17 March 2022
The Insurance Authority (“IA”) has taken disciplinary action against three individuals for using false academic certificates in seeking to establish that they satisfied the minimum education requirements when applying to be insurance agents. Two of the individuals have been prohibited from applying to be licensed for 3 years. The other (who admitted the allegation) has been prohibited from applying to be licensed for 2 years.
Individuals applying to be licensed insurance intermediaries must establish that they are fit and proper to perform the role. Being fit and proper not only requires attaining the minimum education qualifications, but also being honest, reliable and having integrity. These character traits prove that the individuals concerned can be trusted to advise and provide services to members of the public on insurance matters.
If individuals submit false academic certificates in seeking to establish their fitness and properness, not only do they fail to prove they meet the minimum education qualifications, they also perform an act so disreputable and so lacking in integrity as to be deserving of being barred from entry into the insurance market for a considerable length of time. The IA has no tolerance for such conduct. Prohibition from entry to the insurance market is justified until such time as the individual can establish to the IA’s satisfaction, that he or she has undergone a complete reformation of character and that his or her integrity has been restored (in addition to attaining the minimum education requirements).
The three cases which were the subject of these disciplinary actions were legacy matters. The applications for registration were made to the Insurance Agents Registration Board (“IARB”) under the self-regulatory regime in place prior to the IA taking on the regulation of licensed insurance intermediaries on 23 September 2019. The IA therefore had to handle the matters in accordance with the transitional arrangements in Schedule 11 of the Insurance Ordinance (Cap. 41) (the “Ordinance”), applying the relevant requirements in place at the time and following the disciplinary approach of the IARB 1 .
The new regulatory regime for licensed insurance intermediaries which came into force on 23 September 2019 has strengthened the punishment for submission of false academic certificates in the licensing process. It is now a criminal offence to provide false information to the IA in connection with an application for a licence or an approval under the Ordinance 2 . An individual who commits such offence, if found guilty, will be liable to a fine at level 5 3 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 licencing process.
Insurers also have a part to play in ensuring that, as part of their recruitment and on-boarding processes for new insurance agents, they carry out adequate checks on the accuracy of the information being submitted to the IA as part of a licensing application by their prospective new insurance agent.
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
Note:
1 Pursuant to section 113(4)(d) of Schedule 11 to the 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.