Executive Outlook 2020 | Louis Gagnon, Intact
December 30, 2019 by David Gambrill
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Louis Gagnon, President, Canadian Operations, Intact Financial Corporation
I see two very important issues for insurance in 2020 — climate change and our ability to adapt; and cyber risk and the increasing need for protection. These challenges create an environment in which brokers and insurers can help customers become more resilient in the face of constant change.
Data is a common theme in both scenarios. With the increasing sophistication of technology, the explosion of data, and as people spend more time online, privacy breaches and cyber events will become more commonplace. As cyber risks increase, so will the demand for protection. This presents us with unique opportunities to do things differently, including designing products to protect the identities and reputations of people and businesses.
While we are protecting the data of individuals and businesses, we are also using data to better predict climate and extreme weather events. We are tapping the experience and expertise of our people to help customers and communities, and we are using data to analyze and forecast risks better. When severe weather events happen, we respond quickly, with the right supply chain partners to support restoration. We help to re-build the right way, in the right places, to get customers back on track.
Building climate resiliency is a collective effort. Brokers, the industry, government and non-government partners must work together to build adaptation and resilience measures. Our investment in the Intact Centre for Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo helps homeowners, communities, governments and businesses reduce the impact of climate change.
Our meteorologists, behavioural scientists and data scientists at the Intact Lab continue to use data, artificial intelligence and machine learning to push boundaries, solve complex real-life problems, and deliver cutting-edge products that make a real difference to people.
Together, we’ll help people, businesses and society prosper in good times and be resilient in bad times.
It is precisely because of business people who have little if no political acumen making politically charged comments such as these on climate change that I have decided to cancel my insurance policies with Intact. Mr. Gagnon probably does not even realise that his facile and unoriginal comments on climate change really put him in a conflict of interest of sorts. It is very convenient for the insurance industry to participate in the fear-mongering of environmentalists with wild and unsubstantiated and un-scientific claims about the calamities which will befall us and against which, of course, we must buy more insurance coverage! It is really unacceptable. Stick to what you know, Mr. Gagnon.