The Financial Services Commission of Ontario is restructuring its auto insurance and market conduct divisions.

In a letter to the industry, Bryan Davies, CEO and Superintendent of Financial Services, reports a series of planned changes to its auto insurance division, the Ontario insurance ombudsman and the licensing and market conduct division.

“As Ann Bythell, the executive director, dispute resolution division, and insurance ombudsman, is not expected to return to FSCO in the foreseeable future due to illness, this has caused us to look at the structure of the dispute resolution division, and its relationship to other divisions of the Commission,” Davies said in his letter.

FSCO is consolidating all of its market conduct activities into an expanded licensing and market conduct division “to improve the effectiveness of our market conduct activities.”

It notes that this division has become increasingly focused on market conduct regulation, as has FSCO’s insurance ombudsman and the ombudsman services branch due to the development of industry-based complaint resolution and ombudsman services.

The current market-conduct and program policy functions of the ombudsman services branch will be integrated into the LMC. The director, market conduct, in the LMC will assume the responsibilities of iInsurance ombudsman under the Insurance Act. Recruitment for this position will begin shortly. The LMC division remains under the leadership of Grant Swanson, executive director LMC.

As a result of Bythell’s departure, the role of the auto insurance division is being expanded to consolidate all of FSCO’s automobile insurance functions. This division will now be responsible for all current auto related functions including rates and classifications, policy, actuarial services, the motor vehicle accident claims fund, as well as dispute resolution services (mediation, arbitration, neutral evaluation and appeals). A new position of executive director has been created to lead this re-aligned division. These changes establish the AID as the focal point for all automobile insurance product functions in the province.

The rates and classifications unit, the automobile insurance policy unit, the actuarial services unit, and MVACF will remain under the leadership of Darlene Hall, director, automobile insurance services branch. The dispute resolution services branch will be led by David Draper, the director of Arbitrations.

These latest changes follow organizational reforms announced last summer in which FSCO consolidated its consumer communications functions.