Is licensing protecting consumers? Or should the consumer be better protected in a “buyers beware” approach to buying life insurance. The Thibault case is raising some serious questions and concerns with the consumers. You will probably tell me that it is unfair to condemn an industry for the actions of one individual. “You don’t save a tree by killing the forest…” You are right! However the consumers are not concerned by the actions of Thibault. Fraudsters will always exist in any industries. Consumers as a result judge the integrity of an industry based on how this industry addresses the fraudster and the people who helped him. The frauds committed by Thibault could not have been committed by himself alone. He needed to (1) first be licensed, (2) have regulators and insurers look the other way and (3) have employees such as underwriters and sales directors helping him and facilitating the transactions where Thibault was involved in contravention with the procedures established by the insurers to protect the consumers. This association between the employees and Thibault was never investigated. In fact can it be investigated objectively when insurers and regulators may share a responsibility which could cost them millions of dollars if the victims of Thibault understood what really happened? To demonstrate this we have recreated the time line of the Thibault frauds. This timeline is critical since it raises some serious questions that have yet to be answered…
The Insurance Specialist 