Insurance license fraud uncovered!
http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/news/business/
The next time your insurance agent offers you advice, think about this. An unholy nexus is making sure unqualified people can buy insurance licenses. CNBC-TV18’s Priyal Guliani and Khushboo Narayan bring you this uncovered special investigation.
A tiny advertisement placed in a newspaper by a unit manager of a leading private insurance company, invited candidates to apply for a job of an insurance advisor. Posing as Anita Bhatia, a Standard XII pass housewife, we went to one of the company's branches.
Agent: We take this Rs 1,000 as exam fee so that you can sit for the exam. Earlier, it was free of cost but a lot of students are not interested in the job. The company spends Rs 15,000-20,000 on each student. There is a compulsory online training of 100 hours by IRDA that you have to complete before you take the exam. Now, what we do is, we make an id and keep the internet open for 100 hours. The cost of doing this comes to Rs 4,000. We show them that the candidate has completed the training, but actually it is not so. You do it for 2-3 days or at times you just do not do it.
That is not all. A phone call that interrupted our conversation exposed a bigger face of corruption and the company executive had no qualms in admitting it.
Agent: The question paper is out. There is an exam on this Sunday.
Uncovered Agent: Ok.
Agent: So, don't worry about the exam.
Uncovered Agent: So, the paper is out already?
Agent: Yes, big companies like ours buy these question papers for Rs 3-5 lakh.
Our correspondent expressed her apprehension in clearing the exam and suggested if her sister, who is also our correspondent, could write the exam on her behalf. To our shock, the company executive agreed
Uncovered Agent: So, you will make her sit for the exam?
Agent: Yes.
Uncovered Agent: It will be done.
Agent: Yes, surely.
Our correspondent posing as a sister sat for the exam on behalf of our other correspondent and cleared it. Two weeks later, we had in our hands the license that allows us to sell insurance to any consumer in this country.
