I don’t know.
Insurance isn’t one of my strong suits. Having acknowledged that, I’m surprised by Insure.com CEO Bob Bland’s cavalier attitude to legitimate concerns about educational material on his company website.

This is a strange story.

Insure.com is a publicly traded company that sells various kinds of insurance online. It has a data base of a couple of thousand educational articles for consumers. Canadians are able to find quotes and insurance companies off the website.

There is one article among  just over two thousand containing false and debunked information.
Okay. That happens. 
Most of the time someone notices, expresses their concern; the company representative says thank you, evaluates the facts and makes a decision in the best interest of the company.

The twist is the CEO of the company won’t remove the article.
Objections have been raised in private correspondence since June 1st and remained private until Friday.

It is not unreasonable to ask the company to remove an erroneous article while employees evaluate research that has subsequently been provided.

That’s not happening. Instead it looks like heels are being dug in.
 
Insure.com’s CEO is not only upset objections to the article have gone public, he was right there, accusing the researchers of bashing him and his company.  He insisted privately (and now publicly) Insure.com hasn’t had time to review the article; but weeks later he has had the time to go online and leave comments attempting to disparage the people who drew this to his attention.

Why would he willfully harm the credibility of his company? 
While this revolves around politics in the US, it is certainly about individuals being misrepresented, groups of people being misrepresented, researchers being misrepresented and the decision of Insure.com’s CEO does affects Canadian companies and consumers.

Here is one of the articles written by a company employee Joe White: Gay men die 20 years younger. It’s based on another article he wrote for Insure.com Top five ways to kill yourself and get away with it.  With 2087 articles to go through I can’t find the second one.  But researchers have.

You can look at their information at their site, along with the comments left by Insure.com’s CEO.

I’m seeing two problems. 
The Insure.com writer references a Canadian doctor’s dated study from Vancouver and edits the material with his own slant. This has been done before to the point the Canadian authors* of the original study went out of their way to ask activists to stop using their research for purposes other than what and when it was written for.
 
Secondly, Joe White uses the research of Paul Cameron.
Cameron has been kicked out** of every professional organization possible:  The American Psychological Association, The American Sociological Association and The Canadian Psychological Association. Cameron’s work has been so thoroughly discredited, it’s difficult to believe that any company would use his work unless they had political and personal reasons.

Insure.com is now well aware of Paul Cameron’s reputation (if they weren’t before) - again you can see the response of Insure.com CEO Bob Bland at Box Turtle Bulletin. 

Insurance in Canada is regulated by The Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators
Insurance companies are subject to provincial regulations. While Canadian and UK consumers can object to content on a US site, I suspect it’s out of reach of industry concerns.

While I find the insurance business complicated, I don’t think as a consumer this is complicated at all.
People are busy, we can’t all be researchers and activists. When information like this comes to our attention we can take a few minutes, evaluate it and express our concern.

I’m not sure who to notify in Canada, but someone who reads this blog would know.
The Canadian Council of Better Business Bureaus currently rate Insure.com as satisfactory. I suspect the pattern of complaints will go up and that rating will change. I wasn’t able to file a online complaint out of Canada.

I renewed my insurance this month. When the policy came in, I looked at it, noted something I didn’t want and need and set it on my desk with the intent to call my broker. I didn’t have to. Someone from the brokers office called me. We had it cleared up in minutes and two days later the revised paperwork was in the mailbox. They went out of their way to value me as their customer. That is a win/win for everyone, and when renewal time comes around next year, I won’t need to shop around.

Insure.com directs Canadian inquires to: Kanetix
They have an online contact form.

I’ll stay on top of this, partly out of curiousity, partly because I’m genuinely boggled the CEO has taken his position.
When he decides to follow his company Code of Ethics this post will be updated.

* Original 1997 study: Modelling the impact of HIV Disease on Mortality in Gay and Bisexual men, Robert S. Hogg, International Journal of Epidemiology (.pdf)
**Paul Cameron Bio and fact sheet
  
Paul Cameron has no problem twisting other Canadian data