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Insurance-Canada.ca - Where insurance and technology meet

MAY 24, 2022

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Insurance-Canada.ca Blog - The Intersection

INSURANCE INDUSTRY NEWS

Insurance Evolving Into “The Next Normal”
Vertafore is pleased to announce the release of its annual insurance survey report, titled “The Insurance Agency Workforce: Evolving Into The Next Normal.” Based on responses from more than 1,300 insurance professionals, the report includes insights on how independent agencies and MGAs responded to the Great Resignation, what attracts individuals to the insurance industry, factors that can help retain employees, and how workers feel their agency is responding to technology modernization. Read more.

Insurers Need To Fundamentally Change Business Models To Achieve Climate Resiliency
Capgemini and Efma's World Property and Casualty Insurance Report 2022 reveals that climate change is hurting the insurance industry. It highlights that insurers focused on building climate-resilient business models will be better positioned to generate deeper customer trust while boosting their relevance and profitability. The inaugural report addresses how insurers can lead climate change resiliency, one of the most pressing issues in modern times. Read more.

Simplify FNOL With New Guidewire Marketplace App From Zelros
Guidewire and Zelros, an InsurTech offering a platform for personalized recommendations, are pleased to announce that Zelros' new Ready for Guidewire validated accelerator for ClaimCenter is now available to users in the Guidewire Marketplace. Read more.

L’Unique Partners With Applied To Automate Commercial Lines Quoting
Applied Systems is pleased to announce a partnership with L'Unique General Insurance to enable real-time quoting for commercial lines. The partnership will create a more efficient small commercial quoting process, utilizing CSIO commercial lines data standards and question sets to improve the service delivered to the customers of L'Unique's broker distribution network. Read more.

MIB Expands Digital Solutions Portfolio through Acquisition of APEXA from RGA
MIB, the life insurance industry's most trusted and secure partner for data-driven risk management and digital services, is pleased to announce that it has reached an agreement with a subsidiary of Reinsurance Group of America (RGA) to acquire APEXA, Canada's leading contracting and compliance service provider for life insurance advisors, MGAs, and carriers. The acquisition expands MIB's portfolio of digital solutions and client base in Canada. Read more.

Crawford Technologies Updates Digital Transform Engine
The newest version of Crawford Technologies' Digital Transform Engine (DTE), the foundation of the Crawford Technologies portfolio of software and solutions, offers new enhancements that deliver advanced levels of functionality and performance to ensure greater flexibility in the production of customer communications, including accessible documents. Read more.

Best Practices To Prevent Workplace Fraud
According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the typical workplace fraud case in Canada results in a substantial average loss, with statistics showing billing schemes to be the most common, present in more than a third of fraud cases. Read more.

U.S. Traffic Fatalities Reached 16-Year High In 2021
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released its early estimate of traffic fatalities for 2021, revealing the highest number of fatalities since 2005 and the largest annual percentage increase (up 10.5% from 2020) in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System's history. Behind each of these numbers is a life tragically lost, and a family left behind. Read more.

Penny McCune Appointed SGI President & CEO
After an extensive national search led by SGI's Board of Directors, SGI's own Penny McCune has been selected to replace former President & CEO Andrew Cartmell, who retired in April. Read more.

Enhanced Protection For Canola Farmers
Farmers Edge Inc. is pleased to announce enhancements to Canola Heat Blast Yield Protection, an innovative insurance product distributed through its wholly owned subsidiary, DigiAg Risk Management Inc. This unique parametric coverage will now be available to farmers as a standard property & casualty solution with less paperwork and no legal entity or minimum asset requirements. Read more.

ICTA NOMINATIONS

Improving Estimates For Property Claims With AI
Asservio is Crawford Platform Solution's first-ever SaaS offering. Asservio is a leading-edge, digital platform that allows organizations to transform their property estimating quality assurance process. Using automation, an estimate review can be expedited in minutes instead of hours or days. In a matter of four seconds, Asservio scans property estimates and identifies $5,800 in average variances. Read more.

What's going through the Intersection
of insurance and technology?

Insurers’ Top Talent Objectives in the Post-Pandemic Era
By Mark Breading, Strategy Meets Action
The pandemic has altered life in so many ways over the past two years. And one change that will likely stick around for years to come is the new workforce dynamic. The competition to attract top talent is as fierce as ever as industries contend against the Great Resignation, the remote workforce, urban migration, and a labor shortage. While talent challenges are nothing new to the insurance industry, new research shows that insurers are prioritizing talent strategies now more than ever before. Read more.

All of the 2022 ICTA nominations have been posted, and the ICTA jury is deliberating to select the finalists.

Voting for the People's Choice Award will open shortly.

And don't forget to join us on June 22 at 1pm to discover the winners in a virtual ceremony. Registration will open soon.

From Doug

How Good is an Estimate?

The ICTA awards focus on the “value derived” from a technology implementation to improve digital processing.

This year's nominations are broadly scattered, across most parts of the insurance business - broker, MGA, Insurer, Claims provider. The technology applications vary from small and niche to large and comprehensive.

This wide variety makes comparisons difficult for the jury.

The Crawford submission, named Asservio, is unique among ICTA submissions to date, illustrating the ever-broadening use of technology across the insurance process spectrum.

Asservio reviews estimates for repair of property claims. At the core of Crawford's business, they of course have deep experience and lots of historical data to work from.

The development team applied modern technologies to the problem.

The results in reviewing estimates from the Crawford Contractor Connect group were good, good enough to then extend the tool to the independent contractor estimates.

Good things expand, in this case in two directions. After packaging Asservio as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS):

• To contractors to review estimates before submitting
• To insurance clients and partners to review estimates

The 2022 ICTA nominations have all now been published.

Stay tuned for details of the People's Choice Award, followed by the virtual awards ceremony on June 22.

Doug Grant, CIP
Partner
Insurance-Canada.ca

The Chronicle weekly newsletter features news, events, and general information relating to technology and innovation in the Canadian insurance industry and marketplace. Subscribe here or view past issues.

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