Mika Pangilinan of Insurance Business magazine reports on the appointment of Wally Thompson as board Vice-Chair at CAFII. (See more)
Manulife’s Wally Thompson is CAFII’s New Vice-Chair
The Canadian Association of Financial Institutions in Insurance (CAFII) is pleased to announce that Wally Thompson has been appointed Vice-Chair of its Board of Directors.
Mr. Thompson, who is VP, Head of Distribution, Affinity Markets at Manulife, has been a director of CAFII since 2018.
CAFII is a not-for-profit industry association that was established in 1997 to create a voice for financial institutions involved in selling insurance through a variety of distribution channels including client contact centres, agents and brokers, travel agents, direct mail, branches of financial institutions, and the internet. Its members offer credit protection insurance, travel, life, health, and property and casualty insurance across Canada.
CAFII works with government and regulators (primarily provincial/territorial) to develop a legislative and regulatory framework for the insurance sector that helps ensure Canadian consumers get the insurance products that suit their needs. The Association’s aim is to ensure that appropriate standards are in place for the distribution and marketing of all insurance products and services.
CAFII’s 15 members include the insurance arms of Canada’s major financial institutions – BMO Insurance, CIBC Insurance, Desjardins Insurance, National Bank Insurance, RBC Insurance, Scotia Insurance, and TD Life Insurance Company; along with major industry players Assurant Canada, The Canada Life Assurance Company, Canadian Tire Bank, Chubb Life Insurance Company of Canada, CUMIS Services Incorporated, Manulife (The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company); Securian Canada; and Valeyo.
Find out more about CAFII on its website, and follow them on LinkedIn.
Insurance Business Canada Reports on Chubb Life Insurance Company of Canada Joining CAFII
Chubb Life Insurance Company of Canada Joins CAFII
The Canadian Association of Financial Institutions in Insurance (CAFII) is pleased to announce that Chubb Life Insurance Company of Canada has joined the Association as a new member. In that connection, Rahul Kakar, Senior Vice President and Head of Chubb Life Canada’s Accident and Health (A&H) division, has been appointed to CAFII’s Board of Directors.
Chubb is the world’s largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company, with operations in 54 countries and territories. It provides commercial and personal property and casualty insurance, personal accident and supplemental health insurance, reinsurance and life insurance to a diverse group of clients. Chubb Insurance Company of Canada has offices in Toronto, Calgary, Montreal and Vancouver and provides its products and services across Canada.
“The Board of CAFII is pleased to welcome Chubb Life Insurance Company of Canada as a member of our Association,” said Peter Thompson, Chair of the CAFII Board and CEO of National Bank Insurance. “We look forward to working with Rahul and his colleagues at Chubb in fulfilling our mission to ensure that Canadians have access to an open and flexible insurance marketplace, with high levels of customer satisfaction.”
“I am delighted to be appointed to the board of CAFII,” noted Kakar. “Together, we can take proactive steps to make insurance more accessible and simpler for Canadians while continuing to provide a great customer experience for our clients.”
CAFII is a not-for-profit industry association that was established in 1997 to create a voice for financial institutions involved in selling insurance through a variety of distribution channels including client contact centres, agents and brokers, travel agents, direct mail, branches of financial institutions, and the internet. Its members offer credit protection insurance, travel, life, health, and property and casualty insurance across Canada.
CAFII works with government and regulators (primarily provincial/territorial) to develop a legislative and regulatory framework for the insurance sector that helps ensure Canadian consumers get the insurance products that suit their needs. The Association’s aim is to ensure that appropriate standards are in place for the distribution and marketing of all insurance products and services.
In addition to Chubb Life Insurance Company of Canada, CAFII’s 15 members include the insurance arms of Canada’s major financial institutions – BMO Insurance; CIBC Insurance; Desjardins Insurance; National Bank Insurance; RBC Insurance; Scotia Insurance; and TD Life Insurance Company; along with major industry players Assurant Canada; The Canada Life Assurance Company; Canadian Tire Bank; CUMIS Services Incorporated; Manulife (The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company); Securian Canada; and Valeyo.
Sharing Insurance Insights with Our Stakeholders
By Brendan Wycks, Co-Executive Director, CAFII.
CAFII hosts a number of webinars each year that allow us to share insights into a range of insurance topics that are of interest to our stakeholders. These stakeholders include leaders from the insurance industry, regulatory authorities, research companies, the legal community, insurance associations, and government.
Over the past two years, our webinars have included presentations, chats and panel discussions about:
- Best practices in the digitization of credit protection insurance;
- The impact of the pandemic on mental health challenges in the workplace, at home, and in society;
- Consumers’ insurance and financial services preferences and related product development insights;
- How principles-based regulation and rule-making authority can work together;
- The ins and outs of life insurers’ health and wellness incentivization programs;
- Provincial insurance policy and regulatory priorities and issues arising as Canada emerges from COVID-19;
- Climate change and its implications for life and health insurance; and,
- Future travel trends and issues as the world emerges from COVID-19; and more.
