It is my pleasure, as one of the first formal acts in my tenure as RIBO’s CEO, to present our 2025-2028 Strategic Plan.
Built on RIBO’s strong foundation, this strategic plan is designed to sustain and enhance RIBO’s role as a high-performing, transparent, and collaborative organization.
Our broad mandate and mission, as outlined below, remain unchanged – as does our unwavering commitment to them – however the external environment in which we operate, industry pressures, and emerging risks to the public, demand changes in how we achieve our objectives.
Three years ago, RIBO set out on a significant change agenda and the organization looks very different today than it did in 2022.
We have modernized practices in almost every area of the organization:
It has been an ambitious change agenda, and the full impact of these changes is still unfolding.
As noted in the sections that follow, the external environment continues to evolve – demanding new ways for us to consider the regulatory impact of matters such as artificial intelligence, auto reform, industry consolidation, labour mobility, and our learnings about Managing General Agents (MGAs).
The next three years will be focused around our three strategic directions of:
We will continue to drive forward our educational initiatives, develop increased guidance for brokers, create increased clarity and visibility into our activities and impact, and engage more with consumers, government and industry.
We have heard from our licensees and are committed to improving upon the overall service levels we offer as an organization, with a goal of reducing the time to obtain a new licence, process sponsorship changes, and respond to the questions of brokers and applicants.
Our strategy also involves building internal business practices, adopting more measures and targets, increasing our capacity and organizational resilience, and further building our processes and supportive technology.
Executing this strategic plan and moving us beyond the status quo requires investment.
The most significant investment RIBO is making is the addition of full-time and contract staff, who will support our ability to achieve our strategic goals.
Specifically, we are investing in our technology team to fast-track the creation of tools that enhance staff efficiency and enable more effective data collection, leading to better insights and reporting, and more timely service delivery. We are also expanding our communications team to raise awareness of our initiatives, boost visibility, and build trust in our work and the profession as a whole.
Additionally, we are increasing our compliance staff to strengthen our monitoring capabilities and are adding operational personnel to improve customer service and overall organizational effectiveness.
The addition of these roles also further increases our strategic goal of becoming a more resilient organization.
Additional investments are being made to support our education programs, enhance the employee experience, and increase our level of engagement with external parties including the industry and our fellow regulators.
The strategic plan is being funded through modest but meaningful increases in licensing fees, the introduction of a new service fee for employment changes, and a drawing down on a portion of the funds we added to our reserves in recent years.
Additional costs and fee increases are not taken on lightly. It is our assessment however that these investments in self-regulation are prudent and necessary to fulfill our public protection mandate, deliver timely services to consumers and licensees, showcase our activities and relevance, and engage with external parties in a more fulsome way.
Updates on our progress will be shared throughout the life of this three-year plan including through formal updates included in our Annual Reports.
I am confident that this strategic plan will propel us forward, and I am excited to embark on this journey with our Council, staff, partners and licensees.
Sincerely, Mark Abraham Chief Executive Officer
Vision: A property and casualty insurance marketplace in Ontario where consumers and brokers are well informed and protected, and where transactions are conducted fairly.
Mission: To create a customer-centric regulated environment where brokers can provide informed guidance, responsive service, and foster confidence by protecting the interests of all Ontarians.
Mandate: To protect and advocate on behalf of the Ontario public by regulating insurance transactions with brokers.
RIBO has identified three strategic directions to focus on over the three-year life of this strategic plan.
Each direction, the environmental factors that inform it, along with specific goals and initiatives to achieve it, are outlined on the pages that follow.
There have been significant environmental shifts over the past three years that have informed our strategic plan. RIBO is navigating a dynamic landscape shaped by industry development, technological innovation, regulatory changes, and evolving customer expectations.
The Insurance Industry: The insurance industry is growing in size and complexity. Continued merger and acquisition activity amongst insurance companies, private equity companies, and brokerages, has resulted in growing and increasingly complex brokerage operations. In turn, these changes place greater responsibility on brokerages and increase the overall responsibility of Principal Brokers.
Technology: Rapid technological changes, including those relating to artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, are reshaping the industry. As a regulator, RIBO’s role is to ensure that its licensees comply with all regulatory requirements while adapting to and incorporating new technologies. This presents challenges to all market parties – RIBO, consumers and licensees.
Regulatory Changes: Evolution in insurance legislation, industry requirements and the role of regulators – notably relating to Auto Reform – also impact brokerages, including changes affecting choice, availability and accessibility of insurance markets.
Increased Service Demands: Licensees and consumers demand increasingly faster services and reduced response times, with self-serve 24/7 options becoming the norm in all areas of modern life. The number of licensees and exam writers is increasing every year as are the number of complaints RIBO receives about licensees.
