INSURANCE INDUSTRY NEWS

PolicyMe Launches Fully Digital Life Product
Digital life insurance platform PolicyMe is pleased to introduce a completely digital way for Canadians to purchase life insurance, in partnership with Canadian Premier. PolicyMe now enables Canadians to purchase life insurance coverage entirely online, with the majority of users receiving an approval within 20 minutes, down from an average waiting period of at least four weeks. Read more.

Wawanesa Integrates ProNavigator Platform
The Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company and ProNavigator are pleased to announce that Wawanesa has successfully integrated ProNavigator's Ask Sage platform to benefit its broker partners with simplified access to information. Read more.

Unica Launches API For SME Commercial Quote
Unica Insurance is pleased to announce the launch of the industry's first production API that enables real-time small business commercial quotes directly in the Broker Management System (BMS). Bbrokers can now solicit and produce quotes for their small business commercial customers based on rates provided directly from Unica's rating engine. Read more.

Third-Party Data In Insurance: Novarica
While insurers have long drawn upon third-party data providers to enhance their marketing, underwriting and claims, the growth of digital services and the powerful analytics have driven recent increases. In a new executive brief, Novarica reviews multiple insurance industry use cases for third-party data, with examples and profiles of data providers. Read more.

Acturis To Acquire Brovada From WTW
Acturis Group is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Brovada from Willis Towers Watson. Brovada is a leading electronic trading enabler in the Canadian general insurance market; the BrovadaOne Connectivity product creates significant efficiencies for brokers and insurers alike. Read more.

Synex Acquires Majority Share Of Sharp Insurance
Synex Performance d'affaires is proud to announce its majority acquisition of Alberta-based insurance brokerage Sharp Insurance, effective April 1st. Rogers Insurance remains a significant stakeholder of Sharp Insurance, and together with Synex, will continue to focus on technology and growth. Read more.

Trufla Restructured Following Sharp Sale
Sherif Gemayel, President and CEO of Trufla Technology, has sold all shares of Sharp Insurance and acquired majority ownership of Trufla Technology, marking a new era for the broker-focused InsurTech company. The transaction strengthens Trufla's capital position, allowing them to focus on service support and innovation. Read more.

Navacord Expands Commercial Auto Niche
Navacord Corp. is pleased to announce the addition of LL Renaissance, effective April 1st. LL Renaissance delivers innovative solutions for property and casualty insurance, with specialty products for auto dealerships, and deep expertise spanning the automotive, marine, property management, construction, professional indemnity, hydroelectric and pharmaceutical industries. Read more.

Westland Acquires MBS Insurance Brokers
Westland Insurance Group Ltd. is pleased to announce the closing of a new acquisition, MBS Insurance Brokers, effective April 1, 2021. Westland's new retail office, located in Edmonton, Alberta, supports the company's expansion strategy to serve more communities across Canada. Read more.

CAPE Analytics Expands Into Canada
CAPE Analytics, the leader in AI-powered geospatial property intelligence, is pleased to announce its expansion into Canada. Now, property stakeholders can access the most accurate and recent data available for many properties in Canada, including loss and valuation predictive attributes. Insurance carriers can leverage this new information to make better, quicker, and more profitable decisions. Read more.

ICTA NOMINATIONS

Using Technology To Help Small Business
At Zensurance, we utilize our proprietary technology to digitize the entire customer experience. The Zensurance platform enables clients to receive and purchase insurance tailored to their businesses in as little as twenty minutes using a single online transaction across multiple devices with our mobile-responsive application. Read more.

Taking Comparative Quoting To A Higher Level
LowestRates.ca has saved Canadians more than $1 billion in premiums with our best-in-class insurance quoters. They are completely free to use and we provide close to 1 million comparative quotes from Canada's leading insurance companies and brokers in the P&C space every year. Read more.

Would You Like Tools With Your Cyber Insurance?
Coalition's offering provides proactive cybersecurity products and services and best-in-class cyber and technology E&O insurance to help keep businesses safe. In addition to Incident Response, Coalition offers a full range of free cyber security tools and services to support customers throughout the entire lifecycle of their risk exposure — before, during, and after an incident. Read more.

Automating Claims Settlement
Duuo's automated claims settlement feature is something that both insurance providers and their clients have been asking for. Our automated claims settlement feature has improved Duuo on three fronts: efficiency, operating costs and our customer relationships. Read more.

So How Much Was My Car Worth?
Aviva Canada's auto claim innovation journey has been making it easier and faster to report collision claims, allowing customers to enrol in automated digital SMS notifications for claim progress updates, and enabling adjusters to make critical decisions right on the first notice of loss call with the customer via real-time predictive analytics. We have extended our innovation efforts to cover the tail end of the total loss journey with a new real-time integration from Guidewire ClaimCenter to AutoTRADER for immediate total loss vehicle valuation. Read more.

CBN members are independent. Some say fiercely independent.

Through CBN guiding principles of innovation, collaboration, and commitment to growth, our members leverage the tremendous value of independence into best possible value propositions for clients, employees and insurer partners.

CBN is a proud sponsor of the 2021 Insurance-Canada.ca Technology Awards.

Featured job opportunities:

Surety Underwriter (Senior or Specialist)
Sovereign General Insurance Company
Vancouver, BC

In-House New Business Development
Wiesner Insurance
Brampton, ON

In the InsurTech Spotlight this week:

BluInsurance
BluInsurance is an software product focused on digitally enabling every step of the commercial insurance process for a broker from the exchange of data to creating and tracking quotes. Many current InsurTech companies focus on assisting carriers, and the few InsurTech companies that help brokers are focused on personal lines. At BluInsurance, we believe that commercial insurance will allow brokers to thrive into the future, and our mission is to enable them to do so. Learn more.

Calling all InsurTechs! Click here to participate.

From Doug Increasingly Digital Leaders in insurance are looking beyond the insurance industry for new types of business partnerships. Today's connected world has expanded the range of potential partnerships. Whether internally, with others in the insurance industries, or with businesses elsewhere, digital connections offer many advantages. Many ICTA nominees have used such services in their solutions. Consider Aviva and TRADER Corp. In an auto total loss situation, helping the customer through the process easily and smoothly without delay is important. Last year's Aviva nomination showed how they have enabled the determination of repair vs salvage at the time of FNOL, a saving of several days. Their 2021 nomination (“How Much Was My Car Worth?”) tackles another delay when information is gathered for a settlement offer. A digital request/response is exchanged between the Aviva adjuster and TRADER; the adjuster can then provide a valuation and a settlement offer while the customer is “on the line.” A win for everyone, and an increase in NPS. Speeding or eliminating process steps, enabling relationships into other industries, innovating product, focusing on the customer – all these and more are under scrutiny by industry leaders. See more of the 2021 ICTA nominations posted to date. Doug Grant, CIP Partner Insurance-Canada.ca