With Joseph Carnevale—IBAO President
IBAO’s advocacy work with the government and regulators might be more publicized, but there’s crucial work to be done within the industry that only the IBAO is positioned to do.
In February, CGI notified us about impending changes they were making to their process for ordering AutoPlus reports. This was in response to a privacy complaint made in 2014 that was elevated to the Privacy Commissioner’s Office of Canada. CGI was instructed to limit the data accessible from an AutoPlus report by any one user to the specific use of that data. For example, an insurer that only looks at six years should never be able to see more than that. However, CGI’s proposed change would have a disastrous effect for brokers’ workflows and exponentially increase expenses.
“What they’d envisioned involved a specific report for every insurance company. Brokers would be asking for multiple reports on every single client, and we’d be paying for multiple reports for each one,” said Joseph. “Ultimately it would mean that clients or potential clients would have a much longer process in trying to get a quote and policy issued. And if you create extra costs in the system, eventually that will result in higher prices for consumers.
“We understood from CGI’s point of view what they thought they were accomplishing. But they were so focused on solving their unique problem—one the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada asked them to solve—that they failed to recognize the ramifications it would have.”
We helped craft a solution that would streamline the process in a way that worked for brokers, insurers, CGI, the Privacy Commissioner and consumers.
IBAO intervened and after a series of meetings, convinced CGI not to proceed with the proposed change. However, they still had a mandate from the Privacy Commissioner that had to be fulfilled. So we helped craft a solution that would streamline the process in a way that worked for brokers, insurers, CGI, the Privacy Commissioner and consumers.
“This particular case is a prime example of what brokers do for the industry. Through our work as brokers, we can see every part of this business. We have a very unique perspective because we’re speaking with and interacting with consumers, insurance companies and partners like CGI—we know what each of them requires because we know what each of them ask of us.”
With CGI being a national organization and this complaint being elevated to national office, the solution had to be national as well. Once CGI agreed that our proposed solution would work for them, we consulted with the other provincial broker associations to ensure it worked for brokers across the country.
“Because of our size and the resources and expertise we have available, if we’re able to help our fellow associations and brokers across the country, we’re happy to do so. When brokers are included in matters like this, we can produce a solution that’s a fit for all parties. We potentially saved the industry tens of millions of dollars in increased volume of report charges and avoided a potentially damaging political fallout in the process. In the end, CGI was very supportive of the solution we provided and we’re very happy with the outcome we were able to achieve on behalf of our members.”