Life accident and sickness insurance agent, Randal Thomas Brett Haw will pay a fine of $2,000, plus investigation costs of $1,337.50 and must complete the Insurance Council of British Columbia’s Council Rules Course.
Haw received these penalties after admitting that he forged two client signatures on application documents, obtained copies of the clients’ signatures from a home insurance application, and completed life insurance application questions over the phone for two clients when only one was present on the call, before withdrawing the clients’ life insurance applications without their consent.
In April 2019, Haw completed two individual life insurance applications over the telephone for one client, the complainant, who answered all questions on both applications for herself and her partner.
Late in April 2019, the client then questioned Haw after noticing that both applications were signed even though neither she nor her partner had signed them. In early May, Haw explained that he had obtained copies of their signatures from their home insurance policy which had been placed through his agency’s general insurance services. Later Haw told council investigators that he did so by asking an employee at another agency location to retrieve the information for him. Haw says he thought this was permissible because he was accessing the file of existing agency clients. “He also added that he was incredibly distracted by his personal situation at the time,” and that he had been working long hours.
Haw also told investigators that a senior life insurance broker had told him that the advisor in a Non-Face-to-Face (NFTF) sale signs on behalf of the client since the electronic application cannot be completed without a signature. Based on that information and on other insurer’s NFTF sales procedures, Haw says he assumed that the insurer he was dealing with followed a similar process. As soon as he found out he was wrong about the process, he advised the insurer to cancel the applications because the resulting policies could be voidable. He did not provide the insurer with an explanation.
“Although the licensee’s conduct did not rise to the level of deliberate fraud for his own personal benefit, he still forged clients’ signatures when, by his own albeit erroneous understanding of the procedures, he could have written an X which, he acknowledged would have drawn the insurer’s attention,” the insurance council writes in its intended decision. “His intent was for convenience or, in other words, so the applications would just go through unquestioned.”
“Council agreed that the licensee’s misconduct was not malicious or meant for personal gain, and accepted that he is extremely remorseful and embarrassed. However the licensee is an experienced life agent and his agency’s life nominee,” they add. “He ought to have known that it is not acceptable to forge clients’ signatures, access their private information, take application information from someone other than the client, or withdraw applications without the client’s consent.”
