The Americas Insurance Awards Honors the Canadian Automobile Association

NEW YORK, April 4, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Chartered Insurance Operations Professional (CIOP) Institute is pleased to announce that CAA Insurance has been selected as the recipient of the 2017 Americas Insurance Award.

The Americas Insurance Awards (AIA's) is a highly selective and appreciative program that actively searches for and honors examples of continuous innovation, integrity, masterful execution and outstanding leadership throughout the insurance industry. For 2017 the focus of the Americas Insurance Awards is "Lessons in Operational Innovation & Performance."

While the search for outstanding operational innovation produced many examples, CAA Insurance stood out as a particularly robust lesson in staging and integrating a portfolio of innovations – a portfolio that has significantly enhanced organizational performance while delivering a compelling customer experience.

Over the last few years the CAA Insurance team crafted and executed a remarkable strategy – advancing the company's capabilities concurrently across multiple fronts:

• From a technology perspective CAA was able to transform its application platform into a strategic enabler – including the deployment of the entire Guidewire suite in record time.
• CAA has also embraced the science and application of competing-on-analytics through the use of big data and extensive modeling that rapidly serves up advanced risk segmentation and pricing approaches.
• The customer and employee experience was further enriched through the accelerated migration to the state of the art Avaya Telephony Platform that seamlessly integrates CAA's distribution channels and product offerings.

Knowing that the successful insurance organization of the future will need to interface and do business with customers in the distinctive ways that diverse customer segments prefer, CAA Insurance introduced a new broker channel to expand its come-to-market reach beyond its traditional direct channel. This new omni-channel approach was further augmented by crafting an expanded business eco-system – characterized by partnering with other large specialty carriers to successfully introduce "CAA Distinct"; a new comprehensive high net worth insurance product and supporting service infrastructure.

CAA's operational foundation, newly strengthened with enabling technology, a robust multi-channel delivery market presence and an ever growing business ecosystem created a context for effectively staging fresh innovations and experimentation. Such innovations encompassed the rapid sourcing, selection, and creative adaption of user-based-insurance (UBI) and the successful deployed a powerful telematics suite.

The combination and resonance of these strategic initiatives and innovations delivered quantum improvements in the profitable growth trajectory of CAA Insurance. The combined ratio was reduced from over 120% in 2009 to below 90%; policy growth exceeded 50%; and CAA is now consistently ranked among the top industry leaders in the Canadian insurance market.

"We are absolutely delighted to be recognized with such a significant award in the insurance industry," said Matthew Turack, President, CAA Insurance. "CAA's brand continues to grow steadily as a trusted and industry-leading insurance provider and we are incredibly excited for what is to come in the months and years ahead."

"While many insurance organizations may be succeeding on one or two strategic efforts and innovations in a rather linear fashion, what impressed the AIA's Selection Committee is the number of transformative initiatives that were pursued rapidly in a concurrent, agile, and high impact fashion by CAA leadership," observed Mr. Philip Mondanaro a spokesperson for the Americas Insurance Awards.

"These are truly exciting times for the Insurance Industry. This insurance industry context is like none that have come before. It is a broad and deep displacement in what was previously deemed as acceptable performance within our industry," Mr. Mondanaro further explained. "In the past one industry development needed consideration. But today there is a convergence of tectonic shifts in people, technologies, processes and markets that when taken in the aggregate is disrupting and redefining what it will take to be a winning enterprise in the rapidly emerging new insurance industry. It is challenging carriers. It is challenging carriers to change. To continuously innovate. It is challenging carriers to transform."

"CAA is not only answering this challenge but turning this challenge into a remarkable opportunity to lean into the future by reinventing itself and operating in profoundly new and exciting ways," continued Mr. Mondanaro. "CAA demonstrates that the overarching goal of all insurance leaders in this age of disruption and transformation is to rapidly copy that which should be copied from within as well as outside our industry. To embrace, adapt and refine that which should be adopted. Collaborate with and through our trusted partners to newly invent that which should be invented. And to advance our organization into a better future by fundamentally changing what we do and how we do it. All while sustaining and strengthening who we are through the defining values and behaviors that make our organization unique; that make it now and forever special."

CAA Overview

Since 1974, the CAA Insurance Company has been protecting Canadians in their homes, on the road, and while traveling. The CAA Insurance Company operates throughout Canada and is a subsidiary of the CAA Club Group. As Canada's largest automotive association, with over 2.3 million members, the CAA Club Group helps Canadians stay mobile, safe and protected. Built on its enduring values of integrity, accountability, innovation and teamwork, CAA challenges the status quo by empowering all employees to continuously grow professionally, learn, and to embrace the notion that leadership is the responsibility of every employee.  Through this context of empowerment CAA cultivates new and diverse ideas and opinions in its constant pursuit of excellence and unsurpassed service to its members. To learn more, please visit www.caasco.com.

About the CIOP Institute

The CIOP Institute is the premier global insurance professional development organization that is built upon a deep belief in the power of knowledge as a shaper of performance, a builder of professionalism, a creator of ideas, and an inciter of innovation and positive change. While offering unsurpassed thought leadership and a compelling array of educational experiences to the insurance industry, the CIOP Institute administers a number of rigorous and rewarding insurance professional designation programs including the Chartered Insurance Operations Professional (CIOP), Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (LSSBB), Fellow of the Society of Insurance Leaders (FSIL), Master of Insurance Business Analysis (MIBA), Customer Experience and Analytics (CXAP), and the Master of Change Management (MCM) & Coaching. Additionally the CIOP Institute coordinates and conducts all aspects of the Americas Insurance Awards. For more information, please visit www.ciopinstitute.com or call 866.930.CIOP.

Media Contact:

Paul James
866.930.CIOP
[email protected]

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SOURCE The CIOP Institute