The Registered Insurance Brokers of Ontario (RIBO), which governs property and casualty insurance brokers in the province, has reprimanded one of its members after he lost his life agent’s license in the same province, without reporting the disciplinary action to RIBO.
First licensed with RIBO in 1993, the level 1 broker, Kuldip Sandhu was first accused of providing fraudulent continuing education (CE) certificates to the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO, the predecessor organization to the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario).
Although the panel was concerned about the seriousness of the underlying conduct, it noted in the decision and reasons that this was not an issue before the present disciplinary committee.
“If the broker were to testify he would state that he did not knowingly provide FSCO with false education certificates,” the RIBO decision states. “If the broker were to testify, he would state that he did not intend to mislead RIBO and that his failure to acknowledge the Financial Services Tribunal proceeding and its outcome was an oversight.”
At issue was the fact that Sandhu stated on his license renewal with RIBO that he was not the subject of any disciplinary action, despite having lost his life agent’s license in April 2019.
Based on a joint submission on penalty (JSP) agreed to by RIBO and Sandhu, RIBO reprimanded the broker and ordered him to complete two hours of RIBO-accredited ethics training, in addition to his annual CE obligations.
“Providing timely, accurate and complete information to a regulatory body is an essential duty of regulated professions,” the reasons for penalty in the case states. “RIBO, like other regulators, relies on the candor of information provided by its licensees for effective regulation and should not be required to review the public decisions of other regulators to identify reporting failures.”
