inc. – consisting of an aggregate of 48,944,645 common shares – from Genworth Financial. Read more.

Financial Horizons Group Continues Growth
Financial Horizons Group, TORCE Financial Group Inc., and VANCE Financial Group Inc. are proud to announce that their Managing General Agencies are joining forces to build on the strengths of their operations and advisor networks. Read more.

Electronic Pink Slips Approved In Alberta
CSIO is pleased to share that the Alberta Superintendent of Insurance has approved the use of electronic proof of automobile insurance, or eSlips, in Alberta, effective August 12. Alberta drivers can now present their eSlips on their mobile devices. Read more.

Coming up next week! Register today!

The Broker’s Workstation (TBW) features real-time rating and data exchange for faster, more effective quoting. How does your BMS compare? Learn more about our real-time broker and MGA products from Custom Software Solutions.

“Insurance In The Platform Economy”

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Be prepared to compete successfully tomorrow.

Making the platform plunge: Who Is The Winner In The Modern Insurance Buying Process? with Jeff McCann, Apollo Exchange.

Learn What Insurance Platforms Can Do for Insurers and for Platform Sponsors from Donald Light, Celent.

Take A Peek Into The Future of Insurance with Tim Attia, Slice Labs.

Making changes carries risk, but it can be managed. Hear how in Taking The Leap – And The Risk – Of Innovation, with Aly Dhalla, Finaeo; Sachin Rustagi, Gore; and Neil Mitchell, Player's Health.

And learn how to Put The Wow! In Customer Experience Through Automation from Scott Mackey, Adlib.

ICEF2019 brings together industry thought leaders, insurance pioneers who are taking advantage of new methods, and solution providers with products and services to help you succeed.

Register now, or for more details, visit
insurance-canada.ca/icef.

The InsurTech Spotlight features insurance practitioners and InsurTech(nology) providers which are – or are becoming – InsurTechs. In the spotlight this week are:

Goose Digital
Goose Digital specializes in developing strategies and executing complex marketing automation programs for national carriers, brokers and MGAs across Personal and Commercial Lines insurance. Learn more.

Calling all InsurTechs! Click here to participate.

Featured job opportunities:

Client Service Associate (CSA)
Excel Insurance Group (Metro Vancouver)
Vancouver, BC

Senior Manager – ATB Insurance
PPI
Calgary, AB

From Doug Last week, I looked at IoT and insurance in the dimensions of new risks and managing risk, i.e. helping the customer to manage risk better. An insurance product has expense components essential to good pricing: claims, distribution and administration. If you decide to add IoT to the product in order to measure a characteristic of the risk, then there will be a measuring cost, too. In early iterations of telematics-based auto insurance, measurement was done with a dongle – let's assume $200 per year for the hardware and monitoring. In order to be competitive in a price-sensitive auto insurance market, other expenses would have to decrease by that much – for the product to have a price (or profitability) advantage, the savings would have to be greater. With more than 70 percent of drivers believing they are “better than average,” it should not be that difficult to sell this product on the basis of a promise to reduce premiums. Drive well – earn a bigger discount. But is the earned discount (assuming the driving is good enough) enough incentive then to sell the product, and hopefully at the same time improve loyalty? Doug Grant, CIP Partner Insurance-Canada.ca