RIBO CEO Patrick Ballantyne retiring; talks self-regulation, M&A and optionality

Patrick Ballantyne, CEO of Registered Insurance Brokers of Ontario, announced he is retiring effective June 30, 2025. The news was first shared during RIBO’s annual general meeting in November.  

Ballantyne, whose tenure at RIBO spans more than 20 years — 10 of which he spent as CEO — helmed the organization through many notable transformations. Chief among them, he says, was digitizing RIBO’s operations. 

Like many in the industry, that was spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Whereas the organization’s office once resembled “the back office of a Grand & Toy,” dominated by stacks of paper license applications, renewal forms, and manual processes, as Ballantyne recalls, the organization is now managed digitally. The regulator also now conducts its licensee exams entirely online.  

“We’re at the point now where I have a hard time imagining going back to a paper-based exam. It’s actually working so well,” says Ballantyne. 

Under his leadership, RIBO has also transformed its Spot Check program, a quality assurance program that reviews the financial status of a randomly-chosen brokerage through a risk-based approach. 

He’s also helped modernize how RIBO’s council is governed.  

For example, under his tenure, the regulator has moved toward a more “intentionally-crafted” nomination process, which “works to identify candidates to serve on council that bring a specific skill set or that have demonstrated capabilities.” Ballantyne says.  

“That was the first time we’ve transitioned to something like this in the 43-year history of RIBO,” he says. “So that was pretty significant, and we successfully transitioned to that just last year.” 

Ballantyne also advocated for the licensing and oversight of managing general agents (MGAs) in Ontario.  

“These efforts, among others, have aimed to bolster RIBO’s public protection mandate and streamlined operations to better serve stakeholders,” RIBO says of Ballantyne, in its announcement of his retirement.  

As a self-regulatory organization (SRO), Ballantyne says Ontario brokers have a unique power to set their own standards. But “regardless of the profession, if you’re working within an SRO, you need to ensure that you are always…acting in the public interest,” he says. 

SROs are often maligned because of a perceived conflict of interest in professionals policing their own.

But Ballantyne is proud of what RIBO has done to protect members of the public.

“I’ve been very proud of how the councils have conducted themselves over the years; always with an eye to what is in the best interest of the consumer,” he says. “For example, they’re able to bring the practical day-to-day [experience] of being a broker [to regulatory deliberations], so that when we’re developing policies and developing guidance, it is always informed by how practical it might be to implement for brokerage. But it is always done with a view toward how the consumer [is] best-protected.” 

What’s new and challenging brokerages

It’s not just RIBO that’s changed over the years; Ballantyne has witnessed the transformation of the broker channel as well. For example, brokerages have become more digital, and have consolidated through increased mergers and acquisitions. 

“When I joined RIBO, there was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 or 1,600 brokerages,” Ballantyne observes. “Now it’s down to roughly 800 brokerages.” 

Although the number of brokerages has shrunk, the number of individual licensees has grown. RIBO currently has more than 21,000 individual broker licensees.  

“The business, I think, continues to grow, and seems to be an attractive industry for new folks to join,” Ballantyne says. 

Despite these changes, “the actual practice of brokering hasn’t changed much,” he adds. “Brokers are still expected to understand their clients’ needs.” 

One looming challenge, Ballantyne notes, is that insurance products are becoming increasingly more complex.  

“I’m not just talking about the cyber products, for example, which intuitively seem more complicated, but even in auto, as there there is a move toward unbundling the auto product,” says Ballantyne.  

Proposed reform by the Ontario government to no-fault auto insurance coverage will make all accident benefits coverages optional, except for medical rehabilitation and attendant care benefits.    

These changes mean consumers will need to opt-in and pay extra if they want coverage for lost wages, non-earner benefits, housekeeping expenses, caregiver expenses, educational expenses, visitor expenses, expenses for damage to personal items, death benefits and funeral benefits.  

“As the product becomes more complicated, the [brokers’ job] becomes more complicated,” says Ballantyne. “They’re really going to have to make that much more of an effort to understand the products…that are available to them and to their clients,” he says.  

“And insurers themselves are going to need to work that much harder to make sure they’re able to explain those products to their distribution network — whether it’s the brokers or the intermediaries — because consumers deserve to understand the opportunity to understand how these products will impact them, what is covered, what isn’t covered.”