Executive Corner

Équité Association’s 2022 Vehicle Theft Trend Report (June 2023) shows that Canadian vehicles are being increasingly targeted by criminal organizations across Canada and internationally. In 2022, over 40,000 vehicles (excluding British Columbia) were stolen in Canada, accumulating losses for Canadians of over $1.1 billion, at a time when consumer affordability and inflation are critical issues.

Équité Association had a tremendous foundational year establishing deeper connections with our members and partners, while investing in leading-edge technology and progressing on our multi-year strategy.

Insurance crime is at unprecedented levels presently, and as a result, Équité, our members, law enforcement and government agencies have needed to adapt to a rapidly changing landscape this past year. By harnessing the industry’s collective strength through collaboration, Équité Association has been at the centre-point of this change.

Équité Association is a not-for-profit organization focused on creating a more equitable world for Canadians. I am passionate about equity and therefore, it is not difficult to understand why leading through self-awareness and empathy is so important to me. Good leadership books provide tools needed for an innovation and growth mindset, and will help you find your community of fellow leaders. No matter your role, continued learning and growth are the traits of any great leader.

At Équité Association we play a critical role in safeguarding Canadians. By bringing together industry expertise to prevent and detect insurance crime, we are evolving how the Canadian property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry is disrupting organized crime. Together, we are creating safer and more equitable communities for all Canadians. March is Fraud Prevention Month and when talking about fraud prevention there is a lot of focus on technology capabilities like data mining, analytics and artificial intelligence, but at the heart of it all, what we really focus on is collaboration – something we do so well with our members and partners.

Associations such as the UK’s Insurance Fraud Bureau(IFB), Canada’s Équité Association, Singapore’s General Insurance Association (GIA) and others, have joined forces with Shift Technology to optimize their fraud detection strategies.

In recognition of this important day, we are profiling one of our own female leaders in STEM. Angel Yau-Vandenburg, Chief Data & Technology Officer with Équité Association is a seasoned technology leader in Canada. With more than 20 years of experience in fraud and risk management, strategy and analytics, she has led key initiatives that proactively detect and prevent insurance crimes.

As human beings, we are wired to seek meaningful connections. Whether professionally or personally, connecting with something outside of ourselves gives us purpose. That sense of purpose is what makes us feel as though what we do matters. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Purpose also fuels our engagement; it motivates us to contribute, pushes us to overcome obstacles, and equips us with greater resiliency.

As we embark on a new year, here at Équité Association we are poised to continue to provide our members with the best-in-class products and services they have come to depend upon, with a few new, and game changing offerings on the way. Our Fraud Analytics Team has been busy developing Canada’s first insurance fraud analytics platform, ÉQ Insights, to provide our members with more robust insights– from dashboards and visualizations to big data processing, real-time fraud analytics, and machine learning – to move the P&C insurance industry to a ‘predict and prevent’ model, and ultimately change the role of the insurer in the fight against crime.

In my July blog, I wrote about the many benefits of shifting from an inward to an outward mindset. At Équité Association, we are committed to investing in each other’s success whether it be our colleagues, our members, or our partners. We believe in exploring possibilities together as we continue to grow as an organization. In order to do so, we need to stay curious and consistently seek out new opportunities to learn – because when we learn, we grow.