Canadian property and casualty insurance industry luminary Adrian Hall will be taking on a new role as head of Swiss Re Corporate Solutions’ UK, Ireland, South Africa and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and African) Wholesale division in September 2023. Hall has nearly 30 years of international P&C insurance industry experience. He is currently head of […]
By David Gambrill | May 11, 2023
2 min read
NatCat losses driven by flood damage have escalated in Canada over the past decade, but the key to preventing these may be in your client’s backyard, one expert told Canadian Underwriter. Insurance companies can reduce their clients’ flood exposures and premiums by supporting and incentivizing forest conservation, Daimen Hardie, executive director of Community Forests International […]
By Alyssa DiSabatino | May 10, 2023
3 min read
The Ontario Government is investing $51 million dollars to counter the rise of auto theft. Auto theft in the first three months of 2023 has exceeded the previous year’s first quarter, Bryan Gast, Équité Association’s vice president of investigative services, tells Canadian Underwriter. “And last year was the highest year that we’ve ever seen, so […]
By Alyssa DiSabatino | May 5, 2023
3 min read
Economic uncertainty remains the Number 1 risk facing Canadian businesses, according to Aviva Canada’s second annual Risk Insights Report. Based on a survey of nearly 1,500 Canadian business leaders, the report found one in three businesses stated they were “very concerned” and more than half (56%) said they were somewhat concerned about the economic outlook. […]
By Jason Contant | May 3, 2023
3 min read
MONTREAL – Cargo volumes at Canada’s largest port fell by three per cent last year as the global economy began to show signs of a slowdown. Though grain and fertilizer exports surged in the second half of 2022, the gains were not enough to offset a sputtering start to the year caused by a weak […]
By Jason Contant | May 3, 2023
3 min read
Friends in the Industry Healing Together (FIHT) — a new industry not-for-profit organization dedicated to bridging the gap between people and mental health services — is looking for friends within Canada’s property and casualty insurance industry. “I think there’s a big stigma around mental health and I believe FIHT is going to open doors for […]
By David Gambrill | May 2, 2023
7 min read
IFRS 17 will change the presentation of company results in 2023 Q1, eliminating one standard property and casualty insurance financial metric completely, and subtly affecting how combined operating ratios are presented. The most obvious and straightforward change will be doing away with the time-honoured metric of direct premiums written (DPW), as explained at an IFRS […]
By David Gambrill | April 27, 2023
3 min read
OTTAWA – The Bank of Canada considered raising interest rates earlier this month, as it feared being too slow to react to sticky inflation. In its summary of deliberations released Wednesday, the central bank says its governing council contemplated another rate hike. The main arguments in favour of another rate hike were resilience in economic […]
By Jason Contant | April 26, 2023
3 min read
Canada’s sluggish economy might be headed for a ‘shallow downturn,’ but it’s unique in the sense there’s also pent-up demand for motor vehicles, said BMO Financial Group chief economist Douglas Porter during an industry event last week. “Anybody here who has tried to buy a car in the last couple of years has an idea […]
By Jason Contant | April 25, 2023
3 min read
Coming out of the pandemic, the global economic environment still contains two ingredients for ongoing hard market conditions in Canada’s P&C insurance sector — high inflation, and a lack of global reinsurance capacity. “If you look at the picture behind me…you will see you are looking from a plane downwards,” Jerome Haegeli, Swiss Re’s chief […]
By David Gambrill | April 18, 2023
4 min read