The complainant before the Insurance Council of BC had been the girlfriend of the petitioner, who was employed as a general insurance salesperson. After a row in which the police where called the petitioner used his insurance licence to access the complainant’s personal ICBC information. There was a complaint made to to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, ICBC, and the Council ordered a four year suspension of his insurance licence (2016 BCSC 47). This request for judicial review was refused.
Witnesses called at the hearing included an ICBC analyst, the ICBC investigator, and two Insurance Council investigators. The petitioner was contacted by an ICBC investigator and gave a statement in which he said that he must have accessed the information in order to see if she had changed her address. He also claimed that he must have accessed her registration on the ICBC database to check insurance coverage.
The misconduct in this case was certainly serious. The Hearing Committee noted he wrongfully accessed the ICBC database on three occasions over a period of roughly three months; the private information he accessed on those occasions concerned a former girlfriend after the relationship had ended very badly and while a criminal charges were pending. As the Financial Services Tribunal in this case stated,
[72] In considering penalty, the Hearing Committee noted that trustworthiness is a fundamental element of the professional requirements set out in Council’s Code of Conduct. It also discussed the need for licencees to adhere to strict standards regarding personal integrity, reliability and honesty, and that it is a cornerstone of the insurance industry that when members of the public provide private information to licencees and insurers, they must be able to do so with confidence that the information will be protected. None of those propositions can be disputed, nor have been disputed by the Appellant.
Posted by personal injury lawyer Mr. Renn A. Holness, B.A. LL.B.