Following a decision made by the Alberta Insurance Council’s Life Insurance Council, the regulator has levied a civil penalty of $145,000 against Vishal Parihar for initiating 29 life insurance policy applications which contained falsified client addresses, phone numbers and banking information.
Registered as a life and accident and sickness agent since October 2013 until he was terminated for cause in December 2021, Parihar’s explanations on multiple occasions were that another insurance agent provided the contact information and banking information for the applications in question. “Despite this explanation, it is the opinion of the council that the agent knowingly and intentionally provided the false information on the insurance applications for a self-serving purpose,” the decision states.
After reviewing the evidence provided, the council said the materials demonstrated that Parihar acted in a dishonest, deceitful, fraudulent and untrustworthy manner. The applications were discovered after multiple applications were submitted with the third-party agent’s office address and with phone numbers that were used across multiple applications for unrelated clients. The applications were also flagged after the insurer collected no premiums in a number of cases.
The regulator imposed the harshest penalties at its disposal in the case – ordering a civil penalty of $5,000 per demonstrated offence. All told, Parihar was ordered to pay $145,000 within 30 days. Should the penalty not be paid in time, interest will begin to accrue at the rate of 12 per cent, per annum.
