What’s New: In Brief (July 03, 2007)

A.M. Best Co. is hosting a comprehensive, one-day conference in Toronto to explore the issues facing the Canadian insurance industry.
The 2007 Review& Preview ConferenceCanadian Update will be held Sept. 21 from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Westin Harbour Castle.
Conference speakers include A.M. Best Company’s senior property/casualty and life/health analysts, as well as prominent leaders in the Canadian insurance market including Co-operators General Insurance Company president and CEO Kathy Bardswick; the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institution (OFSI)s director of insurance D. Bruce Thompson; and Swiss Reinsurance Company Canada’s president and CEO Jean-Jacques Henchoz.

The Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company is the first property and casualty insurance company in Canada to offer online video-streamed training for insurance brokers and staff, the company announced in a press release.
The new service is set to launch in conjunction with this months launch of the updated Home and Farm policy wordings.
Online training makes a ton of sense when you have 1,300 brokers spread across Canada. The old method of the in-person dog and pony show is becoming too costly and time consuming, John Bjornson, vice president of marketing and property underwriting for Wawanesa, said in a release.
Todays modern insurance brokers do not want to send all their staff away to a seminar or workshop for training when the technology exists to allow them to take a courses online. This new training medium will save insurance brokers a great deal in salary, travel and lost production costs.