SD-13878

Advisor Profile - Licence - Integrations

For BC, AB and SK licences, it is unclear to the user that, if they need to, they can manually enter their licence after 3 failed attempts.

The updated process for matching licenses with third party regulators has created a negative experience for many advisors. I have received numerous calls and emails from frustrated advisors who are unable to proceed. This comes from both advisors completing their initial registration, and advisors already registered who are adding their license renewals.

Please also note, BC and AB both have set dates that all advisors must renew their licenses by. For BC it is Jun 1st, and for AB it is Jun 30. So from an MGA perspective, it creates a high volume of inquiries in a short time frame, making it more challenging to address advisors' concerns and provide them support.

PPI

High

SD-862

Advisor Profile - Profile Health

MGAs and carriers can refer to the health status of an advisor's or corporation's profile to identify potential issues. However, the system does not clearly indicate what is causing these issues.

It will facilitate and speed up profile screening.

IDC

High

SD-1332

Advisor Profile - Banking Information - Other

Advisors and corporations can update their banking information on their profile. The change will also be applied to the related contracts. However, carriers or MGAs do not have the ability to view the history of the banking changes on the contract or the profile.

Ability for carrier to view all banking history including copy of the void cheque:

time saves in not having to print and keep a record else where for this information.

These records are needed in case of queries that may arise for past payment from the agent or for legal issues.

For audit purposes

Returned from bank (i.e incorrect banking on our records)

Industrial Alliance

High

SD-29464

Advisor Profile - Banking Information - Other

When advisors make a change to their banking information, the system will also update the affected contracts. However, the system will not update legacy contracts that have been imported from In-Trust invitations.

Currently the system doesn't allow for the advisor to update their banking when they only have legacy contracts. If there isn't a banking requirement fulfilled when he/she updates their banking, there is no notification/task sent to the MGA that this change was made. We need to be able to assist the advisor in this circumstance.

Bridgeforce Financial Group Inc.

High

SD-25152

Advisor Profile - Banking Information - Other

When advisors make a change to their banking information, the system will also update the affected contracts. However, the system will not update legacy contracts that have been imported from In-Trust invitations.

MGAs do not ask their advisors to attach a banking info to the contracts. So if they update their banking information, the legacy carriers are not informed of this change since it will not be captured in any of their triggers.

PPI

High

SD-6568

Advisor Profile - Licence - Other

Advisors are required to provide a copy of their license for some carriers that are not yet registered on APEXA, regardless of the province's requirement.
On APEXA, there are some provinces where it is not possible to upload a PDF of the licence.

Given there are so many carriers not on APEXA, our MGA still requires the document for our records.

Not having the document in APEXA requires us to spend extra time to obtain it from the councils website.

Having it in APEXA saves time, which is the whole idea of APEXA, a one stop shop!

Barrington Wealth Partners Inc.

Medium

SD-30112

Advisor Profile - E&O - Other

In Quebec, Errors & Omissions Insurance is also known as Liability Insurance. In APEXA, it's the "Assurance E&O" label that's displayed, but some advisors don't understand this translation.

Time saved, fewer questions from advisors, better understanding and adherence to the platform when they understand what they are filling in on their first interaction in APEXA.

Industrial Alliance

Medium

SD-5299

Advisor Profile - Credit Check - Other

Credit utilization is part of the advisor's credit information that can be viewed on their profile. It is calculated based on the total balance and the credit limit.
However, there is no indication of the total balance and the credit limit for credit utilization updated via the weekly triggers. The total balance and credit limit is only provided when a full credit check is requested.

Allows the partners to get a better sense of the financial situation of an advisor

Sun Life

Medium

SD-18401

Advisor Profile - Licence - Other

On APEXA, advisors and corporations must add a license to their profile, unless they require a sponsorship. It will also be mandatory that the province of the license matches the user's residential address.
However, some provinces allow non-residents to operate, as long as they have a mailing address in that province.

It will enable advisor to contract if their current licence is not a resident licence.

IDC

Medium

SD-29072

Advisor Profile - Address

Some of our financial centres mentioned the fact that an issue with the addresses in the profile should not prevent the contract to be sent to primary parties. We had a few contracting processes that took longer than supposed just because the advisor didn’t put a 5-year history of addresses. A notification letting the advisor know that he must correct his addresses should be enough. The contract could go through, so we don’t lose time, and could start the assessment of the advisor’s profile.

The advisor could have a message telling him the address section has to be corrected, but DFS could at least be able to start the contracting process.

