How long will it be before brokers’ and insurers’ systems are able to connect efficiently? “This is still a two- to three-year journey for the industry to have really-slick, direct connectivity,” predicts Jason Storah, CEO of Aviva Canada. Storah spoke with Canadian Underwriter Friday about a variety of topics, including broker-insurer connectivity. He was asked […]
By Jason Contant | October 8, 2019
3 min read
Brokers can set themselves apart by starting a conversation with clients around a relatively new type of coverage: intellectual property (IP) insurance, a specialist insurer told Canadian Underwriter recently. CFC Underwriting said it is seeing more interest in this type of insurance, which covers things like: “I think if brokers are interested in emerging risks, […]
By Jason Contant | October 4, 2019
3 min read
It can be enticing to jump on board as soon as you hear about the latest and greatest doodad to help your business. But getting distracted by the promises of every insurtech option is something one broker tries to avoid. Instead, Joanna Mendonca prefers the wait-and-see approach. “I think we guard against what we would […]
By Adam Malik | September 30, 2019
3 min read
Artificial intelligence may be able to help auto insurers convince regulators to relax certain prohibitions on rate restrictions, the founder of an A.I. vendor suggests. In Ontario, insurers are prohibited from using several factors – such as certain at-fault accidents, credit history or how long the client has lived in their current home. The client’s […]
By Greg Meckbach | September 27, 2019
4 min read
Insurers should consider self-regulating machine learning practices before regulations are imposed on them, a speaker suggested last week at the Connected Insurance Canada conference in Toronto. Moderator Stephen Applebaum, principal at Insurance Solutions Group, asked panelists if regulators understand machine learning and their perspectives on using machine learning in insurance, particularly since it’s difficult to […]
By Jason Contant | September 18, 2019
3 min read
Financial institutions looking to adopt and develop best practices on the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) should focus on three areas: explainability, bias and diversity, experts say. A new TD Bank Group survey of 1,200 Canadians found that a majority of Canadians (72%) are comfortable with companies using AI if it means they’ll receive […]
By Jason Contant | September 17, 2019
3 min read
Broker-insurer connectivity took a step forward this week, when the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada (IBAC)’s data exchange working group announced it had completed a first notice of loss (FNOL) transaction in real-time. The working group developed the first FNOL transaction as a reusable data service (RDS) and placed it in a library hosted at […]
By Jason Contant | September 12, 2019
3 min read
Despite research showing that Millennials now make up the largest generational cohort in Canada’s property and casualty insurance industry, the industry still has some work to do to keep Millennials engaged once they’ve made the jump into the profession, according to Jeff McCann, co-founder and CEO of Apollo Exchange. “So many job postings are for […]
By Jason Contant | September 12, 2019
3 min read
The rise of the gig and sharing economies stands to kill a traditional insurance selling feature: bundled policies. That means it’s time to change the way the industry approaches its selling strategy, one insurance expert believes. The growth of gig work – in which people jump from temporary job to temporary job, mostly through contract […]
By Adam Malik | September 6, 2019
3 min read
So you’ve just installed this new digital doodad to make your customer’s life easier – great. But did you inadvertently just make things more frustrating for your client? Warren Lederer, chief operating officer at Madison Advisors, which works in the customer communications management space, told attendees of the Insurance-Canada.ca Executive Forum in Toronto recently that […]
By Adam Malik | September 5, 2019
3 min read