31 May 2024
The Insurance Authority (IA) has taken disciplinary actions against two former insurance agents for using false academic certificates to establish that they met the minimum education requirements when registering with the former self-regulatory organisation.
In the first case, the former agent admitted to submitting false information to the Insurance Agents Registration Board (IARB) during the registration process on two separate occasions (in 2013 when she first registered as an insurance agent and in 2019 during her second renewal of her registration). A 36-month ban has been imposed to reflect the seriousness of the wrongdoing.
In the second case, the former agent admitted to submitting false information to the IARB during the registration process in 2016. A ban of 23 months has been imposed which takes account of the seriousness of the wrongdoing and the former agent’s admission and unconditional agreement to the disciplinary action at an early stage of the disciplinary process.
The actions of the two individuals had subjected policy holders to the risk of being advised by persons who did not have the minimum education requirements to serve as insurance agents and whose ethics had been compromised from the outset of their careers, in having deliberately submitted false academic certificates to become registered as agents in the first place. Both individuals are deserving of being prohibited from playing any part in the insurance market until such time as they are able to demonstrate such a complete reformation of character as to be trusted again, a process that must be underpinned with the acceptance and admission of the wrongdoing.
These cases emanate from the period before the IA took over the regulation of licensed insurance intermediaries on 23 September 2019 and have been handled in accordance with the relevant requirements in place at the time and the disciplinary approach followed by the IARB1.
Under the current regulation of licensed insurance intermediaries, it is a criminal offence to provide false information to the IA in connection with an application for a licence or an approval under the Insurance Ordinance (Cap. 41)2. An individual who commits such offence, if found guilty, will be liable to a fine at level 53 and to imprisonment for 6 months. The IA will have no hesitation in prosecuting any individual who seeks to submit a false academic certificate to the IA as part of the licensing process under the current regime.
The IA reminds insurers (and their intermediary management control functions) that they also have an important role to play in ensuring that, as part of their recruitment and on-boarding processes, adequate checks are carried out to verify the accuracy of the information being submitted to the IA in licensing applications made by their prospective new insurance agents. Through its inspection of insurers and ongoing conduct supervision work, the IA will continue to assess the adequacy of insurers’ controls and processes on this issue and hold them accountable for this.
For further information on the IA’s enforcement work, please see the “Enforcement News” section of the IA’s website. Public disciplinary actions against licensed insurance intermediaries may also be searched on the Register of Licensed Insurance Intermediaries on our website.
Ends
Notes:
1 Pursuant to section 113(4)(d) of Schedule 11 to the Insurance Ordinance (Cap. 41) (Ordinance), in handling non-compliance cases unresolved by the Self-Regulatory Organisations (SROs), the IA may impose a disciplinary sanction on a specified person that could have been imposed by the SRO concerned had the case been handled by the body.
2 Section 64ZZE of the Ordinance sets out the offence to provide false information in connection with application for licence or approval.
3 Pursuant to Schedule 8 to the Criminal Procedure Ordinance (Cap. 221), a fine at level 5 is HK$50,000 at present.