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What We Can Do For You

Consulting Services

Insurance Management

In rendering our insurance management services, we balance two critical objectives: efficient delivery and highly customized service. For some clients, we operate as a virtual insurer, delivering the full array of services required on a turnkey basis under the direction of the client’s board/committee structure.  Other clients have an infrastructure or other outsourced arrangements already in place, and we provide insurance management services on an unbundled basis.

 

We regularly co-ordinate our activities with other service providers, including insurance brokers, claims adjusters. Overall, we’re a consulting services business and we tackle insurance management from a holistic perspective. 

Principal Attorney

Our principal attorney services include preparing Board materials, attending Board meetings, actioning items from the Board, liaising with regulators, coordinating service providers, and tracking expenses to budget and ensuring that regulatory filing requirements are met in a timely manner among many others.

 

As many self-insured entities operate with minimal staff, we also offer emergency replacement or succession planning to ensure continuity of services/operations to the entities. 

Accounting / Regulatory

Our insurance accountants offer a breadth of insurance management services from full turnkey accounting to leave temporary support and specific project/reviews, depending on our clients’ needs.

 

We offer the full cycle accounting services from day-to-day operations such as issuing cheques, deposits, general ledger entries and bank statements reconciliation to preparing financial statements and management reports. We ensure compliance with all regulatory/reporting requirements, restrictions on signatories and internal controls.

 

We prepare monthly, quarterly and annual filings (including premium tax remittances and suppression of terrorism reports). We liaise with auditors, actuaries, investment managers and audit committees, as required. For reciprocals, we provide accounting at the subscriber level to ensure that all participants understand their financial interest in the reciprocal.

 

We also support and educate our clients, Audit Committees and Boards on changes in accounting standards that impact their operations. From impact assessments, progress reports, planning and implementation, our team of experts partners with you to guide you through all aspects of risk management and concrete action implementation.

Claims

We manage all aspects of the claims process, including claim report acknowledgement, coverage review, retention/instruction of adjusters/legal counsel (as appropriate), claim reserving, attendance at mediation, etc. We develop claims systems and claims management protocols, and liaise with auditors, actuaries and reinsurers as required.

 

With a focus on professional liability claims, our team of lawyers has unparalleled experience in managing complex litigation, and at the same time, we have developed systems to efficiently manage high volume claims programs.

Underwriting

Our team of licensed brokers works closely with clients to understand risk exposure and risk appetite, review the current insurance and reinsurance arrangements to analyze their efficiency, and provide risk management recommendations. Our focus is to assist clients in modifying, designing and developing the property and casualty insurance coverage which will be ideal for their needs.

 

We establish recommended best practices for risk management to better control risk exposures that can or have resulted in loss. We provide policy wording and reinsurance contract expertise, as well as overall underwriting guidelines.

Strategic

In managing your operations, you may be dealing with initiatives such as expanding coverage and/or membership, relocating primary regulators, redrafting rules or subscribers’ agreements, managing requests for proposals, performing governance reviews or developing governance policies (surplus management, investment policies, outsourcing policies, rating policies, etc.).

 

As a consulting services business, Axxima can lead, support, manage and provide strategic advice to help you achieve the next step in your organisation’s journey.  We can also help your organization understand regulatory changes and guidance issued and their impact on your entity.

Alternative Risk Transfer - Feasibility Studies

When it comes to risk transfer alternatives, our focus is to offer clients more control and flexibility over their risk by empowering them with our expertise in self-insurance feasibility studies. We provide our clients with analysis that addresses the actuarial, accounting, regulatory, insurance and reinsurance structure and governance aspects so that clear decisions can be made.

 

Our analysis provides clients with the information required to make a go-no-go decision on prudent self-insurance or insurance program structures. Our creative thinking always challenges the status quo and offers customised/tailored solutions. You can count on our risk management expertise to attain the best tools for decision-making.

Alternative Risk Transfer - Optimization

We work with facilities already in place to maximize their value by:

 

  • Developing property and casualty insurance risk financing strategies including experience-rated insurance plans, captives, reciprocals, pooling and reinsurance arrangements, catastrophe/stop loss coverage, etc.
  • Optimizing insurance/reinsurance structures
  • Helping organizations to develop an informed understanding of their risk appetite and risk transfer
  • Evaluating the options for deductible levels and policy limits (including aggregate limits).

Stochastic modelling to study the volatility and probability of losses under a variety of retention or cession scenarios (including layering and aggregate loss transfer).

Affinity Programs

Our services include all aspects of affinity program management. From setting up an affinity program, monitoring/optimizing it, going to market, negotiating terms and assisting with transition, we offer strategic consulting services to meet your needs.

 

We partner expertise from the actuarial and brokerage sides to educate, gather data, provide analysis and recommendations on go-forward strategies for our clients. The insurance markets appreciate our openness and have adapted to our creative approach. Our focus is always to offer your members and employees value in your trusted brand and partnerships. 

