Pacific Place Group website at:

www.pacificplacegroup.com

Real Estate website at:

www.pacificevergreenrealty.co

Holidays & Observances

April 1 April Fool’s Day

April 19 Good Friday

April 22 Good Monday

April 22 Earth Day

April Seminars

April 10 TUGO

April 17 Assumption Life

April NEWSLETTER

Did you know...

NAMING APRIL - APHRODITE’S MONTH

April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian calendar and its predecessor, the Julian calendar. Its name is derived from the latin word aperit, which means to open. It is considered that April is the month of the growing season and when trees and flowers begin to “open”. It is also believed that the month’s name is named after the Greek goddess, Aphrodite (Aphros).

Old English - April or Aprilis

Latin name - Aprilis or Aperit - to open

Greek - Aphro - short for Aphrodite

BIRTH FLOWER AND STONE

April’s birth flower is the daisy and sweet pea.

The birthstone for April is the diamond which symbolizes innocence.

Vancouver—Head office Surrey

Oakridge Centre - North Tower Surrey Central Business Park

#555-650 W. 41st Avenue #100-7565 132nd Street

Vancouver, BC V5Z 2M9 Surrey, BC V3W 1K5

Tel: 604-267-1833 Tel: 778-945-9611

Burnaby Richmond

Metrotown Centre - Metrotower 1 Airport Executive Park

#2129-4710 Kingsway #130-10271 Shellbridge Way

Burnaby, BC V5H 4J5 Richmond, BC V6X 2W8

Tel: 778-945-6900 Tel: 236-521-3799

PPG Locations

Administration Roles and Responsibilities — April 1, 2019

Wayne Yu Corporate Manager 604-267-1833 EXT: 231

Yim Yu Account Manager 604-267-1833 EXT: 244

Mimi Sum Office Manager 604-267-1833 EXT: 232

Shan Shan Chang Office Administrator (Rmd) Tel: 236-521-3799

Pacific Place-Financial Services Inc./Bridgeforce Pacific Place (Financial Services Division) Tel: 604-267-1833

Hendry Liu General Manager Tel: 604-558-7610 or EXT: 250

Jim Lew Director of Business Development Tel: 604-558-7610 or EXT: 251

James Qiu Sales Manager Tel: 236-521-3799 or EXT: 250

Shalendra Kumar Sales Manager (Surrey) Tel: 604-558-7616

Mohan Poddar Branch Manager Tel: 604-558-7618

Mimi Sum Group Ins, Commission, Manulife Investments. (BBY Tel: 604-558-7614) or EXT: 232

Mable Wong New Business: Assumption Life, Manulife Life, CPP, Empire Life, Tel: 604-558-7609

Equitable Life, Forester’s, Sunlife , Compliance (Life & Real Estate) or EXT: 225

Angel Li Policy Service, Travel Insurance, Investments: Canada Life. Tel: 236-521-3791 or EXT: 222

New business: Desjardins, SSQ, Equitable.

Elia Chan Contracting, New Life: BMO, IA, IA Excellence, Ivari, RBC, Tel: 604-558-7608

Manulife Investments.

Winnie Chan Commissions, Marketing Materials. Tel: 778-945-6900 or EXT: 226

Tiffany Tang (On Maternity leave) EXT: 245

Vancouver Burnaby Surrey Richmond

Pacific Place-Insurance Services Inc. (General Insurance Division) Tel: 604-267-1833

Kate Zhang House: New Quote & Endorsements, Claims, Payment EXT: 228

Angus Yiu ICBC, IT EXT: 243

Michael Hu New Home Quotes EXT: 239

Tiffany Yu Renewal, Reminder and payments EXT: 226

Emily Wu Renewal, Reminder and payments EXT: 226

Evan Shi Condo New Quote EXT: 223

Yuki Li ICBC, ICBC Batching EXT: 237

Hendry Liu Commercial Insurance EXT 250

James Qiu Commercial Insurance EXT 250

Pacific Place-Arc Realty Ltd. (Real Estate / Property Management Division) Tel: 604-267-1833

