INSURANCE INDUSTRY NEWS

Goose Digital Joins HubSpot Partner Program
Goose Digital, Canada's leading marketing automation agency, is excited to announce that it has joined the Solutions Partner Program at HubSpot, the leading CRM platform for scaling companies. HubSpot's presence in the insurance industry continues to grow, driving the need for specialized agency support. Read more.

Gore Mutual Rolls Out Solera Qapter Platform
Solera | Audatex (Canada), a global provider of risk and asset management software and services to the automotive, fleet, and property ecosystems, is pleased to announce that Gore Mutual Insurance Company is the first Canadian insurer to rollout Qapter Estimating, Solera's revolutionary AI-based estimating platform. Read more.

eSentire Selects Guidewire Cyber Security Solution
eSentire, the authority in managed detection and response, and Guidewire Software are pleased to announce that eSentire is leveraging Guidewire Cyence's market-leading, internet-scale cyber data listening and modeling capabilities to support in financially quantifying and reducing cyber risk. Read more.

Quadient Upgrades Cloud Document Automation Solution
Quadient, a leader in helping businesses create meaningful customer connections through digital and physical channels, has announced a significant upgrade to Quadient® Impress, its SaaS multi-channel document delivery and automation solution for small and medium businesses. The solution now offers delivery channel preference management capabilities. Read more.

Sun Life To Acquire U.S. Dental Benefits Leader
Sun Life Financial Inc., through its U.S. business, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire DentaQuest, the largest provider of Medicaid dental benefits in the U.S., with more than 33 million members in 36 states and approximately 2,400 employees. Read more.

Customer Communications, Targeting Top Of Mind For Life/Annuity/Benefits Insurers
​​​​​​​​​Life/annuity/benefits insurers continue to mature over the areas of digital, data/analytics and core, with distribution, customer engagement, as well as finance and operations capabilities seeing the largest increases over the last year. According to the sixth annual Aite-Novarica 100 Benchmark study of digital, data/analytics, and core capabilities for L/A/B Insurers, most deployed capabilities are digital, for improving collaboration, customer communication, and distributor ease of doing business. Read more.

Westland Acquires New Ontario Brokerage
Westland Insurance Group Ltd., Canada's largest independent Canadian-owned brokerage, is pleased to announce the acquisition of Insurance Unlimited in Mississauga, Ontario. Read more.

Hub Acquires Quebec-Based H.W. Hollinger
Hub International Limited, a leading global insurance brokerage and financial services firm, is pleased to announce that it has acquired H.W. Hollinger (Canada) Inc. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Read more.

Many SMEs Vulnerable To Cyber Attacks: IBC
Despite the increased threat of cyber attacks during the pandemic, almost half of Canadian small businesses surveyed say they do not allocate any portion of their annual operating budget to cyber security, according to a new survey commissioned by Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC). This marks an increase from 2019, when one-third of respondents said they do not allocate any budget to cyber security. Read more.

Sun Life Health Launched To Help Canadians Live Healthier Lives
Sun Life is pleased to announce Sun Life Health, a new business unit focused on empowering clients to live their healthiest lives no matter where they are in their health journeys. Read more.

In the InsurTech Spotlight this week:

Collision Sciences
Collision Sciences provides information intelligence to insurers to help improve claim outcomes. Collision Sciences has developed an app-based EDR tool and “black box to cloud” data science solution that enables insurers to collect and utilize factual data for any motor vehicle loss. Learn more.

Calling all InsurTechs! Click here to participate.

From Doug IoT Tipping Point: Telematics Matures The global usage-based insurance (UBI) market is expected to grow from $34.53 billion in 2020 to reach $104.79 billion in 2025 (CAGR of 24.7%), according to ReportLinker. A quarter of a century has passed since Progressive first launched its UBI initiatives. Slower-than-predicted growth curves sometimes result in a larger-than-anticipated impact as the subject matures. Will this be the case for UBI? We have seen dramatic changes over those 25 years: • Communications are faster, less expensive, more ubiquitous; • Sensor technologies likewise, and better connected; • Improved analytics, AI and ML bring value from big data practical, and enable better insights; • The insurer-customer relationship has evolved from premium savings to driver improvement and engagement; • The insurance focus has evolved from indemnification toward loss prevention; • New entrants from insurance-focused InsurTechs to ecosystem initiatives (auto manufacturers) have changed the competition game; • Consumer interest and willingness to share data increases the opportunity. Such factors predict ongoing growth in UBI and telematics in auto insurance, and more broadly in almost all lines of insurance. Even the very nature of insurance itself is evolving – which begs the question, how will our industry look in 2030? Doug Grant, CIP Partner Insurance-Canada.ca