Desjardins Sécurité financière / Desjardins Financial Security

Medium

SD-2050

Advisor Profile - E&O - Validation Issues

Advisors and corporations are required to enter the "per claim" and "aggregate" amounts of their E&O coverage to ensure that they meet provincial requirements.
Although these fields are mandatory, the system defaults to zero, resulting in the user forgetting to enter the information. As a result, the E&O coverage is invalid, and the user must change it in order to complete registration.

Better user experience.
This will facilitate the registration process.

Sun Life

Medium

SD-3148

Advisor Profile - Attestation/Profile Snapshot

The profile snapshot document needs a more accurate translation in French, as the current translation 'Profil instantané' does not mean much to French users.

Makes the name of the document more descriptive to french users that don't know it's a profile snapshot.

Sun Life

Medium

SD-24774

Advisor Profile - Attestation/Profile Snapshot

Advisors must complete the Advisor Screening Questionnaire ASQ provided by CHLIA on an annual basis. They do this by logging into their APEXA profile and completing all of the requirements.
However, they must answer all of the questions and add the documents all over again, as the current values are not available.

Less complaints from advisors and partners.

Desjardins Sécurité financière / Desjardins Financial Security

Medium

SD-14999

Advisor Profile - Dashboard

As part of the Enhancements 2021, the Advisor Profile dashboard was meant to be upgraded with a more user-friendly design. But it has been removed from the scope due to limited resources.

Better user experience.
Advisors should require less assistance to perform actions on the system.

Medium

SD-8891

Advisor Profile - Banking Information - Other

Some advisors do not need to provide a Void Check because they are paid by the firm or AGA they are working with.
But this business case is not facilitated by APEXA, as advisors have no option in the system to report that they are paid by another entity.

Right now, the AGAs are concerned that the advisors are inputting their own banking info and they want to be sure they cannot.

IDC

Medium

SD-11851

Advisor Profile - Banking Information - Other

When the bottom party makes changes to their banking information, the system prompts the user to select the contracts they want to update with the new information. But the application ID of the contract is the only information available to choose, which doesn't mean much to the advisor.

Advisors do not know what this is, contract code and carrier name would be extremely beneficial for ease and less confusion.

Barrington Wealth Partners Inc.

Medium

SD-18979

Advisor Profile - Address

In general, systems display warning messages to alert the user that information is required. However, some APEXA screens will display this message even though the user has entered the information. To clear the message, the user must click on the "Save" button. - Example: Address menu

This will help advisors navigate better in APEXA

PPI

Medium

SD-3519

Advisor Profile - Attestation/Profile Snapshot

As part of the advisor screening process, partners can view the documents attached to the ASQ questions on the advisor profiles. However, partners still need to review the PDF document, as the system does not display answers and notes of questions where no documents have been uploaded.

This would make it easier to screen what was changed, as it would highlight the questions we are currently looking at when looking through the PDF attachment. Rather than only the questions that they choose to upload an attachment (as this is not forced).

Sun Life

Medium

SD-910

Advisor Profile - Notification

To have a profile on APEXA, advisors must provide an email address to get invited and then register. However, they do not have the option to add another email address, in case they do not want to use the same email address for all of their contracts.

Comment from Nov 1st 2017 Ops meeting: This will become a more significant requirement as we grow. If advisors contract with multiple MGAs, Manulife requires advisors to hold certain entity domains in their email vs. their own personal email in some scenarios. The advisors need the ability to select what email is unique to which contract 

Medium

SD-1109

Advisor Profile - Licence - Other

Partner organizations can view all advisor or corporate licence records on the APEXA profile. However, license records are displayed in the order in which they were created, making it difficult to identify licences of all types for a given province.

This will facilitate profile screening since multiple records are required for some provinces, such as AB & MB.

Canada Life

Medium

SD-960

Advisor Profile - Address

Advisors and corporations must provide their business and residential addresses on APEXA. But the user can make mistakes. The system does not verify the address entered with a public provider such as Canada Post.

More accurate information provided in the contract.

Comments from Nov 1 2017 Ops meeting: System integration with Canada Post would validate addresses on entry, but allow to advisors to overwrite if necessary

Medium

SD-1974

Advisor Profile - Credit Check - Other

The advisor's credit report may include several credit sections, such as rate changes. To view the details on the APEXA screen, it is necessary to click on the expand button |=| available on the row. However, the screen is missing an option to expand all lines at once when there are multiple rows to review.

This will create a more efficient process for the compliance teams when reviewing credit details

HUB

Medium

SD-29901

Advisor Profile - E&O - Provider

E&O coverage can be issued in either English or French, depending on the province and the provider. In APEXA, the advisor or company can add E&O coverage in either English or French. However, the drop-down list of E&O suppliers on the screen is always in English. French speakers are not able to identify the supplier easily.

