Hong Kong insurance regulator bans former insurance agent for fraud

The agent falsified academic records to meet the requirements to be an agent.

Hong Kong’s Insurance Authority is banning an unnamed former insurance agent who falsified two different academic certificates on two separate occasions so that she could establish that she met the minimum education requirements to be an insurance agent under the previous self-regulatory regime.

According to the IA, the case was handled in accordance with the requirements in place at the time the false academic certificates were submitted. The former agent has been prohibited from applying to be licensed for three years.

In the regulator’s report, the former agent first used a false academic certificate in October 2015 when she applied to be registered as an insurance agent of an authorized insurer with the Insurance Agents Registration Board (IARB). In December 2015, the former agent then used a different false academic certificate to apply to the IARB to be registered as an insurance agent of a different authorized insurer. Both academic certificates were purported to have been issued by schools which the former agent had never attended. The former agent used these false academic certificates, despite the fact that she had actually satisfied the minimum academic requirements to be an insurance agent (having attended a different school to those stated in the two false academic certificates she submitted).

“An individual, who displays such a lack of ethics and integrity by using false academic certificates on two separate occasions in a submission to a regulator, violates the trust on which the insurance market must be founded. Such an individual is deserving of a lengthy ban. It matters not that she satisfied the minimum academic requirements. This is an issue that goes to character and knowingly submitting false documents to a regulator twice is indicative not only of a lack of fitness and properness of character but also a material lack of understanding of the duties and ethical responsibilities of an insurance agent,” the IA said.

The IA said it continues to have zero tolerance for this and individuals who sought to utilise false academic certificates under the previous self-regulatory regime will not be considered fit and proper persons until they are able to establish that they have undergone such a complete reformation of character as to prove that their integrity has been restored.