Insurance-Canada.ca - Where insurance and technology meet

MARCH 21, 2017

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INSURANCE INDUSTRY NEWS

How to Become an Insurer of the Future
To survive in the Canadian insurance industry, you must be poised to take advantage of future opportunities, and prepared to meet the challenges of the future. But what does that mean in practical terms? Read more.

Biggest Cyber Threats Are Inside Your Business
Claim data released by Willis Towers Watson shows that two-thirds of cyber breaches arise from internal threats – employee negligence or malicious acts – while fewer than one in five are directly driven by an external threat.
Read more.

New Opportunities In The Fight Against Fraud
Strategy Meets Action has just released a new research report, Fighting Fraud with Advanced Technology: Detection, Mitigation, and Prevention, which gives insurers a picture of how anti-fraud measures are changing as technology advances. Read more.

Billing Shifts Toward Digital Engagement
Majesco has published a new thought leadership report, The New (Digital) Face of Billing: Defining Multi-Line Insurance Billing Excellence, which highlights the imperative for insurers to evolve billing from a purely financial transaction to a method of engaging customers and strengthening relationships. Read more.

Insurance Observatory Names Advisory Board
The North American Connected Insurance Observatory, a think tank dedicated to engaging insurance and innovation leaders, has named its Advisory Committee to help guide and stimulate future discussions on the Internet of Things, telematics and other insurance innovation topics and trends. Read more.

Compliance Programs Need Improved Tech, D&A
Technology and data and analytics can help organizations to be more proactive in compliance efforts, but many are not effectively using technology and data and analytics to take a proactive approach to compliance and regulatory change, according to a new report by KPMG LLP. Read more.

Lloyd's Report On Risk Modelling: Willis Re
A new report published by Lloyd's and Arium on the modelling of liability accumulation risk marks a valuable milestone in the development of solutions to model and quantify casualty downside risk, according to Willis Re, the reinsurance division of Willis Towers Watson.
Read more.

Power Broker And ClientDesk Integrate To Help Brokers Digitize
Power Broker, a top-tier Broker Management System, has integrated with ClientDesk to provide brokers with a full-suite, client-facing platform for engagement, self-service and claims. Read more.

Eagle Underwriting Teams Up With RaetsMarine
Canadian-based Eagle Underwriting Group Inc. is teaming up with MS Amlin Marine NV, trading as RaetsMarine, to offer P&I and Charterers' Liability insurance to the Canadian marine market. Read more.

Distribution Management System Vendors 2017
Growth and retention continue to be the top business goals affecting IT investments. With continued pressure on rates, many carriers are focusing on improving their distribution practices to drive growth. Read more.

Insurance Deal-Making Shifts Into High Gear
According to a new report from KPMG, one third of insurers say transforming their business model will be the primary driver of acquisitions in 2017, with an equal percentage citing enhancing their existing operating model and transforming their operating model as the motivators for deal activity. Read more.

Mill Street Acquires New InsurTech Player
Mill Street & Co. is proud to announce that it has completed the acquisition of Tuque Inc. Tuque is a new entrant to the emerging InsurTech space, leveraging advanced technology and bringing a disruptive digital approach to personal and commercial insurance in Canada. Read more.

New Developer Tools For Financial Services: IBM
IBM has announced the launch of the IBM Cloud for Financial Services to offer the essential building blocks for the creation of financial services apps on the IBM Cloud. Read more.

Guarantee To Launch H2O+ Water Protection
The Guarantee announces the impending launch of their much-anticipated water endorsement, H2O+, scheduled to take effect March 27th for new business and May 23rd for renewals. Read more.

Underinsurance Concerns High-Worth Individuals
More than half of high-net-worth individuals worry that they are underinsured, with many concerned they are buying insurance that may be inadequate for their needs, according to new research published by Chubb. Read more.

Home Insurance Coverage Lacking Among Renters
A survey of renters in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario has found that nearly one-third of renters share their homes with unrelated roommates (predominantly for financial reasons), and renters are 8 times as likely as homeowners to go without home insurance, according to Square One Insurance Services. Read more.

What's going through the Intersection
of insurance and technology?

Telematics: A Larger Landscape
Telematics-enabled Usage-Based Insurance (UBI) has been slow in penetrating the traditional insurance market, causing some to dismiss the approach. However, the inexorable press of time is showing the larger significance of telematics. How do you see this impacting your digital strategy? Read more.

Canadian Disruptions, Eh?
Jason Storah is Executive Vice-President of Broker Distribution at Aviva Canada. Carrie Russell is Chief Strategist at the Fin+Tech Growth Syndicate, a consultancy which helps financial services organizations understand and leverage disruptive technologies.

The common element between the two is a deeply held belief that the customer is driving a revolution in the insurance and financial services industry. And meeting those expectations requires that the customer can use their preferred channel for communications and actions. This is referred to as 'Omni-Channel.' Read more.

From Doug

“Try it – it might be good for you.”

In my first technology career, the progressive company had a well organized suggestion program which, for those ideas which were implemented, offered a financial reward relative to the savings (sometimes quite significant).

Times change. The hackathon version of the suggestion box brings idea and implementation together in a compressed timeframe – just hours to a working solution. Ideas that don't run into obstacles may simply continue forward; compared to the old timeframe of months and years, the advantage is dramatic.

Apply the concept to simple insurance niche products on a bigger scale and you've got Lemonade – or in our Canadian context, products such as ZipSure tenant insurance, McLean Hallmark's Track Day (“play on the race track”) vehicle coverage and more. A trend? I think so. Check out Patrick's blog post on “Canadian Disruptions” for further insights.

Doug Grant, CIP
Partner
Insurance-Canada.ca

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