Not all meetings during a pandemic need to be structured around a videoconference call, commercial insurance experts said during a recent webinar. “I think we all have to be cautious about just loading up our entire agenda with Zoom calls and things like that,” said Stéphane Lespérance, president of commercial risk and health solutions at […]
By Greg Meckbach | April 13, 2021
2 min read
Carbon removal is poised to become a booming industry over the next 30 years, providing an opportunity for innovative P&C insurers to pioneer in carbon removal insurance products, Swiss Re’s chief risk officer predicts. “By 2050, the industry of carbon removal could actually be as big as the oil and gas industry today,” Patrick Raaflaub, […]
By David Gambrill | April 1, 2021
3 min read
Insurers who use big data and artificial intelligence to make underwriting decisions must be prepared to explain to clients and regulators exactly how they arrived at those decisions, an Insurance Institute of Canada researcher suggests. “A challenge in the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence in insurance involves explainability,” senior researcher Paul Kovacs wrote […]
By Greg Meckbach | March 31, 2021
3 min read
At least one insurer plans to offer an application programming interface (API) intended to help brokers quote and bind coverage for small businesses without the aggravation of having to log into different insurer portals or send emails or faxes. Unica Insurance is working on an API to quote and bind small business for the reusable […]
By Greg Meckbach | March 22, 2021
3 min read
Motorists who are driving fewer kilometres than they were before the pandemic are more likely to select usage-based auto insurance, Intact Financial Corp. observes. “COVID has pushed consumers to recognize that maybe UBI would be a tool that will immediately re-price [auto coverage] based on how much driving they are doing, and therefore made it […]
By Greg Meckbach | March 19, 2021
2 min read
The data exchange project needs more carriers on board, says the connectivity lead for Canada’s brokers. The Insurance Brokers Association of Canada (IBAC) announced Mar. 10, 2021, the creation of the Data Exchange Connect Alliance (DXCA). The alliance now has seven insurers: Economical, Wawanesa; SGI; Gore Mutual; The Commonwell; Aviva; and RSA. “DX will not […]
By Greg Meckbach | March 15, 2021
3 min read
For the P&C industry, one of the biggest challenges of going digital is the relatively few times a client interacts with an insurer provider, a fintech webinar speaker suggested Tuesday. When the financial industry started offering electronic cheque deposit, “it was a little bumpy” at first, but eventually consumers got good at it because they […]
By Greg Meckbach | March 9, 2021
2 min read
Underwriters of the future are going to look a lot more like technology trailblazers, data pioneers, dealmakers, portfolio optimizers, and risk detectives, according to a new report by Deloitte. “To remain competitive, insurers should accelerate underwriting transformation,” Deloitte states in its new paper, The Rise of the Exponential Underwriter, released Feb. 25. “They can do […]
By David Gambrill | March 1, 2021
4 min read
Canada’s property and casualty insurance providers are not likely to be affected by aggregators to the same extent as their British counterparts, although brokers could certainly face disruption from technology firms, Intact Financial Corp.’s chief financial officer says. “The biggest threat [to traditional P&C providers] is a strong technology player that has extremely strong customer […]
By Greg Meckbach | February 26, 2021
3 min read
If your brokerage is bogged down dealing with the new ways your carrier partners are doing business, you aren’t alone. As insurance companies improve their products, introduce paperless initiatives, and upgrade from legacy systems, their broker partners often need to learn new workflows, Steve Earle, president of Bedford, N.S.-based Bauld Insurance Ltd., observed in a […]
By Greg Meckbach | February 23, 2021
2 min read