President’s Message

Dear Affiliate Members,

With great pride, I come to you as your Association President to represent you our members.   I wish to thank once again the current Board of Directors for their steadfast commitment and dedication to promoting the broker channel. During the last year it has been comforting to stand beside these team members who continue to provide their support and collaboration to our members.

Last year I postured, “Could things get any more challenging?” and I’m sure we can all agree that they certainly have. However, as an industry we stayed true to our calling and remained vigilant and consistent in our service delivery for our customers and rallied with our colleagues to stay the course.

Our mission statement has certainly been a challenge to uphold during these trying times and I share with you again its message:

To ensure the prominence of our members and the long term success of the Independent Broker Channel through networking opportunities, information sharing, political advocacy and involvement in local community initiatives.

Once again, this year’s AGM is delivered virtually as was our strategic planning meeting. We continue to grapple with the same questions: How do we evolve, stay visible and relevant within our communities while staying true to our mission?  It hasn’t been easy as we weren’t able to gather as we traditionally have pre-pandemic. We did however get out with our local police force last December for our Annual R.I.D.E program and so very pleased to be seeing many of you on September 30^th for our Charity Golf Tournament which will have 72 players in a 9-hole format. With double vaccinations taking hold we hope that we are on the rise of getting back together, commiserating about our mutual challenges and once again sharing strategies in moving forward.

I thank you again for your support while we’ve been quietly in the background but it’s time to get loud and proud again.  I welcome your continued feedback, celebrate your achievements, and thank you for your continued partnership. I look. forward to seeing you all soon in person.

Best regards,

Jenny Desroches

President

OIBA Profile

Founded in 1910, the Ottawa Insurance Brokers Association (OIBA) is a voluntary membership organization serving the interests of independent insurance brokers in the Eastern Ontario region. Each member is served at three levels: The OIBA, the Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario (IBAO) and the Insurance Brokers Association of Canada (IBAC).

The IBAO has a membership of more than 10,000 independent insurance brokers across the Province of Ontario and represents the interests or OIBA members to government ministries and regulatory bodies, as well as to insurance industry commissions and associations.

The IBAC considers the needs of Ontario’s independent brokers when new policy shifts are introduced by the Canadian government or the insurance industry.

Working together, the three associations build and maintain a business environment that allows individual brokerages to thrive.