Happy St. Patrick's Day 🍺🍀  March 17th 2023

Saint Patrick’s Day | History, Traditions, & Facts

St. Patrick’s Day, feast day (March 17) of St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland. Born in Roman Britain in the late 4th century, he was kidnapped at the age of 16 and taken to Ireland as a slave. He escaped but returned about 432 ce to convert the Irish to Christianity. By the time of his death on March 17, 461, he had established monasteries, churches, and schools. Many legends grew up around him—for example, that he drove the snakes out of Ireland and used the shamrock to explain the Trinity. Ireland came to celebrate his day with religious services and feasts.

It was emigrants, particularly to the United States, who transformed St. Patrick’s Day into a largely secular holiday of revelry and celebration of things Irish. Cities with large numbers of Irish immigrants, who often wielded political power, staged the most extensive celebrations, which included elaborate parades. Boston held its first St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1737, followed by New York City in 1762.

Since 1962 Chicago has colored its river green to mark the holiday. (Although blue was the color traditionally associated with St. Patrick, green is now commonly connected with the day.) Irish and non-Irish alike commonly participate in the “wearing of the green”—sporting an item of green clothing or a shamrock, the Irish national plant, in the lapel. Corned beef and cabbage are associated with the holiday, and even beer is sometimes dyed green to celebrate the day. Although some of these practices eventually were adopted by the Irish themselves, they did so largely for the benefit of tourists

St Patrick's Day and the Most Unlucky of Insurance Claims

The luck of the Irish is nearly upon us and brings on a moment of reflection. Though many have asked, as far as we know the Toole in Graydon-Toole Group did NOT use to be O'Toole. That being said, we are still plenty Irish and thus love the festivities that St Patrick's Day brings. From parades to morning road races to the are absolute favorite- corned beef sandwiches, we thought today would be a great time some humor.

These are our 5 favorite reasons for a claim we have ever seen!

Stay safe with whatever adventure you embark on tomorrow and Happy St Patrick's Day.

SVB collapse has message for insurance industry

New commentary highlights areas of critical importance for insurers

The failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) highlights the importance of insurers managing enterprise, asset-liability and liquidity risks, according to a commentary by AM Best.

The Best’s Commentary, titled “SVB Collapse Highlights Critical Lessons for the Insurance Industry,” said that just eight US insurers have bond exposures greater than 2% of their capital and surplus, with the maximum being less than 5%.

Payments Digitization: AI-Powered Insurance Claims

Like many industries, insurers are also being rocked by macro pressures.

“What we’re seeing are resource challenges and supply chain issues across the insurance industry,” Kelli Svymbersky, VP of payments at software-as-a-service platform CCC Intelligent Solutions Inc. (CCC), told PYMNTS.

And the insurers — in a bid to secure customer loyalty — want to get money into their customers’ bank accounts as quickly as possible.

The claims process, of course, is notoriously complex across the multi-trillion-dollar industry, and it can take weeks from the time a claim is filed to the time that a payment is disbursed. The insurers themselves are but one party in the mix, and there are other providers in the insurance ecosystem, too, including auto repair shops and auto lenders, to name just a few. The insurers typically have to make multiple payments to several parties at once.

The end customers?

Well, they can be left with less-than-transparent insight into how much they’ll be paid and when. It’s the customer experience that ultimately determines whether they’ll stay with a provider or not — and PYMNTS data show that 66% of consumers say they would stay loyal to businesses offering free, instant disbursement options.

U.S. workers dissatisfied with the state of employers' safety efforts

When it comes to workplace safety, 71% of U.S. employees don’t think their organization follows through on its safety promises and 65% think their employer isn’t making an active effort to improve safety training.

That’s according to AlertMedia’s latest State of Employee Safety report, which also found that 84% of employees feel that their organization has the means to help them feel more prepared for an emergency.

Further, many employees said current safety efforts are not very effective. At the same time, almost half of workers said the world is becoming a more dangerous place compared with just a few years ago.

Workers said that improving communications about workplace hazards and emergency protocol is the best way that companies can show that safety is a priority, according to AlertMedia’s study.

“The second most impactful way organizations can show that safety is a priority is to initiate safety improvement plans and be transparent with specific initiatives that are being executed to protect employees in today’s intensifying crisis landscape,” Peter Steinfeld, senior vice president of safety solutions at AlertMedia, says.

Commercial property sees largest rate hike: Ivans

Commercial insurance rates rose for most lines last month, but the pace of increases slowed for commercial auto and umbrella liability, according to Ivans Insurance Services monthly index.

Commercial property saw the biggest average rate hike of 8.86%, up from 8.67% in January, the index issued by the Tampa, Florida-based insurance exchange said Wednesday.

Business owners policy rates also accelerated to 7.18%, up from 6.87% the prior month.

Workers compensation was the only line of business that continued to see a decrease.

Commercial auto rate increases were up 5.64%, compared with 5.84%; general liability was up 5.37%, compared with 5.34%; and umbrella liability was up 4.98%, compared with 5.59%.

Metaverse impact on life insurance

As the life insurance industry continues its digital transformation, a new and potentially more disruptive technology is on the horizon—the metaverse.

According to the Accenture Business Trends Survey conducted in April – May 2022, respondents in companies having some form of a strategy around the metaverse believe that in the next three years, a 4.2% share of their revenues will come from new products, services or business models related to the metaverse. This represents a value of $1 trillion globally.

Shay Alon, Business Lead, Life & Annuity and Customer Engagement at Accenture