The Alberta Insurance Council has issued a decision against former agent Sekib Sadic for failing to have active errors and omissions (E&O) insurance while actively licensed. In the decision, the council opted against levying civil penalties.
The agent, licensed periodically from March 2020 to June 2022 when his certificates of authority expired, contacted the council in June 2022 asking how to renew his license without paying for E&O coverage.
Sadic wrote that he had been working at another job which did not require him to be licensed. Because of that, he canceled his E&O insurance, believing he had no need for it. When asking to renew his licenses “just in case,” he asked how to apply without having a valid insurance policy in place. The agent believed he could purchase the coverage when he resumed his employment in the industry.
Following his June 2022 query, the council’s investigators emailed a formal request for information in July 2022 ordering Sadic to demonstrate that he had coverage from June 2021 to June 2022 or provide an explanation as to why he did not have the coverage in place. Sadic indicated that he stopped his insurance coverage during that time frame as he was not acting as an insurance representative.
Despite the fact every license holder is required to maintain the financial guarantee under the province’s Insurance Act, the council took Sadic’s honesty and transparency into account along with the fact that he self-reported his lack of active coverage, and ordered that a civil penalty not be levied against the agent.
