F&I Compliance Tips for the Long Haul

There is nothing less exciting to talk about than compliance issues in F&I. Boring, dry....but important to address nonetheless. F&I departments have been under pressure for a few decades now to clean up their act and make sure that customers are not being duped and dealerships are doing business the right way.

The problems facing F&I departments never really seem to go away as fraud and unethical practices by personnel are always evolving. Data breaches get worse. Criminals are getting more creative. Losses can still impact the reputation of a dealer who thought they were doing everything right.

Here are a couple of tips to stay ahead of the curve and be sure that your F&I team is constantly mindful of compliance challenges-

• Take advantage of compliance programs offered by your administrator. If they offer training or additional online or offline courses to help keep their ‘fraud’ radar sharp, mandate it.
• Have F&I staff participate in self-audits of their own deal-to-deal practices. Of course, management is the last word but there is something to be said for having them take a degree of ownership to self-police their deals. Make people take a higher level of responsibility and you tend to get a better result in the long run.
• Consider an ongoing training program that can be put together with the help of your administrator. Not just a one-off but a more robust program that is always updated to address new fraud threats seen on the market. Whether it’s employees who are caught at other dealers or buyers who are trying new forms of fraud, compliance programs should always be evolving to address new issues.

It’s not about making the F&I department paranoid that fraud could be around every corner or that every manager could be susceptible to approaching their job either unethically or carelessly. It’s more about making sure systems and SOP’s are in place now to prevent issues in the future.

Click here to see how truWarranty can help support your F&I department’s next compliance program. Between up-to-date support and a full suite of online tools, your management team will be ready to ensure that all staff will be ready to identify issues right away and better protect themselves and your dealership.