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SINGAPORE: The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) issued dishonest conduct ban orders to two former insurance agents, temporarily banning them from various financial practices.
Chong Yoon Loi and Suresh Kannan were investigated for dishonest conduct related to the sale of integrated protection plans, the authority said in a press release on Wednesday (December 2).
During the term of their prohibition orders, the men will not be able to provide any financial advisory services.
They are also prohibited from managing, acting as directors, or becoming substantial shareholders in any financial advisory firm, and they are also prohibited from conducting business or participating in the management of any insurance intermediary.
POLICY HOLDERS “WILLINGLY DECEIVED”
Mr. Chong, who was from Aviva Financial Advisers (AFA), received a four-year ban.
Between May and August 2017, it sold Aviva’s integrated protection policies to three policyholders who had already purchased such policies from another insurer when they were in good health, MAS said.
Mr. Chong had “intentionally misled” two of the policyholders into believing that they could have more than one integrated protection policy, when their applications for the new policies would result in the termination of the old ones.
“This could have had serious consequences for policyholders, as the new insurance policies do not cover medical conditions that policyholders already have at the time the policies came into force,” MAS said.
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“Therefore, policyholders could have lost insurance coverage for medical conditions that they had developed since purchasing their original policies.”
Mr. Chong had also intentionally provided false information in the three insureds’ applications to Aviva and AFA, MAS added.
This was done primarily to prevent policyholders from being identified as vulnerable customers, which could have led AFA to contact them to ensure they understood the policies they were purchasing.
SIGNATURE OF THE FALSED POLICY HOLDER
Mr. Suresh, who was from The Great Eastern Life Assurance Company (GEL), received a two-year ban order.
In March 2018, Mr. Suresh had forged an insured’s signature on an application to purchase an integrated protection plan, MAS said.
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It stated in the application form that the insured did not have any pre-existing medical conditions, without consulting with the insured if this was true, the authority added.
“This conduct could have resulted in the policy being invalidated and the insured being denied insurance coverage, due to the non-disclosure of important information to the insurer,” MAS said.
