The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association (CLHIA) has told the G19 advisory group that it is meeting with its insurance company members to prepare an updated set of materials meant to provide group and benefit and retirement advisors with guidelines on disclosure-related issues.

In a note to members of the advisor group, the CLHIA says one of the major projects it’s working on is revising G19 based on a compromise approach announced in November.

At that time, the CLHIA updated the content of its G19 disclosure package to be used by group retirement and group benefit advisors following consultations with its advisory group.

Under this proposal, advisors will disclose both the per cent and dollar value of direct compensation, including the dollar value for lump-sum payments like transfer bonuses. Any indirect compensation received through incentive programs will also be disclosed, but a dollar or percentage value will not be provided. Also to be disclosed is in-kind compensation, such as financing arrangements.

About 200 advisors join advisor group

Since the CLHIA first announced its guideline, there has been backlash from the advisor community, leading to the advisor committee. Almost 200 people have joined the advisory group it was formed about 10 months ago.

The CLHIA says it is currently preparing for the group retirement services implementation in July, after which it will share its work with the advisor group for feedback. Once that’s done, it will start work on developing tools to support disclosure for group benefits advisors. 

“As we get into specific and topical areas related to implementing G19, we believe the best way to do this is to form topic-based sub-groups to work on issues or materials that can then be provided to the broader advisory group,” says the CLHIA note. 

Advisor sub-groups include those dealing with third-party administrators and managing general agencies, which will begin this month, the group retirement services sub-group is set to open in February and the group benefits sub-group to begin in September.