Features

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Homeowners and Natural Hazards

January 1, 2005 Paul Kovacs

How well do Canadian homeowners understand insurance coverage for natural hazards? Would they like their insurance companies to send them information about hazard safety? Do homeowners approve of insurance companies funding loss prevention research? These are questions the Institute for…

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Managing Service Provider Relations

January 1, 2005 Tim Renaud

The insurance industry is experiencing an era where litigation has become commonplace and accountabilities have increased for the management of information and the use of standardized processes. As most insurance companies depend on professional service providers to supply a range of services needed for their policyholders, it is important that insurers build effective service provider (vendor) management programs.

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Collision Repair: Change Is the Only Constant

January 1, 2005 by Canadian Underwriter

Just as insurers have faced massive change in the auto insurance business over the past several years, so have their collision repair partners. As body shop owners and their business partners met recently for the inaugural PPG CertifiedFirst Network Conference in Calgary, change management was very much the topic of choice. And speakers say that those who can keep pace with change will reap the rewards with both their insurer partners and, more importantly, with consumers.

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Claims Convergence: A New Model for Healthcare

January 1, 2005 Sam Malatesta

First things first – fixing cars is nothing like fixing people! However, there may be some similarities between the collision side of the auto claims economy and the healthcare side. Just as insurers and their auto bodyshop partners strive to provide quality repairs in a more efficient and effective manner, the stakeholders on the healthcare side need to begin to focus on their common goal – fixing people better and faster.

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The Sales Solution

January 1, 2005 Rick Bauman

Sales and revenue are the lifeblood of a brokerage. So it is amazing to discover how few brokerages have a focused and systematic process for increasing sales.

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Fiduciary Liability – A Survey of Recent Events

January 1, 2005 Rob Bickerton

This article presents a brief survey of recent cases affecting fiduciary liability insurance and ends with a few thoughts on enhancing our collective knowledge on fiduciary insurance.

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New Year’s Resolutions…

January 1, 2005 Axiom

My car’s headlights showed a wild blizzard of flying snow ahead of us. We slithered sideways turning the corner, and I spun the wheel in the opposite direction to straighten up. A car going the other way hooted its horn…

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RIBO Releases Broker Disclosure Rules

January 1, 2005 by Canadian Underwriter

The Registered Insurance Brokers of Ontario (RIBO) recently published its new regulations on broker disclosure. RIBO, the self-regulatory body for general insurance brokers in Ontario, is responding to controversy begun in the U.S. over the level of disclosure related to…

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Point of Attachment

December 1, 2004 Vikki Spencer

Stepping away from big-city insurer Kingsway General and into the agriculturally-based world of mutual insurers might have been a culture shock to some. But for Steve Smith, CEO of the Farm Mutual Reinsurance Plan (FMRP), it was more like coming…

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Auto Choice – Clarity or Confusion?

December 1, 2004 by Canadian Underwriter

Auto insurance regulators and product distributors are increasingly in favor of introducing customization into what has been a traditionally standard offering. Choice, however, implies a clear set of options and a knowledgeable consumer. Will Ontario’s experiment provide meaningful and transparent choice in auto insurance coverage?

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North American Insurance Conference: Shelter From the Storms

December 1, 2004 Vikki Spencer

Following fast on the heels of this year’s four major Atlantic hurricanes – Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne – “Hurricane Spitzer” has sent the insurance industry reeling once more. At the sixth annual North American Insurance Conference (NAIC), speakers agreed that all of these forces of nature should, in the best case, pull the industry away from the temptations of competition and incite a continuation of insurance pricing discipline.

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Retrocession Extinct?

December 1, 2004 Adrian Leonard

“Cyclicality” in international insurance markets is said by some commentators to be inevitable. Whilst their argument has some obvious truth to it – risk premiums will always fluctuate somewhat according to the fundamentals of supply and demand – several factors today are mitigating the severity of future price swings. One of these is a supply factor: the much-welcomed disappearance of under-priced retrocession coverage. Its global extinction is already having a very important price-sustaining influence, as premium rates continue to ease in many insurance markets.