Moves & Views (June 01, 2009)

1 Cathy S. Ramsundar was appointed president of the Toronto Insurance Women’s Association (TIWA). TIWA is the Toronto chapter of the Canadian Association of Insurance Women (CAIW). She received the appointment at the associations’s annual general meeting on May 19. Ramsundar is an associate insurance broker with Mitchell Sandham Inc. in Ajax, Ontario. She has worked in the general insurance arena since 1974. Nancy Carnahan has assumed the role of TIWA’s first vice president and Michelle Cole-Kennedy its second vice president.

2 Dan Lawrie Insurance Brokers Ltd. in Hamilton, Ont. has achieved the Gold Standard Broker status by Risk Management Standards. Gold Standard Brokers meet rigorous international guidelines for best practices in all aspects of broker management, Dan Lawrie [2] pointed out in a press release. The process to become a Gold Standard Broker requires a scored third-party operations audit of the following components of a broker’s office: human resources; information technology; finance; customer service; organization capacity and producer/ CSR activity. Brokers must achieve and maintain a score of 90% or better on their overall weighted audit (there is a review audit every two years in order to maintain the Gold Standard Certification).

3 ACORD, a global insurance data standards body, presented its Innovative Implementation Award to Temple Insurance and Frank Cowan Company for their work in improving information exchange in commercial insurance. “We were familiar with ACORD through reinsurance projects we had completed in the London market,” said Peter Walker, executive vice president and CIO of Temple Insurance Company. “Although the Canadian managing general agent business environment is different, we felt we could leverage our knowledge and understanding” of ACORD to streamline the exchange of data with clients in the Canadian context, he added. ACORD said its standards have been widely used for personal lines and commercial lines in the United States and have received acceptance in the London market with reinsurance transactions. But “the Canadian implementation is unique functionally and geographically, and shows the extensibility of the data standards.”

4 The 28th Annual Ontario General Insurance Hockey

Tournament has raised more than Cdn$30,000 for the Niagara chapter of Big Brothers Big Sister and Camp McGovern. The event took place in Fort Erie and Welland on Apr. 17-19 and was organized by a committee comprised of members from the Niagara South Insurance Brokers Association, Ontario Insurance Adjusters Association–Niagara Chapter, CARSTAR, Woodhouse Disaster Cleanup and a group of insurance industry members from Kitchener-Waterloo.

5 The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction has been

accepted as an advisory institution into the working group of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI). UNEP FI is a global partnership between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the financial sector. More than 170 institutions, including banks, insurers and fund managers, work with UNEP to understand the impact of environmental and social considerations on financial performance. The UNEP FI Insurance Working Group (IWG) established an academic working group in 2008. The mandate of the academic working group is to provide a research foundation for the development of “principles for sustainable insurance,” and to support a global network of insurers proactively addressing environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors. The UNEP FI IWG is an alliance of insurers and reinsurers committed to integrating ESG factors into their core business strategies and operations to enhance long-term company value.

6 Shelly Gobin, senior vice president and CFO at Kingsway Financial Services, has left the organization. Daniel Brazier will assume the responsibilities on an interim basis. Brazier was previously CFO of the wholesale banking division at Standard Chartered Bank. He has been involved in strategy development, business transformation and finance re-engineering during his career.

7 ING Canada officially became Intact Financial Corporation, after shareholders approved the name change in May. The name change reflects the acquisition by institutional and retail investors on Feb. 19 of all the shares held by ING Groep in the company. As a result of these transactions, ING Canada became an independent and widely-held Canadian company without any ties to its previous majority shareholder. “Our new name says it all,” Charles Brindamour, president and CEO, said in a release. “Intact is not only an affirmation of a new corporate identity; it is a reflection of our promise to get our customers back on track. As we proceed on our journey, we will continue to take the company to new levels by taking full advantage of our solid operating platform, our financial position and our strong team.”

8 Richard Hoskins has been appointed executive vice president and CFO of the North American region of Aviva North America effective May 11. Aviva’s North America region includes its Canadian property and casualty company and its U. S. life and annuity business. Hoskins will lead Aviva North America’s finance, actuarial, risk management, capital and tax activities, while also guiding reinsurance strategy. Hoskins previously served as executive vice president and CFO at Old Mutual US.

9 RSA has launched its new Marketing Academy along with an accrediting Marketing Foundation Program. Launched in St. John’s in early May, the academy is a resource centre to support the company’s goal of investing in the skills and development of its staff. The two-day marketing foundation program is one of a series of ‘best practice’ programs available through the Marketing Academy’s training curriculum. It will cover topics such as customer insight, brand management, proposition development and marketing communications.

10 The Economical Insurance Group (TEIG) has entered into an agreement with Policy Works Inc. to deliver a commercial lines data exchange solution between the Policy Works Commercial Management System (CMS) and TEIG’s brokerEXPRESS Web-quoting facility. Expected to be completed in Summer 2009, the integration of TEIG’s brokerEXPRESS quoting site with Policy Works is intended to provide TEIG’s brokers with round-trip data exchange capability. The integration would allow TEIG brokers to upload commercial lines risk and rating detail directly from Policy Works into brokerEXPRESS and download quotations back into Policy Works. “This will reduce double entry of data and significantly improve response times on new business, effectively enabling brokers’ to deliver better overall customer service,” TEIG says in a press release.

11 The Niagara South Insurance Brokers’ Association (NSIBA) has launched a Web site that allows consumers to search for information on members and insurance related topics. “Using an insurance broker is all about having access to choice and information,” Jeff Reuter, president of NSIBA, said in a release. “And by launching a new and improved Web site, we are inviting consumers to look up our members, the insurers they represent and a number of useful resource items.” The site also provides useful information such as glossary of terms, insurance tips, industry links and downloadable forms. The site’s address is: www.insuranceniagara.com.