A $166-million deal aimed at getting CAA Insurance some new non-standard auto customers is a done deal. CAA Club Group’s acquisition of Echelon Insurance got final regulatory approval, Echelon Financial Holdings Inc. announced Thursday. The deal officially closed on May…
With wildfires raging in northern Alberta and Ontario, brokers are reporting some funky outcomes associated with insurers’ binding authority restrictions. Under the restrictions, brokers cannot bind coverage in areas under civil authority, forest fire alerts, flood alerts and certain earthquake…
To get the best out of your collaboration efforts, get outside of your comfort zone. The best companies understand the value of collaboration, said Sven Roehl, co-founder of Cookhouse Lab, an insurtech innovation firm. But they also understand they need…
BrokerLink has made its third acquisition in May with the purchase of Alberta independent insurance brokerage Thomson Schindle Green Insurance & Financial Services Ltd. (TSG). With branches in Medicine Hat, Calgary, Brooks, Bassano and Edmonton, TSG has been providing insurance…
Do your workers spend hours typing information from paper forms into the computer? There are ways of automating this. “Nowadays, you probably have documents coming in and you put them on the scanner. When you are going to put them…
The Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) wants to talk about delaying the traditional retirement age to beyond 65. Many are already choosing to work beyond age 65 anyway, said John Dark, CIA president. “It makes sense to update our country’s…
If you are led to believe most of your clients will get around in self-driving cars within a decade, you might want to think again. “Autonomous vehicles will likely not be on our roads for at least another 25-30 years,…
If you ain’t first, you’re last. That’s the mantra Ricky Bobby lives by in the movie Talladega Nights as a race car driver. But when it comes to innovation, if you ain’t first, you’re probably better off. It can be…
Calls to end a provincial stranglehold on auto insurance are growing as business groups, municipalities and the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) have taken up the cause. ICBC, on the other hand, is saying the high claims costs the public…
Paul Meinschenk has joined managing general agency (MGA) Totten Insurance Group as chief operating officer and executive vice president, effective May 31. With 18 years of experience in the insurance industry, Meinschenk was mostly recently vice president of sales and…
If a home collapses into a sinkhole, is there coverage under a standard homeowner’s policy or earthquake endorsement? Not under many homeowner’s policies, but possibly under the earthquake endorsement, depending on the policy language and if the quake caused the…
CORRECTION NOTICE: In an earlier version of this story, Glen L.C. Noel was incorrectly identified as a lawyer representing Lloyd’s in Lawlor v. Royal. In fact, Noel represented Mary Lawlor in that case. Canadian Underwriter regrets the error. Glen L.C.…