Insurance And Financial Planning

Files And Records To Keep

Although in theory obligations for record keeping apply to firms, companies, and independent representatives and are governed by the Autorité des marchés financiers (the Autorité), many client files are first created by the representative who is in direct contact with the clients. A representative working for a firm or an independent partnership must comply with rules established by this firm or partnership and provide it with the pertinent information collected.

Below are the files and records that must be kept by firms, companies, and independent representatives under the regulations that involve the representative:

  • Client files
  • Records on representatives’ outside activities
  • Fee record
  • Accounting records
  • Separate account record, if money is collected for others
  • Complaint record

Records designated in the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Regulations – see the section Fighting money laundering for more information on this topic

File and record content

You will find a list of the documents that should be included in the client file, as well as those you should add as a best practice, in the tool Client File – Insurance of persons and Financial planning.

Additional Requirements In Group Personal Insurance

In addition to general information, the group insurance representative must keep the following information in the client file:

  • Name of the purchaser of the group insurance policy
  • Name of the contact person designated by the purchaser
  • Mandate dated and signed by the representative
  • Submissions and calls for tenders that were presented to the purchaser
  • Recommendation reports

Consult the Client File – Group Insurance of persons tool for a list of documents to be retained.

A firm must keep a record on the outside activities, pursued by each representative who acts on its behalf. An independent partnership must keep such a record in respect of each of its partners and each of the representatives who are employed by it. An independent representative must keep such a record in respect of his outside activities.

Such a record must include the following documents and information:

  • a description of the outside activity;
  • if applicable, the representative’s declaration of pursuit of outside activity;
  • the start date and end date, if known, of the outside activity;
  • the actions taken, if applicable, by the firm or independent partnership to ensure that the representative acts on its behalf in accordance with the Act respecting the distribution of financial products and services (chapter D-9.2) and the actions taken by the independent representative to ensure that he acts in accordance with the Act.

Firms, companies, and independent representatives must all have a complaint processing policy and maintain a record of complaints received and a file for each of them.

A complaint may be made either verbally or in writing, and the complaint file must contain any document or information used to analyze the complaint, including:

  • Exchanges with the customer concerning the complaint (e-mails, recordings of phone calls, conversation summaries, etc.)
  • Documents or information used to analyze the complaint (documents in the customer file, expert report, relevant excerpt or summary of a document/telephone recording analyzed, etc.)
  • Acknowledgement of receipt
  • The final written response

Where applicable, the following information should also be recorded in the file:

  • Exchanges with the customer after the final response has been sent (the customer's questions regarding the complaint and the answers provided by the company, new facts presented by the customer and follow-up carried out)
  • The customer's response to the company's offer to resolve the complaint, and any follow-up to this offer
  • A notice informing the customer that the processing time for his or her complaint will be longer than expected
  • Information sent to the customer if the company determines that the complaint concerns another company

The Autorité des marchés financiers’ website contains more details on this subject in the section on Complaint examination, in connection with the Regulation respecting complaint processing and dispute resolution in the financial sector, which came into force on July 1, 2025.

The fee record must contain…

Details of each fee

  • Contract number or client name
  • Name of the client, the insurer, or any other person who paid a fee to the firm, the company, or to the independent representative
  • Statement for each fee

Details on all shared fees

  • Name of co-partitioners, their addresses, and sectors for which they are registered
  • Names of people who are party to the transaction, purpose and date of the transaction
  • Percentage of the fee or flat amount resulting from the transaction, and method of dividing the fee between the co-practitioners

Accounting records contain all the information about the general accounting of the firm, the company, or the independent representative. This information must be included in a functional accounting system.

In addition to accounting records, when money is collected for others, a separate account record must be kept by the firms, companies, and independent representatives. This separate account must be separate from the firms’, companies’, and independent representatives’ transaction account. A representative may, for example, receive cash for the payment of the first premium on an insurance contract, deposit this amount in the separate account, and then issue a cheque for the insurer.

This record must contain the information regarding all the amounts paid from or deposited into the separate account, in addition to indicating all the amounts collected or received for others that were deposited in it. These obligations must be followed even if the amount received is minimal and even if an amount is only received once. There are no exceptions to these obligations.

On this topic, an independent representative that opens a separate account must inform the Autorité of it by sending a statement about opening this account. The Autorité must also be informed of changes to the separate account, including when it is closed.

In the event that an independent representative does not collect money for others, he is not obligated to have a separate account. However, he must send the Autorité a statement of the absence of a separate account.

Also, the separate account record must show the following information:

  • Client’s name
  • Insurance contract number or number of any other contract under which the representative received money
  • Transaction amount and purpose