Claims

Who’s at Fault?

A guide for assessing the liability of machine drivers when they don’t live up to the standards of human drivers.

June 15, 2018

2 min read

Why mutuals partner with independent adjusters

Small insurers or mutuals may decide to partner with independent adjusting (IA) firms as a way of providing them with flexibility on costs and full-time staff. On May 30, Contractor Connection, a service line of IA firm Crawford & Company (Canada) Inc., announced that it was partnering with Peel Mutual, one of the largest mutual […]

By Jason Contant | June 15, 2018

3 min read

Claims

$400M Ontario windstorm ‘not quite’ the new normal

If water is the new fire, then what is weather? For Paul Kovacs, executive director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR), weather is definitely what will be taking the lion’s share of payouts in the next quarter century. “It’s my opinion that in 25 or 30 years, our industry will collect premium and […]

By Jason Contant | June 15, 2018

2 min read

Claims

Regulator says company had legal obligation to fix and maintain rail line

WINNIPEG – Federal regulators have ruled that the owners of a broken rail line to Churchill were wrong not to repair the line that kept the northern Manitoba community connected to the outside world. The Canadian Transportation Agency says the Hudson Bay Railway Co., owned by Denver-based Omnitrax, had a legal obligation to fix and […]

By Jason Contant | June 15, 2018

2 min read

New basement flood awareness training for home insurance brokers

A course on basement flooding risk will likely be available to Canadian property and casualty insurance brokers within the next year, Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, told Canadian Underwriter Monday. The Intact Centre also plans to offer – later this month on a pilot basis – a course in five […]

2 min read

‘Spikes’ in marijuana use found after legalization

Will the legalization of recreational marijuana encourage some Canadians to start using pot? In jurisdictions where cannabis has been legalized “we see spikes in use at the onset of sales,” Lewis Koski, former director of the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division, said Tuesday during a panel discussion in Toronto. In Colorado, it is legal for adults […]

3 min read

Solution addresses staffing demands for claims management

Claims adjusting firm Crawford & Company (Canada), Inc. has launched a staffing solution designed to place Crawford claims management professionals in-house at their clients’ place of business to meet staffing demands associated with unexpected leaves, influxes in work volume or special projects. The Workforce ADVANTAGE program was introduced on Thursday in response to growing workforce […]

1 min read

Toronto’s Eaton Centre mall springs a leak after rain storm

TORONTO – Even the iconic Eaton Centre mall wasn’t a refuge from the rain as a storm rolled through downtown Toronto on Wednesday afternoon. Numerous people posted videos on Twitter as water poured from the ceiling of the shopping centre. One person tweeted “It’s raining inside Eaton Centre,” and video showed pools of water on […]

2 min read

What the May 4 windstorm can teach the industry about catastrophe modelling

Rare events like the May 4 windstorm that primarily affected southern Ontario often cause the most damage, but are also the most difficult to generalize in catastrophe modelling predictions, according to a Canadian weather forecasting and research firm. “While the combination of factors on May 4 was rare, it is important for insurers, and those […]

2 min read

How brokerages should handle employees’ use of social media

Negative public reaction to some high-profile Twitter and Instagram posts raises the question of whether insurance brokerage owners should monitor the personal social media accounts of their workers. “We don’t police our staff’s Facebook pages,” reports Calgary brokerage owner Robyn Young. “As part of our hiring – if [a prospective employee’s] Facebook page was public, […]

3 min read