CARSTAR conference highlights insurance

The 8th annual CARSTSTAR industry conference recently held in Ottawa, ON representing over 80% of the CARSTAR network nationwide served as a platform for insurance partner executives to offer opinions and insight into the current state of Canada’s auto insurance market.
This year’s conference, "In The Spotlight," included sessions on insurance trends and claims and maximizing growth and profitability.
Noel Walpole, president and CEO of The Economical Insurance Group presented as a keynote speaker at the conference discussing issues such as the "misleading" high revenues insurance companies posted in 2004. Walpole explained that the industry’s average return on equity for the last five years ranged from a low of about 2% to a high of nearly 20%. He also delved into the issues of consumer confidence and the subsequent degradation that results from the industry’s cyclical nature.
Executives from The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Co., Aviva Canada Inc., Desjardins General Insurance Group, The Dominion, The Economical Insurance Group, Lombard Canada, Optimum Insurance Company, Pilot Insurance, RBC Insurance and TD Meloche Monnex Insurance engaged in a panel discussion.
The discussion featured issues such as towing fraud and unreasonable towing fees, rental vehicles and the potential for the repairer should facilitate the rental process.
“In ten years we have changed the collision repair industry in Canada from a ‘no network, no partners, no trust’ industry to the CARSTAR standard of a national network with benchmarking, cost containment, reduced cycle time, accurate customer service indexing, insurance and vendor partnerships and above all, trust,” Sam Mercanti, president and CEO of CARSTAR Automotive Canada, says.