Innovating payments for Canada’s insurance industry

The Canadian insurance industry has a lot to gain from making payments faster, easier, and more transparent. In a post-pandemic economy, many Canadians are reducing their use of cash as a payment method and are relying instead on digital payments. In fact, a recent Interac survey¹ revealed that two thirds of Canadians believe businesses that fail to adapt in order to allow digital payments will struggle.

The demand for digital payment options from businesses will only increase and insurance organizations will need to accommodate this shift in consumer behaviour. Pre-pandemic, day-to-day financial management often involved processes that were paper-based, cheque-driven, and manual. These are typically slow and inefficient ways of working and require businesses to spend valuable resources processing and reconciling payments. The pandemic, alongside changing consumer preferences, has naturally reinforced the need for digitization and moved businesses to lessen their reliance on manual processes to boost overall operational efficiency. Eighty-three per cent of finance professionals surveyed by Interac affirm this notion, saying that applying digital transformation to their function is now a priority².

These needs are fuelling demand for innovative business payment solutions, such as Interac e-Transfer® for Business. An enhancement of the existing Interac e-Transfer service, this tool was built to meet the needs of Canadian businesses and offers higher transaction limits up to $25,000 depending on your financial institution, fast money transfers with instant confirmation and rich remittance data, allowing businesses to reconcile transactions with less paperwork. In other words, it can help streamline accounting processes and accelerate a paperless office strategy.

For insurance organizations this could mean being able to fulfill claim payouts while ensuring policy holders have immediate access to their funds, and accepting insurance premiums from policy holders with rich remittance information to reconcile payments. Further, paying broker commissions could happen in real-time while retaining payment confirmation for records. Insurance companies could also provide interim claims payouts by sending much needed funds to clients impacted by natural disasters offering immediate support for distress.

Eight in 10 (80 per cent) business decision makers surveyed agree that moving from traditional payment options to digital ones will be essential to post-pandemic growth³.  Assessing how a business can revamp its payment processes and financial management to become more efficient, effective, and relevant to customers with tools like Interac e-Transfer for Business is necessary to equip the insurance industry in a post pandemic economy.

Those interested in using the solution are invited to learn more by visiting Interac.ca/business, In The Know and to discuss the offering with their financial institution.

 

Interac and Interac e-Transfer are registered trademarks of Interac Corp.

 

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[1] Interac commissioned Hill+Knowlton Strategies to conduct a national survey of adult Canadians. A total of 1,000 adult residents of Canada were surveyed online in April 2021. The sample was randomly drawn from a panel of potential survey respondents. An associated margin of error for a probability-based sample of this size would be ±2.5%, 19 times out of 20.

[2] Interac commissioned Phase 5 Consulting to conduct an online survey of 152 financial decision-makers in Canadian mid-sized businesses with 100-499 employees. Participants were recruited via an online research panel. Fieldwork was conducted in English and French in May 2021.

[3] Interac participated in RFi  Group’s online commercial banking and payments syndicated survey of decision makers at 363 commercial enterprises with revenues between $10M and $100M. Fieldwork was conducted in English and French in June 2021. Note: Finance transformation describes any strategic initiative meant to create new opportunities for the finance function to add value to the business and align with overall company strategy.