Lo-Ming Lee Managing Broker EXT: 233

Jason Wood Business Development Consultant EXT: 230

Bingji Hao Managing Broker Assistant EXT: 233

Teresa Chiang Real Estate Conveyancer EXT: 241

Jimmy Ng Property Management Tel: 236-521-3789

Yiyi Yan Administrator/Conveyancer EXT 241

Pacific Evergreen Realty Ltd. (Real Estate Division) Tel: 604-267-1833

David Yang Managing Partner Tel: 604-250-3696

Lo-Ming Lee Managing Broker EXT: 233

Jason Wood Business Development Consultant EXT: 230

Bingji Hao Managing Broker Assistant EXT: 233

Julia He Real Estate Conveyancer EXT: 224

Vancouver Burnaby Surrey Richmond

• L I F E I N S U R A N C E U P D A T E S •

In the News

Simplifying your business

2019 Budget at your fingertips

Competitive Edge Newsletter

Top 5 Reasons for choosing SmartApp

Choosing the best simplified solution

Your client has diabetes, don’t worry we’ve got you

covered!

APEXA aims to be adopted as industry standard

Personal Health & Dental Plans

• L I F E I N S U R A N C E U P D A T E S •

Membership News

Our team keeps growing

Cyber security tips

LaCapital - Pillar Series

Infosource News

Budget 2019: Highlights you can share with your clients

5575 is now available! Cancer Insurance for people 55-75

Renewal Commission Rates

Join SSQ Insurance Webinar with Signature Global Asset

Mgmt. April 2, 2019 @ 12PM EST

Solutions Magazine

Notice of appointment… New Vice President, Business

Development and Marketing, Individual Insurance and

Investment & Retirement

Compliance Department

Pacific Place Financial Services Inc. / Bridgeforce Pacific Place Inc.

CLHIA Standardized Advisor Practice Review

the provincial regulator

life insurance companies

FINTRAC

Federal or Provincial Office of the Privacy Commissioner

Our compliance article for this week relates to the "CLHIA Standardized Advisor Practice Review for Use in the MGA Channel."

Many advisors are now painfully aware that they can be audited by:

These audits are occurring with increasing frequency and many advisors are still unprepared. What can you do to spot check your practice for compliance audit readiness? The "CLHIA Standardized Advisor Practice Review for Use in the MGA Channel" is a great place to start.

Many carriers are now using this questionnaire when auditing advisors. If you can complete this docu-ment and provide examples of the required compliance tools and manuals it asks for, you will be well-prepared to pass regulator audits and audits by the life insurance companies you deal with. Why not complete it today so that you are ready for audits when they occur? This way the audit will represent minimal disruption to your practice.

Compliance Department

Pacific Place Financial Services Inc. / Bridgeforce Pacific Place Inc.

"Can My Licensed Assistant Complete Applications for Clients?"

Many advisors ask the question. The link below contains specific guidance from Sun Life regarding this topic. The guidance breaks the question down into two columns outlining what a licensed assistant can do and what a non-licensed assistant can do. There is no third column for 'licensed and contracted assis-

Permissable Activities - For a life licensed person

LIRD

AML information within the application

Electronic applications Before dispatching your staff to complete paperwork for clients, you should always check with the rele-vant carrier you are using to determine their rules.

Of particular interest, the guidance states that a licensed assistant can complete a full life insurance application (paper-based)

with a client, including evidence, "based on appropriate training and experience." However, the licensed assistant may NOT complete:

Holding Out as an Insurance Licensee

Licensees must present themselves to the public (“hold themselves out” to the public) in the way they are licensed, so that the public knows with whom they are dealing. You must be licensed the way you are doing business, and do business the way you are licensed, including using licensed corporate or trade names (i.e. ABC Insurance Services may not present itself as ABC In-surance):

Letterhead, business cards, signage, websites, and advertising must properly reflect the name(s) shown on the licensee’s licence and the agency or firm the individual is authorized to represent.

Agents and salespersons who primarily deal with a single product or prod-uct line should be careful not to use the product name in their marketing strategies in a way that may mislead a member of the public into believing it is a trade name — such as answering a phone call with a product name.

Licensees are also reminded that they must not present themselves to the public in such a manner as to suggest that they are a registered insurance company, rather than an agency. Section 252 (2)(i) of the Financial Institu-tions Act states "a person commits an offence" when they "give a false im-pression that the person is a trust company or an insurance company". It is Council's position that these requirements also extend to corporate logos and that the agency's registered legal name or trade name should always accom-pany the logo.

