EXECUTIVE BIO

to be at a different place in the journey,” Scarbeau tells us. He accepts that most Canadian insurers are not at the fully digitised end of the spectrum.

“I think the Canadian market is probably behind the curve a bit,” Lansakara adds. “If you think of things like digital quote and bind rate comparators that are available, the UK certainly leads the pack. The US, I’d say, is not there but definitely catching up. I think Canada is gradually moving there.”

He believes that the company’s global footprint – including the beneficial relationship it shares with Munich Re –means that HSB Canada is able to incubate ideas faster and create opportunities for new technologies or new insurance models, like embedded insurance, faster than locally grounded players can.

Lansakara has a theory why Canada is looking up the track towards other countries. “As with a lot of digitisation journeys, there’s a bit of a lag until you see the results,” he says. “Markets like the UK and US probably made those investments a couple of years before we did here in Canada, but I believe the players here are feeling that competitive pressure [to evolve].”

Transformation is slowly happening, driven by relentless consumer demand, and both our interviewees are keen to see what future transformation this causes in the Canadian insurance landscape. Perhaps in another 148 years, future generations will be scoffing at the notion of cyber insurance or scratching their heads about the way cyber risk is insured.

How is HSB Canada adapting to change?

As the custodian of all of HSB Canada’s technology initiatives, it falls with Scarbeau to orient the business’ tech stack for future success. “In terms of the IT space, I’m constantly looking for opportunities to adopt the philosophy of low-code and no-code, self-service for the business, and not becoming too reliant on IT all the time,” Scarbeau tells us. “But we have to have a really solid foundation to do that.

“Thankfully for us here at HSB Canada, we’ve already gone over to the cloud and we’re on scalable infrastructure that affords that type of responsiveness.”

Lansakara believes the insurance industry is “on the cusp of drastic disruption.” It is constantly evolving, but right now it has reached an inflection point, he says.

“The current situation creates the opportunity for insurers to provide offerings that predict, prevent and mitigate risk before it even happens,” he says, referring to the prevention-led models that have become ubiquitous across the insurance sector as it evolves.

“That means insurance is no longer a paper product or a financial recovery when an incident happens; it is about avoiding an incident in the first place, and then if it does happen you know you are covered. That’s what we believe at HSB and that’s why we are making all the investments we are making in IoT capabilities, data and our technology offerings.”

That’s why HSB Canada is investing majorly in automation, a “game changer” that allows insurers to reduce time spent on manual processes within the claims journey, providing a “leapfrog” effect that propels businesses forward in time. Emerging technologies within the field of automation, like generative AI, will assist underwriters with decision making, expediting the process and increasing the quality of risk assessment.

So what will the future hold in store for the Toronto-based insurer? “We are going to continue monitoring the shift in risk landscape and look to strengthen our offering in the space. We intend to be a dominant player in the cyber insurance space,” Lansakara says.

“We are also going to continue evaluating traditional risk products and see how we could better take advantage of some of this IoT technology, if there are opportunities to embed some of it in insurance offerings so data received becomes part of the underwriting process or part of the coverage solution.”

Scarbeau concludes: “From an IT perspective, we’re continuing to scale our cloud infrastructure, and our real-time digital capabilities support that. For me, it’s all about working closely with and his team, prioritising the best opportunities, and really trying to find ways that we can accelerate the innovation trend internally.

As things evolve, we’re continuously looking at the skills we have, what frameworks we’re using in IT, and consistently shifting on the back end in the parts of the business that most people don’t get to see.”