A British Columbia life insurance agent is being fined $1,500 by the Insurance Council of British Columbia (ICoBC) for failing to ensure that he earned sufficient continuing education (CE) credits over a period of three years.
According to the order, Cameron Alexander Fortin, a life and accident insurance agent since 2003, contacted council to advise that he might have fallen short of his CE requirements for the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 license years. Fortin told the ICoBC that he had been under the impression that he was only required to complete five CE credits each year and had only recently realized that he was required to complete ten CE credits each year. Following the self-disclosure, an ICoBC audit found Fortin was short 20.75 credits over the course of the audited, three-year period. Fortin immediately began to make up the credits, completing 18 CE credits by the time the ICoBC’s decision was issued.
“Although council finds that the licensee breached council rules by failing to complete the minimum CE credits as required, council accepts that the licensee’s breach was unintentional and found it to be a mitigating factor that the licensee contacted council as soon as he realized his error,” say the order’s authors. “Council also considered the fact that the licensee quickly began to make up for his missing credits once he realized his breach to be an additional mitigating factor.”
According to the order, Fortin is fined $500 for each year he had insufficient CE credits, for a total of $1,500. He is also required to complete the council’s rules course, available through Advocis.
