Over the past four years, total drug costs adjudicated by HBM+ have risen from about $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion, while the number of claimants has increased from 1.7 million to more than two million. The inaugural drug trends and strategic insights report by the health benefits manager, a division of Green Shield Canada, examined drug […]
The Canada Climate Law Initiative is calling into question whether the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is sufficiently aligning its investments with the transition to a low-carbon economy. In a legal analysis, the organization said the pension fund’s current allocations to high-carbon assets reveal a “troubling incrementalism” within its efforts to mitigate Canadians’ exposure to […]
U.S. employers are planning to maintain core health benefits but are exploring other changes to preserve jobs and manage expenses, according to new a new survey by Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. The survey, which looked at data from nearly 4,000 employers over several months, found close to half have planned salary freezes for management and executives (43 per cent) and non-management […]
Guardian Capital is forming a collaboration with Moshe Milevsky, a professor of finance at York University’s Schulich School of Business, that focuses on retirement finance. As an academic, Milevsky is currently working on research on the intersections of financial engineering, actuarial science, insurance contingent claims and wealth management, according to a press release. “There is an acute need for innovation […]
The Pension Investment Association of Canada is taking issue with some of the recommendations drafted by Ontario’s capital markets modernization task force, specifically those related to proxy advisory firms. In a recent letter to Walied Soliman, the chair of the task force, the PIAC disagreed with a proposal to introduce a regulatory framework for proxy advisory firms. […]
The Investor Leadership Network has published a new report that includes practical tools to help investors understand and assess companies’ climate-related scenario analysis disclosures. Investors can use decarbonization scenario analysis to help understand transition risk and how emissions reductions will impact specific sectors and companies, noted the report. “While climate scenario analysis is key to […]
The Responsible Investment Association is creating a statement on diversity and inclusion and inviting Canadian institutional investors to sign on. The initial signatories of the statement, which is currently circulating, include the Alberta Investment Management Corp. the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the OPSEU Pension Trust and the University of Toronto Asset Management among others. The RIA said investors have […]
The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, alongside existing investors, is investing $US185 million in subscription commerce platform AppDirect Inc. The funding brings the total equity raised to about $US465 million. Since its first funding round in 2015, the U.S.-based company has experienced tremendous growth, increasing gross merchandise value more than 1,500 per cent, expanding […]
Vodacom Group, a South African telecommunications firm, is providing all global employees with 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation. Employees will be able to take the leave if they or their partner are having a baby, adopting a child or becoming a parent through surrogacy. They can take […]
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 […]