The Insurance Council of British Columbia has fined Lung Hwa (Andy) Tan, his manager, Troy John Wotherspoon and Troy Wotherspoon Insurance Services Ltd., after Tan botched a storage unit application for two clients, and Wotherspoon withheld information from those clients while trying to rectify the error.
According to the intended decision, Tan has been licensed with council since 2007, while Wotherspoon has been licensed since 1987. In late March 2018 two clients submitted an application for a storage insurance policy. After receiving a quote from the insurer, the clients provided Tan with their credit card information and instructions to move forward with the policy. April 1, Tan put the application on the desk of a colleague, with a sticky not placed on top of it that contained the client’s credit card information for payment, along with a handwritten request to bind the quote and process the payment. Tan did not speak with his colleague and did not follow up. He also failed to enter the information into his new business sheet.
About a month after applying, the clients wanted to file a claim in regards to a theft of their property from the storage facility. It was then discovered that the application was still on his colleagues’ desk.
Although Wotherspoon began holding discussions with the insurer in an effort to see if they would accommodate binding the policy, and although he ultimately convinced the homeowner’s policy insurer to reinstate and backdate the client’s homeowner’s policy to cover the theft, council concluded that Wotherspoon and Tan had not been appropriately forthcoming with their clients about the mistake. Wotherspoon, “was able to procure a significant sum for the complainants that they likely would not have received had the storage insurance policy been bound as intended. Nevertheless, the nominee’s actions were overshadowed by his failure to frankly communicate with the complainants as to the error that occurred,” say the decision’s authors. “The evidence suggests that the nominee avoided divulging information about the error over the course of several weeks.”
“The licensee (Tan) strayed from usual practices in his dealings with the complainants, which included a failure to properly document his business, not fully comprehending the policy he was selling, not following up on the file after leaving it with his colleague, and being incautious with credit card information,” they add. “The nominee (Wotherspoon) showed a lack of good faith towards the complainants by failing to properly disclose to them that an error on the agency’s part had resulted in their policy not being bound. Finally, council considers the agency itself to be culpable due to it having a lack of appropriate administrative procedures in place that could have prevented the error from occurring.”
Under the order, Tan and Wotherspoon must each pay fines of $1,500. The agency must pay a fine of $2,000 plus costs of $2,712.50. Tan and Wotherspoon must also complete the Council Rules Course and an errors and omissions course within 90 days or risk having their licenses suspended.
