What This Firm Does Not Do, and Who Does It

Most firms describe what they can do. The list is longer that way, and nothing in it has to be defended. This page does the opposite, and it does it for a blunt reason: the fastest way to lose a client badly is to answer a question you were not licensed to answer, and the fastest way to protect one is to say where the line falls before anybody trips over it. In Quebec several of these lines are drawn by statute, some of them around a title and some of them around the activity itself, and a firm that quietly steps across is a problem for the client long before it becomes a problem for the firm. What follows is eight boundaries. For each one: what the firm does not do, the professional you are sent to, and the real work that remains on this side of the line, because a boundary is not the same thing as a shrug.

What the licence actually covers

Everything below follows from one document. In Quebec, under the Act respecting the distribution of financial products and services, section 12 says that no person may act as or purport to be a representative without holding the appropriate certificate issued by the Autorité des marchés financiers, and section 13 says that representatives pursue their activities in the sectors the certificate authorises. The sectors are separate things with separate certificates.

The sector this firm holds is insurance of persons. Section 3 defines a representative in insurance of persons as a natural person who offers individual insurance products in insurance of persons, or individual annuities, from one or more insurers. In plain terms: life insurance, critical illness insurance, disability insurance, annuities, and segregated funds, which are insurance contracts under provincial insurance legislation. Group insurance of persons is its own class under section 4. Outside Quebec the firm holds the corresponding provincial licences.

That is the whole of the authority. Everything below is outside it, and the firm’s position on each is the same: name it, send you to the right professional, and stay useful beside them rather than pretend the certificate stretches.

The integrated plan, which is a reserved activity here

This is the boundary people find most surprising, because the phrase is used so loosely in ordinary speech. In Quebec it is not loose at all. Section 56 of the Act respecting the distribution of financial products and services provides that, subject to section 60, no person may use the title of financial planner or hold out as offering that reserved service without holding the appropriate certificate issued by the Authority. Read the second half of that sentence again. The statute protects the activity, not only the title.

Section 57 sets the path to that certificate: only a person holding a diploma the Act names, issued by the institute the Act designates for it, may obtain it from the Authority. Section 60 opens a parallel route for members of certain professional orders who hold the same diploma. The abbreviations that go with the title are protected in the same way.

So this firm does not use that title, does not hold itself out as offering that service, and does not produce the integrated plan that service describes. Where a household needs one, you are sent to a certificate holder you can confirm yourself in the Authority’s public register.

What the firm may do beside that line is specific: analyse an insurance need, quantify a shortfall at death or at disability, design and place the contract, and work as one input into somebody else’s plan. If you already have a planner, hand them our written analysis of the insurance component, which is theirs to accept, adjust or reject.

Securities and investment advice

The firm is not registered with the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization and is not authorised to advise on or distribute securities. That covers individual stocks, individual bonds, exchange traded funds, and mutual funds held outside an insurance contract, in every province. It also covers the advice, not just the transaction: telling you what to hold, in what proportion, and when to change it is registered work.

The line runs through the middle of things that look alike. A segregated fund is an insurance contract under provincial insurance legislation and is inside the licence. A mutual fund held through a dealer is a security and is outside it. The two can hold similar assets and remain entirely different regulated products.

Where a plan needs the securities side, you are sent to a firm registered with CIRO, and the firm coordinates rather than advises. There is a compensation point here that belongs in the open: this firm earns a commission on the insurance side of any such comparison and earns nothing on the securities side. That is set out in full on the transparency page, and it is a reason to take a second opinion from someone with the opposite exposure.

Tax advice and tax returns

The firm does not give tax advice, does not prepare returns, does not file elections, and does not opine on whether a particular structure will produce a particular tax result for you. That holds even where the subject is insurance: the adjusted cost basis of a contract, the treatment of a policy loan, the credit to a Capital Dividend Account on a corporately owned contract. Those are provisions of the Income Tax Act applied to your circumstances, and applying them to your circumstances is somebody else’s work.

You are sent to a Chartered Professional Accountant or to a tax lawyer. In Quebec the Chartered Professional Accountants Act reserves the relevant titles and, at section 13, prohibits any person from using the titles chartered accountant, certified general accountant, certified management accountant, professional accountant or public accountant, or any abbreviation or initials that may lead to that belief. Public accountancy is a reserved activity under the third paragraph of section 4, and section 12 requires a public accountancy permit and forbids the unauthorised use of the title auditor.

Beside that line, the firm can describe how a mechanism works in general, cite the provision, and hand your accountant the contract details they need: the illustration, the design, the ownership and the beneficiary designation. Telling you what it will do to your return is advice, and it is not ours to give.

Wills, trusts and protection mandates

The firm does not draft a will, a trust deed, a protection mandate, a shareholder agreement or a buy and sell agreement, and does not review one for legal effect. In Quebec the Notaries Act makes the notary a legal adviser and a public officer at section 10, describes the execution of acts requiring authenticity at section 11, reserves a list of acts to notaries at section 15, and protects the title itself at section 32. Lawyers hold their own reserved field under the legislation governing the Barreau. Outside Quebec the work belongs to a lawyer.

