An agent with history among multiple regulators is being sanctioned again, this time for improperly handling client information, for allowing his unlicensed agency to advertise and hold itself out online as being able to offer insurance services, and for failing to disclose to the Insurance Council of British Columbia (ICoBC) that he was disciplined by another regulator.
Ironically, the last sanction is the result of Barzin Assadi failing to disclose that the General Insurance Council of Manitoba (GICM) had fined him $500 for in turn failing to disclose that he’d been sanctioned by the same British Columbia regulator back in 2021. (The insurance council used Assadi’s own case in 2021 as a precedent case in determining an appropriate present-day penalty.)
Licensed since 2010, the level 3 general insurance agent was reported to the British Columbia regulator by a former employer who alleged that Assadi’s new agency was offering insurance services without being licensed and that he sent client information from his work email account to his personal Gmail account upon his resignation. Of the batch of emails flagged by the former employer, only two contained client information, both for the same client. “It was submitted that the licensee would not normally have forwarded this type of email to his personal email account. The licensee had no recollection of why he had done so; his legal counsel suggested that it had likely been done inadvertently.”
The agent’s lawyer also submitted that the website in question did not contain actual testimonials from real clients. “The licensee’s legal counsel emphasized that the client testimonials on the website during its construction phase were not an indication that the agency had been conducting insurance business while unlicensed,” the intended decision in the case states.
Client confidentiality issues
The insurance council determined that the website issues, the client confidentiality issues and the failure to notify the council about Manitoba’s proceedings against him, amounted to a breach of the provinces’ code of conduct for agents which requires that licensees “must conduct all insurance activities in a competent manner.”
In September 2021, the case against Assadi, again concerning the handling of confidential client information improperly on a personal device with no protections, ended in the agent being fined $2,000 and being ordered to complete remedial coursework. The council used this as precedent when ordering Assadi to pay another $2,000 fine. He was also ordered to complete the Council Rules Course again, along with two other courses, including one on privacy, and pay investigation costs in the amount of $2,625.
“The most significant aggravating factors, in council’s opinion, is the licensee’s history of similar conduct,” they write. “He was disciplined by council in September 2021 for client confidentiality issues similar to those investigated in the present case; he was also disciplined by the GICM in June 2023 for having failed to notify them of discipline by another regulator, and in turn failed to notify council of the GICM’s discipline. Additional aggravating factors include that he was a level 3 agent with considerable experience at the time of the conduct in question, and that there is, in council’s opinion, some likelihood that the licensee may repeat the misconduct relating to client confidentiality and notification of regulators if disciplinary action is not taken.”
