Information & Ethics Committee on May 30th, 2017

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Is there concern that insurers aren't being proactive enough in changing their ways or technologies?

Again, I think that industries and companies need to be proactive with respect to what's coming with the GDPR and different things, not to let it come to them but to be proactive. Do you think the industry is being...?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith]

We're at the end of the five minutes, so perhaps you could make your answer as brief as possible.

[Randy Bundus]

I'll let my colleague Mr. Lingard answer that question.

[Steven Lingard, Director, Legal Services, and Chief Privacy Officer, Insurance Bureau of Canada]

Thank you very much for the question.

I think our industry is actually being proactive and innovative. An example is usage-based insurance, which is something that has been sold in a number of other countries.

Now, we are finding that just as P and C insurers are regulated at the provincial level for market conduct, some of the regulators are not quite as forward-thinking as we would like them to be. We're finding that there are hurdles being raised against insurers innovating and providing new products.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

What kind of hurdles?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith]

We'll come back to you, Mr. Long. I think we'll probably have time at the end.

Mr. Kelly, go ahead, please, for five minutes.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Thank you.

If I may, I'll start with the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

Is the membership in your organization voluntary or compulsory for industry members?

[Randy Bundus]

The membership is voluntary.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Broadly, what percentage of the industry do you represent? Is it all or most...?

[Randy Bundus]

Ninety per cent of the property and casualty premiums written in Canada by private insurers are written by members of IBC.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Excellent.

I noted in your opening remarks that you made reference to the fact that your industry is highly regulated, and certainly by no means just by PIPEDA. You are regulated by the insurance acts of various provinces as well as by OSFI, which has significant powers.

You mentioned your internal ombudsman process as well. Do you have a lot of privacy complaints directed to your internal ombudsman?

[Steven Lingard]

The ombudsmen we were referring to are those at individual companies. We don't have records for those complaints. I'm sorry that we can't provide any information about that.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Okay, so each individual member has its own ombudsman—

[Steven Lingard]

That's correct.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

—and it's part of your own best practices to have an ombudsman, or it's a requirement of your....

[Steven Lingard]

Actually, it's required under the provincial insurance acts. Not in all provinces, but I know that in Ontario there is a requirement for companies to have an ombudsman, with responsibility for handling customer or consumer complaints. We don't have any knowledge of the number of complaints or the types of complaints that come in.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

If these various ombudsmen were failing to provide adequate recourse to their members, would you hear about it as a larger industry group? Do you know whether privacy complaints are an issue?

[Steven Lingard]

I believe that we would hear about it, because we do have a good working relationship with the provincial superintendents.

At the end of the day, if there is a complaint that cannot be resolved or is not resolved with the insurer, the consumer will go to the superintendent's office.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Right.

[Steven Lingard]

In Ontario, that is FSCO. We would hear back that something was not being handled properly and that FSCO was going to do something about it.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

To your knowledge, does the OPC receive a lot of privacy complaints from your industry?

[Steven Lingard]

We haven't had a meeting with the OPC in a year or so. We used to have annual meetings with them, and we got updates.

My understanding is that there are not very many complaints made to the OPC, or to the Alberta or B.C. privacy commissioners. I think we have a pretty good track record in that regard.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Good.

Do you attribute the fact that you have gotten out of the annual meetings to there being an absence of concern or issue? Is it a matter of them not getting to you because they're too busy with other things, or do you think that things are pretty good and that your industry, perhaps, is not a problem?

[Steven Lingard]

We attribute it to the fact that, I think, our industry does a very good job, as was mentioned earlier, I believe, by Mr. Zinatelli of CLHIA.

Insurers have long known the importance of protecting the privacy and personal information of their customers. In the meetings we had with OPC, with Jennifer Stoddart when she was there, with Elizabeth Denham when she was in B.C., and with Frank Work and Jill Clayton in Alberta, the number of privacy complaints that we were told about was minimal. There were a handful at best over the course of a year. Those were in the first couple of years of PIPEDA or the PIPAs coming into force. The numbers dropped after that.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Right.

You make a good point that you're a provincially regulated industry. Many of your members also have provincial privacy regulation that they have to comply with, a separate regulation as well as the various ombudsmen or enforcement mechanisms that would exist.

So, do you think you have a fairly good culture in your industry regarding the protection of privacy and the knowledge of the importance of it?