A British Columbia advisor, Luan Charles Xing lost his license for one year and is fined $2,500 by the Insurance Council of British Columbia after he admitted to council that he mislead insurers on several occasions. The publically available, redacted hearing committee report says Xing is the nominee and only authorized representative of his unnamed agency which has been licensed with council since June 2014.

The council first began investigating Xing after receiving an investigation report which identified concerns about the advisor’s services. It found that Xing received a number of referrals from an immigration settlement service which shared the same address. “Where such referrals were made, referral fees were paid by (Xing’s) Agency. By way of example, for the year ending July 31, 2014, the Agency paid $1.6-million in referral fees” to the settlement company, say the hearing committee report’s authors.

During the course of his business, Xing on a number of occasions sold insurance policies of significant value to clients who did not have residential addresses in Canada. In one instance, the advisor provided residential addresses that were in fact the homestay addresses for the client’s daughter. In other instances, the advisor’s agency address was listed as the applicants’ residential addresses.

On many occasions, Xing also listed his business partner, an individual identified only as “H” in the hearing committee report, as a relative and payor of the respective insurance policies.

“The Hearing Committee is particularly troubled by the fact that the Licensee on a number of occasions submitted applications that referred to his business partner, H, as the payor and relative of the applicant. The repeated use of H with respect to these applications belies any argument made by the Licensee that the errors on the applications were simple administrative errors or errors made on account of information supplied by the clients,” they write. “Many of the policy premiums were paid directly by H and not the Licensee’s clients. These facts do not cause concerns only about the Licensee’s competency, but raise serious issues about his honesty and integrity.”

Ethics complaint

In addition to this order, Xing was also disciplined by council in July 2015 for failing to disclose his certified general accountant designation and subsequently failing to disclose disciplinary action by the Certified General Accountants Association of British Columbia on his 2010 license application. Xing was the subject of an ethics complaint from the Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia (CPABC) regarding his attendance at professional development courses. “In brief,” they write, “the Licensee had arranged for a person to impersonate him at two seminars he was required to attend as part of his membership registration requirements with CPABC.” Xing resigned his membership with the organization and disciplinary action was dropped by the CPABC. On that occasion, Xing was fined $2,000 and assessed council’s investigative costs.

Under the new order, dated April 23, the ICBC has suspended Xing for one year. Following suspension, Xing must also be supervised for two years by a supervisor approved by council. Xing has been fined $2,500 and must pay investigation costs of $1,487.50. In addition, Xing must also complete the Council Rules Course and Modules I and II of the course entitled Making Choices: Ethics and Responsibility and Practice, available through Advocis before July 2019.