News

This year will go on record as the most expensive year for the global insurance industry, second only to 2005, according to Swiss Re’s sigma records. Given roughly $108 billion in insured catastrophe losses in 2011, this year is thus…

The RCMP has linked a data breach at the ICBC with a series of arsons and shootings since September 2011 that have targeted approximately 13 people linked to the Justice Institute of British Columbia (JIBC).No one has been physically harmed…

The 2009 Toyota Venza has trumped the 2000 Honda Civic SiR as the most frequently stolen vehicle in Canada in 2011, reports the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC). Also, many of the stolen vehicles are showing up in the local…

Rick Orr has been elected as the Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario (IBAO)’s 69th president. He was officially inducted at the IBAO Convention in October, and will formally assume his role as president on Jan.1, 2012.Orr is the co-owner of…

XL Group is growing its presence in Toronto with three new additions to its North America Property & Casualty insurance team.The new hires include Betty Bingler, vice president of sales and marketing; Melissa Plaxton, senior underwriter for excess casualty; and…

Using multiple models to predict catastrophe losses does not always enhance the accuracy of the models’ predictions, the Association of British Insurers (ABI) has said in a good practices guide for catastrophe models.Also, insurers must be careful that, in an…

Photos posted to a plaintiff’s Facebook and MySpace pages are relevant to litigation surrounding his motor vehicle accident injuries, but Facebook status updates and postings to other people’s walls do not necessarily meet the relevance test, the Ontario Superior Court…

The Manitoba Public Utilities Board (PUB) has ordered Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI) to reduce its overall basic premiums and fees by 8%.PUB further approved MPI’s application for enhanced fleet rebates and increased drivers’ premiums for those at the top of…

Quebec’s Panel of Experts on Automobile Insurance Contributions is recommending to Quebec’s auto insurer, the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), that license fees for motorbikes should better reflect the real risk of driving motorcycles.The mandate of the Panel…

The month of December has the second-highest average of collision victims after January, according to MPI’s collision data. The police-reported collision data was collected over a five-year period (2005-09). Over the last three years, a total of 25 people have…

A team of Insurance Corporation of B.C. (ICBC) employees sporting moustaches throughout the month of November managed to raise more than $35,000 for Prostate Cancer Canada.The initiative was part of the ‘Movember Campaign.’ During November of each year, in Canada…

SAS Canada and TransUnion, a credit and information management firm, have teamed to develop a predictive model aimed at tracking down fraudsters more effectively. The model will leverage credit file information, in addition to fraud data from a consortium of…