How Intact and Aviva are preparing for a possible Canada Post strike

Canada’s two largest insurers have plans in place to provide policy documents to consumers in the event of a postal strike.

Workers at Canada Post may strike as early as Sept. 26 if their union cannot reach a new contract with the Crown corporation. In the event of a strike or lockout, all mail operations would come to a halt, including the delivery of insurance documents to consumers.

“This service disruption has the potential to severely impact the insurance industry, which has only recently become focused on digital transformation,” the Centre for Study of Insurance Operations (CSIO) noted in a press release last week.

Canada’s largest carrier, Intact Financial Corporation, told Canadian Underwriter Tuesday it has a contingency plan ready to help minimize business interruption to brokers and their customers. Brokers and consumers can access personal lines’ policy documents via the Intact Insurance app, and the insurer will send documents via courier services if they are time-sensitive.

Brokers who are currently receiving their policy documents electronically will continue to do so uninterrupted. Brokers also have the option to access their customers’ policy documents online via Intact’s broker portal, said Intact’s manager of external communications, Hazel Tan.

For billing and making payment, methods include cheque, but also credit cards, Internet banking and electronic fund transfer.

Aviva Canada, the country’s second-largest insurance company, told Canadian Underwriter Tuesday it has digital delivery solutions available and has been promoting this to its broker partners over the past few months.

For personal lines, digital solutions available include:

• eDocs – CSIO’s eDocs solution provides brokers with the option to receive and store the insured’s copy of policy documents electronically in their broker management system from Aviva, which they can then distribute directly to the customer’s email address
• Broker portal – A broker can enter a customer’s email address directly into Aviva’s broker portal and select the delivery type as “email.” Customers’ documents would be emailed to them directly.

Digital solutions available for commercial lines:

• STEP – Brokers can sign up for STEP (Save Trees Eliminate Paper) to download the broker policy copies.
• Billing solution – Electronic funds transfer solution for brokers using Aviva broker billing.

“With the potential Canada Post strike, we continue to encourage brokers to do business with us and with customers digitally, so that any potential impact from the strike can be mitigated,” said Priscilla Wong, external communications specialist with Aviva Canada.