Tech
Brokers looking to up their game in digital innovation should scan the market for potential technology partners, Symposium West attendees were told last week. “Who can you partner with – in an adjacent industry or a solution provider – that can give you an edge faster than something you can build yourself?” said David Kerr, […]
By Greg Meckbach | August 30, 2019
2 min read
Operations
An Ottawa-based managing general agent may be expanding its use of portal technology that lets brokers enter data from applications and bind commercial policies electronically. Encon Group Inc. pretty much did away with paper files, Encon president David Cook said in an interview. Today, most, if not all, insurance documents are available to brokers in […]
By Greg Meckbach | August 29, 2019
3 min read
The next time you’re brainstorming the next big idea, don’t extend a meeting invite to your executives. Instead, make sure as many of your frontline staff members as possible are there. The thing about great ideas, said Aly Dhalla, co-founder and CEO of Finaeo, a Canadian insurtech company, is that they can come from anywhere. […]
By Adam Malik | August 29, 2019
Brokers could be in for a nasty surprise if the concept of bundling auto insurance with vehicle lease or purchases catches on in Canada, a Symposium West speaker warned last week. An auto manufacturer is “not a traditional competitor” in the insurance industry, noted David Kerr, a Kitchener, Ont.-based technology consulting partner with Deloitte Canada. […]
By Greg Meckbach | August 28, 2019
In today’s day and age, a brokerage definitely needs an online quoting platform to stay ahead of the pack, right? Not according to Whitby, Ont.-based Mitchell & Whale Insurance Brokers. The brokerage ran an online auto insurance quoting engine for five years beginning in late 2012 (which saw about 619,000 visitors), but stopped using it […]
By Jason Contant | August 27, 2019
Vehicle makers continue to add autonomous features but not everyone thinks that fully self-driving cars are coming any time soon. “I don’t buy into the autonomous vehicle thing. That is decades away, quite frankly,” Steve Smith, president and chief executive officer of Farm Mutual Re, said Thursday of fully autonomous vehicles. “I have a hunt […]
By Greg Meckbach | August 23, 2019
Do your commercial clients have a strict policy of not calling employees while they are driving? Many drivers who are distracted are actually workers who are travelling on behalf of their employers during the day, Ontario Provincial Police Sergeant Gord Keen told insurance professionals Thursday. What this means for commercial insurance clients is that company […]
If your client has a formal process to disable computer network access for employees and contractors who no longer work there, that client’s cybersecurity is better in at least one respect than some of British Columbia government departments. The province’s Office of the Auditor General recently audited five government departments on how well they follow […]
By Greg Meckbach | August 20, 2019
Underwriters can better price cyber insurance if they have a clear understanding of that user’s real risk of being breached. To do that, it’s essential to understand when a user’s email and password combination has been exposed in a previous data breach. Real-time application program interfaces (APIs) on the market can examine, for example, all […]
By Jason Contant | August 15, 2019
Brokers looking to give their customers any positive news on rates potentially coming down shouldn’t get their hopes up. That’s because industry experts believe there’s little indication that we’ll see fewer collisions on roads despite all the safety technology found in today’s new vehicles. A driver could have a number of alarm bells go off […]
By Adam Malik | August 14, 2019
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