The Environment: The rising cost of living, increases in weather-related natural disasters and other similar events, auto theft, tariffs, global economic uncertainty, and other factors contribute to rising cost and availability of insurance. This places significant pressure on licensees being able to meet their customer’s expectations for broker services.
Labour Mobility: In response to geo-political events, an increased emphasis has been placed on labour mobility and lowering inter-provincial barriers. As a provincial regulator we see opportunity to support these efforts through streamlined multi-jurisdictional licensing practices.
The current operating environment is in flux. In such an environment, RIBO’s mandate becomes all the more important as change introduces unknowns and heightens existing risks to the Ontario public. Success for RIBO in this context is multi-faceted and includes:
RIBO has identified three strategic directions to fulfill its public protection mandate:
In the following, you will learn more information about the strategic directions and how RIBO intends to operationalize the strategic directions to achieve our mandate.
Regulation should not be about simply checking off compliance boxes. It is about working towards meaningful outcomes that benefit consumers without undue barriers to licensees. Regulation should be effective and impactful, smart and targeted, meaning we take a purposeful approach that recognizes the costs and benefits of regulation.
As a smaller organization, we will leverage partnerships and collaborations to increase our impact. This starts with building and strengthening relationships, contributing to joint initiatives, and ensuring our voice and perspective are taken into account in policy setting in governmental and interprovincial strategies.
Over the life of this strategic plan, RIBO’s goal is to increase its regulatory effectiveness and impact through the following goals:
Engagement includes developing and maintaining strong relationships with government, other regulators, and industry groups to foster collaboration and alignment serving the public interest.
RIBO will:
RIBO’s mandate is to protect the public by ensuring that licensees are competent to provide broker/brokerage services to the public and comply with all regulatory requirements. It is essential to ensure that licensees continuously improve their professionalism and competencies.
RIBO is committed to being a modern and progressive regulator that is responsive to evolving policy and regulatory issues in the public interest. RIBO plans to continuously assess and seek feedback to ensure that it is doing so.
RIBO also plans to:
This strategic direction focuses on building trust, relevance, and connection with the people we serve – insurance consumers and our licensees. It means delivering clear, consumer and member-centric information and services, ensuring timely and responsive communication, and increasing access to high-quality resources and services.
RIBO will inform, support and involve parties by:
RIBO will instill confidence in its work by becoming an increasingly more communicative and transparent organization. Transparency gives both brokers and the public the opportunity to better understand RIBO’s mandate and regulatory activities and demonstrates commitment to holding ourselves accountable to the public. This in turn creates increased confidence in the overall marketplace by helping consumers understand that RIBO is holding licensees accountable to high standards.
To this end, RIBO plans to:
RIBO is focused on building a culture of continuous improvement, and building a resilient, agile organization through staff engagement and training. This means strengthening RIBO’s operations, optimizing processes, investing in the right tools and increasing its human resources to become a dynamic and resilient organization.
RIBO will nurture a high-performing, dynamic and engaged organization by:
As both the insurance industry and professional regulation continue to evolve, it is essential for RIBO to adapt to a rapidly changing regulatory environment. To achieve this, RIBO must optimize its processes, tools, and technologies. Existing processes must be reviewed and assessed for effectiveness to achieve RIBO’s mandate in an environment of continuous improvement.
RIBO will develop and implement a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) upon which to assess our operational performance. These indicators will add clarity for Council, management and staff, allowing for increased alignment and focus on what matters most. Such measures also serve to objectively identify areas of relative strength and weakness, such that resources and efforts can be optimally allocated.
Supporting this goal, we will:
RIBO will reduce operational risk and improve output by ensuring the organization has the capacity and built-in flexibility to tolerate ‘events’ that disrupt normal operations.
This includes:
Our strategic plan outlines our priorities and high-level strategies and provides direction for our activities over the next three years.
Each year, as part of our annual planning process, key initiatives will be identified, planned in detail, budgeted, and presented to Council for approval in the form of both an Annual Operating Plan and an associated Financial Budget. We will adapt our plan as needed to be responsive to emerging issues.
While specific initiatives will drive forward various aspects of this plan simultaneously, at a high level, Year One of our plan will be focused on building foundational elements such as hiring new staff required to execute on the strategy, establishing our customer service approach, building supportive technology, and establishing our measures of success.
In the second and third years of the plan, licensees and the public can expect to see published consumer outcomes, service targets and our results, a noticeable improvement in our responsiveness to inquiries, new guidance, and educational modules.
Throughout, we will be exploring ways to engage more with government and regulatory peers, consumers and the industry, and taking the steps needed to be a resilient organization set for continued success.
We are excited to begin implementation and to share our progress and results.