Debbie Thompson has officially started her role as the 70th president of the Insurance Brokers Association of Ontario (IBAO).
Preparing brokers to reach out to ‘Generation Y’ youth, those roughly between the ages of 12 and 22, will be a significant feature of her term as IBAO president, she indicated to Insurance Business shortly before the start of her term.
“We have a different generation, Generation Y, who are much more educated on buying products and services,” said Thompson. “They have the Internet at their fingertips. They do a lot of research before they purchase anything.
“We have to be there when they want to purchase insurance. We haven’t reached out to that generation to let them know that what they are buying from us is still a contract. They’ll need advice.”
Thompson is currently the director of business development at Beyond Insurance Brokers in Whitby, Ontario. She was officially inducted at the recent IBAO Convention held at the Royal York in Toronto in October 2012.
She started her insurance career at the Citadel Assurance and received her broker’s license while working at Gellatley Insurance in Toronto. During her insurance career, she evolved from a customer service representative to vice president of commercial lines at Sinclair Cockburn.
Her insurance broker association work included a stint as affiliate president with the Insurance Brokers of Toronto Region (IBTR) in 2002. She has worked on a variety of committees with IBAO, serving as chair of the education committee, a facilitator for the CAIB Program and as board director for Territory 10 (Toronto) in 2005. She was further elected to the executive committee of IBAO in 2010.
Most recently, as an executive member of IBAO, she sat on the consumer engagement and education committee as part of the Ontario Minister of Finance Automobile Anti- Fraud Task Force.
Thompson said she is very active in her community and supports many youth organizations, including Big Brothers Big Sisters. “I am committed to encouraging and supporting the youth in our community and believe that can be done by becoming actively involved in such local causes,” she said.
Family is also an important part of her life. “The support of my three children, Nathanial, Kya and Christian as well as my partner Richmond have brought me to where I am today,” she said.
IBAO CEO Randy Carroll hailed Thompson as “a very powerful and educated voice of the association.”
