Terri O'Brien

At Équité Association, our cyber security strategy underpins our mission to provide best-in-class prevention and defense against insurance crimes through advanced analytics, intelligence and coordinated investigations.

When we began building our organization in 2021, our team was small and has since grown with an unwavering focus on building a single, unified, not-for-profit organization to proactively tackle insurance crime on behalf of our members. We prioritized building the foundation of what our organization would grow to become, establishing our workplace culture as an essential component of who we are, along with the products and services we offer to members.

As we embark on a new year, here at Équité Association we are poised to continue to provide our members with the best-in-class products and services they have come to depend upon, with a few new, and game changing offerings on the way. Our Fraud Analytics Team has been busy developing Canada’s first insurance fraud analytics platform, ÉQ Insights, to provide our members with more robust insights– from dashboards and visualizations to big data processing, real-time fraud analytics, and machine learning – to move the P&C insurance industry to a ‘predict and prevent’ model, and ultimately change the role of the insurer in the fight against crime.

Insurance fraud is a serious crime that impacts many people and its consequences are real. March being Fraud Month, it is a good time to discuss why we should all care. Insurance fraud is not a victimless crime – it is time we eradicate it from the Canadian economy and the insurance industry, and tip the scales back to supporting Canadians.

Équité Association had a tremendous foundational year establishing deeper connections with our members and partners, while investing in leading-edge technology and progressing on our multi-year strategy.

Recently, I was thinking about how the pandemic brought issues into focus that had each of us take stock of what is most important. For me, the pandemic underscored the value of relationships, both personal and professional. Here at Équité Association, our relationships and partnerships are the foundation of everything that we do.

At Équité Association, we are on a journey to defend against insurance crime and fraud and to reduce, significantly, its impacts on Canadians within the next decade. It is an ambitious goal and one that we do not take lightly. I believe Équité is primed to succeed and we are all passionate about our purpose.

At Équité Association, we strive to make the world a more equitable place. Relationships are more than whether people feel good about our organization because of our marketing and public relations efforts. The way we treat and retain our employees, how we work with our members and within our communities are the true priorities.

Équité Association is a not-for-profit organization focused on creating a more equitable world for Canadians. I am passionate about equity and therefore, it is not difficult to understand why leading through self-awareness and empathy is so important to me. Good leadership books provide tools needed for an innovation and growth mindset, and will help you find your community of fellow leaders. No matter your role, continued learning and growth are the traits of any great leader.

At Équité Association we play a critical role in safeguarding Canadians. By bringing together industry expertise to prevent and detect insurance crime, we are evolving how the Canadian property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry is disrupting organized crime. Together, we are creating safer and more equitable communities for all Canadians. March is Fraud Prevention Month and when talking about fraud prevention there is a lot of focus on technology capabilities like data mining, analytics and artificial intelligence, but at the heart of it all, what we really focus on is collaboration – something we do so well with our members and partners.