Moves & Views (March 01, 2011)

Travelers Canada has promoted vice president Francine Armel to lead its financial and professional services division. Armel joined Travelers Canada in 2005 in the financial and professional services division, which offers management liability and professional indemnity products for public, private and non-profit companies and financial institutions. Previously, Armel served as a senior claims counsel for specialty claims at Liberty International Underwriters and practised insurance law at private law firms. In addition, Sally Turney has joined Travelers Canada to lead the communications, marketing and branding functions. Turney came to Travelers Canada from Aviva Canada, where she most recently held the position of vice president of corporate affairs.

Optimum West Insurance Company and Offsetters, a carbon management solutions provider based in Vancouver, B.C., have teamed up to bring a home insurance policy to the B.C. marketplace that offsets a household’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. Called the Optimum Green-Home Extension, the carbon-neutral home insurance policy is scheduled to roll out to B.C. homeowners and renters on Mar. 1, 2011. The product extends a conventional home insurance policy with up to $10,000 of additional coverage for the cost difference to replace damaged items with more environmentally friendly alternatives. Applicable to B.C. homeowner, condo and tenant insurance policies, brokers use tables developed by Offsetters to estimate the homeowner’s annual household carbon footprint, which can then be offset. The policy will be available through insurance brokers who offer Optimum West Insurance.

Keal Technology’s Commercial Management System (CMS), comXP and Lloyd’s Canada’s Lineage system are now integrated to streamline broker workflows, the companies have announced. “Keal and Lloyd’s Canada brokers can now upload commercial risk statistical data (traditionally known as bordereaux),” Keal announced in a press release. “The integration electronically sends client data from the brokerage using Keal’s CMS, comXP, to Lloyd’s Lineage, reducing duplicate data entry. “comXP now includes addressXP, which uses Canada Post’s postal code database for address validation to meet Lloyd’s requirements and enforce superior data integrity of all commercial accounts.” The integration not only saves brokers time, the release says, but it also minimizes errors and omissions exposure inherent with manual duplicate data entry and incorrect addresses. There is no cost to Keal brokers for this integration.

Mario Albert is officially president and CEO of the Autorité des marchés financiers. In January, he took on the role on an interim basis following the departure of Jean St-Gelais. Albert joined the AMF in 2008 as superintendent of distribution. Two years later, he assumed responsibility for the agency’s institutional affairs, including communications, research and strategic monitoring. Beginning in February 2010, he also began overseeing client services, supervising activities pertaining to investor education and awareness programs, fraud victim compensation programs and complaint examination.

Chubb Insurance Company of Canada has selected the Women in Insurance Cancer Crusade (WICC) as its chosen charity for national sponsorship. Chubb’s support for WICC endorses WICC’s work in raising funds and awareness for the Canadian Cancer Society. Chubb is WICC’s newest national sponsor at the platinum level, representing a commitment of $45,000 over three years. This is an escalation of the company’s support for WICC. Chubb has long been a supporter of WICC through local chapter support and the volunteer actions of many Chubb employees. Chubb is also Founder of the WICC Lifetime Achievement Award.

Pembridge Insurance Company and Brovada Technologies have launched Broker Connectivity Upload, the second phase of a joint venture offering real-time transactions intended to improve broker workflows. Broker Connectivity Upload allows brokers to begin and end a new business transaction in their own broker management system, eliminating the need for the use of a portal. In November 2010, Pembridge delivered single sign-on and inquiry functionalities using a combination of Brovada’s NexCenter and NexExchange solutions.

FirstOnSite Restoration has launched a national campaign to raise awareness about Canadian companies’ preparation for man-made or natural disasters. The Priority Response Emergency Plan (PREP) is designed to help commercial companies be prepared in the event of a property disaster. FirstOnSite meets with a participating organization to gain an understanding of its infrastructure beforehand so, when a flood or fire happens, the FirstOnSite team knows the business’ needs and priorities and can respond immediately to begin restoration work in the event of a loss. In the program, FirstOnSite develops a communication strategy and conducts physical walk throughs of a company’s site(s) to identify potential trouble areas and learning protocols.

Rogers Insurance Ltd., an employee-owned independent brokerage in Western Canada with 200 employees, has announced a number of new staff appointments.

• Karyn Fair has been appointed vice president of commercial lines. She has been with Rogers for seven years and is also responsible for insurance software systems.
• Austen Lillies has been appointed vice president of new business development, responsible for all aspects of large commercial sales. Lillies has been employed with Rogers for 10 years.
• Mary Murray has been appointed vice president of personal lines. Murray will be responsible for all aspects of personal lines sales and operations including group, VIP and regular personal lines divisions.
• Sara Robb has been appointed vice president of finance. She will be responsible for finance, accounting and IT, including premium financing and mergers and acquisitions. Responsibilities for all four individuals extend to the Ft. McMurray (Rogers Insurance North) and Red Deer (Mooney Insurance) offices of the Rogers Insurance Group.

Willis North America has appointed Jeff Elliott as director of operations, a newly created position. Elliott’s role will be to refine Willis North America’s target operating model and oversee its major technology initiatives. In addition, he will develop standards and policies to ensure Willis delivers high-quality services to its clients. Prior to joining Willis, he served as senior vice president of outsourcing and offshoring for the wealth, brokerage and retirement group at Wells Fargo.

Crawford & Company (Canada) has announced two appointments, one within its Class Action Services department and another within its Contractor Connection operations. Michael Mooney, who joined the company in 2008, is Crawford’s new vice president of Class Action Services. This department has administered some of the most complex class action settlements approved by Canadian courts, a Crawford release says. Dan Loosemore now serves as district manager for Crawford’s Contractor Advantage. In this role, he will collaborate with Crawford’s sales team to expand this product line. He will also work with network contractors to build a successful partnership and
create value for customers.

iter8 Inc. and York Fire and Casualty Insurance are extending existing real-time broker connectivity using collabor8. York has already provided real-time processing of inquiry, new business and endorsement transactions for brokers using Keal, CIM-Data and PowerBroker broker management systems. The broker’s options have now expanded through the direct integration of PowerBroker, CIM-Data and Keal broker management systems to the York portal. collabor8, the technology solution used to deliver full carrier and broker integration, receives the uploaded information from the broker management systems, applies York’s underwriting rules, criteria and edit capabilities and integr
ates with their policy administration system OPUS.