Businesses in Canada face pressure today from a variety of risks, not least that of fraud. In 2017, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) found that the total value of fraud reported by Canadian businesses was $30.4 million, which represented a 76% increase from the year before. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, this risk could be heightened with the Retail Council of Canada (RCC) recently warning its members of COVID-19 related frauds that have already kicked off in the country.
“[Fraud] has always been a part of [the risks that] businesses are concerned about causing unexpected financial loss to Canadian businesses,” said Mike Kosturik, Intact’s VP of commercial lines. “As Intact is the leading insurer of small to mid-sized businesses, we’ve seen this in our own results and in our own claims over the last number of years.”
Cyber fraud is a newer iteration of this risk and Kosturik says it has become one of the most prevalent cause of claims for businesses. And with many companies operating online today, almost every one of them faces this threat.
“We saw this as a missing piece of the traditional crime coverages,” he told Insurance Business.
In March, Intact announced that it was releasing modernized crime coverages to address the cyber risk and that of fraud more broadly. The insurer launched its commercial lines and specialty crime coverages on March 01 for new business and will be releasing them on May 01 for renewals. These products can be tailored to each business, and are broad solutions designed to meet their current needs as well as anticipated future risks.
The enhanced commercial lines crime coverage provides higher limits, broader coverages and new coverages, while the new specialty crime coverage is aimed at customers that require higher limits than what is available on a packaged commercial lines policy and/or who require specialized underwriting to address their crime exposures.
“What we’ve done with our new offering is put a lot of flexibility into it, so there’s much more of a structured approach to limits that can be increased as business needs arise,” said Kosturik.
Meanwhile, newly launched social engineering fraud coverage is also available to purchase as an endorsement with Intact’s commercial crime coverage, and is included in the base form of the specialty crime coverage.
“It protects a business owner when their employee is fooled by a criminal impersonating a client requesting goods or services that costs the business because they are fraudulently taken,” explained Kosturik.
With March being Fraud Awareness Month, the Intact launch couldn’t have come at a better time to help raise awareness around this business risk with both brokers and end customers.
“This is an aspect of exposure that we definitely think is going to worsen into the future,” said Kosturik, adding that while “headlines are starting to raise awareness … the business owners that we protect – the Canadians that have businesses – are much more focused on running a business and trying to do well.”
