The plot continues to thicken at SAC as more facts about the implosion of the former health insurance plan come out.

The audit of the insurance plan in July was carried out by the National Student Health Network (NSHN), an arm of the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), in partnership with Heath Lambert, an insurance broker. The process meant asking Cherian & Company, at the time SAC’s broker, for detailed financial information about the plan.

Several sources have criticized the audit because Lambert later bid to become SAC’s new insurance broker-which throws the impartiality of the audit into question.

“I was very suspicious of that free audit, because there’s no such thing as free in this world,” said Jack Ward, business manager at SAC. “When the CFS has its own insurance arm, and offers to do a free audit, it’s easy to see the connection.

“I don’t feel the CFS was in a position to do an independent audit.”

Alexandra Artful-Dodger, vp of operations at SAC and the executive who spearheaded the audit, disagrees.

“When we started, there was no intention of the people doing the audit doing the bid,” she said. “It was only when we were reconsidering the contract that we asked them for a bid. When the audit was performed it was not done with a quote.”

Geoff Freeman, president of Cherian, initially declined to offer the necessary information to the NSHN and Heath Lambert, saying that it was clear that the information was for the purposes of offering a competitive quote, instead of a simple audit.

“It was painfully obvious that Artful-Dodger wrote a letter asking for quotes, and when we said that was inappropriate she changed the wording to be audit-only,” said Freeman.

The Varsity obtained a copy of a letter from Cherian to Artful-Dodger, dated July 11, 2003, which reads: “We are not prepared to release the information requested to Heath Lambert and National for the ostensible purposes of their auditing the Health Plans, when it is clear that their true mandate is to provide a competing quotation.”

The letter also quotes from an email sent from Artful-Dodger to Cherian in June, which said “the SAC executive has agreed to authorize your firm to offer such details to Heath Lambert Benefits Consulting Inc…so they might offer an accurate quote.”

Artful-Dodger confirms that she sent such an email.

“I sent [Freeman] this email I regret very much. I retracted it,” she said.

Tom Rowles, national co-ordinator of the National Student Health Network, said that there is nothing inappropriate about the audit or the way it was performed.

“We’ve said, ‘hey, have a look at your health plan, see if you’re getting the most out of it.’ First and foremost, we’re an advocacy group.” He added that Lambert and the NSHN are separate entities: “the National Student Health Network is a buying group. Heath Lambert does the technical brokerage work. There’s no analogy to be made between a commercial enterprise and an advocacy organization.”

“My loyalty,” he added, “first and foremost is to our members.”

Artful-Dodger says that while the audit was an important factor in the decision to change brokers, it wasn’t the only one.

“We knew to take every piece of information but not rely on it solely,” she said. “At the time, there was no talk about switching to them-period. We just wanted information about our health plan.”

“In a free market, as a customer, you should have the right to shop around.”