How to Check a Representative in Quebec, and What the Register Shows
By Jose Salloum, Financial Security Advisor (Conseiller en sécurité financière) | September 2026
This article is general education about the public mechanisms the Autorite des marches financiers and the Chambre de la securite financiere publish, read on their own sites in September 2026. It names no representative and no firm, it is not a complaint procedure, and it is not legal advice. Each body publishes its own current process and that is what governs.
In plain language: this is general education, not a recommendation. What is right for you depends on circumstances we have not seen, and that is what a first conversation is for.
Key Takeaways
- The Autorite des marches financiers tells consumers, in its own words, to consult the Register of firms and individuals authorized to practise.
- The register is free, public and searchable by name. It exists so that a person does not have to take anybody’s word for their own authorization.
- The register answers a narrow question: whether a person or a firm is authorized, and in what sectors. It is not a rating and it is not a recommendation.
- The Chambre de la securite financiere oversees representatives in the personal insurance and group personal insurance sectors among others.
- Its code of ethics speaks of acting with integrity, loyalty and competence, and in the interests of the client.
- A member of the public who has a concern about conduct raises it with the chamber through a Request for Inquiry form.
- On automated advice, the only official Quebec page addresses portfolio managers in the securities world. There is no equivalent page about automated life insurance advice, and this article says so rather than pretending otherwise.
Everybody says to check. Almost nobody says what to check, where it is published, or what the answer actually means once it comes back. All three of those are public, free, and take a few minutes.
The register, and what it answers
The regulator does not leave this to inference. On its own consumer page about the steps to buying insurance, the Autorite des marches financiers instructs the reader in a single line: consult the Register of firms and individuals authorized to practise.
The register is published at the Autorite’s own address, it is free, and it is searchable by name. A person can be looked up before a first meeting, from a phone, in less time than it takes to read this paragraph.
What it answers is narrow, and the narrowness is the point. It says whether a person or a firm is authorized, and in which sectors. It does not rate anybody, it does not recommend anybody, and it does not say whether somebody is the right person for a particular household. It answers the one question that has to be answered first and that nobody should have to take on trust.
The same consumer page carries two other mechanisms worth knowing. The obligation to notify the insurer of any facts that may influence the insurer in setting the premium sits on the person applying. And when a policy replaces one already in force, a prior notice of replacement is produced, so that the comparison between the two contracts is written down before anything is cancelled.
The chamber, and what it is for
Authorization is one body’s job. Conduct afterwards is another body’s.
The Chambre de la securite financiere oversees representatives in the personal insurance and group personal insurance sectors among others. It maintains a code of ethics, and the language of that code is worth reading in the original because it is unusually plain: acting with integrity, loyalty and competence, and in the interests of the client.
Those four words are the standard, and they are published rather than promised. A practice that describes itself in similar language is describing an obligation it already carries, not a distinction it invented.
The chamber also publishes how a member of the public raises a concern about conduct: through a Request for Inquiry form. Knowing that the form exists, and who it goes to, is part of what makes the standard real rather than decorative.
A concept, not a recommendation
Everything below is an illustration written to show how a structure works. No person in it is real, no figure in it is a projection, and nothing in it is a recommendation to you or to anyone else. The numbers are round because they were chosen to make the arithmetic visible, not because they are typical, available or attainable.
What a contract would actually do depends on the insurer, the product, your age and health, the underwriting decision and the contract you sign. A recommendation can only follow an analysis of your needs conducted with you by a licensed representative. Canadian Wealth Creation Centre Inc. is paid a commission by the issuing insurer when a policy is placed, and you should weigh anything here knowing that.
An illustration: two minutes before the first meeting
This illustration carries no figures and names no product, insurer, firm or person. Nobody in it is real. Its subject is an order of operations.
Imagine somebody who has been given a name by a neighbour and has a first meeting on Thursday.
Before the meeting there is one question that is settleable from a phone: is this person, and the firm named alongside them, listed in the register as authorized, and in which sectors. That is a search on a free public site and it is finished in two minutes.
At the meeting there are questions no register answers: what is being proposed and why, what the contract itself says as opposed to what a summary says, and what happens if an existing policy is involved, in which case a prior notice of replacement is the document that ought to appear.
And behind both, there is a standard that exists whether or not it is ever mentioned in the room: integrity, loyalty, competence, and the interests of the client, published by the chamber, with a Request for Inquiry form behind it. The point of the illustration is only that these three belong in that order, and that the first of them costs nothing.
What the check cannot tell anybody
A register entry is a floor rather than a verdict.
It does not say how somebody works, whether they will return a call in February, whether they explain a contract or read it aloud, or whether their way of working suits a particular family. Those are questions for a conversation, and they are answered by what a person does rather than by what any database holds.
The useful way to hold both facts at once is this. The register settles the question that is objectively settleable, in two minutes, for free. Everything after that is judgment, and judgment is better exercised once the settleable question is out of the way.
The question about automated advice that nobody official has answered
A reader looking into this in 2026 will meet a great deal of writing about advice given by software, and will want to know what the position is in Quebec.
Here is the honest answer. The Autorite does publish a page on online advisers. That page is about portfolio managers in the securities world. It says that the term might give the impression that any advice given is fully automated, that this is not so in Quebec, and that such a firm is required to pursue its activities by way of a natural person, known as an advising representative.
