INSURANCE INDUSTRY NEWS

Majesco, Empathy Partner On Innovative Life Insurance Technology
Majesco is pleased to announce a partnership with Empathy to provide life insurers with tech-powered services to aid them in delivering comprehensive bereavement support to beneficiaries. Read more.

Spot Pet Insurance Partners With HUB International
Spot Pet Insurance, a digital-first-insurance solution for dogs and cats, is pleased to announce its expanded partnership with HUB International to provide HUB's Canadian clients with access to Spot's best-in-class pet insurance products and services. Read more.

Coalition Releases Security Vulnerability Exploit Scoring System
Coalition is pleased to announce the Coalition Exploit Scoring System, a unique vulnerability scoring system that helps risk managers mitigate potential cyber threats. Coalition ESS leverages real-time monitoring and dynamic scoring to enable businesses of all sizes to efficiently understand which vulnerabilities to patch first. Read more.

Canadians More Open To Sharing Data With Financial Service Providers: EY
The 2023 EY Open Banking Study, conducted in collaboration with Symcor, reveals that – compared to 2020 – Canadians are now three times more willing to share data with financial service providers that they have an existing relationship with – and this willingness grows as age increases. Read more.

Munich Re Specialty Group Live With Majesco P&C Intelligent Core Suite
Majesco is pleased to announce Munich Re Specialty Group North America is live with Majesco P&C Intelligent Core Suite on Majesco Cloud platform to enable the new operating model supporting multiple specialty lines of business including Inland Marine, Cyber, Terrorism, and Ocean Marine. Read more.

Westland Acquires Two More Ontario Brokerages
Westland Insurance is pleased to announce that it acquired MYCOR Insurance Solutions Inc. and Murphy Insurance Services Inc. effective June 1st. Read more.

Oracle RMS Acquires Spacca Insurance Brokers
Oracle Risk Management Services Inc. Insurance Brokerage is pleased to announce it has acquired Spacca Insurance Brokers Ltd., a family-owned and operated insurance brokerage headquartered in Concord, Ontario. Read more.

NFP Acquires Rhodes & Williams Limited
NFP is pleased to announce it has acquired Rhodes & Williams Limited. With the addition of Rhodes & Williams, NFP expands its presence in Ontario and increases its P&C capabilities and scale across personal risk and commercial lines. Read more.

Tips For Wildfire Evacuees Returning Home
Thousands of Atlantic Canadians are returning to their homes following the lifting of several evacuation orders from the ongoing wildfires. This will be a difficult time for many. Residents should not attempt to re-enter their property until officials have deemed it safe to do so. Read more.

BIG Opens Three New Toronto Branches
Billyard Insurance Group, one of Canada's fastest-growing insurance brokerages, is expanding its presence in Ontario with the opening of three new branches in the Greater Toronto Area. Read more.

Auto Insurance Satisfaction Plummets As Rates Surge: J.D. Power
Nearly one-third of U.S. auto insurance customers say they experienced a rate increase in 2022 as auto insurers faced their worst financial performance in more than 20 years, leaving them few alternatives but to raise rates at the expense of customer satisfaction. Consequently, satisfaction with auto insurance has seen the largest decline in the two decades, according to the J.D. Power 2023 U.S. Auto Insurance Study. Read more.

Blink Parametric Launches With Getcover.com
Blink Parametric and Getcover.com have partnered to launch a suite of bespoke online travel insurance products utilizing a real-time parametric flight delay solution for their eligible travel insurance policyholders. The product is underwritten by specialist insurer Financial & Legal Insurance Company Ltd. Read more.

Connected Device Usage Increased In 2022
Assurant, a leading global business services company that supports, protects and connects major consumer purchases, has revealed the findings from its latest Connected Decade research, which reveals the continued rise in connected living, with growth in connected device usage and an increased appetite for 5G devices. Read more.

Canadians Responding To Volatile Economy With Good Financial Behaviours & Planning
Canadians appear to be taking greater control of their financial situation in response to the economy, based on the most recent results of Manulife Bank's Financial Health Survey. Read more.

Fans Prefer To Watch Sports Outside The Venue
Recent technological advances have dramatically improved the experience for sports fans at home but have been less impactful for those visiting the grounds, according to Capgemini Research Institute's latest reporton the future of sports. Read more.

Developing A Niche and Adding To It
Webinar – Thursday, June 22

Instant Risk Coverage (IRC), an MGA, provides digital insurance products, on-demand. Their first niche – venue insurance – addressed the needs of both venue providers and their clients. Newer products include Open Patio, Real Estate agents and more. Insurance can be white-labelled, offered through a broker's website.

President Jonathan Di Pasquale will present and discuss the IRC story.

Register now or learn more about the webinar.

In the InsurTech Spotlight this week:

Blink Parametric
Blink Parametric designs data-driven insurance solutions and parametric insurance product innovation for its global insurance partners, transforming clients' complex offerings into superior service experiences with simple, intuitive, online products in sectors such as Travel, Personal Data Monitoring, Cyber and Business Interruption.
Learn more.

Calling all InsurTechs! Click here to participate.

From Doug Generative AI differs from previous forms of AI or analytics in that it can effectively generate new content – text, images, etc. Underpinning generative AI is a foundation model, which involves a type of neural network trained using deep learning. These techniques are not new, but they have been improving steadily, and IT specialists are already deploying Generative AI functionality. An example from outside insurance: A colleague's husband is a church organist, and when the church officiant supplies a theme for the upcoming service, he spends hours finding matching music. A simple query in ChatGPT elicited a list of ten suggestions in moments. Generative AI could: • Classify information, e.g., detect fraud based on a transaction's description, documents, images, video; • Edit text, e.g., not only correct grammar but revise to suit a brand's image; • Summarize, e.g., make a summary from the minutes of a meeting (whether a text document or a video clip); • Draft, e.g., suggest multiple versions of a message. Generative AI will obviously become a significant mainstream tool once its boundaries are clearly understood. Read more from McKinsey. Doug Grant, CIP Partner Insurance-Canada.ca