Fewer errors, fewer calls to APEXA technical support, no second permit/E&O registration to do, etc.

Industrial Alliance

Medium

SD-514

Advisor Profile - Other

Advisors and corporations can add all of their phone numbers to their APEXA profile. But there is no indication for MGAs and carriers as to which phone number is primary or preferred.

Advisors could have different phone numbers which are applicable to different contracts. Would be beneficial to know which number applies

Canada Life

Medium

SD-22941

Advisor Profile - Notification

Advisors and corporations will get a notification from APEXA if their license expires in 27, 6 or 1 day. However, the notification email does not contain any guidance as to what they should do about it.

It's clearer for advisors as to what they need to do. They might think that this is just a reminder and nothing is expected of them.

PPI

Medium

SD-24692

Advisor Profile - Notification

To have a profile on APEXA, users must provide an email address to get invited and to register. However, the user does not have the option of adding another email address in case they wish to receive notifications separately.

This will help the APEXA-WS feeds because some advisors prefer to use a different email for communication and registration purposes.

It will prevent us from having to remove the APEXA-WS connection from the advisor record in order for the feed to not update WealthServ.

PPI

Medium

SD-9666

Advisor Profile - Banking Information - Validation

If the Void Check or Direct Deposit form does not match the name on the profile, APEXA's validation team will still accept the document, and will indicate that the name on the profile does not match the name on the voided check. Partners can see this information using the related filter in the "Search/Banking Information" menu.
However, this information is not visible elsewhere in the system. Also, back-office systems cannot get updated because this flag is missing in the CITS API feed.

Currently, it does not show, and you have to run a search to see this (or open the void check and verify manually).
Eventually we can add banking updates to our feed that updates our home systems, and it would be able to validate if the name on the void check matches the profile (or name on our system) and if yes, make the update into our system.

Sun Life

Medium

SD-9350

Advisor Profile - Licence - Other

Some advisors are covered by the licence of their corporation. Therefore, the corporation should be operating the business, and the contract should reflect that. It is not just a requirement in QC, but also in AB, SK, BC, MB and NB.

Although the advisor's licence is validated by the APEXA team, there is no indication on the licence record when he/she is covered by the corporation. So, partners are not able to know which firm holds the licence.

We would need to do validations of this information against what we have in our system in order to reject a license update etc

Sun Life

Medium

SD-1590

Advisor Profile - Other

As part of the registration process, advisors and corporations are asked to add at least one of their phone numbers to their APEXA profile. However, it is not mandatory to provide the business or residential phone number, which are required for the contract.

Manulife requires a business phone number in order to complete contracting.

Manulife

Medium

SD-3354

Advisor Profile - Other

As part of the registration process, advisors and corporations are asked to add at least one of their phone numbers to their APEXA profile. However, it is not mandatory to provide the business or residential phone number, which are required for the contract.

I have an example of the advisor indicating only a fax number, so we have to go back to ask them to update their profile.

Sun Life

Medium

SD-28775

Advisor Profile - Attestation/Profile Snapshot

When an advisor changes information in his profile, a new ProfileSnapshot.pdf file is generated in his profile.
But the insurer or GA is unable to identify the information that has been changed, as there is no indication in the file.

Time-saving, efficiency, user happiness, etc.

Industrial Alliance

Medium

SD-1767

Advisor Profile - CE Credits

Advisors can add their continuing education credits (i.e. CE credits) on their profile. However, the system does not allow decimal values to be added to the Hours field. Example: 3.5 hours.

It will allow advisors providing more accurate information about their CE credits

IDC

Low

SD-19305

Advisor Profile - CE Credits

Advisors can add their Continuing Education - CE Credits on their profile. But neither the carrier and the MGA can view this information.

To allow the hierarchy chain to see this information would be beneficial knowing that the advisors are keeping up with their compliance requirements of obtaining Credits.

Enhancing the ability to divide into license years and have the #'s tally would be helpful to advisors as I for one, am constantly adding up each line to see if i am close to my 30 credits. Just make it easier for advisors that way.

IDC

Low

SD-24918

Advisor Profile - Address

Corporations and advisors must provide their residential and business addresses on APEXA. But the user does not have the option to provide any additional information about the location, other than the street number and name.

Helps all Partners with the correct address for the advisor and MGA office addresses.

Bridgeforce Financial Group Inc.

Low

SD-12793

Advisor Profile - CE Credits

For some provinces, such as Alberta, the Canadian Insurance Participant Registry (CIPR) number is mandatory information to obtain the CE credits. However, this field is currently optional on APEXA regardless of the province's requirements.

