IBAO is taking steps to become the go-to place for market intelligence data for brokers.

The Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario (IBAO) has published a new data project as part of an effort to become a centralized source of market intelligence data for Ontario brokers.

For this new project—completed in partnership with the data firm Environics Analytics—they compiled consumer data from across Ontario and produced consumer reports for 79 geographical areas within the province. These reports contain segmented demographic information, which will allow brokerages to better target their advertising and sales efforts. The reports also contain information on the types of businesses that exist within these same areas, giving brokerages valuable strategic information for their Commercial Lines business growth planning.

These reports are available for free to IBAO Members—they can find the password in IBAO’s Member Resource Library in the Consumer Data folder. A free preview of these reports is available here.

“We’re always looking for new ways to empower Ontario Brokers,” said IBAO COO Brett Boadway. “More consumer data for brokers will lead to the generation of stronger business outcomes. This supports a major goal of the IBAO, which is to ensure that our members are industry leaders.”

This project was the result of a recent mandate from IBAO’s Board of Directors to invest in data to provide insight into IBAO Members’ client base. Given its unique position with the industry, IBAO is investing is these resources with the goal of becoming a significant source of market intelligence for its Members and strategic partners.

Building upon an existing project, IBAO also just released the results of the third year of their Member Benchmark Survey—carried out in partnership with Normandin Beaudry. This survey collects operational and compensation data to allow brokerage management to compare their salaries to the aggregated data to assist in their planning and operating strategies. The data is available in a custom dashboard that allows users to filter by geography, brokerage size and brokerage type (digital or traditional). This includes compensation averages for common roles—TSRs, CSRs, Producers and Managers, each separately tracked for Personal Lines & Commercial Lines. They also collected details about hybrid work requirements.

“Leveraging data like the benchmarking survey we conduct with IBAO Members is a key foundational tool in assessing the competitiveness of an organization’s compensation programs,” said Brett.

Only brokerages who participated in this compensation study have access to the salary data. Principal Brokers of participating brokerages can access the dashboard by logging into their IBAO account and selecting the Benchmark Dashboard tab on their profile page. Brokerages that haven’t taken part in the study but would like access to the data, can contact the IBAO to participate.