INSURANCE INDUSTRY NEWS

Four Catastrophic Summer Events Led To Record Number Of Insurance Claims
Canada's home, auto and business insurers are reporting the most challenging summer on record for damage from weather events and natural disasters. Notable events included the Jasper wildfire, flooding in Toronto, the Calgary hailstorm, and flooding in regions of Quebec. Read more.

WTW, Kayna Partner To Drive Next-Generation Product Solutions
WTW is pleased to announce a partnership between its Affinity Insurance business and Kayna, the award-winning insurance infrastructure platform, to enable delivery of innovative WTW insurance solutions to SME clients in the UK and US through Vertical Software-as-a-Service (vSaaS) platforms. Read more.

CSIO Congratulates Applied Systems For New Certification
CSIO is pleased to announce that Applied Systems Canada has earned Commercial Lines Data Standards Certification for the Business & Professional Services, Contractors, Retail and Real Estate industry segments, positioning future quoting innovation within Applied Epic. Read more.

Boardrooms Unprepared For Growing Cyber Risks: Beazley
Beazley, the leading specialist insurer, is pleased to announce the publication of its latest cyber risk & resilience report, which details how businesses perceive the growing threat posed by cyber crime, tech obsolesce, tech disruption and intellectual property risks. Read more.

SRD Announces New Distinction Claims Services
ClaimsPro is pleased to announce the launch of SRD Distinction, a unique claims handling service for high-net-worth personal claims. This new program will support insureds across Canada with a bespoke service focused on delivering the highest level of customer service excellence and professionalism. Read more.

Mitchell, PAVE Expand Intelligent Platform With A.I. Vehicle Inspections
Mitchell is pleased to announce that it is teaming up with PAVE to automate vehicle inspections, leveraging Mitchell's cloud-based appraisal solution, comprehensive data and open platform combined with PAVE's proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) and guided image capture application. Read more.

PURE Insurance Enters Canada
Privilege Underwriters Reciprocal Exchange, the policyholder-owned property & casualty insurer for successful, responsible homeowners, is pleased to announce its first international expansion as it opens for business in Canada. Read more.

First Acre Increases Capacity With New Mutual Fire Partnership
First Acre Insurance is pleased to announce it continues to add capacity with the recent addition of Mutual Fire Insurance to its portfolio; capacity for property and liability coverage is currently provided by, Red River Mutual, Mutual Fire Insurance and Aviva Canada. Read more.

Litigation Costs Drive U.S. Liability Claims: Swiss Re Institute
Social inflation has become the main growth driver of US liability claims, primarily due to a rising number of large court verdicts, according to Swiss Re Institute's new Social Inflation Index. Read more.

CHES Special Risk Launches Infectious Disease Liability Insurance
CHES Special Risk is pleased to announce the launch of its innovative new Infectious Disease Liability policy to address the growing need for comprehensive protection against liabilities arising from the spread of infectious diseases, offering businesses and organizations a vital safety net in today's health-conscious environment. Read more.

AMC Insurance Services Acquires Western Associated Insurance Brokers
AMC Insurance Services Ltd. is pleased to announce its successful acquisition of Western Associated Insurance Brokers Ltd., located in Vancouver, British Columbia, effective September 3rd. Read more.

Hub Acquires Felton Et Associes
Hub International Limited, a leading global insurance brokerage and financial services firm, is pleased to announce that it has acquired Felton et Associes Assurances Inc. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Read more.

A.M. Fredericks Rebrands As SWG Specialty Underwriting Services
A.M. Fredericks Underwriting Management Ltd. is please to announce that, effective September 3, 2024, we are rebranding as SWG Specialty Underwriting Services Ltd. This strategic rebranding follows our recent acquisition by South Western Insurance Group Ltd. (SWIG) and marks our continued dedication to growth and excellence. Read more.

In the InsurTech Spotlight this week:

CloudAdvisors
CloudAdvisors is an online platform that puts you in charge of your employee benefits plan. We are the first end to end digital platform to shop, compare, and analyse employee benefit plans. Through our network of benefit advisors, Canadian benefit providers, and marketplace solutions, we make it easy to build the right benefits plan, at the right price. Learn more.

Calling all InsurTechs! Click here to participate.

Featured job opportunities:

Financial Security Advisor, Insurance
RBC
Montreal, QC

Bilingual Regional Underwriter, Toronto
HSB Canada
Toronto, ON

From Doug McKinsey's Lilli: A Generative AI Case Study “Rewiring the way McKinsey works” offered some new insights for me and might have value for readers. By the time ChatGPT took the world by storm in November 2022, McKinsey had been grappling with an intractable problem for decades: making the voluminous business knowledge it had documented over 96 years of history readily available to employees. The goal was to build a generative AI platform powered by our firm's knowledge to accelerate insights for our teams and timelines for our clients. Results: • 20% improvement in content quality & accuracy; • 30% time saved on information gathering and synthesis. Benefits: Employees can now ... • Quickly get up to speed on unfamiliar topics; • Access and learn McKinsey frameworks and methodologies; • Create drafts of meeting agendas, project work plans; • Push team thinking toward more-creative solutions. Five lessons from Lilli's development: • Prompts matter – a lot; • Be vigilant about data curation; • Invest in an orchestration layer; • Test and test again (and again); • It's never “just” tech. Doug Grant, CIP Partner Insurance-Canada.ca