FutureGuard Now – May 4, 2012 – Travel Underwriters

New Benefit of being part of the Intercity/InsureBC group!
 
Great news everyone!  We have managed to negotiate better coverage’s and added value for your clients from Travel Underwriters.  Our group will now have our own branded custom features!
 
Effective June 6th your offices will have a value added policy available to them.  Get ready for staff discounts, renewal discounts, companion discounts, new and improved and easier to explain stability clauses and much much more …
 
Each of your offices will be contacted by Travel Underwriters who are instructed to provide you with training (1 Credit provided) on the additional benefits that we have been able to negotiate based on our volume.  These changes make your office and our group stand out very nicely.  
 
We now have features that many others do not!  See the attached document for details:

 Travel Underwriters Program Details
 
This certainly reinforces how beneficial it is to be part of the Intercity Group!

 

TGIF,

Allison, Katy & Manisha

 

FutureGuard Now April 4, 2012

 Good news! 

Since you all have done such a great job on building the Intercity payment plan, as of April 15^th there are now going to be FOUR payment dates instead of TWO! Great job everyone!

Revised payplan form is located below:

 Premium Payment Plan Application Form

All inquiries and/or questions can be forwarded to finance@insurebc.ca and either Barbara, Karm or Alex will respond to you.

In other FutureGuard news…

Help us with your feedback so we can plan for the future of our program.  Answer the clicky poll below:

 

And finally one last note…

For all of Manisha’s offices, please note she will be away from the office from April 6th to April 15th inclusive.  All FutureGuard  and regualr market inquiries should be sent to Katy, kbergen@insurebc.ca.  All Lloyds and special risk inquiries should be sent to Rhonda, rhondaz@insurebc.ca

 

Happy Easter,

Katy and Manisha

FutureGuard Now – March 23, 2012

Defintion: Insured

WHO QUALIFIES AS AN INSURED??

Husband? Adopted Child? Grandmother? Cousin once removed from your mothers side of the family?  These would all qualify as additional insureds!  Here’s a reference from IIBC’s Property textbook that lays it out fairly clearly:

“The Definition includes people other than the named insured, though these others are not named anywhere in the policy.  But only the insured named in the Coverage summary may take legal action to enforce the contract.”

Definition:  YOU

When the wordings refer to the term “You”, it applies not only to insureds named on the dec page but also

“while living in the same household, to the named insureds spouse, their relatives, and any person under 21 years of age in the care of the named insured or spouse.”

Definition:  SPOUSE

This term extends beyond the traditional concept of a man and woman married to each other and includes:

• Same Sex married partners
• Common law partners who have lived together for more than 3 continuous years
• Common law partners living together continuously for 1 year, who have a NATURAL or ADOPTED child together.
• Full Time post secondary student who is living away from principal residence but is still DEPENDENT on Named Insured for care.

 

Remember, every carrier can have their own version so, when in doubt, look at your wordings. 

If you are still confused, just give us a call and we can help!!

Have a great weekend,

Manisha, Katy, and Allison

 

 

FutureGuard Now March 7, 2012

 

Hi everyone!

We hope everyone has had a great week! If not your week is about to get better since we have streamlined our REGISTERED CANCELLATION procedures.

We are moving to the Intact processes in order to produce the Registered letters of cancellation for you:

•  We  will now use the Intact standard which is 30 days backdating.  
•  You will gain by receiving a 30 day backdate on cancellations where the insured has made a partial payment – previously we allowed only the pro-rata cancellation.
•  Intact can no longer accomodate 60 day backdating on the cancellation date for the broker where no funds have been paid by the insured.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact your Underwritter.

Happy Wednesday!

Katy and Manisha

FutureGuard Now – February 29, 2012

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

This week brings updates in Broker and Underwriter teams for InsureBC. 

