THE WOODLANDS, Texas — F&I product and training provider American Financial & Automotive Services Inc. rolled out what it describes as a far-reaching legal compliance program. It will be offered to all 1,100 of the F&I product and training providers dealership clients following the program’s launch at the National Automobile Dealers Association’s annual convention this past weekend.

The program — being offered at potentially no cost to the company’s dealer clients — was designed to be broad in scope, encompassing the sales, F&I, administrative, and HR departments, as well as often-overlooked areas of risk on the back-end, such as adherence to HAZMAT, OSHA, DOT, and EPA regulations.

“Dealerships need to both understand their legal obligations and have a means of training their employees to meet those obligations,” said Arden Hetland, president of American Financial and Automotive Services. “This compliance program has been designed to accomplish both of those objectives. By integrating it as part of their normal business operations, we remove a major obstacle to its use.”

The new program is backed by ComplyNet Corp., a Park Ridge, Ill.-based firm that will provide both compliance content and tools. The primary legal compliance content will be created and hosted by Tampa, Fla.-based Mosaic Compliance Services, which will provide video-based legal compliance training materials, digitized employee handbooks, and authorized access to documents via a dealership-specific website.  All of these integrated compliance functions will be available to all American Financial client dealerships “free or fee,” based on an individual dealership’s level of American Financial product sales.

In addition to these services, American Financial is offering its dealers a discounted identity theft resolution program designed to support a dealership’s Red Flags Rule program and potentially create a new profit center. Dealers who want third-party compliance audits will enjoy preferred pricing from gvo3 & Associates, one of the industry’s top compliance auditing firms.

“We’re thrilled to be included in the American Financial program,” said Gil Van Over, F&I and Showroom contributor, as well as founder and president of gvo3. “Talk is cheap, but American Financial really put its money where its mouth is on this project. It’s truly historic. To my knowledge, no one has ever provided so much to so many. This really puts the American Financial value proposition on a different level from its competitors.”