Brokers failing to utilize technology made the
Comment of the Week, along with an insight as to why the insurance industry needs to be so tightly regulated.
Tom Hickey took aim at brokers who seem stuck in a sea of paper documents, sharing this opinion on the article
Waving the banner of electronic standards.
“While EDI (electronic data interchange) is far from perfect, many brokers have been their own worst enemies in taking advantage of automation/technology,” wrote Hickey. “Many don't even take advantage of the technology that they have, let alone implement proper EDI solutions. It's a big challenge.”
It was the newest addition to the board at the Centre for Study of Insurance Operations, Andrew Wood, chief information officer at
Northbridge Financial Corporation, who pointed out that brokerages are drowning in a sea of paper, and “one of the biggest frustrations has been our inability to extend the adoption of electronic standards across the marketplace to simplify the ways that business is transacted.” (continued.)
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In another article,
Canada can learn from Quebec’s telematics experiment, Linda Sparr felt that the regulations already in place could be dispensed if insurers were more forthcoming as to the inner workings of the industry.
“Perhaps there would be less ‘regulatory burden’ if there was more ‘transparency’ in this industry,” she suggested.
The article cited Michel Laurin, president and COO of Industrial Alliance, Auto Home Insurance in Quebec City, Que., whose early embrace of telematics was a direct result of “less regulatory burden as to how insurance companies can compete and move and adapt to reality.”
In his opinion, “doing Mobiliz as we did, it could only have happened in Quebec.”
