Issue 2001-24: November 19, 2001
This newsletter is for members of the Canadian Insurance Industry, and those who serve it. The newsletter is published weekly, and notes information mostly about the use of the Internet and related technologies in the industry. Some is international, where we feel it is relevant to Canada.
Relationships - Administering, Managing, Leveraging...
Insurance-Canada.ca's recent "Leveraging Relationships" Conference presented great information from many different perspectives of Relationships. Craig Tilford FCIP has summarized the event with a few salient points from each speaker. This summary is posted here in a topic-by-topic speaker-by-speaker format, and as a single MS Word document which you are welcome to download.
Claims
Insurance-Canada.ca's next seminar will be a half day seminar on Claims, with a focus on how technology is impacting the claims environment, from management to processing. It will be a half day, on Tuesday Feb 5, at the Insurance Institute premises in the heart of Toronto. Mark your calendar. More details to come.
FSCO, the Ontario regulatory body, tracks customer satisfaction with automobile claims processing through a formal evaluation process. The results of this, company by company, have been posted at their web site. Insurer's in Ontario have invested a lot of time, effort and money to conform to the regulatory strictures, and have performed well in the customer satisfaction survey. More at www.insurance-canada.ca/claims/canada/IBCAT200111.php
Preventing loss, and reducing severity, are key components of any risk management function. The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction recently held a symposium titled "Building Resilient Communities", the thread being better preparedness for natural disasters. More at www.insurance-canada.ca/claims/canada/ICLR200111.php
ReplacementFinder offers a service to find lowest cost for insured items being replaced following a loss, and attacking the cost of claims from this perspective. They recently announced a Phone-in Claims service, to complement the existing channels, and make doing business even easier. More at www.insurance-canada.ca/claims/announce/Replace200111.php
Part of the Ontario Auto personal injury program is an assessment of an injured person's condition, using Designated Assessment Centres (DAC). How does an adjuster determine the closest DAC to an injured party? Adjustersnet.com, which offers tools and services to make an adjuster's life easier, now provides a free tool called dacSearch to do just that. More at www.insurance-canada.ca/claims/announce/Adjustdac200111.php
Technology and e-business
Delos Technology recently announced their CMX Platform, which focuses on finding the best and most reliable information across a disparate set of data sources within a company. Delos released the CMX Platform at the recent Gartner Symposium/ITXpo, as described at www.insurance-canada.ca/ebusiness/announce/DelosCMXL200111.php Gartner selects products to feature at their Emerging Technologies Pavilion. Delos Technology's CMX Platform was included in this group by Gartner as "a solution that will have a major impact on information reliability solutions for the enterprise". More at www.insurance-canada.ca/ebusiness/announce/DelosCMXG200111.php
NewLink has combined with ThinkNet to bring to market PerformaScope™, a Wealth Management and Insurance Performance Management Data Warehouse. PerformaScope™ creates a breakthrough in monitoring the performance of insurance and wealth management organizations through a data warehouse solution offering based on proven business and technology templates and supported by human knowledge capital. PerformaScope™ focuses on 11 key areas of Management, including: Sales and Distribution, Product, Customer Relationship, Business Growth, Process and Productivity, Supply Chain... More at www.insurance-canada.ca/ebusiness/canada/NewLink200111.php
Dalbar's 2001 study on "Consumer Use of the Internet for Financial Services" concludes that although the majority of consumers are indeed getting online for financial services, this activity is doing very little to benefit the bottom line of mutual fund and annuity companies. It notes that a high percentage of Internet users do use the Web to monitor their investment account performance and balances, but they do this to a much greater extent than they did previously. The next round of functions, which could reduce costs more significantly, like electronic statements and better question answering, are in early stages but underway. More at www.insurance-canada.ca/ebusiness/canada/Dalbar200111.php
Distribution
In the P&C arena, Sally Praskey in a recent article in ci Canadian Insurance Magazine (reprinted here with permission) notes that the dot-com in insurance activity of the last few years has brought a wealth of lessons learned. The traditional players have prevailed. No longer is the Internet an end in itself as in the heady days of the pure plays. Rather, it has morphed into a vehicle ? under a variety of monikers ? to help all parties operate more efficiently and effectively. Many of the successful models that have risen from the ashes of the dot-bombs, or reinvented themselves along the way, are bringing new opportunities to brokers. Far from being disintermediated, brokers are now right in the thick of this "e-volution." Article at www.insurance-canada.ca/distribution/canada/ciPraskey200111.php
The timing of new product announcement and being in the pack with those products is one component of competitiveness in the insurance industry. RBC Insurance recently announced a new Critical Illness Product. More at www.insurance-canada.ca/distribution/canada/RBCCrit200111.php Similarly National Life announced an enhanced Universal Life Product, with more functions and options, more at www.insurance-canada.ca/distribution/canada/National200111.php
Increasingly, as a new product is brought to market, the Internet is a part of the development cycle. Sometimes only for information, but increasingly forms, and even processing capability is included at announcement day or not long after. However, it is important to remember that the product must be sound in its own right. Then too, no one will sell it if the distribution plan is not well defined and executed. Here - in communications - lies the potential of the Internet, from support of rapid deployment of information about new product, to superior sales support, issue processing, and after-sale service.
In the context of covering many channels, and forming stronger partnerships for Distribution, Manulife Bank and Edward Jones recently joined forces in the field of RRSP's. More at www.insurance-canada.ca/distribution/canada/ManulBank200111.php
from Doug:
A beautiful all day this past week took me to picture taking - the east-side yard and exterior wall of our nineteenth century Victoria house & home-office reflected the mid-morning sun from a bright red Japanese Maple, contrasting with the fall-yellow of the Linden, the wall ivy and the mums. A beautiful fall scene to remind one of the ceremonies last Sunday, when we formally remembered those who fought to preserve our freedom. And for those who enjoy the less-serious battles on the sports grounds, we are down to the final field for the Grey and Vanier Cups. Enjoy the moments!!