February 7, 2014

The Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) and Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc. (Industrial Alliance) have entered into an agreement for the payment of $165,000 with respect to commercial practice violations.

The AMF argued that Industrial Alliance committed various violations related in particular to Industrial Alliance Pacific Insurance and Financial Services Inc., of which it owns the rights and assumed the obligations further to the merger of June 30, 2012, namely, selling student medical insurance policies over some 10 years through persons who were not registered with the AMF, selling Freedom Medical Plan policies through distributors without previously submitting the related distribution guide to the AMF, offering a product (Partenaire Élite) through distributors without previously submitting the related distribution guide to the AMF and without notifying the AMF of an additional distributor and distributing insurance policies that stated they were administered by Travel Underwriters, a licensed insurance broker, although the latter is not authorized to operate as such in Québec.

Industrial Alliance also undertook to stop distributing the Student Medical Insurance policy through unregistered persons and generally to set up appropriate measures to ensure that the distribution of its policies complies with the law.

Moreover, Industrial Alliance Auto and Home Insurance Inc. agreed to pay the $50,000 penalty imposed by the AMF for entering into referral agreements with automobile dealers and violating An Act respecting the distribution of financial products and services regarding the sharing of commissions with non-registrants.