That is a clear position and it is about securities. There is no equivalent official Quebec page addressing automated life insurance advice. Reaching across from one to the other, and presenting the securities position as the insurance position, would be the easiest paragraph on this page to write and it would not be true.
So the accurate statement is the uncomfortable one: on the securities side the regulator has said in writing that a natural person remains behind the advice, and on the insurance side that page does not exist. A reader who wants certainty on the insurance side has one route, which is to ask the Autorite directly.
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Read the guideWhere to read this at the source
The Register of firms and individuals authorized to practise, the consumer pages on the steps to buying insurance and on the prior notice of replacement, and the page on online advisers are all published by the Autorite des marches financiers.
The sectors it oversees, the code of ethics and the Request for Inquiry form are published by the Chambre de la securite financiere. Every one of those pages was read on 23 September 2026, every one is free, and every one can be revised without notice.
Sources
- Autorite des marches financiers, Register of firms and individuals authorized to practise, registres-public.lautorite.qc.ca, read 23 September 2026
- Autorite des marches financiers, consumer page on the steps to buying insurance, lautorite.qc.ca, read 23 September 2026
- Autorite des marches financiers, consumer page on the prior notice of replacement, lautorite.qc.ca, read 23 September 2026
- Autorite des marches financiers, page on online advisers, lautorite.qc.ca, read 23 September 2026
- Chambre de la securite financiere, sectors overseen, code of ethics, and Request for Inquiry form, chambresf.com, read 23 September 2026
Frequently Asked Questions
How can somebody check that a representative is authorized in Quebec?
The Autorite des marches financiers publishes a Register of firms and individuals authorized to practise, and its own consumer page instructs readers to consult it. The register is free, public and searchable by name.
What does the register actually say?
It answers whether a person or firm is authorized, and in which sectors. It is not a rating, not a recommendation, and not a statement about whether somebody suits a particular household.
What is the Chambre de la securite financiere?
It is the body that oversees representatives in the personal insurance and group personal insurance sectors among others. It maintains a code of ethics whose language speaks of acting with integrity, loyalty and competence, and in the interests of the client.
How does a member of the public raise a concern about conduct?
The chamber publishes a Request for Inquiry form for that purpose, and its own site sets out the current process.
What is a prior notice of replacement?
It is the document produced when a policy is taken out to replace one already in force, so that the comparison between the two contracts is written down before anything is cancelled.
Is there an official Quebec position on automated life insurance advice?
Not that is published. The Autorite publishes a page on online advisers which addresses portfolio managers in the securities world, and says the term might give the impression that advice is fully automated, that this is not so in Quebec, and that such a firm is required to pursue its activities by way of a natural person known as an advising representative. There is no equivalent page about insurance, and the securities position should not be presented as the insurance position.
A thirty-minute discovery meeting
A first conversation establishes whether this fits. No illustration is prepared and nothing is arranged.
Often the answer is no, and you will hear it during the call rather than in a proposal afterwards.
The form is on the discovery meeting page and takes a minute. It arranges a conversation. It is not advice, and nothing is being sold here.
Listen to this page
Read aloud by your own browser. Nothing is sent anywhere.
About the author
Jose Salloum is a Financial Security Advisor (Conseiller en sécurité financière) licensed by the Autorité des marchés financiers in Quebec, by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario, and by the Insurance Council of British Columbia. Licensed since 2001, he works with Canadian families, business owners and incorporated professionals.
He is the founder of Canadian Wealth Creation Centre Inc. (CWCC), registered with the AMF, and of its educational branch IBCFinancial.com. He holds the Infinite Banking Concepts® Authorized Practitioner certification from the Nelson Nash Institute, a private certification rather than a regulatory licence.
CWCC is not registered with CIRO and does not provide securities advice. This page is general education and not advice on any individual file.
Important disclosures
This page is education, not advice. The content is general information prepared by Canadian Wealth Creation Centre Inc. It does not take your circumstances into account and is not a recommendation to buy, hold or cancel any contract. CWCC is not registered with CIRO and does not provide securities advice. The firm places insurance in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and New Brunswick; clients elsewhere are served by advisors licensed in their province.
Nothing here was written with your file in front of us. Read it to understand the subject, then judge it against your own situation, ideally with someone who is licensed where you live and who has seen your numbers.
This is not tax advice, and the tax treatment depends on your own circumstances. The tax treatment described depends on the contract remaining exempt under the Income Tax Regulations and on the reader’s individual circumstances. A withdrawal, a surrender or a policy loan may be a disposition under the Income Tax Act, and amounts above the adjusted cost basis may be taxable in the year they occur. Tax rules change. Canadian Wealth Creation Centre Inc. is licensed in life and health insurance. It is not an accounting practice, it does not prepare returns, and nothing on this site is tax advice or an opinion on any reader’s tax position. Anything a reader intends to rely on should be confirmed with a professional accountant and against the current published rule of the Canada Revenue Agency and, in Quebec, Revenu Québec.
The tax result is not automatic and it is not unconditional. It rests on the contract staying within the Canadian rules and on your own situation. Before you rely on any of it, talk to an accountant who has actually worked with these contracts.
Illustrations and projections are not predictions. Any figures, examples or illustrated values are hypothetical, are shown to explain a mechanism, and are not a forecast of the performance of any contract. Actual values will differ and may be lower than those shown. Past dividend scales do not predict future scales.
An example is there to show how the parts move, not to tell you what you will get. Any real illustration you are shown should be read on its guaranteed columns first.