INSURANCE INDUSTRY NEWS

Manulife Becomes The First In Canada To Offer Travel Insurance Quotes In ChatGPT
Manulife is pleased to announce the launch of a new CoverMe plugin in ChatGPT, making it easier for Canadians to explore travel insurance and receive a personalized quote. Read more.

Emtech Brings Trusted Enterprise System Knowledge To Artificial Intelligence In Insurance
Emtech is pleased to announce the launch of QMT Oracle, a new System Intelligence capability within the QMT platform that enables business and technology users to explore a trusted Digital Blueprint, understand how complex enterprise systems operate, and derive meaningful insights to support faster delivery, modernization, and more confident decision-making. Read more.

Wisedocs Launches Legal Intelligence
Wisedocs is pleased to announce the launch of Wisedocs Legal Intelligence, bringing the disjointed medical and legal sides of a claim together. Legal Intelligence enables insurance defense teams to analyze legal documents against a claims organization's verified medical records and claim history, giving claims professionals and defense counsel a single view of what was said, what is being claimed, and what the medical evidence and claimant history actually show. Read more.

AI Opens New Pathways To Systemic Stress As Risks Become More Interconnected: Swiss Re & LSE
Risks are becoming increasingly interconnected, creating new pathways through which shocks can ripple faster and further through the economy, with AI and supply chains emerging as key points of connection, according to a new joint analysis by Swiss Re Institute and LSE. Read more.

Gartner Unveils Strategic Predictions For 2027
Gartner has unveiled its top strategic predictions for 2027 and beyond, spanning three categories: robots everywhere, cost to value, and unknown unknowns. Read more.

QuickFacts, Intact Partner To Support Brokers
QuickFacts, Canada's trusted intelligence layer for insurance brokers, is thrilled to announce a strategic partnership with Intact Insurance, Canada's largest property and casualty insurer, which formalizes a relationship built around one of the daily tools brokers rely on: QuickFacts' multi-carrier comparison platform. Read more.

Organizations Betting On Cost Transformation To Fund Growth
Organizations are increasingly using cost transformation to create capacity for growth, technology investment and resilience, but many are struggling to convert ambitious commitments into measurable results, according to Deloitte's "2026 Enterprise Cost Transformation Survey." Read more.

Partnership Establishes Insurance Distribution Platform For Growth Across North America
CREST Insurance Group and SIB Corp. are pleased to announce a partnership that will create a dynamic, independent insurance distribution platform serving clients across North America. Read more.

Atradius Surety Enters Canadian Market
Atradius Surety has expanded into Canada, marking an important milestone in its international growth strategy. Its offering helps Canadian businesses secure contractual, legal, and regulatory obligations while preserving bank credit capacity. Read more.

Life Insurance Industry Facing Relevance Challenge
While consumers recognize the importance of financial protection, Capgemini's 2027 World Life Insurance Report reveals that many struggle to see how life insurance fits into their lives, preventing insurers from building lasting customer relationships. Read more.

Hail-Resistant Home Upgrades Reduce Insurance Premiums By Up To Half: IBC Study
Homeowners in areas at high risk of hailstorms who invest in hail-resistant roofing and siding can reduce their homeowner's insurance premiums by up to 50%, according to a new study conducted by MNP LLP for Insurance Bureau of Canada. Read more.

Home Insurance Affordability Pressure Raises The Stakes For Customer Trust: J.D. Power
Rising home ownership costs and insurance rate pressure are adding affordability strain for homeowners, according to the JD Power 2026 U.S. Home Insurance Study. As customers more closely analyze household and insurance expenses, the study finds that trust, seamless service and channel effectiveness are critical to homeowners insurance retention and perceived value. Read more.

BFL Launches Proprietary Legal Expense Insurance
BFL Canada is proud to announce the launch of its new proprietary Legal Expense Insurance and Assistance Solution. This innovative offering combines insurance protection, technology, and human expertise to help clients access legal support more easily, manage legal risk proactively, and navigate legal challenges. Read more.

In the InsurTech Spotlight this week:

Messagepoint
Messagepoint's award-winning Customer Communications Management (CCM) platform gives non-technical business users such as marketers, CX teams and product owners intelligent control over the content in customer communications to achieve unparalleled personalization, relevancy, brand consistency, and compliance. Learn more.

Calling all InsurTechs! Click here to participate.

Featured job opportunities:

Insurance Broker
Nacora Insurance Brokers
Manotick, ON

President & CEO
The Mutual Fire Insurance Company of B.C.
Langley, BC

From Doug A Competitive Edge: Early Telematics Innovation Last week's column considered Progressive Insurance quoting auto insurance and including three competitor's quotes. This showed Progressive as being transparent. It also suggested that Progressive knew that the lower quotes were probably not profitable. This competitive edge would not be unsustainable. They recognized that rating factors did not wholly reflect someone's current risk. Could they gather data about current driving and reflect that in premiums immediately? A customer would physically install a large “black box” telematics device in their car. Using GPS and cellular technology, it tracked three core metrics: • How much the vehicle was driven (mileage). • When the vehicle was driven (time of day). • Where the vehicle was driven (location). For customers, the core reward and value was control over their premiums through a pay-as-you-go monthly bill. What does this innovation offer? (E.g.:) More current and accurate data not available before? A progressively better priced risk month after month? Of course, these were some of the early steps in auto insurance telematics innovation, which has dramatically moved auto insurance and safety forward. • Cost and convenience of gathering data (dongle, then smart phone app); • Type of data, much broader and richer; • The migration from loss indemnification to risk management and behavioural change. In that sense, where will today's new tools (e.g., agentic systems) fit, and how will they contribute? Doug Grant, CIP Partner Insurance-Canada.ca