You made a good choice when making Illinois your home for an insurance practice. According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Illinois ranks in the top five for homeowners premiums, farm premiums, and property and casualty premiums, and the top ten for worker's compensation premiums and total premiums. Illinois has a substantial population, large metropolitan areas, a diverse economy, and a huge asset base for a thriving insurance market. Like other states, though, Illinois requires insurance brokers, agents, and adjusters to obtain a state insurance license. And the Illinois Department of Insurance not only licenses insurance professionals but also pursues disciplinary charges against those licenses.
Retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team if you face Illinois Department of Insurance disciplinary charges. For your best disciplinary outcome, you need our attorneys' skilled and experienced defense representation. Your Illinois insurance practice is worth preserving and protecting. We are available to represent you in Chicago, Oak Lawn, Park Ridge, Maywood, Arlington Heights, Peoria, Aurora, Joliet, Naperville, Rockford, Elgin, Champaign, Waukegan, Cicero, Bloomington, Schaumburg, Springfield, and all other Illinois locations. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now to get our help, even as you read our following summary of Illinois insurance license defense issues.
Illinois Insurance Department License Authority
As you are likely well aware, you must maintain your Illinois insurance license in good standing if you are to continue your Illinois insurance practice. Illinois Insurance Code Section 500-15 requires every insurance broker, agent, or adjuster in the state to obtain a license from the Director of the Illinois Department of Insurance. Section 500-15 makes it a Class A misdemeanor to engage in insurance practice in Illinois without a license, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine. Section 500-15 raises the crime of unlicensed insurance practice to a Class 4 felony, punishable by up to three years in prison and a $25,000 fine if the unlicensed individual misappropriates funds in the course of insurance practice. Insurance Code Section 500-140 further authorizes the Department of Insurance to obtain a court injunction against your unlicensed practice, the violation of which may lead to incarceration and fines as contempt sanctions. The risks of continuing your insurance practice after a license disciplinary suspension or revocation are far too great to do anything other than retain us to strategically and effectively defend your license.
Illinois Insurance Professional Misconduct
Insurance brokers, agents, adjusters, and other producers are generally earnest, honest, and hard-working professionals. However, insurance professionals can violate insurance practice rules and standards, either out of carelessness, a lack of knowledge, skill, or experience, or in rare cases outright dishonesty and sharp practice. The Insurance Producers Model Act lists the following fourteen common forms of insurance professional misconduct:
- false or misleading license application information or intentional material omissions from the application;
- violation of insurance laws or regulations, or refusal to obey an insurance commissioner subpoena or order;
- attempting to obtain a license through misrepresentation or fraud;
- improper withholding, misappropriating, or converting of customer money or property;
- intentional misrepresentation of an insurance policy's terms or conditions or false application for insurance;
- felony conviction for any crime, whether related to insurance practice or not;
- committing insurance unfair trade practices or insurance fraud;
- coercive, dishonest, incompetent, untrustworthy, or financially irresponsible insurance business practices;
- denial, suspension, or revocation of an insurance license in another state or jurisdiction;
- forging an insurance application or other insurance transaction document;
- improper use of materials or devices on an insurance license exam;
- knowingly accepting insurance business from an unlicensed individual;
- violating an administrative or court order for child support or
- failing to pay state income taxes.
Illinois Insurance Division Disciplinary Grounds
If you commit one or more of the above violations of insurance rules or standards, you may face Illinois Department of Insurance disciplinary charges. Illinois Insurance Code Section 500-70 adopts all fourteen of the above Model Act prohibitions as grounds for discipline. Illinois Department of Insurance disciplinary officials may not just make up charges as they go along. Their notice of disciplinary charges must instead cite the specific ground or grounds in Section 500-70 that they allege you violated. As explained further below, you have the constitutional right to due process in defense of disciplinary charges against your insurance license. A key aspect of that constitutional right is that you have fair notice of the disciplinary standards along with fair notice of any disciplinary charges. The statutory grounds for Illinois Department of Insurance disciplinary charges are numerous and broad. But if the Department disciplinary officials who pursue your license cannot specify the grounds for discipline in the Illinois Insurance Code, then we can defend the charges on that basis.
Defenses to Illinois Insurance Department Charges
As just indicated, you may have one or more defenses to your Illinois Department of Insurance disciplinary charges. A disciplinary charge is not the same as a finding of misconduct. A disciplinary charge is instead only an allegation, one that may be without a factual or legal basis or one to which you have another defense. We may be able to help you raise any one or more of the following defenses, depending on the particular circumstances of your disciplinary charge:
- the complainant misidentified you for another insurance professional;
- the complainant misconstrued your actions or intentions;
- the complainant did not personally observe the alleged actions and is instead speculating;
- the complainant is making false allegations in retaliation against you;
- the complainant is a competitor deliberately attempting to undermine your insurance practice;
- your actions met all rules and standards;
- you undertook your actions on the reasonable advice, counsel, or direction of supervisors or knowledgeable others;
- your actions were consistent with a reasonable interpretation of ambiguous practice standards;
- your actions were customary among insurance professionals under the circumstances;
- your actions did not cause any harm or loss or create a substantial risk of harm or loss;
- you have a long and strong record of compliant insurance practice or
- your actions were a one-time aberration due to extraordinary circumstances that you have since corrected and are unlikely to repeat.
