INSURANCE INDUSTRY NEWS

Marsh Transforms Property Risk Management With New Analytics Solution
Marsh, the world's leading insurance broker and risk advisor, is pleased to announce the launch of a new property analytics solution that will transform how clients around the world manage their property risks from a slow, manual process into a digital experience with real-time, on demand actionable insights. Read more.

Betterview Partners With Canopy Weather
Betterview, an InsurTech provider of actionable property intelligence to property & casualty insurance companies, is pleased to announce a new partnership with Canopy Weather, a provider of weather and hazard datasets. Read more.

Imperial PFS Canada Partners With CAMGA
Imperial PFS Canada, a leading provider of payment solutions for the insurance industry, and CAMGA, the Canadian Association of Managing General Agents, are pleased to announce an exclusive partnership that will help benefit the Canadian MGA market. Read more.

Duuo, TELUS Smart Building Partner On Property Automation Services Suite
Duuo Insurance Services has partnered with TELUS Smart Building to provide preferred access to a suite of technology designed to modernize and simplify the resident and property management experience. Read more.

Definity Taps Google Cloud To Power Innovation
Definity Financial Corporation is pleased to announce that its subsidiary Definity Insurance Company has established a new relationship with Google Cloud that will allow the two companies to leverage Google's advanced technology to accelerate the development of innovative personalized insurance solutions within a secure cloud environment, which holds the promise of a smoother, more intuitive insurance experience for customers and brokers. Read more.

Individual Life Carriers Need To Improve Post-Issue Service
Individual life carriers are waking up to the importance of customer experience from the perspectives of the policyholder and the producer. As individual life carriers improve the agent and customer experience to meet their evolving expectations, transformation initiatives demand leaders and change agents who understand the customer, various distribution channels, and the end-to-end policy life cycle, while finding ways to marry new and existing technology to achieve success. Read more.

Brokerlink Acquires Three Ontario Locations
BrokerLink continues its expansion in Ontario with the acquisition of Greg Kelly Insurance Brokerage Ltd. and Rice Inc., effective April 1st. Read more.

Navacord Acquires Beneplan
Navacord Corp., Canada's fourth-largest commercial brokerage, is excited to announce their newest partnership with Beneplan, an industry disruptor in health benefits. With a vision of fairness and honesty overcoming profit, Beneplan has dedicated themselves to fighting for the “underdogs” – small to medium-sized businesses that seek affordable healthcare for their staff. Read more.

AXA XL Unveils Enhanced Risk Scanning Property Risk Assessment Tool In North America
To help companies see the ‘big risk picture’ and pinpoint potential property exposures across their business locations, AXA XL Risk Consulting is rolling out its Risk Scanning risk assessment service in the US and Canada. Read more.

Spot Pet Insurance Enters Market
Spot Pet Insurance, a digital-first pet insurance provider in the United States, has strengthened its reach internationally with the launch of its services across Canada. Spot offers affordable plan options for the pet-centric community to help them secure their pets' well-being so they can enjoy healthier lives together. Read more.

Swiss Re Secures Significant Alternative Capital Via Innovative Hybrid Transaction
Swiss Re has successfully closed an innovative multi-year stop-loss transaction, with financing ultimately provided by J.P. Morgan and various institutional investors. The transaction, which covers underwriting risks across the entire Swiss Re Group, is the first of its kind to combine both bank financing and insurance-linked securities. Read more.

Emma closes CAD 6M Series A round
Led by prominent Canadian investors Luge Capital, Investissement Québec, and Tactico, the CAD$6M financing round will further enhance Emma’s impressive growth in the Canadian market. A year after taking part in the inaugural cohort of Intuit Prosperity Accelerator, Emma has grown by more than 500% and is now looking to help even more Canadian families get the right life insurance coverage. Read more.

Aquiline Leads InsurePay Series B Round
InsurePay, a leading InsurTech Property & Casualty billing and payments platform, is pleased to announce that it has secured additional Series B funding from Aquiline Technology Growth, Fintop Capital and others. The investment funded the acquisition of AcordPay, an insurance payment hub that streamlines, automates and reconciles receivables, payables and commissions. Read more.

RBR, Aite-Novarica Group Join Forces
RBR, the leading provider of strategic research and data on banking automation, cards, payments, and retail technology, and Aite-Novarica Group, an advisory firm providing mission-critical insights on technology, regulations, markets, and operations to banks, payments providers, insurers, and securities firms, are pleased to announce their intention to merge. Read more.

Mutual Fire To Merge With Germania Mutual
The Mutual Fire Insurance Company of British Columbia and Germania Mutual Insurance are pleased to announce they have reached an agreement to merge, pending regulatory approval. Read more.

How Broker Tech Can Unlock the Potential of Your Commercial Distribution Team
Free webinar – Wednesday, April 27, 1pm

The digital transformation of insurance, evolving customer expectations, questions about trust and coverage, and slow policy / service times are contributing to rapid changes in commercial insurance in Canada.

Three experts from Relay Platform will analyze the latest trends in sourcing capacity and increasing win/renewal rates collaboratively in Commercial Lines.

Register now and learn how to assess your need for technology and how technology with the right partner can benefit every participant in the value chain. More details.

Featuring:

In the InsurTech Spotlight this week:

Breathe Life
Breathe Life is accelerating the delivery of financial security products. Our enterprise SaaS distribution platform increases speed of delivery and reduces operational costs for the distribution of financial security products. Using the Breathe Life platform, insurers can stay ahead of the game and families everywhere can get the financial protection they need. Learn more.

Calling all InsurTechs! Click here to participate.

From Doug From product development through marketing to customers, from policies through claims to reinsurance settlements and reporting, data has always been essential for insurance When direct access to data by those outside your business – customers, partners, suppliers, or others – the opportunity for your staff to filter or interpret that data is lost. The data must be accurate and properly understood, or else the third party may make bad decisions based on your data, so manage it well. To draw some examples from the 2022 ICTA nominations: • Inquiry by partners, customers • Lead generation • Quotes • Bind and Issue • Claims estimates • Service provider recommendations In those examples alone, the function varies from displaying simple data through decision support to automated decisions with AI-based machine learning and predictive analytics. The importance of quality data governance obviously increases in the progression from simple to complex. I wonder how the examples noted will fare with the 2022 ICTA judges. More details on each nomination will be published over the coming weeks. Doug Grant, CIP Partner Insurance-Canada.ca