2020-01-01

Circular No. 5 of 2020: Prohibition on Insurer Employees Acting as Sub-Agents

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has issued a directive prohibiting all full-time and part-time insurer employees from applying for and acting as sub-agents. This restriction mitigates potential conflicts of interest and ensures fair policyholder treatment by preventing dual-role representatives from prioritizing their employer insurer. By enforcing this prohibition, the FSA levels the competitive landscape between employed sub-agents and independent agents under the Insurance Act, 2008.

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Circular No. 5 of 2020  Date: 25th May, 2020  Prohibition on employees of insurers to act as sub‐agents  The Financial Services Authority (“FSA”) would like to draw the attention of all its licensees under the  Insurance Act, 2008 (“the Act”), pertaining to various requests made by several insurance companies  regarding the eligibility of part‐time or full time employees within their organization to act as a sub‐ agents of the insurer.   As part of the FSA’s objective of ensuring the fair treatment of policyholders under the Section 3(1)(c)  of the Act and in consideration of the importance of mitigating potential conflict of interests in line  with ICP 19 issued by the International Association of Insurers Supervisors, the FSA, as the insurance  authority for insurance business, is of the view that by allowing for such practice, the risks of potential  conflict  of  interest  could  arise  and  create  unfair  competition  between  sub‐agents  employed  by  insurance companies and independent sub‐agents as the sub‐agent would be interacting with both  the policyholder and the insurer.  The FSA therefore hereby prohibits any employee (part time or full time) of an insurer to apply and act  as a sub‐agent of an insurer.    Financial Services Authority