Each office will be able to now contact their designated underwriter for all their personal lines needs including FutureGuard and High Value home products.  To help facilitate this change, all Intercity Group offices have been divided into three groups, each of which will work exclusively with either Manisha, Katy and Allison (aided by Fahime.)  All special risk Lloyds policies and boats and motorcycle policies will be handled by Rhonda Zimmermann.

This change is effective tomorrow, March 1st, 2012.  Each office that has been assigned a new underwriter will be contacted tomorrow with details and contact information.  In the meantime we are all still available here to answer your questions and help:

Manisha – mdhawan@insurebc.ca - 604-568-7474 extension 3 or cell 778-772-1323

Katy – kbergen@insurebc.ca - 604-568-7474 extension 2 or 778-847-2595

Allison – abergen@insurebc.ca – 604-568-7474 extension 1 or 604-345-6346

Fahime – frasaei@insurebc.ca – 604-568-7474 extension 4

Rhonda – rhondaz@insurebc.ca - 604-990-6800

We’re also pleased to acknowledge the newest member of our team: Yumi Kurijada, she’s new to the insurance industry and will be supporting the team as receptionist and assitant for the time being.   Say hello next time she answers the phone.

 

Cheers,

Manisha and Katy

 

FutureGuard Now – February 1st, 2012

 

Gung Hay Fat Choy

 

Happy Chinese New Years!

Like the Water Dragon, this year has started with a splash for FutureGuard.  Most of you have become comfortable with your new FutureGuard underwriter Katy this past week and she has enjoyed getting to know all the brokers in our group that she wasn’t working with before on high value homes.

3 Points of interest this week:

1. If you don’t have Intact Savers access, let your underwriter (Manisha or Katy) know so they can help you get set up.   This will make it easier for you to check the billing status of your policies.
2. Sewer Backup coverage for Rented Dwellings is rated as follows: $10 for Rented Dwellings and $25 for Rented Condos.
3. Vacancy Permits are fully retained premiums.  You must add 3 months charge at a time and brokers can bind up to 180 days of vacancy or policy expiry, whichever comes first.  First 30 days of vacancy are free but are included in the calculation for the 180 day broker binding limit.

Have a Happy Wednesday,

Manisha & Katy

FutureGuard Now – January 25, 2012

Dear All,

We are starting the first new years blog with a huge announcement.  Francine Claassen, who has been one of your FutureGuard underwriters, has decided that she greatly misses her broker life and is returning back to it after today.  We know that she will be greatly missed.  Her work with the FutureGuard program has been extremely appreciated by all of us at InsureBC.   We wish her the best in her future endeavours. 

All offices that were dealing with Francine have now been assigned to Katy Bergen effective immediatly.  Most of you already know Katy as she has been helping you with your High Value Home submissions.

Katy can be reached in the following ways:

• Email:  kbergen@insurebc.ca
• Phone:  604-568-7474  extension #2
• Cell:  778-847-2595

To help streamline your workflow, all offices will only deal with one underwriter, either Manisha Dhawan Bogwald and Katy Bergen, for your FutureGuard,  High Value Home, and regular Lloyds business questions and submissions.   Manisha will be taking on High Value Homes, for her offices, to help coordinate this.

As of next month, Rhonda Zimmermann will be training for your special risk submisssions in addition to the Boats and Motorcycles programs that she already handles.  We will make a seperate anouncement when Rhonda will start taking on new business. 

As always, Allison Bergen is available to help you with your questions and to help solve problem files in the meantime.

We are hoping this will streamline your office proceedures by allowing us to be your one-stop shop.  We look forward to adding new programs in the upcoming year that you will benefit greatly from.  Look for anouncements early this summer. 

-Allison Bergen

 

Back to FutureGuard: Important Billing Changes

Intact policy numbers:  Please note that our policies are coded at Intact with the prefix “4P”, which must be referenced in order for Intact to “find” the policy when you call in for billing.

