The Office of the Superintendent of Insurance’s involvement in a complaint is limited to our authority under insurance legislation. This limitation does not provide us with the authority to settle civil matters where determining liability (e.g. who is at fault) or restitution (e.g. award damages) is the issue.

The Office of the Superintendent of Insurance strives to help consumers in resolving their issues by providing assistance or direction if possible.

It is recommended clients follow these steps;

1. First go through all avenues available through their insurance company, supervisor and the complaints division of your insurance company.
2. If these conversations result in no progress, our office suggests that you could then contact the Office of the Ombudsman for your Insurance Company to see if they could offer any assistance or direction related to this matter. You can typically find the industry ombudsman’s contact information on your insurance company’s website.
3. If you are still unsatisfied with the outcome of the above office, another suggestion would be that you could contact The General Insurance OmbudService which is also a service that provides a dispute resolution service that deals with consumer complaints relating to insurance matters.General Insurance OmbudService – GIO (giocanada.org)

If you have exhausted all avenues above, and you are still not satisfied with the outcome, you could file a complaint with the Office of the Superintendent of Insurance. A complaint must be sent in writing, it is required for the office to have written documentation to have a record of the complaint.

Once a complaint is filed, you have consented to share the complaint with the other parties involved and the Office will contact the other parties for their response to the complaint. Again, the Office is limited to our authority under insurance legislation which does not provide us with the authority to settle civil matters where determining liability or restitution is the issue.

The following is required when filing a complaint:

1. Your contact information
2. An account of the issue including everything which has been done up to the point of submitting your complaint, who you have spoken with, and their contact information
3. A copy of all relevant documentation – policy (including terms and conditions), letters received from the insurance company, emails, etc.

If a complaint is being sent in on behalf of someone else, the complainant must write and sign a Consent of Authority giving the representative permission to speak on their behalf along with their contact information so consent can be confirmed. If consent is not given, the Office will deem the complaint retracted. The Consent of Authority form is available here.

Complaints can be emailed directly to Government Services at consumeraffairsaccount@gov.nl.ca or faxed Attention: Complaints at 709-729-6998. You can contact our office directly at 709-729-0959.

Review and response to a complaint depends on the complexity of the issue and response from all parties involved. The Office of the Superintendent of Insurance will send out a final position letter outlining the outcome of your complaint.

Please note: there are instances due to the nature of a complaint, the complaint can be forwarded to the Investigation Division. If this occurs, the complainant will be notified, and the Investigation Division will contact you if required. It is the policy of the investigation division not to divulge there is an active investigation nor divulge information regarding the investigation to the public.