On behalf of The Travel Health Insurance Association of Canada’s Board of Directors and Leadership Council, I look forward to your joining us at our Annual Conference in Québec City, from Wednesday, May 22nd to Friday, May 24th, 2024.
THiA’s Annual Conference is a must-attend event for current and future leaders in the travel insurance industry. Our conference provides a platform for executives, advisors, and regulators to learn and exchange perspectives on the key issues facing our industry and the consumers we serve and support.
This will be the first time THIA’s conference is taking place in Canada, and I know that many have questioned the wisdom of this decision. My hope is that holding our event in Canada this year will introduce THiA to a new audience that might not otherwise be able to attend our conferences outside the country, and historic Québec City offers a beautiful and unique backdrop for our event.
Founded in 1608 by the French explorer Samuel de Champlain, Québec City is unlike any other city in North America with its dramatic cliff-top location overlooking the breathtaking St. Lawrence River, its fortification walls, narrow winding streets, and wealth of historic buildings spanning four centuries. Today, Québec City is the heart of French culture in North America.
This year’s conference will showcase sessions focusing on key topics such as the US healthcare system & in-flight emergency care and will feature panels of medical directors and provincial regulators.
As a THiA membership benefit, I encourage you to take advantage of our exclusive early bird member pricing by registering on or before March 31, 2024.
President, The Travel Health Insurance Association of Canada
2024 Annual THIA Conference
16:00 – 18:00
18:00 – 20:00
12:00 – 13:00
12:00 – 13:00
13:00 – 15:00
7:30 – 8:30
690 Boul René Lévesque Est Quebec City, Quebec G1R 5A8
Explore Canada’s oldest city from the comfort of Delta Hotels Québec. This contemporary Québec City hotel is a short walk to Old Québec (Vieux-Québec) where historic monuments still stand. Visit Battlefields Park, Musée de la civilisation – Québec and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec | MNBAQ along with local crêperies and wine bars.
The hotel’s city centre location also places you next door to the Québec City Convention Centre, the business district, shopping, and fine dining.
During your stay, sit down to flavourful meals at the hotel’s newly renovated Le Bistro, get active at the fitness centre, and swim all year round in its outdoor heated pool.
Check-In: 3:00 pm
Check-Out: 12:00 pm
Onsite parking is $35 / day. The parking lot includes an electric car charging station.
Special Hotel Conference Rate for:
$225 CAD per night plus applicable taxes.
Our THIA rates are available May 21 -24, 2024.
Please click the Book Now button to book your reservation directly with the hotel and not with any third-party booking agency.
To ensure availability at this rate, please reserve your hotel room early. We kindly ask that you confirm your room via the conference booking portal on or before Friday, April 19, 2024.
After this date, we are not able to guarantee the rate or availability at the time of your booking.
VALID: May 20, 2024, to May 26, 2024
TERRITORY: From all stations along the VIA system to Quebec, QC, and return.
RESTRICTIONS: Fare applies to a maximum of two passengers per booking. One complimentary stopover is allowed at no additional charge.
For travel on all fare plans in Business Class, the first stopover is allowed at no additional charge, provided that this stopover takes place only in Toronto, Montréal, or Ottawa.
DISCOUNT: 10% off the best available fare in Economy, Economy Plus, Business, Business Plus, Sleeper Class. “Subject to the conditions and restrictions of the fare plan to which the additional discount is being applied.”
EXCEPTION: Discount does not apply in any Escape fares and Prestige Class.
IDENTIFICATION: Participants must reference the event’s VIA convention discount code: 14499.
To book a flight with THIA’s promotion code, access aircanada.com and enter the promotion code PZT9JXM1 in the Promotion Code box.
All fees shown below are per person and expressed in Canadian dollars.
Delegate fees include educational sessions, networking breakfasts, lunches, refreshment breaks, kick-off cocktail reception, and the Thursday evening reception and dinner.
Only registered THIA delegates are permitted to attend educational sessions. Spouses and non-business guests are not permitted access to educational sessions.
UStiA members, please contact your membership office at [email protected] for your discount passcode.
Early Bird Rates for THIA & UStiA MEMBERS ONLY are available until March 31, 2024.
Networking Breakfasts, Lunches, Refreshment Breaks, Kick-Off Cocktail Reception, Thursday Night Reception & Dinner.
$250
REGISTRATION REFUNDS
The following cancellation penalties apply:
50% refund from Tuesday, April 16 to Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Please note: No refunds available on or after Wednesday, May 1, 2024
We strongly encourage you to ensure appropriate travel insurance coverage as we will not consider registration refunds outside of the above noted policy.