Pacific Place Financial Services Annual Conference

Qualification Period: January 1, 2019—December 31, 2019

Travel Period: 2020

Qualification: 75,000 FYC

Be part of this annual PPFS conference on us!

This event is not to be missed!

There is lot’s of time left to submit cases from all carriers.

Check with Mable or Mimi to see how close you are to attend.

What your clients need to know about trip

cancellation insurance

Your clients have a lot to learn about trip cancellation insurance.

Almost two-thirds of Canadians either don’t buy or are unsure if they have trip cancellation insurance before leaving on holiday, according to a recent study of 960 Canadians by Kanetix.ca.

Read full story HERE

Having a flexible and accommodating schedule is key to incorporating innovation into an or-ganization, the director of Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company’s Innovation Outpost said re-cently.

Last June, Wawanesa opened its Innovation Outpost lab in Kitchener, Ont. One of the first pro-jects out of the lab was a new interactive technology that uses an Amazon Alexa voice skill to connect Wawanesa customers to their brokers for an auto or home insurance quote. Jeff Roy, CEO of brokerage Excalibur Insurance Group, helped spearhead the work along with Kitchener-based ProNavigator (which provides an insurance artificial intelligence-powered virtual assis-tant).

David Arbuthnot, director of Wawanesa’s innovation outpost, recently discussed the insurer’s innovation strategy, as well as some challenges and barriers to accelerating innovation at scale. He spoke last week during the session The Three Biggest Innovation Challenges For Insurance at Insurance-Canada.ca’s Technology Conference in Toronto.

He was asked about the challenges associated with delivering innovation at scale at Wawanesa. “One of the challenges you always run into is the need to do things for the next quarter,” Ar-buthnot said. “There’s always that tension within the organization of, ‘Yeah, [innovation’s] nice, but we also have to do stuff for Q1 and we also have to deliver parts of the 2019 plan as an or-ganization as a whole.

“We want to push things forward and innovate, obviously, but how does that fit into the overall goals of the organization?” Arbuthnot asked. “Sometimes that means timelines get pushed a month because there’s some resource constraint or something unforeseen has happened. That’s the reality of doing it right. You want to make sure what you’re doing is built into the re-alities of the corporate business.”

The formation of Wawanesa’s innovation team began in 2017, and the following year the insur-er’s board of directors wanted to know more about the innovation strategy. “One of the exter-nal board members actually came out and participated in one of the innovation training events,” Arbuthnot said. “Those kind of things get noticed, when you have your board of direc-tors supporting innovation in the company.”

2018 was all about finding the right processes. This year, Wawanesa is “moving towards repeat-ability of those processes.” By 2020, Wawanesa is looking at “innovation at scale. So, really, we’re able to deliver on the mandate for the innovation group, which is a culture of innovation within the company.”

ICBC UPDATE

ICBC gets green light for interim 6.3

per cent rate hike

The Insurance Corporation of B.C. (ICBC), the province's public auto insurer, has been approved to raise insurance rates by 6.3 per cent.

The B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC) has approved ICBC's request for an interim basic insurance rate increase effective April 1, 2019.

The insurance corporation applied for the proposed rate hike in December as the B.C. government at-tempted to address what Attorney General David Eby described as a "financial dumpster fire" at ICBC.

Eby revealed in November that ICBC was set to lose $890 million in 2018-2019, following a $1.3 billion net loss in 2017-18.

According to ICBC, the hike means "an average increase of less than $60 for personal customers' basic insurance coverage."

A BCUC panel will make a final decision as to whether or not the rate hikes will become permanent.

Effective April

As of April 1, all new and renewal policies will be subject to the rate hike.

According to the public insurer, the temporary approval "will lessen the depletion of ICBC's already low basic insurance capital while the BCUC reviews the full application."

The province has pointed the finger at the previous government for leaving the insurer in financial ruin. Since the start of the 2017 financial year, ICBC is said to have lost more than $2 billion.

In January, Eby warned drastic changes would be necessary.

According to ICBC, injury claims costs have soared by 43 per cent in just five years, totalling roughly $3.67 billion in 2018 alone.

Reforms rollout

In an attempt to stem the losses, the province has already rolled out a list of reforms including higher fines for repeat bad drivers, an independent dispute resolution system and a $5,500 limit on payouts for minor injuries.

