During my years in the Canadian life insurance business I spent a great deal of time, including sixteen years as chair of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association’s (CLHIA) standing Committee on Distribution & Intermediaries, involved with insurance regulators and regulatory issues. Much of this activity dealt with the sale of life insurance and with those who sell the policies…
…a particular aspect of Canadian insurance history is now being revisited. The inter-jurisdictional group of insurance regulators, the Canadian Insurance Services Regulatory Organizations (CISRO), having apparently consulted nobody outside regulatory ranks beforehand ( not even the four life insurance companies which are also registered LLQP course providers), has announced a replacement regime for the LLQP: the “Harmonized Life Insurance Licensing Qualification Program”.
The regulators now say they are ready for discussion with industry stakeholders — even if it’s only about details on the margins of their grand plan. While pains have been taken to present it as if it will still be the LLQP, and while it may have that name once implemented, the proposal actually is for a new regime to be prepared by Quebec’s financial services regulator the Autorite des marches financiers (AMF) and will follow the Quebec model including multiple exams based on separate study modules and manuals.
In fact the story is this: the LLQP requires neither replacement nor “harmonization”; the common law province insurance regulators see themselves facing a funding gap when it comes to the LLQP and related matters; Quebec regulators (as I know from my dealings with them) have operated a higher cost regime the expense of which they have long wished to spread by reaching some deal with the common law provinces. Voila! A deal to “harmonize” the LLQP with Quebec’s AMF regime.
Alastair Rickard – RickardsRead – October 8, 2012
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