In a recent decision of the Life Insurance Council of the Alberta Insurance Council, life, accident and sickness insurance agent, Ryan Granadozin has been fined $5,000 and will have her certificates of authority revoked for one year, after a client reported that Granadozin coerced her into increasing insurance coverage beyond what was necessary for the client, and that the agent entered fraudulent or willfully inaccurate information on the application for insurance without the client’s consent.
The decision outlines Granadozin’s alleged transgressions, but also describes, by way of submission from the agent’s lawyer, a harassment and intimidation campaign waged by the client, which included threats “to destroy Granadozin by any means.”
In a letter to the Alberta Insurance Council from the agent’s former client, “F.D.”, the client alleged that the agent forced her into completing a life insurance application for a policy that she did not request or require. She claimed the agent wanted her to complete the application to gain points as an agent.
F.D. further claimed that Granadozin coerced her into applying for a loan of $10,000. In the months that followed, she says Granadozin went from being late with her payments, to not paying at all. Not long after, Granadozin filed for bankruptcy and included the debt in her filing.
F.D. also stated that she discovered that Granadozin listed herself as the beneficiary on the fraudulent policy and used her vehicle as collateral for a loan. “These are only some of the atrocities Ryan Granadozin has committed against me. She has effectively ruined my finances,” F.D. writes.
In addition to listing herself as a beneficiary, Granadozin also listed her own address on the policy.
In response, Granadozin and her lawyer state that F.D. asked to use Granadozin’s address because “using her previous address results into some lost mails.”
“I was swept up by the fact that F.D. is my best friend, so I follow all her request(s),” Granadozin wrote in a response to the regulator’s correspondence. A statement from her lawyer adds that Granadozin saw F.D. daily, F.D. would stay over at Granadozin’s home at least twice a week, and even lived with Granadozin for a time. “F.D. insisted to have Granadozin’s name as her beneficiary because at that time F.D. said she could not trust her own sister.”
The lawyer’s statement goes on to allege a campaign of threats and intimidation made by F.D., including calls to Granadozin’s family in the Philippines threatening to send Granadozin to jail or have her deported if they did not pay, a smear campaign wherein F.D. contacted a number of Granadozin’s friends and relatives to tell them that she committed financial fraud, had lost her home and had vanished. “All of the allegations were false,” they write. The lawyer also states that the accusation that Granadozin used F.D.’s vehicle as collateral for a loan is also false.
“The complaint (to the insurance council) is a piece in a long list of threats and accusations, first to collect a debt, then to cause whatever harm possible to Granadozin. Its sole purpose is to have Granadozin’s license revoked based on a collection of fabrications and lies,” the lawyer writes. “F.D.’s conduct is, in effect, extortion.”
Despite these allegations made against F.D., the insurance council finally settled on the fact that the policy F.D. applied for was not suitable.
“It is highly improbable that a client with a compromised financial situation such as F.D. (residing with friends, having limited financial means) would attract an appropriate recommendation of an insurance policy with a premium of $795.60 per month,” they write. “It is not unreasonable to expect that a high standard of due diligence is practiced by insurance agents when soliciting insurance products,” they add. “The agent, in her role as an insurance agent, is entrusted with the stewardship of F.D.’s insurance policies and owes a fiduciary obligation to act in the best interest of her client. Recommendations made to F.D. did not demonstrate a needs-based analysis.”
