Ontario’s financial services regulator has announced new rules that would improve protections for life insurance customers buying segregated funds.
Following the Minister of Finance’s approval of the Amended Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices (UDAP) rule, new sales of seg fund contracts with deferred sales charges (DSCs) will be eliminated starting on June 1, according to the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA).
“Consumers deserve to have access to their own investments,” Huston Loke, executive vice president, Market Conduct at FSRA, said in a statement. “When people have to pay to withdraw their own money from segregated funds, they feel they are being cheated. We’ve now banned these charges on new sales to better protect consumers.”