The Chronicle: Issue 2011-07, February 15, 2011
eBusiness and Technology
InEdge: Business Intelligence Leader SQLiaison Enters U.S. Market and Becomes InEdge.
MONTREAL, February 9, 2011 - SQLiaison today announced it has changed its name to InEdge and will specialize in providing innovative business intelligence solutions to the insurance sector. The company?s solutions enable insurance companies to increase productivity and reduce operations costs by making data management and analysis tasks less labor intensive and time consuming.
Information Builders Announces Advanced Business Intelligence Reporting Capabilities for Non-Technical Users.
NEW YORK, NY - January 5, 2011 - Information Builders, an independent leader in business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced that it has developed a specialized tool to help business analysts build applications for non-technical end users to generate their own customized reports, dashboards, and gadgets.
PwC: A time of transformation for the software industry.
London, 10 Jan 2011 -- The explosion in popularity of mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets, the consumerisation of technology, and the adoption of cloud computing are global trends forcing software companies to rethink their business models, collaborate more closely than ever before and focus even more sharply on the changing behaviours and needs of their customers.
eMarketer: The Future of Smart Mobile Devices.
FEBRUARY 10, 2011 - Momentum in the mobile device market has swung in favor of smartphones, led by the allure of Apple's iPhone and the legion of now-viable competitors it has spawned. Most mobile owners in the US still have only a feature phone, but eMarketer predicts smartphone ownership will rise from 31% of the mobile population this year to 43% by 2015. Nearly 110 million Americans will have a smartphone by the end of that year.
Distribution
iter8: York expands real-time broker connectivity.
February 2011: iter8 Inc., an insurance solutions software developer, is pleased to announce that York Fire and Casualty Insurance (York) has extended real-time broker connectivity using collabor8. York relies exclusively on their independent broker channel, and has introduced a continual stream of technological innovations in order to facilitate broker's ease of doing business.
Moore-McLean Insurance Group Joins Intersure.
As part of their newly developed 'Only The Best' vision, the Moore-McLean Insurance Group has aligned itself with over 40 leading Independent Insurance Brokers and Agents across North America as members of Intersure. Intersure is a consortium of the finest brokerage firms in North America led by the best entrepreneurial and technical minds in the industry.
Task Force sets out first-ever national strategy to improve Canadian's financial literacy.
Ottawa, February 9, 2011 - Canada's Task Force on Financial Literacy today made public its report to the federal Minister of Finance, recommending urgent action on a national strategy to strengthen Canadians' financial literacy. Increasing the knowledge, skills and confidence of Canadians to make responsible financial decisions will help them meet their personal goals, enhance their quality of life and make Canada more competitive.
Advocis ready to help implement Financial Literacy Task Force recommendations.
February 9, 2011 - Toronto ? Advocis, The Financial Advisors Association of Canada, fully supports all recommendations in the final report of The Task Force on Financial Literacy (Task Force) released today. The outcomes are comprehensive and far-reaching and will put the issue of financial literacy directly in front of stakeholders. Advocis will do everything in its power to help carry out the Task Force's recommendations.
Claims
Xactware Releases 2010 Property Report for Canada.
Feb. 10, 2011 - OREM, Utah - The global recession played a strong role in driving down the average cost to reconstruct a home in Canada last year, according to Xactware?s 2010 Property Report. The newly released 2010 Property Report for Canada reveals that national reconstruction costs dropped 0.8 per cent by the end of the year. Only Newfoundland and Manitoba reported minor increases, while reconstruction costs in the remaining eight provinces diminished.
FirstOnSite Restoration launches new awareness campaign as part of national push.
Toronto, ON - February 11, 2011 - FirstOnSite Restoration, Canada's largest independent disaster recovery company, launched a national campaign today to raise awareness of how unprepared many Canadian companies are to deal with manmade or natural disasters. The Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness has noted that without a tested emergency management plan in place, 86 percent of small and medium-sized businesses fail within three years of a major incident. FirstOnSite's Commercial division finds this lack of preparedness also holds true for many large corporations.
Mitchell RepairCenter™ selected by Fix Auto Canada across entire network.
San Diego, CA-January 26, 2011-Mitchell International, Inc., a leading provider of information, workflow and performance management solutions to the Property & Casualty claims and Collision Repair industries, today announced that Fix Auto Canada, one of the largest collision repair networks in Canada, has selected Mitchell RepairCenter™ for use across its entire organization of 200 franchise centers.
Managing Relationships and Customer Service
Standard Life launches a series of short videos to help people understand their group retirement statements.
MONTREAL, Feb. 10 2011 - The Standard Life Assurance Company of Canada introduces "How to read your group retirement statement, in plain English" on YouTube. This series of three short, action-oriented videos was developed to help people better understand their group retirement statements, and to motivate them to be more involved in their retirement planning.
Business of Insurance
LIMRA Survey: Two-Thirds of Insurance Executives Predict Life Insurance Sales to Remain Flat.
WINDSOR, Conn., Jan. 19, 2011 - Fifty-nine percent of insurance executives believe overall individual life insurance sales will remain flat and 68 percent feel group life sales will stall in 2011, according to a survey of 70 industry leaders conducted by LIMRA in early December 2010.
Munich Re: First guarantee insurance for wind power plants.
8 February 2011 - The manufacturer Fuhrländer gives buyers of its up to 2.5-Megawatt wind turbines a technical guarantee of five years in conjunction with corresponding service contracts. Munich Re is covering these guarantees and assuming the associated financial risk. This makes it easier for the manufacturer to conduct business and allows it to focus its resources on expanding its position in a market that is still growing at above-average rates throughout the world.
Consumer Information
Info-Tech Research Group: Happy International Data Privacy Day!
January 28, 2011 - Today is International Data Privacy Day (more details can be found at http://dataprivacyday2011.org). This is a relatively new "international holiday" and the intention is to place focus on issues which are of increasing importance to our generation.
IIHS: Camera enforcement in 14 large US cities reduces rate of fatal red light running crashes by 24 percent.
ARLINGTON, VA - Red light cameras saved 159 lives in 2004-08 in 14 of the biggest US cities, a new analysis by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows. Had cameras been operating during that period in all large cities, a total of 815 deaths would have been prevented.
from Doug:
In celebration of heritage month, a Toronto history buff told our heritage group about Toronto in 1834, when the city was incorporated. She touched on roads (no pavement, no sidewalks) and buildings, social conditions, health services, immigration etc. Two years previously, the first major cholera epidemic hit Toronto, with major loss of life. In that year, the number of immigrants who passed through Toronto about doubled the population of 9,000 - and people talk about today's immigration challenges.