What’s new: In brief (November 08, 2004)

Sovereign General Insurance Co. has named The Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada as its “charity of choice” for the next three years. With the commitment, the insurer will provide at least $600,000 in funding to the Foundation. The local offices of Sovereign across Canada will also be encouraged to take part in additional activities to raise funds for the Foundation, which relies solely on corporate and individual donors rather than government funding.

The Canadian Insurance Accountants Association next seminar and luncheon is set for November 18 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Toronto. The “Annual Accounting Update” seminar will take up the morning, with guest speakers including David Ross, Mervyn Ramos, Debra De Bock, and Graham Segger of Deloitte & Touche LLP. The luncheon features a discussion of the history of treasury management by Brian McArthur, vice president in the Treasury Management department at Royal Bank Financial Group. For details contact Catherine Fleming at cfleming@allstream.net.

The Insurance Corp. of B.C. and B.C. Transit want to help pedestrians stay safer. In a release, ICBC notes that about 2,200 B.C. pedestrians were injured or killed last year, and the cost of pedestrian accidents topped $95 million. The situation worsens in the winter, whe it gets dark earlier, so along with public education, ICBC is also distributing free reflective zipper-pulls at its claims centers.