There are quite a few fields in APEXA that are not mandatory and since CIPR is mandatory for Alberta advisors it would make the completion of the CIPR # on their profile more clear as to who should be adding this information.

Any advisor in Ontario that has taken the LLQP licensing program was also required to register for a CIPR # but not all advisors in Ontario have one.

This enhancement would just make it clear for the AB advisors they must enter this info as it does help us in other ways as well, behind the scenes. :)

IDC

Low

SD-12286

Advisor Profile - Attestation/Profile Snapshot

Advisors must complete the Advisor Screening Questionnaire ASQ provided by CHLIA on an annual basis. They do this by logging into their APEXA profile and completing all of the requirements.
However, they must answer all of the questions and add the documents all over again, as the current values are not available.

Every time an advisor updates his compliance questions they have to retype the answers to any question they had previously answered yes to and re attach supporting documents.

This can become redundant, if the advisor had previously provided this document. There should be a drop down menu so the advisor can easily pick a previously added document/answer or upload new document.

This is to streamline the process of answering these question; saves time and less frustration on having to provide the same documents over and over again. Falls in line with the whole concept of making the contracting process my efficient

Barrington Wealth Partners Inc.

None

SD-46693

Advisor Profile - Attestation/Profile Snapshot

Currently on APEXA, we do not have a search option to search for advisor that have completed their attestation.
The client has requested for this option to be added in search so they can use it to create triggers

We do an annual review on all advisors at time of attestation. Right now we cannot run any reporting on advisors that have completed their attestation. We do have a trigger set up for completed within 1 day however, that seems to miss people.

Barrington Wealth Partners Inc.None

SD-32402

Advisor Profile - Address

To register with APEXA, advisors must provide their residential addresses for the last five years. This is mandatory to be able to sign contracts with insurers. However, advisors make a lot of data entry errors when there are several addresses to fill in.

Better time management, focus on value-added activities. It's completely useless, time-consuming information.

Industrial Alliance

None

SD-32531

Advisor Profile - E&O - Other

Partners can view the Errors & Omissions and License history on the advisor/corporate's APEXA profile. The system displays the oldest record first, from top to bottom, which is not convenient to view for profiles with multiple records.

This will be more useful when there is more history on the file.

Bridgeforce Financial Group Inc.

None

SD-32436

Advisor Profile - Licence - Other

To facilitate contracting for advisors that have BC licence that is A&S Only

This enhancement will enable us to do contracting on APEXA with advisors that have A&S only licence in BC province.

CRIUS FINANCIAL SERVICES CORPORATION

None

SD-32068

Advisor Profile - CE Credits

Advisors can add their continuing education credits (i.e. CE credits) on their profile. However, the system does not allow values above 20 to be added to the Credits field. Example: 21 credits and above.

Business value:
We are encouraging advisors to use all aspects of their APEXA profile. Many are using the CE Credits option and making this change will improve efficiency and less frustration for advisors. (entering 1x vs 3x).

IDC

None

SD-30414

Advisor Profile - Other

Advisors and corporations can add one or more documents to their profile. But the system does not allow for dragging and dropping the document onto the screen, as it is necessary to locate and get the document from the file location.

Drag and drop is more time efficient process overall. This adds to the onboarding and overall experience in APEXA for all users. Less clicks the better. Thank you

IDC

None

SD-33621

Advisor Profile - Background Check - Other

In APEXA, advisors must complete their criminal background checks when a new AG or AGA sends a contract for signature. However, the advisor is able to sign the contract and send it to the insurer, even if the background check has not been completed. The insurer cannot approve the contract.

We have a lot of new advisor selection files that remain on hold for a really long time, because the representative has not completed his "MyBackCheck".

None

SD-35027

Advisor Profile - Other

Advisors and companies must add at least one telephone number to their APEXA profile. However, the system does not offer the option of adding the "Cellular" type.

This would make it possible to clearly distinguish the type of numbers

None

SD-40425

Advisor Profile - Attestation/Profile Snapshot

Advisors must complete the Advisor Screening Questionnaire ASQ provided by CHLIA on an annual basis. They do this by logging into their APEXA profile and completing all of the requirements.
However, they must answer all of the questions and add the documents all over again, as the current values are not available.

Better User Experience

PPI

None

SD-40441

Advisor Profile - E&O - Validation Issues

Advisors and corporations must upload their new E&O certificates to APEXA when they expire.
If both the advisor's name and the corporation's name are listed on the certificate, the APEXA team will accept the document for both profiles. However, the user is still required to log into both profiles on APEXA to upload the certificate. The system needs a feature to better handle this business case.

Better User Experience

PPI

None

SD-40443

Advisor Profile - Licence - Validation Issues