A Registered Insurance Brokers of Ontario (RIBO) discipline committee has reached an agreement with previously licensed agent, Michael Caleb Kuchinsky, after Kuchinsky personally paid for a client’s losses after failing to secure coverage for the business.
For failing to place insurance coverage and for making several personal payments to the client, the broker of more than 48 years agreed to retire in March 2022.
Although the client paid premiums the policy was ultimately not renewed. No notes in the brokerage’s file explained why the policy was not renewed and no correspondence was logged between the client and Kuchinsky until August 2021 when the client was advised that the brokerage had moved offices.
The sequence of events in the case included an invoice being generated in early December 2020 and paid by the client in late January 2021. The next day a motor vehicle hit the client’s premises. Various invoices totalling $8,786.36 were provided to Kuchinsky who in turn personally paid $7,513.11 to the client via e-transfer. According to documentation in the case, the former broker says he panicked and made the wrong decisions, for which he accepted responsibility – a mitigating factor in the case.
The brokerage returned the client’s premium with an apology and Kuchinsky agreed to retire from the brokerage and forfeit his RIBO license, effective March 2022. In the decision and reasons document in the case, RIBO notes that Kuchinsky also agreed to pay a $1,500 fine to the Minister of Finance in monthly installments of $100.