Sponsorship is a great way to show off your company’s brand to the most engaged members of the industry and demonstrate your support for a strong travel insurance industry.
As a sponsor, you will play a leading role in bringing together the most sought-after speakers on issues that impact the future of our industry. Participation in the THIA Annual Conference speaks to your commitment to the travel health insurance industry.
This conference will be your opportunity to connect with leaders and decision-makers from across North America, but there are limited opportunities available!
For Conference 2024 Event Sponsorship Information, please contact:
Brad Dance
Email: [email protected]
Kim Connor
Email: [email protected]
DAVID EWING
Jackson Health System International
Conference Co-Chairman
WARREN BROWN
World Travel Protection
Conference Co-Chairman
WENDA MONTGOMERY
Montgomery & Associates
MARTHA TURNBULL
BRAD DANCE
TuGo
Kim Connor
Global Excel
Michael Camacho
CSI Brokers Inc.
Alice serves as Director of Compliance and Assistant Corporate Secretary at Blue Cross Canassurance (Ontario and Quebec Blue Cross). She previously acted as Compliance and Legal Advisor for Humania Assurance and its travel subsidiary, Tour Med, as well as Exo, a public transit body in Quebec. She began practising law at Ménard, Martin Avocats, a leading patient rights firm responsible for approximately half of all medical, hospital and dental liability lawsuits in Quebec. In this capacity, she appeared before a variety of jurisdictions, notably the Court of Appeal of Quebec and the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec. Alice obtained her law degree from Université de Montréal and holds a Masters in law and health policy from Université de Sherbrooke.
Bernard Lord became Chief Executive Officer of Medavie in September 2016 where he provides strategic leadership to further the company’s mission to improve the wellbeing of Canadians. Prior to this role, Mr. Lord served eight years on the Board of Medavie. He is currently the Chair of the International Federation of Health Plans, the President of the Canadian Association of Blue Cross Plans and the recent past Chair of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association. He is also a member of the New Brunswick Law Society and Canadian Bar Association.
Mr. Lord was elected four times to the New Brunswick Legislature and was Premier of New Brunswick from 1999 to 2006. He also worked as the CEO of the Canadian Wireless and Telecommunications Association from 2008 until 2016. Throughout his career, he has served on the boards of several companies and organizations and has been involved in various philanthropic endeavors.
Mr. Lord is a King’s Counsel and has been inducted into the Order of Moncton and the Order of New Brunswick.
Cassandra has 25 years of progressive experience and expertise in the travel insurance industry. Cassandra started her insurance career in medical case management and presently heads Old Republic Canada’s Accident & Sickness (travel) division, where she passionately leads a team of experts in the areas of claims management, client service delivery, TPA relationships, business development, marketing and sales. Cassandra is a graduate of McMaster University’s Nursing program and holds many industry designations including a Fellowship in Life and Health Claims (FLHC). She is on the Board of The Travel Health Insurance Association of Canada, co-chair of THIA’s Claims Committee and an active member of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association’s Travel Working Group.
As Deputy Superintendent, David leads a team who is responsible for regulating insurance companies operating in Alberta. David has played key leadership roles in insurance companies in B.C. and Alberta.
Before joining government as Deputy Superintendent of Insurance in 2014, David was Regional Director of Claims for a national property and casualty insurer.
David is a Fellow, Chartered Insurance Professional (FCIP), and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree. He is also a certified instructor with the Insurance Institute of Canada.
Dr. Delaune serves as the Medical Director for SentinelMED, where he is actively involved in the planning and execution of the aeromedical transportation of hundreds of patients each year. He has medical licenses in 13 states, was trained by NASA as a landing-site Physician and was trained and certified by the U.S. Air Force as a Critical Care Aeromedical Transport Team (CATT) Physician.
Prior to joining SentinelMED, Dr. Delaune worked as an active-duty U.S. Air Force flight surgeon at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida and Ramstein Air Base in Germany. He was called back to active duty in 2003. He was assigned to a forward operating base at the Baghdad airport, where he was responsible for the initial evaluation and treatment of battlefield injuries and served as the primary Physician determining the “fitness to fly” for patients being evacuated out of the war zone.
Dr. Delaune completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Notre Dame, graduated from the Tulane University School of Medicine, and completed his Emergency Medicine residency at The George Washington University. He is a board-certified emergency physician and a fellow in the American College of Emergency Physicians. He has been published in the journal Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine on “In-Flight Emergencies on Civilian Aircraft,” and wrote the chapter on Aeromedical Evacuation in the textbook “Expedition and Wilderness Medicine,” which was published in 2008.
