Short-Sighted Mathematics

Editor Private auto insurers' claims costs have increased demonstrably over the past few years in both Alberta and Ontario. All the more puzzling, then, why the Alberta Automobile Insurance Rate Board recently signed off on a 5% decrease in the province's auto insurance rates, effective November 2009. But the greater cost certainty arising form the most recent Alberta cap decision is illusory. Even though the industry's financial numbers say two plus two equals four and rates must be increased to ma...

Climate Not a Good Barometer for P&C 2009 Q1 Results

Plaintiffs Seek Leave to Appeal Alberta Cap Legislation to Supreme Court of Canada

Alberta Auto Rates to Decrease by 5% in November 2009

Vancity Sells P&C Subsidiary to the Co-Operators

2009 Kelowna Wildfires Smaller Than Fires of 2003

Commodity Pricing Is Food System's Greatest Risk: Aon Report

Number of U.S. Securities Lawsuits Drops in 2009 Q2

Exploring New Vistas

Editor One of the many ironies in Justin MacGregor's intriguing professional career is that the incoming president of the Insurance Broker Association of Canada (IBAC) was about six months shy of becoming a banker. Certainly the role and activities of the banks in the insurance sector will be a key issue for IBAC going forward during MacGregor's term as president. But whereas the Bank Act review often inspires a spirit of solidarity and unity among brokers across the country, other issues both inter...

Controlling Public Corporations

This decade will undoubtedly go down in history as the worst time for public corporations. This has been a time of radical change, far more than they have ever seen in business, and it is not over yet. The financial problems they experienced in 2008-2009 had historical roots. Most of the problems were a result of poor regulations and/or the lack of safeguards in the US. Compensating for this, governments suddenly overreacted, attempting to exert greater control over corporations and creating ...

Refining Recruitment Strategies

The Insurance Institute of Canada's recently released report, A Demographic Analysis Part II -- Recruitment and Retention issues in the P&C Insurance Industry in Canada, concludes with this inescapable and significant fact: "In the next 10 years, a proactive, strategic approach to human resource management is essential for industry sustainability. The first study was all about raising awareness (even a few alarm bells) about the Canadian labor force's significant impact on the property an...

Spreading the Word About Itv

Insurance Bureau of Canada is spearheading a major public awareness campaign aimed at educating consumers about the importance of insurance to value (ITV) and its impact on their property values. A summary paper by the IBC's working group on ITV, to be released this fall, is calling for a significant push to increase homeowner knowledge about how the industry calculates the value of their properties. They found out early on that many homeowners don't know that much about their most important ...

Fighting Fraud with Advanced Analytics

Every single homeowner and vehicle owner is a victim of insurance fraud because the costs associated with fraud translate into higher premiums. Industry estimates vary from country to country, but are consistent in that fraud is a noticeable cost and a growing concern. The estimated cost for general insurance fraud in Canada is Cdn$ 1.3 billion per year. This is equivalent to saying that approximately 10%-15% of the claims paid out annually are fraudulent. Historically, fighting fraud has bee...

Sustaining the Boom

The Baby Boom generation is perhaps the most popularized generation in history. As Baby Boomers prepare to retire, many employers have started to reconsider the traditional retirement program. There is a new emphasis on retaining the talent and experience of about-to-retire Boomers, in addition to recruiting new and younger talent. In late August 2009, the Insurance Institute of Canada released the second part of its demographic research study of the Canadian property and casualty industry, A...

Mediation: The Wider Context

When the author read the article 'Why Mediations Fail', he felt compelled to respond. Contrary to how it is presented in the article, there is a much broader context to the negotiation and settlement of a loss, of which mediation is one aspect. The author's company has piloted a Planned Settlement program, which they rolled out 18 months ago. The entire program is based on a principled approach of cooperation and early mutual disclosure focused on the injured party. More recently, they have t...

Following the E-Trail

With the integration of the Sedona Canada Principles into the rules governing discovery, courts are becoming more willing to order parties to produce their hard drives and laptops. As email and social networking Web sites continue to replace verbal communication, electronic discovery can unearth significant paper trails. The principles are intended to be a set of guidelines and recommendations for lawyers and courts in establishing a measured approach to e-discovery compatible with the discov...

Insurance Without Frontiers

The year is 2020. While getting ready to head out on summer vacation tomorrow morning, Mr. Convenience suddenly remembered that the hovercraft was still insured for storage. Being 2 o'clock in the morning, he decided to contact his insurance broker. But the technology to do this already exists: your cell phone already takes your voice commands, and the soon-to-be-released Microsoft Natal recognizes your voice, face and movements. The Technological Revolution happening today rivals the Industr...

Protection From Covert Ops

For starters, covert activity is not what one would expect of the business world. And yet there have been startling examples of late, unabashedly laid out by the media, of how financial institutions can be made to go wrong. In Canada, the insurance industry has, by its enviable record, maintained a consistently elevated position of good corporate governance, with very little exception. Good corporate governance is the accepted and expected standard of operation. Whether insurance or any other...

The Right to Reimbursement

When a personal injury action proceeds through to trial, in many cases the plaintiff has had, and may continue to have, access to income replacement benefits otherwise known as short-term and long-term disability benefits from an employer or insurer. In circumstances in which the plaintiff has a valid claim against a third party for recovery of income loss, questions arise concerning who gets what credit in connection with those income replacement benefits. Leaving aside specific statutory pr...

Model Predictions

On the heels of the October 2008 subprime mortgage credit collapse has emerged not only the worst financial contraction since the Depression, but collaterally, discreet burials of patients bearing their surgeons' mistakes. That is, country risk analyses (CRA) gone off track. Venezuela's mishandled nationalizations of foreign direct investments and why this happened. This same analysis can be applied to assessing the wrongs of the contemporary financial crisis. The bottom line is that risk mod...

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