Good-bye travel incentives!

Matt Bell

It seems the days of sales-based travel incentive conferences in Hawaii, Paris, Lisbon, South America, Las Vegas, Monte Carlo or on cruises will soon sail into the sunset.

A growing list of market leaders have announced they will end their sales-based travel incentives and other insurers are currently looking at their own incentive programs.

Great-West Life/Canada Life was the first to announce the end of their program. Now, the growing list also includes: Manulife, RBC Insurance and Desjardins Insurance who have all confirmed an end to their programs in recent weeks.

Conflict of interest

The trend started after the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association (CLHIA) released a report last month on Insurance Distribution which said sales based conferences could be perceived as a conflict of interest.

Leslie Byrnes, vice president of Distribution and Pensions at the CLHIA said while there weren’t any big problems, there was a perception in the public that it could be seen as a conflict of interest and it was time for the industry to work on the perception.

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