Intact Broker Portals: We are excited to announce that you are able to retrieve billing schedules online for monthly payment plan policies.  You must already have Intact Portal (savers) access.  Simply enter the policy number you have assigned with “4P” in front.

Happy Wednesday

Manisha, Francine, and Katy.

FutureGuard Now – December 14, 2011

We are nearing the end of another great year!  With all of the festivities going on and holidays, this will be our last posting of 2011!  We wish all of you a wonderful holiday season!

2011 was a great year for FutureGuard!  All the numbers aren’t in yet but it was a year of growth for our book and changes that helped keep our product competitive.  We introduced the FutureGuard AXA aka FutureGuard Intact program and thereby avoided a 45% premium increase for our clients.  We launched this fabulous blog which has become a real resource for all our brokers.  And both of us FutureGuard underwriters joined InsureBC in the last 12 months.

As we reflect on 2011, we are also thinking about how we can make things even better for 2012.  We are asking your help to assist us in developing some FutureGuard New Year’s Resolutions to make your point of sale product even better and above the competition.  We love to speak to all of you, and consider your feedback critical in how we approach changes to the product.  If you have any ideas that you feel will bring positive results for your office and the program in general please send them our way!  You don’t need to wait for us to ask, we are always working on ideas to put in motion, so the feedback is welcome anytime.

As for us we are off to celebrate with our families and friends what has been a succesful year for us!

Wishing you all the best for the last 2 weeks of 2011,

Manisha & Francine

FutureGuard Now – December 7th 2011

Happy holidays!!

Shopping for that perfect Christmas gift is a skill that requires you to put your thinking caps on so you can find the perfect gift that is thoughtful yet won’t get shoved to the bottom of the “regift” cupboard either.  The same skills apply when applying Discretionary Discounts to FutureGuard!!

Discretionary Discounts:

1. Evaluation discount can only be applied to Homeowners forms.  Condo and tenant policies are not eligible.
2. Premium deviations by underwriting are only applicable for the premium year that they were approved.  They are not continous.  Policies submitted without approved deviations will be returned to broker for correction.
3. Use your discretion!!!  You can discount UP TO 10% of total final premium for Evaluation Discount but you may want to only discount 5% or 3% to match competitors quote.  As this discount may not be applied the following policy term without a new evaluator completed again, you don’t want to set up your client for a huge premium increase the following year.
4. To add Evaluation discount, new evaluation must be completed in the 3 months prior to policy effective date.  Any valuation tool is acceptable including EZITV, Powerhouse, and MSB.

Happy 2 1/2 weeks to Christmas,

Manisha & Francine.

p.s. Send in your Christmas party photos to have your brokerage featured for the rest of the month on the blog.

FutureGuard Now – November 30, 2011

Here are some important AXA/Intact changes and procedures:

 

Monthly Payment Plan Policies

• Intact showing on top.  AXA Pacific showing in bottom left corner if still a FG AXA policy.  As some of you have noticed, the schedule that is being generated for monthly payment plan policies shows “Intact” on the top, even if it is a renewal policy with AXA Pacific still showing as the carrier on the declarations.  However, please note that the AXA Pacific name still shows on the schedule on the bottom left hand corner.
• Finance fee is 4%.  Intact’s finance fee is 4%, up from AXA’s 3%

 

$5million Liability

• $5million liability extension procedure has changed. FutureGuard AXA/Intact cannot accomodate the $5million liability extension as offered on our program.  New business wishing to carry $5million liability must apply for a separate Personal Umbrella policy, as the maximum liability available through FutureGuard AXA/Intact is $2million.  Please amend your Guidelines accordingly.  Any existing FutureGuard business with this extension should be referred in to us to review renewal options.

 

2-Year Policies

•  2 year policies are no longer an option with FutureGuard AXA/Intact effective January 1, 2012 new and renewal policies.  Any existing policies can be left as is but on renewal they will need to revert back to an annual term.

 

Happy Wednesday,

Manisha & Francine