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It is a small step of California Land Title Association, but it is a big step of Insurance industry.

The powerful tool is TitleWizard.
It let consumers who are buying, selling or refinancing a home can get pricing information from the title insurers in their area. Nearly 100 companies, including the largest in the state, are part of the database.

Let's go through the history of Title Insurance

As a underwriter, I know almost all companies at insurance market honour their quotation for 30 days.

A insurance agent get the quotation from company for his client. The client need time to think about it.
Or,
Compare the quotations from different companies or brokage.

If he has not asked this coverage until the expiry date and over the valid time, he may face the problem to renew his insurance.

So remember, be on time.

From Canadian Insurance July/August issue, you may know that Lloyd's of London pay out more in claims than they took in last year.

Lloyd's chairman Lord Peter Levene said that Canada is his second-largest overseas market, has been causing "a few frown lines."

He pointed out that in 2005, Lloyd's underwriters paid some "significant" claims arising out of a variety of risks - a fire at an Alberta oil sands facility, a U.S. securities action against a major Canadian financial institution and the August rainstorm in Ontarioi. As well, this year Lloyd's has shared in the almost $70 million in insured damages arising out of the Queen of the North ferry sinking.

AXA has agreed to buy Winterthur from the Credit Suisse Group for CHF 12.3 billion (US$9.98 billion), to be paid in cash.

In addition, AXA will refinance CHF 1.6 billion (US$1.3 billion) of Winterthur's outstanding debt, of which CHF 1.1 billion (US$893,000) of internal loans is to be redeemed to Credit Suisse Group at closing.

"This transaction is a unique opportunity to reinforce our leading position in our core European market and to increase our presence in high growth markets, notably in Central and Eastern Europe and in Asia," according to AXA Group CEO Henri de Castries.

Marshall and Swift/Boeckh (MS/B) recently initiated a project to augment its IntegriClaim field estimating product with operations, features and finishes customarily found in high-value homes. The continual expansion of the IntegriClaim database gives insurance carriers and adjusters the ability to create more accurate and consistent loss estimates for upscale and custom-built homes, MS/B said.

"Growth in the high-value home marketplace and increased use of MS/B's RCT High Value product, a high-value home valuation application, has amplified the need for the creation of a comprehensive database of high-value features and finishes," Jonathan Kost, vice-president of claims at MS/B, said. "The data will be updated on a quarterly basis to coincide with the delivery of our underwriting building cost updates, allowing our clients to react quickly as new high value areas emerge throughout the country." Kost explained that the data-set is of great importance to insurance carriers who use RCT High Value on the underwriting side: it aids the achievement of true indemnification by helping to generate claims payments from the same "total-component"data.

In Canada, the number of applications for individual life insurance policies decilined by 1.9% in 2005 compared to 2004, according to the MIB Life Index, whereas in the United States, application activity was down by 3.4%.

In total, North American applications were down by 3.3% for all ages compared to 2004. When combined with the downturn in activity in 04/03 (-2.3%) and 03/02 (-3.0%), the industry is experiencing a three-year decline in applications in excess of 8.0%.

However, while application activity is on the decline, aggregate premiums and average face amounts of new individual life policies are increasing industry-wide, notes the MIB Life Index report.

"Our data show that activity in the 60 plus age demographic is slowly crowding out application activity at the younger ages. This is another manifestation that the middle and lower end of the market continues to remain underserved by current distribution and product designs," says Stacy Gill., MIB's chief knowledge officer.

Many of the large Canadian P&C insurance companies announced recently that they would be adpoting the new version of the Insurance Bureau of Canada's (IBC) "advisory" standard form of the commercial general liability (CGL) policy effective January 2006.
This new policy wording will replace the current version which dates back to 1986.

Based on the official "COMPARISON BETWEEN CURRENT AND REVISED FORM" , change highlights - commercial general liabiltiy policy - IBC 2100, there are 23 changes on list.

Followings are some examples.

* The new CGL policy will incorporate some new exclusions, some of which were previously added by endorsements, such as asbestos, fungi or spores, data terrorism and abuse.

* some exclusions, definitions and conditions have been changed to reflect current trends in technology, jurisprudence and underwriting concerns.

* The new CGL policy imposes a new "general aggregate" limit which applies to premises and operations losses, personal and advertising injury and medical expenses. In the old CGL forms there was no general aggregate limit for such losses. This new general aggregate limit will apply separately from the current products/completed operations aggregate limit. The general aggregate limit does not apply to tenants' legal liability coverage which is provided on a limit "per premises" whith no aggregate.

Alberta insurers do no have to release records if they fall under the realm of"insurer information" as defined by the Insurance Act, according to a recent ruling by Alberta Information and Privacy Commission adjudicator Dave Bell.

The Alberta adjudicator decided the 'Freedom of Information adn Protection of Privacy Act' (the "FOIP Act") does not apply to "insurer information" as defined by the Alberta Insurance Act.

The decision was made after an applicant made an access request under the FOIP Act to the Alberta Automobile Insurance Board (AIB) for records relating to applications for rate changes by insurance companies. The AIB provided some records, but it withheld information that it said would identify the information of particular companies, as well as some more general information used to approve rates. The applicant asked for a review of these decisions to withhold information.