What’s New: In Brief (September 22, 2009)

The qualification and registration committee of Registered Insurance Brokers of Ontario (RIBO), a self-regulatory body for the province’s insurance brokers, is reminding brokers that if they take on employment outside of brokering, they need to resign their registration immediately.
“We consistently have cases where individuals have left a brokerage and fall under the inactive class,” RIBO notes in its Fall 2009 newsletter. “Without notifying RIBO, they then take employment outside brokering; this would include employment as an agent through a direct writer or an underwriting position with an insurance company.
“When this happens the RIB Act requires that the individual resign their registration immediately.
“They then have 12 months in which they can reinstate, provided they have employment with a brokerage firm and their continuing education has been kept up to date.”

RIBO is also urging its members to review internal, privacy-related policies related to the protection of a client’s private personal information.
“I have written much in my past reports about the importance of protecting the personal information of our clients,” RIBO president John Baizana notes in RIBO’s Fall 2009 newsletter. “This resulted from questions about the use of credit scoring by insurers, and the degree to which clients provided informed consent to share that information.
“The protection of client’s personal information is an ongoing concern for RIBO and its members.”