With the creation of the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO) in 1998, the province took on the task of reconciling the interests of consumers with a patchwork quilt of industries governed by almost a dozen different set of rules.…
Ipositioned myself near the entrance to the dining lounge and watched as the escalator in front of me deposited a steady stream of well-dressed couples to the upper level. I had arrived at the suburban racetrack early, to be on…
Harmonization efforts on the east coast have not gone unnoticed by regulators nationwide, with most provincial legislators carefully watching Insurance Act rewrites across the country in an effort for more standardized rules and regulations. Most recently, the regulatory sights have…
The fact that one of Hollywood’s recent creations “The Insider”, which is based on behind-the-scenes dirty tricks employed by opposing parties in the U.S. anti-tobacco wars, achieved such box office success clearly indicates rising public interest in tarring cigarette manufacturers…
The Economical Insurance Group has signed an agreement to purchase Montreal-based auto and property insurer Federation Insurance Company of Canada, a transaction that boosts the Waterloo-based company to number five nation-wide in total premium volume. Federation’s written premium is expected…
Arecently held KPMG seminar on e-commerce application opened with a quote from Bill Gates: “Business is going to change more in the next ten years than it has in the last fifty…If the 1980s were about quality and the 1990s…
Buy-side, inside, and sell-side technology strategies are three systems today’s insurers are utilizing to create and maintain their competitive advantage.
Property and casualty insurance companies — by the nature of their business — face many risks. When does a particular exposure become grave enough to pose a material risk and a threat to a company’s solvency? At the recently held 8th Annual KPMG Insurance Issues Conference, in Toronto, KPMG’s Wendy Mills and Tracy Capstick examined emerging standards for p&c insurers.
Technology, globalization, deregulation, consolidation and demutualization. These are the forces of change shifting the ground beneath the world’s financial services industry. Such change is drawing into question the effectiveness of regulators such as Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) to remain relevant to its role, particularly in light of the new non-traditional players such as technology companies in financial services.
The answer to industry automation might never have been the Synchron Project or any vendor based initiative. There is rising sentiment that it always was the internet. This industry-wide realization has struck home, and insurers are now rushing to get…
With the 1999 hurricane season recently closing with the last minute arrival of Hurricane Lenny causing considerably and unexpected damage in the Caribbean, the timing of the recently jointly held Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR) and Insurance Bureau of…
One of the grayest areas of claims management is effective assessment of occupational related disabilities. In determining a claim settlement, the insurer not only has to judge the merit of the claim presented, but as well the accuracy of the assessment data used. However, the latter is now an area which can be more effectively managed through professional and well documented “functional evaluation” (FE) procedures.