The Alberta Insurance Council, following an audit conducted in October 2021 which sought to verify that the continuing education (CE) credits declared on licensee’s applications were correct, has levied a range of penalties against several agents for failing to respond to the regulator’s demand for information, or for falsely declaring the completion of CE courses.
In cases where agents failed or refused to respond to the council’s demand for information, the agents in question received four emails and one phone call each, to remind them about their obligation to respond. In one decision, Aditya Deosthale did not provide any response to the demand or the regulator’s subsequent report. “In this case the agent has not responding in any meaningful way and the council believes that a significant penalty must be assesses to send a strong message, not only to the agent, but to all licensees.” The council levied a civil penalty of $1,000 in that case.
In a second case where the agent, Jason Ince responded to the demand for information only after his license was suspended, the council ordered a penalty of $750.
For agents who falsely declared that CE courses had been completed, auditees were ultimately unable to prove that the CE credits they declared had actually been completed. In at least two cases, it was pointed out that the council’s portal does not notify agents when CE credit information is duplicated or entered twice. Daljinder Kang was ordered to pay a civil penalty of $1,500, that is $750 per misleading statement. Council ordered a civil penalty of just $250 against Lisa Munro, and Rama Warnes was ordered to pay a penalty of $1,500.
“The acceptance of the CE credits in the Alberta Insurance Council system does not mitigate the agent’s responsibility to accurately input the CE information,” the council states.
