While employees are being more open about their gender identities — whether they identify as gender fluid, intersex, non-binary, transgender or two-spirit — at work these days, there’s still progress to be made when it comes to benefits language, systems, plans and rate tables, says Chantelle Tadman, manager of benefits, savings plans and wellness at […]
The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association has elected Michael Doughty, president and chief executive officer of Manulife Canada, as its chair. Doughty will take over the role from Jean-François Chalifoux, the president and chief executive officer of Beneva Inc., who was appointed chair in December 2020 and who’ll remain on the board as a past […]
The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association is opening a government-affairs office serving Western Canada. The Calgary-based office will support the CLHIA’s members operating in the west and work with provincial and territorial governments and other regional stakeholders, according to a press release. The office is the association’s first permanent operation west of Toronto and will […]
The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association is calling on the federal government to provide Canadians with access to more-secure retirement income. In its submission to the 2021 federal budget, the CLHIA recommended that Canadians in and approaching retirement have access to flexible annuity options within registered pensions, registered retirement savings plans, registered retirement income […]
Health Canada says it’s delaying the implementation of long-awaited changes to Canada’s drug-pricing regime by another six months. A spokesman for the department, says the amendments to patented medicine regulations, which were set to take effect Jan. 1, will now come into force on July 1. Geoffroy Legault-Thivierge says the postponement is intended to give pharmaceutical manufacturers […]
In its 2020 budget submission to the Ontario government, the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association is highlighting a lack of access to affordable prescription drugs and inflexible pension plans. With respect to prescription drugs, the CLHIA noted it supports the federal Patented Medicine Prices Review Board reforms, which were introduced on Friday. “It is crucial that the […]
When the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association rolled out its proposed compensation disclosure guideline in January 2018, it quickly inflamed tensions with group benefits and retirement advisors. The guideline, G19, stipulated that all of the CLHIA’s insurer members begin disclosing to plan sponsors the fees, commissions and bonuses they paid to advisors. Facing backlash […]
Canadians received a record $103 billion in benefits from life and health insurers last year, up 60 per cent from a decade earlier, according to the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association’s annual fact book. The benefits include $53.3 billion in pension annuity payments, $38.1 billion in health benefits for prescription drugs and supplementary health […]
The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association is recommending the federal government develop a strategy for high-cost drugs for rare diseases, potentially by harmonizing catastrophic drug coverage across the country. In its August federal budget submission to the standing committee on finance, the association noted specialty drugs, including those for chronic and rare disease, made up just two […]
The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association is appointing Jean-François Chalifoux, chief executive officer of SSQ Life Insurance Co. Inc., as the new chair of its board of directors. Chalifoux took on the top job at SSQ in 2015. Previously, he held several executive roles at Canadian insurance companies, including most recently at Desjardins Insurance, where he first headed […]