Attorney Role Defending Illinois Insurance Charges
To assert any of the above defenses or other defenses, our attorneys first identify, acquire, and evaluate all available testimonial and documentary evidence. You may know only some of the material circumstances. Our investigation may reveal other key information supporting your defense. We also promptly notify Illinois Department of Insurance officials of our appearance on your behalf so that we can communicate, advocate, and negotiate directly with those officials. Our skill, experience, reputation, and relationships generally swiftly gain the trust, confidence, and respect of disciplinary officials, facilitating our defense presentation on your behalf. We may be able to arrange an early conciliation conference to negotiate dismissal of the disciplinary charges, perhaps in favor of remedial measures like additional training or education that you have already completed. If instead, your matter proceeds to a formal hearing, we can present your defense evidence at the hearing while challenging adverse witnesses and evidence. If you have already lost your hearing, we may be able to pursue appeals, court review, or alternative special relief for reversal and reinstatement of your license.
Illinois Insurance Division Complaints
Illinois Insurance Code Section 500-70 expressly refers to the Illinois Department of Insurance director's authority to investigate disciplinary complaints related to the above disciplinary grounds. To that end, the Illinois Department of Insurance promotes an online portal for consumers to make complaints against insurance professionals. The Department also explains the consumer complaint process, making it easier for anyone to pursue a complaint. Anyone may complain against your insurance license. Your insurance customers or clients are the more likely complainants, especially if aggrieved in some way over an insurance transaction of which you were a part. Beware of unhappy customers or clients. Retain us to help you communicate with them or their legal representatives before their concerns become formal disciplinary complaints. Your competitors in insurance practice are also potential complainants. Beware of disputes with competitors over the lawfulness of your marketing practices, and get our help resolving those disputes before they become disciplinary complaints.
Responding to Insurance Department Investigation
You may not learn of a complaint against you until an Illinois Department of Insurance investigator contacts you. Investigators typically gather witness information and documentation before alerting the suspect insurance professional so that the investigator knows as much as possible about the allegations before confronting the suspect. If you learn of an investigation from other witnesses before the investigator contacts you, retain us to help you identify and preserve your evidence related to the matter. If the investigator then reaches out to you for your information, documentation, and interview, rely on us to help you ensure that your responses are accurate, complete, truthful, recorded, and reliable. Disciplinary officials may construe your careless inaccuracies as deliberate obstruction of the investigation, subjecting you to further disciplinary charges. When helping you present your exonerating and mitigating evidence, we can also advocate with the investigator to recommend dismissal of the complaint.
Illinois Insurance Department Procedures
The Illinois Insurance Code guarantees you certain protective procedures when facing disciplinary charges. Section 500-110, for instance, promises you the right to demand and receive a hearing if the Illinois Department of Insurance examines you for misconduct and produces a recommendation of license discipline. Section 500-110 refers to the Illinois Administrative Review Law for additional rights and protections. Those administrative procedures ensure that your hearing occurs before an impartial administrative law judge or other administrative official and that you have a right to appeal an adverse administrative decision to the state's circuit courts. We can deploy these procedures for your best defense of disciplinary charges.
Illinois Insurance Department Discipline
The Illinois Department of Insurance has broad discretion to impose a range of disciplinary sanctions if it finds that you violated an insurance rule or standard. Illinois Insurance Code Section 500-70 on the discipline of an insurance producer's license expressly permits disciplinary officials to suspend or revoke a license, or put the licensee on probation, levy a civil penalty, or take a combination of actions. While those multiple potential penalties may appear daunting, our attorneys may be able to turn to your advantage the broad discretion they imply. We can present your best case for mitigating any sanction, even if the Department of Insurance finds that you committed one or more wrongs. You may, for instance, be willing to accept a license limitation to your current product lines or a license restriction to supervised practice if those alternatives can preserve your insurance license and practice in the face of harsher sanctions. We may even be able to help you avoid any disciplinary sanction at all in favor of remedial measures like training, education, evaluation, monitoring, and mentoring, with an appropriate showing that those measures meet the Department's public protection obligations.
Qualified Illinois Insurance License Defense
You can see from the above discussion that your key to a successful defense lies in your wise choice of our skilled and experienced representation. Do not retain an unqualified local criminal defense attorney, civil litigator, or transactional attorney who is unfamiliar with insurance laws, rules, standards, and administrative procedures. Administrative license defense relies on different laws, rules, and procedures rather than the laws, rules, and procedures of civil or criminal court cases. By focusing our practice on administrative license defense, we have acquired and refined the administrative knowledge, skill, and experience and built the reputation and relationships among disciplinary officials that you need for your best defense.
Premier Insurance License Defense Attorneys
If you face Illinois Department of Insurance disciplinary charges, retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team for the effective defense services you need. We help hundreds of insurance brokers, agents, adjusters, and other professionals, across Illinois and nationwide in successful defense of license discipline charges. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now.
