What Makes Humania Assurance Inc Different – Q&A with Michael Suska

Michael Suska
National Sales Director at Humania Assurance

Can you tell me a little bit about your background? How did you get started in the insurance industry?

I started in the life insurance industry in January 1998 with Great West Life as a disability insurance specialist. I joined Humania Assurance Inc seven and a half years ago and I am currently the National Director of Sales for Individual Insurance.

What are some of the things you find most enjoyable about working with Humania?

Humania is a company that definitely sees the future and acts upon it. We have been able to create the most intelligent and user-friendly insurance application in Canada, HuGO.

What are three things a lot of consumers and brokers may not know about Humania?

1. As mentioned above, we have the most advanced life insurance technology in Canada.
2. We have been selling life insurance in Canada since 1874.
3. We are a mutual insurance company. Therefore, if the company ever demutualized (there are currently no plans to do so), all of our policyholders would potentially get a stake in the potential demutualization proceeds.

What is unique about the Hugo application process?

The HuGO application is really the first of its kind. It’s an intelligent application vs the more common electronic application. The intelligent application is basically like having a built-in junior underwriter in your software. The results of 60% of our applications showed being approved on the spot, less medical tests, and the need for fewer attending physician statements (APS). An interesting stat appeared when developing HuGO – 97% of the medical tests we ordered didn’t lead to any new information and just resulted in bogging down the application process. So we decided to eliminate the concept of automatic medical requirements.  We only order when absolutely necessary.

Can you give us a rundown of Humania’s no medical, critical illness, and disability plans?

We have a unique eligibility process with only six eligibility questions. This means we can help people who would not normally qualify for insurance (life, critical, and disability coverage). Our no medical simplified issue policies provide up to $300,000 of life insurance, $100,000 of critical illness insurance, and $2,500 a month of disability insurance.