Moves & Views

The Insurance Institute of Ontario announced four recipients of the John E. Lowes Insurance Education Fund Scholarships for 2011. The John E. Lowes Insurance Education Fund is a charitable trust dedicated to assisting Ontario students to complete full-time, post-secondary education, including the study of property and casualty insurance. The fund annually offers financial assistance in the form of two scholarships worth $2,000 each, and up to two scholarships worth $1,000 each. The 2011 recipients are: Melissa Monaghan, Conestoga College; Stacey O’Brien, Conestoga College; Patricia E. Edwards, Mohawk College; and Steven Masse, Wilfred Laurier University.

Canpro King-Reed LP has announced its new brand name, CKR Global. Canpro Global Services Inc. and King-Reed & Associates LP amalgamated in June of 2011 to create Canpro King-Reed LP, a full-service risk mitigation and investigation company. The new brand and logo is intended to reflect the uniformity of one harmonized organization with distinct business verticals. CKR Global’s operating companies are: CKR Global Investigations, CKR Global Risk Solutions, CKR Global Safety & Rescue, CKR Global HRservices and CKR Global Labour Risk Management. Each CKR company now operates across Canada with uniform service delivery models.

The Quarter Century Club will be funding an annual $1,000 student scholarship through the Insurance Institute’s John E. Lowes Education Fund in the name of Douglas H. Hurlbut. The Quarter Century Club presented a cheque at the Insurance Institute’s Lowes Fund Breakfast on Oct. 26. Hurlbut, a Quarter Century Club member, passed away suddenly in December 2010 at the age of 64. A past president of the Canadian Insurance Claims Managers Association (CICMA), Hurlbut was a claims manager with Aviva Canada for many years. Hurlbut began his career with The Cooperators in 1969. Prior to his time at Aviva, he was a claims manager with the Canadian General Insurance Company.

Compu-Quote (CQ) is introducing Sales Focused Broker (SFB), a new product designed to help brokers make the most of sales initiatives. It lets brokers monitor and track activity in their sales pipeline by identifying: the most effective marketing channel; the peak volume of activity by hour and day of the week; the relative competitiveness of each of their insurers; the effectiveness of their abeyance and orphan account mining (by producer and line of business); the quote volume by producer (by policy, risk and dollar volume); how long it takes a risk to flow through their acquisition funnel; the most effective producer in their office (by conversion rate, policy count and volume); and the average premium volume quoted and sold per producer. 5Don Ireland has joined CKR Global as a special investigations unit investigator based in Calgary, Alberta. Ireland spent 24 years with the RCMP, retiring as a corporal. He also spent 18 years with the Insurance Crime Prevention Bureau (later named the Insurance Bureau of Canada, Investigative Services). In his new role, he will conduct training on behalf of insurers and law firms on a litany of topics, including auto theft investigations; accident benefit and bodily injury ring investigation; and coordination claim investigations between insurance companies.

Granite Global Solutions has appointed Dennis Schembri as executive vice president of relationship management. In this expanded role, Schembri will assist all of Granite’s divisions with their key client relationships and develop new group sales and service opportunities. He brings more than 30 years of experience to the position. “In 1993 he founded Vanler Insurance Adjusters Ltd., expanding to more than 50 full time employees and multiple locations around Ontario,” a Granite release says. Schembri has been with Granite Claims Solutions (formerly McClarens Canada) since 2007, when his firm was acquired. During this time, he has been involved at the senior management level with sales, marketing, strategic direction and most recently as managing director of Canada.

Pembridge Insurance Company was honoured with the 2011 Interface Partner Award. Applied Systems presented the award to honour achievements in and dedication to real-time communication. Pembridge was recognized for interface advancements in download and real-time rating for the Broker Connectivity technology solution, according to a Pembridge release. The solution allows brokers to begin and end a transaction in their own broker management system without the use of a portal, whether inquiring on policy or billing information or uploading new auto business.

Policy Works Inc. has entered into an agreement with The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company (The Dominion) to deliver a commercial lines data exchange solution for small commercial business, integrating Policy Works’ Commercial Management System (CMS) and The Dominion’s commercial systems. The solution offers no-touch, straight-through processing in real time, enabling brokers to send submissions to and receive quotations from The Dominion electronically, all while staying within the Policy Works desktop environment.

Totten Insurance Group has welcomed John Rhuland, who will be opening a new Halifax- Dartmouth service office as part of its Atlantic region team. As manager of the new Halifax office, Rhuland will be doing commercial business for Totten Group in both an underwriting and marketing role. Rhuland has several years’ worth of personal and commercial lines experience in the Maritimes. For the past three years, he has been supervisor of an insurer’s commercial division, overseeing offices in Dartmouth and St. John. Also, Totten announced the addition of Alicia Kane and Aimee Lockie to its Moncton office. Kane will assume a personal lines underwriting role, while Lockie will be an underwriting assistant. Joy Ferguson, supervisor of Totten’s Atlantic region, will continue to work with the Moncton team in handling all of the personal lines business for Atlantic Canada. The second, smaller office in Halifax will enable the company to grow its business in all four eastern provinces in a more balanced fashion, the company says in a press release.

Zurich Canada has launched a product that focuses on the risk management needs of commercial real estate owners and managers in Canada. The Real Estate Advantage provides a bundled product including more than 35 additional property coverages, builder’s risk coverage and ‘Z-choice,’ a customizable environmental liability insurance product. “By offering insurance protection customized for the real estate sector covering property, casualty and specialty risks, we aim to greatly reduce the risk of coverage gaps or the expense of overlapping coverages,” said Randy McFarlane, head of real estate for Zurich Canada.

Cunningham Lindsey Canada has created two new national director positions within its complex loss-adjusting unit. Andrew Hernandez is the national director of property, commercial risk division and Doug Andrews is national director of liability, commercial risk division. Hernandez was most recently CLC’s regional manager for its Western operations. Andrews has more than 30 years of experience in the independent adjusting industry. “We’ve focused the management and leadership of our CRD unit by dividing it into property and liability, specifically under the direction of two new national directors,” said Mike Alwyn, CLC’s assistant vice president of the commercial risk division. “By distinguishing between these two areas of expertise, we are better able to support our clients and our CRD adjusters when faced with these complex losses.”