The Quebec detail worth knowing is this. There are three recognised forms of will: the notarial will, the holograph will, and the will made in the presence of witnesses. The notarial will does not need to be probated and the original stays in the notary’s records, while the other two must be verified before they can be acted on. That is a real difference in cost and delay for the people you leave behind.

Beside that line sits the work this firm does most often: placing an insurance contract inside a structure a lawyer or a notary has drafted. The trust exists because they drafted it. The corporation owns the contract because they structured it. What we do is make the ownership, the beneficiary designation and the funding match the document, and tell them plainly when the insurance will not do what the drafting assumes.

Mortgage brokering

The firm does not arrange mortgage financing, does not shop a rate, and does not place a loan. In Quebec this is its own certified sector under the same Act. Section 11.1 defines a mortgage broker as a natural person who, for others and in return for remuneration that is contingent on the making of a loan secured by immovable hypothec, engages in a brokerage transaction relating to such a loan. It is a separate certificate issued by the Authority, and the Authority’s register will tell you who holds one.

The confusion is understandable, because insurance and mortgages meet constantly. A household buys life insurance because of a mortgage. A contract is assigned as collateral for a loan. None of that makes arranging the loan an insurance activity.

What the firm does beside the line: quantify the coverage a debt actually requires, compare an individually owned contract against the creditor coverage offered with a loan, and prepare the assignment paperwork when a lender takes a contract as collateral. Whether you should borrow, from whom, and at what term is a question for a certified mortgage broker or the lender.

Accounting and corporate structuring

The firm does not keep books, does not prepare financial statements, does not incorporate a company, does not draft share classes, and does not carry out an estate freeze or a corporate reorganisation. Those sit with a Chartered Professional Accountant and a lawyer or notary working together, and the reserved activity of public accountancy described above is the accountant’s alone.

This boundary is the one incorporated clients test most, because the questions arrive braided together. Should the corporation own the contract or should the shareholder? Which corporation, in a group? What happens to the Capital Dividend Account credit? Those are three questions in one sentence, and only the design and placement of the contract is ours.

The firm’s job in a corporate file is to be the insurance member of a team: to model what the contract does under each ownership option, to put the design in writing so the accountant and the lawyer can test it, and to say plainly when no contract should be placed until the structure is settled.

Property and casualty insurance

The firm does not place home insurance, car insurance, commercial property coverage or liability coverage, and does not handle a claim under any of them. In Quebec damage insurance is a different sector with different certificates: section 5 of the Act defines the damage insurance agent, who offers the products of a single insurer, and section 6 defines the damage insurance broker, who offers the products of several. Section 10 defines the claims adjuster, which is a third certified role again.

Insurance of persons and damage insurance are commonly spoken of as one industry, and in a household’s experience they overlap: the same event can trigger both a disability claim and a property claim. Legally they are different certificates and a person holding one is not authorised to act under the other.

Beside the line, the firm can point out that a gap exists, which is often the valuable moment. A business owner whose commercial coverage does not contemplate the loss of the person who holds the client relationships has a problem key person insurance addresses and property coverage does not. Filling the damage side belongs to a certified agent or broker.

Settling an estate

The firm does not act as liquidator or executor, does not administer an estate, does not publish the notices, does not prepare the inventory, and does not obtain the tax clearance before a distribution. In Quebec the liquidator is named in the will, and where the will names none, article 785 of the Civil Code of Quebec makes the heirs the liquidators by law. The role carries personal duties and personal exposure, which is exactly why it is not a role a product distributor should be occupying.

A family settling an estate usually needs a notary or a lawyer for the succession itself, a Chartered Professional Accountant for the final return and the clearance, and often a mediator where the heirs disagree. None of those is us.

What the firm does at that moment is narrow and it matters: help the beneficiary of a life insurance contract make the claim, explain how a benefit paid to a named beneficiary passes outside the succession, provide the contract records the liquidator needs, and answer the insurer’s questions about a contract it issued. That is administration of a claim, not administration of an estate.

How to check any of this, in ten minutes

Every boundary above corresponds to a register somebody keeps and anybody may search. In Quebec the Autorité des marchés financiers register covers representatives in insurance of persons, holders of the reserved planning title, mortgage brokers, damage insurance agents and brokers and claims adjusters, sector by sector. Elsewhere in Canada the provincial insurance regulator keeps the equivalent. For securities, the registration of an individual or a firm can be searched, and CIRO publishes its members.

The professional orders keep their own rolls: the order for chartered professional accountants, the order for notaries, and the bar for advocates. Look up the person, not the firm’s description of the person, and check that the authorisation reaches the province where you live rather than the one where they work.

Two habits make the rest easy. Ask what sector or registration authorises the advice you are given, in writing. Then ask what the person is not authorised to do on your file. Whoever answers the second question quickly and without irritation understands their own licence, and that is worth more than a confident answer to the first.

Frequently Asked Questions

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The companion page to this one is transparency and compensation, which answers the other half of the question by setting out what the firm earns and on what. The compliance page carries the formal disclosures in their regulatory form, and our process shows where in the five steps each of these other professionals is brought in. If a boundary above is the one that matters to you, investor protection and CIRO covers the securities side, and where the strategy does not fit is the other page this firm publishes against its own interest.