From 2001-2019, Dr. Delaune served as the Chief Medical Officer for Europ Assistance USA / Generali Global Assistance / GMMI, a large global assistance company.
Dr. Ladak joined Global Excel in 2006. She received her Medical Degree from the University of British Columbia in 1983 and completed a Family Practice Residency in New York from 1983 to 1986.
Prior to Global Excel, Dr. Ladak had 20 years’ experience in family practice and the emergency room. In addition, she was the Medical Director of two U.S. hospitals in Vermont and New Hampshire.
Currently, she is responsible for the medical governance of all the Medical Case Management teams, for the entire enterprise. This includes making sure that all the assistance cases are held to a high standard of medical evaluation, adhering to the best practices of the day. She is also responsible for prudent financial handling of high-cost inpatient U.S. files and complex or high-risk cases worldwide.
She is a sought-after speaker and author on behalf of Global Excel Management.
Huston Loke is Executive Vice President of Market Conduct at the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of Ontario. FSRA supervises insurance companies, mortgage brokers, credit unions, pensions, and other non-securities areas of the financial services sector.
He previously served as Director of Corporate Finance at the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), where he oversaw securities-related matters for all Ontario-based public companies. In his role, he had statutory authority to receipt prospectuses and grant certain forms of exemptive relief. Prior to his role at the OSC, Huston advised the CEO of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). Prior to his role at CMHC, Huston was President of the credit rating agency DBRS, which covered over 1,000 fixed income issuers in Canada, the US, and Europe.
At various times over his career, he has supervised teams of fixed-income analysts in Toronto, New York, Chicago, London, and Paris. He was also formerly a member of the nonbank financial intermediation committee of the Financial Stability Board, holds a Master of Business Administration (Finance and Accounting) and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).
Huston is currently Chair of the Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators (CCIR), a national organization that includes all the provincial and territorial regulators, along with the Federal Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. Together, they work to enhance fair treatment of consumers while ensuring an efficient and effective regulatory framework for the insurance sector.
Jason C. Davis is the Chief Revenue Officer at The Phia Group LLC (via its affiliate Phia International) and guides the organization’s product development, business development functions, client success, and channel partnerships.
Prior to his time at The Phia group, Mr. Davis was Vice-President, US Markets for another cost-containment company, where for nearly 10 years, he contributed at various levels of claim settlement, dispute resolution, R&D, product development, sales, and leadership.
Mr. Davis also founded JCDC in 2014, which is a cost-containment company that catered to international payers with exposure in the US. To expand its reach into international markets, The Phia Group acquired JCDC in 2020. As such, Mr. Davis’ network of industry partners, contacts and clients is spread all over the world.
In her role as Senior Research Associate at the Canadian Tourism Research Institute, Jennifer is responsible for the production of regular reports on Canadian outbound leisure travel. She conducts regular surveys of Canadians and their outbound travel intentions and motivations and is also responsible for producing outbound travel forecasts for more than 50 destinations. In addition, Jennifer provides the travel health insurance industry with reports and forecasts on policy sales and premiums related to the number of Canadians with private travel health insurance coverage.
She has spent her career conducting policy analysis, analyzing travel research, and assessing the sector’s contribution to individual destinations and national economies, including its relation to labour force dynamics.
Jill is co-head of the Financial Services Practice. She has more than 25 years of experience in providing counsel to the insurance industry on all aspects of the law. She acts as counsel to insurers, reinsurers, MGAs, intermediaries, third-party administrators, marketers, retailers, employers, and associations.
Dr. Kamran Khan is a practising infectious disease physician and a Professor of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Toronto. Motivated by his experiences as a frontline healthcare worker during the 2003 Toronto SARS outbreak, Dr. Khan has been studying outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging diseases for nearly two decades to lay the scientific foundation for a global early warning system for infectious diseases. His research has been published in scientific journals from the New England Journal of Medicine to the Lancet, Science, and Nature.
Dr. Khan recently received a Governor General’s Award for his work transcending clinical medicine, public health, big data, and artificial intelligence.
To translate and disseminate scientific knowledge into timely action, Dr. Khan founded BlueDot in 2013, an infectious disease intelligence company that combines human and artificial intelligence to help governments protect their citizens and businesses protect their employees and customers from dangerous infectious diseases. BlueDot’s role during the COVID-19 pandemic was featured on CBS’ 60 Minutes.
