How to Verify a Licence
Anyone who advises you on insurance in Canada must hold a licence in the province where you live. It is a public record, it takes about a minute to check, and you should check it for me as readily as for anyone else.
Why this page exists on its own
These links used to sit at the bottom of every page on this site. They were moved here because a register link belongs where someone has decided to go looking, not repeated beside every paragraph of an argument. The intention was to be open. The effect was to interrupt.
Nothing has been removed from what you can check. The list below is longer than the one it replaces, because it covers all six provinces rather than three.
What to look for
Three things, in this order.
That the licence exists and is current. A register will show whether a person or firm is authorised to act today. A lapsed or suspended licence shows as such.
What class it covers. Life insurance is a separate authorisation from accident and sickness, from mutual funds, and from securities. A person licensed for one is not thereby licensed for another, and the register says which.
The province. Insurance is regulated provincially and the licence follows where you live, not where the advisor sits. A person licensed only in Ontario cannot advise you once you are resident in Alberta. That is your exposure rather than theirs, so it is worth confirming.
The registers, by province
Six provinces are listed because that is where I hold a licence. The first three link directly to the register. The last three link to a search for the regulator, because I would rather send you to find the current page yourself than paste a link I have not verified today.
Titles, and what they are worth
In Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick certain titles are protected by statute, which means a person may not use them without an approved credential. In Ontario the Financial Professionals Title Protection Act restricts Financial Planner and Financial Advisor, and a life insurance licence alone qualifies for neither. In Quebec, planificateur financier has been protected since 1998.
British Columbia, Alberta and Manitoba have no equivalent statute. A title carries less information there, which makes the register check matter more rather than less.
Two questions the register will not answer
A licence establishes that a person may lawfully advise you. It does not establish that they should, and it says nothing about how they are paid.
So ask two things directly. How are you compensated on this? I am paid a commission when a contract is placed, which is the ordinary arrangement in this industry and is a conflict of interest whether or not anyone calls it one. What does a refusal look like? A practitioner who cannot describe a situation in which they would advise you against a product is not assessing your circumstances.
Searching independently
Two of those searches return results that argue against the strategy on this site. They are here deliberately. A verification page that only offers flattering searches is not a verification page.