The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association (CLHIA) is revising its guidance for disclosing compensation arrangements for group benefits and retirement services following discussions with advisors, the association announced on Thursday
CLHIA is making a number of changes to guidance released last year, which aims to establish industry standards for compensation disclosure in the group sector.
To finalize the standards, CLHIA will undertake a consultation on Guideline G19, Compensation Disclosure in Group Benefits and Group Retirement Services, through an advisory group with participation by both advisors and insurers.
Among other things, CLHIA is revising the guidance to reflect advisors’ views that they should have the ability to deliver the disclosure to the client.
It also intends to establish a materiality threshold for tracking and disclosing “in-kind” compensation, which will be developed with input from advisors.
CLHIA is also pushing back the implementation deadline for disclosure requirements involving group benefits to Jan. 1, 2020. The deadline for retirement services remains Jan. 1, 2019.
“We are looking forward to working very closely with advisors in this next phase to ensure that advisors’ concerns are taken into account and that the process for compensation disclosure to plan sponsors works well for all stakeholders,” says Stephen Frank, president and CEO of CLHIA, in a statement.