The objective of our webinars is to provide a forum where important issues can be discussed, new information shared, and different points of view expressed. As an Association, we believe our stakeholders benefit when they have a common appreciation for the challenges facing our industry, are exposed to a range of perspectives, and have a good understanding of how we can all work together to meet the evolving needs of insurance consumers.
Since mid-2020, we have hosted more than 20 webinars, and have been attracting between 60 to 120 participants to each session. This represents a healthy increase in attendance over CAFII sessions held prior to the arrival of COVID-19, when all of our presentations and panels were held in-person, which made it more challenging for people outside of Toronto to attend. By staging more webinars, we’ve also been able to address a wider diversity of topics in a shorter time frame.
For example, our webinar in May about how principles-based regulation and rule-making authority can work together attracted more than 100 people, including over 20 regulators and policy-makers from federal and provincial regulatory authorities across the country. They were treated to an excellent panel discussion that included two leading Canadian experts on the topic: Dr. Cristie Ford, who is a full-tenured Professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at UBC; and Stuart Carruthers who is a partner at law firm Stikeman Elliott. Among other things, the panelists discussed how principles-based regulation (PBR) could be viewed as a “changed approach” to regulation, how it makes sense in an environment where this is more change or complexity, and where one set of rules will not cover everything. Mr. Carruthers said Canada was fortunate to have a very sophisticated group of regulators who have strong and transparent relationships with the industry, which he felt led to better regulatory outcomes.
The presentation in June by Deloitte Partner Melissa Carruthers and her colleague Marc Lewis about their study on best practices in the digitization of credit protection insurance in Canada was also a hit. More than 100 people attended the session, including excellent representation from regulators and policy-makers from B.C., Alberta, Quebec, Ontario, the Yukon and Nova Scotia. This session explored research undertaken by Deloitte which found a growing need for underwriters and distributors to digitize and improve the end-to-end Credit Protection Insurance client experience in order to keep pace with evolving consumer expectations.
And our webinar in November about post-COVID travel trends and issues also attracted over 100 participants, and featured several experts including Elliott Draga from the Travel Health Insurance Association of Canada, Sheila Burns from the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, Katia Umutoniwase, Head Of Sales Operations and Digital Enablement for Travel Insurance at Manulife, and David Moorcroft, a travel blogger. The panelists opined on a range of issues, including whether travel levels had fully recovered since the arrival of COVID-19, what if anything had changed about travel, and how travel health insurance, trip cancellation and baggage loss insurance had changed and improved in response to the pandemic and resurgent travel.
Many of our webinars also include opinion polls which give participants the opportunity to weigh in on relevant issues.
Finally, an additional benefit of our webinars is that they have been easy to record and post on our CAFII website so that people who missed the original webinar and poll results can go online and see them. You’ll find a catalogue of these webinars on the website under “Events”.
So, while we have returned to holding some in-person events at CAFII as COVID-19 restrictions have eased, our webinars have become and will remain an integral part of how we share insights and information with our stakeholders.
Two More Educational Videos Added to CAFII Website
By Keith Martin, Co-Executive Director, CAFII.
I’m pleased to report that CAFII recently added two new educational videos to our website.
The first video is about Job Loss Credit Protection Insurance, and it is designed to help consumers better understand how this type of insurance works and who can apply for it. The second video explains certain helpful features about Credit Protection Insurance that consumers may want or need to use.
Job loss Credit Protection Insurance versus Job Loss Insurance
According to research by Pollara Strategic Insights, over the past three years there has been a significant increase in the number of Canadians purchasing Job Loss Credit Protection Insurance. It also happens to be the most highly searched topic on our CAFII website. That’s not surprising, especially given the job uncertainty created by COVID-19.
However, many people confuse Job Loss Insurance with Job Loss Credit Protection Insurance, which is just one of the reasons why we made the video.
The former, which is sometimes called supplemental unemployment insurance, provides temporary income if a full-time employee is laid-off from work. This type of insurance is difficult to find, and expensive to purchase.
In contrast, Job Loss Credit Protection Insurance covers some or all of the monthly payments on insured debt obligations for a specific period of time, or until the insured returns to work – whichever comes first – should a person involuntarily lose his/her full-time job. This type of insurance is available from some financial institutions as an “add on” to life or disability insurance on mortgages and some types of personal loans. In some cases, it may also be added to balance protection coverage for credit cards.
Consumer friendly features of Credit Protection Insurance
As our video explains, CAFII members provide details about credit protection insurance to help consumers make informed decisions. This includes plain language information about products, online tools that provide pricing quotes, and trained representatives in branches and call centres who can answer questions.
CAFII members also provide information about helpful features of credit protection insurance that consumers may want or need to use. For example, customers have a “review” period, typically up to 30 days, during which they can cancel their coverage and receive a full refund of the premium paid.
If insured customers need to make a claim, CAFII members can help facilitate the claims process in person, by phone, or online.
The video also outlines the procedures in place for handling consumer enquiries and complaints, including what to do if someone is unhappy with the outcome.
Furthermore, the video notes that recent updates to Canada’s financial consumer protection framework have reinforced measures by CAFII members to ensure fair treatment of customers.
These two videos are the latest in a series aimed at simplifying insurance products and services for Canadian consumers. They supplement eight other informative videos on the CAFII website, with more still to come.
