He may be retired from insurance, but George Cooke is still very much involved in one of the hottest products in insurance today.
“It’s a technology that is clearly coming,” says Cooke. “Very soon, someone’s claims and convictions will become irrelevant in the new world of assessing ‘how you drive.”
U.S. telecom giant Sprint announced this week that it was partnering with Intelligent Mechatronic Systems, a Waterloo, Ont.-based company that Cooke has been working with through his consulting company Martello, that provides ‘DriveSync’ – a connected car platform that includes telematics services.
“One of my clients at Martello is IMS, which is a technology company in Waterloo that specializes in telematics; hence my obsession with telematics,” says Cooke. “It is my fascination with telematics that helped me find IMS, and to have them hire me as a consultant. IMS is a wonderful Canadian success, employing a number of people in the Waterloo area.”
Sprint launched its Integrated Insurance Solutions business in 2012. Its portfolio also includes a text disablement product. Policyholders who use the program from Sprint through their insurers have data transmitted over the Sprint wireless network to a cloud-based system that analyzes the information with driver-scoring software.
Cooke’s embrace of telematics was evident during an exclusive interview with the former CEO of The Dominion – an interview that is featured in this month’s issue of Insurance Business magazine. (continued.)
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Although enjoying retirement – at least the version of retirement – Cooke is continues to remain active.
Appointed as chair of the board of directors of OMERS Administration Corporation back in October, Cooke is better known as the man at the helm of The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company for two decades.
“From a personal point of view, leaving at 60, I have had a desire to enter into a board role; I think I bring expertise from my background that is very relevant,” he says. “So, I’m hoping to be actively engaged through a number of board appointments through the next decade, and the traditional retirement of playing golf or watching TV is not something I intend to experience, at least until I’m 70 – and perhaps not even then.”
Just some of his charity work includes working with Spinal Cord Injury Ontario and doing some volunteer work with the Canadian Merit Scholarship Foundation. He also manages to find time to give back to his alma mater Queen’s University, helping on a volunteer basis whenever possible.
“I think these things are important – I’ve been very blessed in my career,” says Cooke. “I have always believed that you need to give back in the communities you are in. And it is very satisfying.”
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