ICBC UPDATE

ICBC TEST DRIVE

The Province

Mar 31, 2019

Crash on Mon­day? You’ll be one of the first to be hit by the new cap on ‘mi­nor in­jury’ claims

Read more...

Looking for office space?

We have office space for rent!

Please contact Mimi Sum or Wayne Yu if interested.

Surrey Central Business Park

Updated Standard Forms Include Speculation Tax Clause

The BC Real Estate Association (BCREA) announced changes to the following standard forms effective February 28:

Residential Contract of Purchase & Sale A new clause (clause 7) has been added to the information page to explain new references to the Speculation and Vacancy Tax in clause 11A. Clause 11A has been revised and renumbered to include references to buyer’s and seller’s responsibilities now that the Speculation and Vacancy Tax has come into effect.

Commercial Contract of Purchase & Sale In clause 25, Social Service Tax Act has been replaced with Provincial Sales Tax Act. This change reflects the fact that the Social Services Tax Act was repealed in 2013 and Provincial Sales Tax (PST) is now governed by the Provincial Sales Tax Act.

In addition, the purchase price was added to the first page of the contract as Clause 4.1. This better reflects the word-ing on page 3 of the contract (Clause 14 Purchase Price) where it refers to Clause 4.1.

Assignment of Contract of Purchase & Sale – New Development Clauses 5.6 has been updated to reflect the fact that the assignor is responsible for getting the developer’s written consent to assign the contract if consent is required under the terms of the contract or the Real Estate Development Marketing Act (REDMA). This clause also outlines what information the developer must collect regarding the assignee and assignor.

In addition, on page 10, a third clause (Clause 3) has been added to reflect REDMA and the developer’s new responsi-bilities to collect certain information from the assignor and assignee.

Tenant Occupied Property – Buyer’s Notice to Seller for Vacant Possession This form has been updated to make it easier for a buyer to request that a seller give notice to tenants living in a property that the buyer has just purchased.

Updated Data Input Form available March 13 An updated Residential Data Input Form will be available for use on March 13.

The updates are based on member feedback and designed to include more relevant details about your listing.

Some fields are moving to better align with the way data is entered in Paragon, some fields are being renamed for clarity, and some will get new options. Here are some examples:

Type of Dwelling field will be expanded to specify detached, attached, and multi-family options.

The Rooms and Bathrooms fields will be expanded to include a higher room total.

New fields for Sewer Type and Metered Water.

New options in the Style of Home, Title to Land, Amenities, and Maintenance Fee Includes fields. A new View field with more options for the view description.

Have you seen this man?

Who is this man?

Meet Jimmy Ng. Jimmy started in real estate in 2005 and since then has added property management

services in 2007. His passion for real estate and building relationships with his clients is ever ongo-

ing. Currently, he is our Managing Broker for the Surrey & Richmond offices.

He is also responsible for the day to day operations of the property management division (Pacific Place-

Arc Realty)

If you have any questions or need to talk to him please contact him at:

Cell: 778-788-0013 Email: jimmy@pacificplacegroup.com

Buying a home? CMHC could soon kick in 10% of the cost — for a price

This new program allows first-time home buyers with a minimum down payment (5%) for an in-sured mortgage to apply to finance a portion of their home purchase through a shared equity mortgage with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).

The federal government expects 100,000 first-time buyers will receive this incentive over the next three years.

There are no ongoing payments, which translates into lower monthly mortgage payments. For example, if a borrower buys a new $400,000 home with a five per cent down payment ($20,000) and a 10 per cent CMHC shared equity mortgage ($40,000), the borrower’s total mortgage is reduced to $340,000 from $380,000 for a savings of $228 on his or her monthly mortgage pay-ment.

CMHC will offer qualified first-time buyers a 10 per cent shared equity mortgage for a newly con-structed home or a five per cent shared equity mortgage for an existing home.

The incentive will be available to first-time home buyers with household incomes less than

$120,000. Home buyers’ insured mortgages and the incentive amount can’t be greater than four

times the home buyers’ annual household incomes.

Read Full Story Here

Federal Budget 2019 includes initiatives for first-time buyers, renters and measures to prevent tax non-

compliance and money laundering.