Ontario broker regulator cautions about use of filters in online quoting services

Brokers need to make sure they are not using technology as a means to sidestep regulatory obligations, particularly with regard to the use of filters in online quoting services, the president of the Registered Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario (RIBO), Brian Purcell, wrote in RIBO’s 2011 spring bulletin.
“Brokers are increasingly taking advantage of the ability to offer their clients an online quoting capability as a means of competing with direct writers,” Purcell wrote in the Spring 2011 edition of the RIBO newsletter. “We must ensure, however, that we do not use technology as a way of directly or indirectly sidestepping regulations.”
Purcell reiterated brokers have a legal obligation to disclose all of their automobile insurance markets, including any restrictions placed on them by one or more of those markets. Furthermore, the Compulsory Automobile Insurance Act requires brokers to us to provide an application for auto insurance to every person that requests one.
“The use of filters in an online quoting service to keep out business you do not want or to weed out applications on the basis of understanding criteria that would not otherwise be permissible could well place a broker offside these obligations,” Purcell wrote. “We must always endeavor to service our clients in a professional manner. This obligation is the same regardless of whether business is conducted online or face to face.”