Brokerage Services

Overview

Axxima’s approach to insurance and reinsurance placements has always been one of achieving stability and security. We have the actuarial capability to price risk effectively to ensure that insurers are offering terms that are commensurate with the risk being underwritten. We evaluate insurers on the following five criteria:

 

  1. Coverage
  2. Price
  3. Service
  4. Stability
  5. Security
Insurance Placement - Services

Axxima works with clients to assess their risk exposures and risk appetite, and to assist in placing the insurance coverage which will be the optimal solution for their needs. As insurance consultant, we:

  • Develop program structure options, including indications of premium, retention, coverage and limits
  • Solicit quotes from insurers, negotiate the best rates, assist clients with the evaluation of options
  • Pair actuarially determined pricing with commercial financial requirements
  • Review policies and endorsements for conformity to agreed terms and coverage
Insurance Placement - Coverages

With our vast experience with insurance management, we can provide expertise in the following types of coverages:

  • Professional Liability
  • D&O
  • E&O
  • Commercial Liability
  • Cyber
  • Crime
  • Fiduciary
  • Excess Insurance
Reinsurance Placement - Approach

We focus on creative reinsurance placement, challenging status quo structures with a strong focus on actuarial and technical analysis.  Our overriding objective is to reflect our clients’ cultures and unique risk appetites in each reinsurance services project that we undertake. In the self-insurance world, long term relationships and overall stability of operations influence reinsurance strategy and ultimately determine the structure and placement of risk transfer solutions.

 

At the root, the reinsurance business is not complicated: transfer risk at a rate that is expected in the long run to produce a reasonable profit. Markets respond favourably to the professional submission and creative ideas that we bring to the table, knowing that we have the tools and expertise to do so while creating win-win situations for both the reinsurer and the reinsured.

 

Our reputation and work with reinsurers on complex and, when necessary, atypical reinsurance structures, has been successful because of our ability to speak the reinsurer’s language, and most importantly, the language of their key decision makers including their actuaries.

Reinsurance Placement - Services

We provide the full spectrum of reinsurance services and cover all aspects of the reinsurance placement including negotiation, preparation and signing of contracts, payment of premium and reinsurance claims and periodic exchange of information as required. As reinsurance consultants, we:

  • Review and develop an optimal reinsurance structure addressing our clients’ long-term strategy in a unique and creative way
  • Provide technical expertise to evaluate options and pricing, as well as developing of target risk level
  • Provide reinsurance market expertise to secure the reinsurance coverage
  • Prepare an annual reinsurance submission that meets the objectives and requirements of our client for the annual placement
  • Monitor and assess the participating reinsurers for their financial viability
  • Provide the highest quality customer services and prompt responsiveness to our clients, with various contact points and senior resources.
Coverholder Programs

Being a Coverholder at Lloyd’s gives us the ability to provide the client with a unique blend of control and security. In accordance with the terms of a negotiated binding authority agreement, we provide services such as:

  • Binding risks and issuing policy documents, including endorsements and certificates of insurance
  • Collecting and processing premiums
  • Managing and settling claims for property and casualty insurance and beyond

Actuarial Services

Appointed Actuary

Axxima’s actuarial teams provide a wide range of creative actuarial services covering diverse property and casualty insurance types, including professional liability, property and automobile. We empower our clients by offering the following actuarial services:

 

  • Annual reserving work, including liaison with auditor and peer review actuary
  • Quarterly reserving work or quarterly financial monitoring
  • P&C-1 and financial notes support from an expert actuarial consultant
  • Financial proformas and multi-year projections
  • Annual ratemaking and self-insured retention studies
  • Internal surplus target and development of surplus policy, ORSA and FCT
  • Education session for Boards and audit committees on changes in regulatory guidelines, accounting standards and actuarial standards, etc.

Our actuaries are accredited by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries and are involved with professional associations that develop actuarial educational materials, as well as provide professionalism training for actuaries and actuarial students.

Audit Reviews, External Peer Reviews and Miscellaneous Consulting

We support audit firms as their actuarial consultant, making sure all insurance related tasks are carried on effectively. In addition, we also act as external peer reviewer for the valuation of actuarial liabilities and financial condition testing as required by regulators.  We are also involved with clients on special actuarial consulting projects such as:

  • Affinity programs monitoring, consultation and renewals
  • Addition of lines of business
  • Development of governance policies, etc.

Our team gathers some of the best, most passionate actuaries in Canada, skilled professionals who also know how to address the personal side of business. Their advice is follows  the Canadian Institute of Actuaries’ standards of practices, which comes as an extra guarantee that you’ll be in exceptional hands.

Modelling

Our stochastic financial modelling software allows us to provide a myriad types of analyses to our clients. Moreover, our actuarial services include simulation and financial forecasting, helping clients to assess the volatility of possible outcomes for various projects.

 

Whether in the context of a Monte Carlo pricing analysis or ORSA modelling at various probability levels, we have the ability to customize our analysis to reflect our clients’ specific needs.

AgriInsurance Expertise

We have built a strong AgriInsurance expertise through our work with many provincial programs and the federal government on various certification and special projects such as:

  • Assessment and recommendations on the probable yield methodology, premium methodology and self-sustainability of the insurance program, including a review of the target insurance fund level
  • Review of program design (actuarial component)
  • Reinsurance modeling and internal targets related to reinsurance purchase philosophy
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