Great-West Lifeco adds ClaimSecure to its team

While no two insurance companies are exactly the same, the reluctance to pay out claims is systemic. In a press release on Sept. 1, Great-West Lifeco subsidiary, Canada Life, announced it completed its acquisition of ClaimSecure. This increases Canada Life’s plan members by more than 1.25 million individuals with more than $1.2 billion in annual claim payments.

Great-West Lifeco is a subsidiary of Power Financial Corp. and is engaged in life and health insurance, reinsurance, retirement and investment services and asset management in Canada, the United States and Europe.

In its second-quarter fiscal 2021 results, the company reported total revenues of $18 billion, down from $19.7 billion in 2020. Overall net income was $817 million for the quarter, down from $897 million due to an increase in earnings attributable to noncontrolling interests.

David Soberman, a professor of marketing at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, notes there are three trends in the insurance industry: amalgamation and one-stop shopping, digital communication and connectedness, and price comparison and pressure.

“Many of the insurance companies that consumers deal with now provide different types of insurance,” Soberman said, adding that “mergers have allowed insurers to engage in one-stop shopping, which is referred to in the insurance industry as cross-selling. When you have a relationship with a customer, (cross-selling) allows (insurers) to deepen its relationship by selling more things to them.”

In terms of digital connectedness, “social media has become very important in the insurance industry as a way of informing people of products that may be relevant to them and creating links (targeted at) the right people,” Soberman said.

“One of the things that has changed in (the insurance business) is how easy it is to get competitive quotes. (Further to this), some insurance companies only offer their products online,” Soberman said, adding that insurance companies now face pressure to compete online and to ensure the privacy of sensitive information transmitted via the internet.