CCIR misses opportunity to license incidental sellers of insurance: IBAC

The Insurance Brokers Association of Canada (IBAC) says the Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators (CCIR) has “missed an opportunity” to implement a new licensing regime for sellers of incidental insurance products.
The national insurance market conduct regulator has just released its much-anticipated Incidental Selling of Insurance Report. In it, the CCIR defines incidental sellers of insurance as people who, in “pursuing activities in a field other than insurance,” offer accessory insurance products on behalf of an insurer that relate to the seller’s specific (non-insurance-related) goods or services.
The CCIR report calls for recommendations in four different areas related to the sale of incidental insurance products:
•    Improve the training and supervision of sellers, with insurers — and not regulators — bearing the ultimate responsibility for this. (The report calls on insurers, for example, to establish call centres to handle inquiries from both consumers and sellers about the incidental insurance products.)
•    Improve application forms so that consumers will better understand the exclusions, restrictions and limitations contained in incidental insurance products.
•    Provide consumers with more time than the typical 10-day “cooling off” period to reassess the product and, if desired, seek professional advice.
•    Obtain more statistical information about the sale of incidental insurance products.
The CCIR’s final report does talk about the need for regulators to think about validating insurer training regimes through a regulated licensing program, but no such licensing program is recommended in the report.
IBAC wanted to see the licensing of sellers of incidental insurance products.
“Provincial governments and regulations across Canada provide the framework for a highly competent and professional sales force of insurance professionals that truly offer Canadians proper advice in their insurance purchases,” IBAC CEO Dan Danyluk noted. “By allowing an un-regulated, un-licensed sales force of merchants to offer consumers insurance products, the CCIR has missed an opportunity to recommend to its members to take action on a very basic consumer right — the right to deal with licensed and experienced insurance professionals.”