The Insurance Institute of Canada (IIC) kick-started the new year by launching its new website, but this is not the only fresh development it has in store for 2024.
In an interview with Insurance Business, IIC president and CEO Peter Hohman (pictured) shared what is on the horizon for the Insurance Institute in 2024 and what was behind the new-look website, which debuted ahead of launch projections.
From modernization work to talent initiatives, the year ahead is set to be a busy one.
In 2024, the IIC is looking forward to finding new and exciting ways to modernize its core program, the Chartered Insurance Professional (CIP) designation, the president and CEO shared.
“It will start in the first quarter of this year with what we call our enabling skills,” Hohman said.
“These are short, focused learning opportunities that traditionally might be described as more soft skills based, but they help round out the learning from the insurance professionals’ perspective.”
Within a couple of months, the institute will also introduce a new project that will help tackle the industry’s talent challenge.
“We've been working with a group of senior industry leaders, about 40 senior industry leaders, CEOs and senior HR professionals on this,” Hohman said.
“This will include a three-pronged initiative of promotional activity to the general public about considering a career in insurance, which is in partnership with these leaders.”
Elsewhere, the IIC will be expanding its Career Connections activity that will bring together career changers and post-secondary graduates with industry employers, as well as the development of new accelerated virtual learning modules for people that we will be attracting into the industry through these new initiatives.
“We are really excited about that,” Hohman said.
The Insurance Institute kicked off 2024 with a bang by launching a new website that should make it easier for students and professionals to access its services.
Hohman touched on three key benefits of the updated Insurance Institute website:
The new website is better optimized for mobile, with both students and members increasingly using their smartphones to access courses and services over a standard computer.
“Many have shifted to virtual and web-based learning. And even our exams, our preference for our students now has largely been into the virtual exam environment,” Hohman said. “We saw the opportunity to introduce a mobile optimized site with an improved overall experience for our members and our stakeholders.”
Along the way, the institute held various touchpoints with members and stakeholders to pilot and test the website’s progression to make sure it was hitting all their expectations.
“We had the luxury of being proactive on this initiative,” the IIC president and CEO said.
“Our launch timeline was actually for April 1 of this year and I’m happy to say we beat those projections.”
The geolocation function remains intact, so users can access courses from wherever they are in the country and its corresponding time zone.
“For instance, if you're sitting in Calgary and you want to take courses that are more localized, it will recognize you being located in that site,” Hohman said.
“At the same time, if you happen to see a course that might be offered elsewhere in Canada and the time zone might be better suited for you over the next little while, you can also tap into that sort of all Canada opportunities.”
The redesign was a years’ long process.
It was not brought about from external pressure to modernize, rather, the Insurance Institute team felt it was time to look at how the website could better deliver, Hohman shared.
“Not having any concern from members, students or anyone in the industry really afforded us the proper time to get it done right, which was really important,” Hohman said.
“What that did was allow us to connect with our community and the industry to find out what was important to them, when we would redevelop the site and how we could improve the existing website that we had.”
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