Maria Ziabaras graduated as a nurse in 2009, she acquired her initial experience on a surgical unit at the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, where she was exposed to ultra-specialized nursing care. She joined CanAssistance in 2013 as a nurse case manager and in 2018 became the manager of the medical team.
Maria is also very involved in the selection of providers, namely air ambulance and assistance companies. As a result of her outstanding achievements, Maria was promoted to the Director’s position on the medical team.
Mr. Beaudoin has been active in the insurance industry since 1997. Before he joined the Autorité des marchés financiers in 2004, he worked for major insurers in the development, promotion and sale of disability insurance products as well as managing the claim sector for these products. Since 2006, Mr. Beaudoin’s team conducts surveillance activities related to products offered through the Distribution Plan Without A Representative as well as over the internet since the regulation came into force in 2019; Travel insurance being a predominant product offered through these channels.
Mr. Beaudoin has also been involved in different working groups at the Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators.
Marshall Allen is the founder of Allen Health Academy and the author of “Never Pay the First Bill: And Other Ways to Fight the Health Care System and Win.” His book and his health literacy videos, “The Never Pay Pathway,” are helping working Americans save hundreds and thousands of dollars – per health care encounter.
Marshall is a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and dozens of other journalism awards.
For more information, visit www.allenhealthacademy.com.
Few people exemplify the qualities of personal excellence, teamwork, community leadership, and overcoming the odds better than CFL legend Michael “Pinball” Clemons. With boundless energy, Clemon’s talks centre on the potential for each of us to achieve anything we set our minds to. Unabashedly emotional and impactful, he shows audiences how to put heart into everything they do.
Clemons joined the National Football League in 1987, and CFL’s Toronto Argonauts in 1989. He was nicknamed “Pinball” because of his running style — his diminutive size and extraordinary balance allowed him to “bounce” between defensive players, drawing comparisons to a pinball machine.
Clemons won the Grey Cup in 1991, 1996, and 1997 with the Argonauts, and was honoured with the CFL’s “most outstanding player” award in 1990, after setting the single-season record for all-purpose yards. He played his last game as an Argonaut in 2000, before becoming head coach of the team in the same year. He led the football club to six consecutive East Division Finals, including the 2004 championship, concluding his coaching tenure with 68 wins — the second highest in the team history.
In 2007, Clemons stepped down as head coach to become the chief executive officer, and in 2009, he was appointed as the vice-chair of the team. In 2019, Clemons was named the 20th General Manager of the Toronto Argonauts.
Clemons is also the founder of the Pinball Clemons Foundation, a non-profit organization that empowers youth through education. Since it’s founding in 2007, it’s been responsible for the construction of a hospital in Uganda, over 200 schools in developing countries, two orphanages in Haiti, and locally awarded more than 200 scholarships.
In recognition of his work, Clemons received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, the Meritorious Service Cross, and is a member of the Order of Ontario. He has also been inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, Ontario Sports Hall of Fame, and Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.
Paulo M. Alves, MD, M.Sc., is a trained cardiologist with over 30 years of experience in aviation medicine. Dr Alves provides technical guidance and analysis for MedAire’s MedLink medical advisory service and is a MedAire Medical Advisory Board member.
In his role, Dr Alves is responsible for developing and answering questions regarding issues impacting the industries MedAire serves. Dr Alves analyses MedAire’s daily activity data and researches relevant medical literature. As part of his work, Dr Alves writes and publishes scientific material for aviation clients to present at events. In addition, he offers medical expertise in product development, training, medical kits, operations, sales, and marketing. Dr Alves is MedAire’s liaison with civil aviation regulators and industry associations on all matters addressing aviation medicine.
Today, Dr Alves is a member of the International Academy of Aerospace Medicine, the Aerospace Medical Association, the National Business Aviation Association Safety Committee, and a fellow member of the Civil Aviation Medical Association.
Dr Alves previously worked as the Medical Director at Varig Brazilian Airlines. He was the former president of the Brazilian Society of Aerospace Medicine and the International Airline Medical Association. Additionally, Dr Alves was a former Chairperson of the Air Transport Medicine Committee of the Aerospace Medical Association. Dr Alves’ work is deeply rooted in in-flight medical assistance.
After 10 years of experience in the public and private sectors, Sébastien joined iA Financial Group’s diversified funds and economy team in January 2013. In addition to his role as Chief Strategist and Senior Economist, Sébastien also acts as portfolio manager at iA Financial Group, with assets closing in on $15 billion, and is a member of the firm’s asset allocation committee. These roles allow him to express his passion for numbers, words, and communication. Sébastien acts as iA Financial Group spokesperson and guest speaker on economic and financial matters.
