While many insurers are extricating themselves errors and omissions coverage, one broker partner is not only remaining in the E&O field, but looking to expand.
“When we did launch, we did raise some eyebrows,” says Robbert McIntosh, the director of Advocis Broker Services. “There certainly were questions about what we were doing, and I think very early on, we are proving in communicating with our members that this is the next logical step.”
It will be a year this January since Advocis Broker Services assumed management of Advocis Protective Association (APA) small corporate E&O insurance from Willis Canada – a move that is now viewed as the next logical step for Advocis, McIntosh told Insurance Business.
“Members are starting to understand the need for greater industry self-control over this aspect,” he says. “Really, we’re the only ones who are trying to build this kind of program.”
The APA program is one of the largest E&O insurance programs available to financial advisors. According to its mandate, the APA manages partner relationships between brokers, underwriters and claims managers, to ensure the best possible conditions.
Some of the things that Advocis is currently looking at includes directors and officers liability insurance, employment practices liability insurance, office liability; fiduciary and bonds, says McIntosh. Ideally, it will be a product suite “that an advisor can look at and say, ‘I can take care of all of my practice-oriented liability insurance needs in one place, through one comprehensive program, and know that it is being managed by my association in my best interests.”
It is incumbent upon the APA, as the largest professional association for the industry, to take the lead on this, says McIntosh.
“Our members can’t practice without it,” he says. “If you look back at 2004, multiple carriers exited the market; premiums shot up; coverages were heavily constricted. It made life very, very difficult and tenuous for thousands of advisors.” (continued.)
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Advocis, The Financial Advisors Association of Canada, is the oldest and largest voluntary membership association of financial advisors and planners in the nation, with more than 11,000 advisors and planners in 40 chapters across Canada.
When Advocis decided to create the APA, and develop this long-term strategy, it was in reaction to those pressures back in 2004, says McIntosh.
“It was the industry association acting as the individual advisor’s voice, saying, ‘We can’t allow this to continue to happen to our members,’” he says. “It wasn’t a flight of fancy; it was something we talked about with our partners. I really have to applaud the trust of our partners, Willis Canada and Liberty International. Because it is not often that brokers and insurers will take on programs where they know that they are going to put effort in building this, and then have it shift away. That takes a very unique and reputable group of individuals to do that – and I think Willis and Liberty have lived up to that.”
