Compliance is only effective when you have all people engaged.
This includes staff, authorised representatives, claim service suppliers & business partners.
Thinking about compliance in terms of rules & regs is generally not exciting & certainly not engaging. This is one of the things I learnt very early in my compliance career. Not many people really care about the intricacies of section 912A(1) or Part 3 of the GI code or part 8 of the Brokers Code – personally, I love this stuff.
Here’s a simple test.
If you can’t answer the question ‘why should I care [about compliance]’? or you think the answer is ‘because we must’, then you need to change how you position & see compliance.
The true purpose of compliance is to protect. The image below shows who we should protect & from what.
Let me explain how compliance protects.
Your compliance arrangements are the combination of your people, IT systems, manuals, policies, guidelines & processes.
Think about this another way, your compliance arrangements are the controls that you have in place to manage your financial services & industry code obligations.
These compliance arrangements provide a safe environment for your people to work within. By staying within these boundaries your compliance arrangements operate to protect your customers, business, partners & people from harm.
As we know, mistakes happen; systems, people & processes fail. This is when your people become your early warning system.
By identifying ‘something has happened that should not have happened’ at an early stage (aka an incident) your people can quickly identify when the perimeter of your compliance arrangements have been breached. This serves to minimise any harm & enables the control(s) to be quickly rectified. Thus securing the business, its customers & people.
The importance of the concept of ‘compliance protects’ has never been more evident as the insurance industry moves into the era of accountability. If something happens, under your watch, in your area of accountability there will be personal consequences – both financial & reputational.
FAR & CPS 230 are examples of where accountability is heading & casting a wide net.
This is why compliance protects. Robust compliance arrangements provide a mechanism & infrastructure to support & protect your business, your customers & you from harm & detriment.
I will be exploring the theme of ‘compliance protects’ at my Compliance workshop in Brisbane on Thursday 21st March at Lightspace, Brisbane’s unique event venue and co-working warehouse.
I will be providing you with the tools & insights to develop compliance arrangements that operate to support & protect the things that matter to you.
Registration for the workshop is now open & can be accessed via the link below.
See you in Brisbane