You did well when choosing Indiana as the home for your insurance business. National Association of Insurance Commissioners data ranks Indiana fourth nationally in accident and health premiums, in the top ten nationally in farm and crop premiums, and in the top twenty nationally in total premiums. The same data shows that total premiums in Indiana have nearly doubled within the past decade. Indiana's growing populace, diverse economy, and thriving businesses all make for strong continuing insurance business opportunities.
To enjoy those insurance practice rewards, you must successfully defend your Indiana Department of Insurance disciplinary charges. You can do no better than to retain the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team to defend and defeat your Indiana Department of Insurance disciplinary charges. We are available in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Evansville, South Bend, Carmel, Fishers, Bloomington, Hammond, Lafayette, Noblesville, Gary, Muncie, Greenwood, Kokomo, Terre Haute, Anderson, Elkhart, Mishawaka, Columbus, Jefferson, Lawrence, Westfield, West Lafayette, and all other Indiana locations. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now for our skilled and experienced representation and for your best outcome to Indiana Department of Insurance disciplinary charges.
Indiana Insurance Department Licensing Authority
Indiana Code Section 27-1-1-1 creates the Indiana Department of Insurance to issue licenses and otherwise regulate insurance business and practice within the state. The immediately following Section 27-1-1-2 vests Department of Insurance powers in a state Insurance Commissioner. The very next Section 27-1-1-3 authorizes the Commissioner to appoint such personnel and create and staff such offices as necessary to carry out the Department of Insurance's mission to protect customers and the public against fraudulent or incompetent insurance practices. You must deal with the Indiana Department of Insurance, the Insurance Commissioner, and the Commissioner's appointed regulators when facing disciplinary charges. We can help you do so.
Indiana Insurance Department License Requirement
Chapter 15.6 of the Indiana insurance laws governs the licensing of insurance producers. Section 27-1-15.6-3 requires all persons soliciting, selling, or negotiating insurance in the state to obtain an Indiana Department of Insurance license. Under the same section, an insurer who employs an unlicensed individual to sell insurance commits an unfair trade practice, subjecting the insurer to its own license discipline. Section 27-1-15.6-12 authorizes the Insurance Commissioner to impose a civil penalty of up to $10,000 for unlicensed insurance practice in the state and related violations of the state's insurance producer laws. If you continue your insurance practice after license suspension or revocation, your unlicensed practice in violation of the Insurance Commissioner's order constitutes grounds to refuse to reinstate your license. You can lose your insurance practice if you do not successfully defend and defeat your disciplinary charges. Let us help you do so.
Indiana Discipline Multistate Licensure Issues
You may hold insurance licenses in other states. You may even have the idea in mind of relinquishing your Indiana insurance license to disciplinary charges and simply moving your insurance practice to another state under an existing or new insurance license. Think again. Section 27-1-15.6-12 of the Indiana insurance producer laws makes license discipline in another jurisdiction a ground on which to suspend or revoke your Indiana license. That provision is part of the Insurance Producers Model Act, after which the Indiana legislature patterned the Indiana insurance producer laws. The Model Act provision effectively makes license discipline reciprocal in all of the many Model Act states. Your Indiana license discipline may prevent you from holding or gaining a license in most or all other U.S. states. You can't run and hide from license discipline, shifting your insurance practice from state to state to avoid regulation. Don't lose your Indiana and nationwide insurance practice opportunities to Indiana license discipline. Let us help you defend your Indiana Department of Insurance disciplinary charges.
Indiana Insurance Producer Misconduct Risks
Indiana insurance practice is frankly fraught with misconduct risks. Your disciplinary charges may have surprised you. But Indiana Department of Insurance officials pursue and impose discipline against literally hundreds, and likely even thousands, of insurance agents and entities, reporting that discipline in online disciplinary action reports. A quick perusal of those action reports shows agent discipline for a wide range of wrongs like fraud, forgery, misappropriation, unfitness, unlicensed practice, and failure to report. Your Indiana insurance business is highly technical and complex, littered with ambiguities as to your standards, rules, and responsibilities. Your customers, colleagues, and competitors may have their own axes to grind over your insurance practices, whether or not you violated any rules or standards. Regulatory complaints are common, whether valid, invalid, frivolous, fraudulent, or retaliatory. License discipline is also common, bringing severe financial, professional, reputational, and personal consequences. Let us help you avoid those consequences with our skilled defense of your disciplinary charges.
Indiana Insurance Producer Misconduct Types
Indiana insurance broker, agent, or adjuster misconduct follows patterns common in other states. State insurance commissioners developed the Insurance Producers Model Act to address those common forms of producer misconduct. The Insurance Producers Model Act, which Indiana Code Section 27-1-15.6-12 closely tracks, prohibits the following common forms of insurance producer misconduct:
Misconduct Implicating Insurance Customer Interests
- intentionally misrepresenting insurance contract or insurance application terms or conditions;
- falsifying an insurance application, forging signatures on insurance applications or other insurance documents, or
- misappropriating, converting, or withholding funds or property in the course of insurance business.
Insurance Producer Practice Issues
- violating insurance producer statutes, rules, or standards;
- fraudulent, coercive, or dishonest insurance practices;
- demonstrating untrustworthiness, financial irresponsibility, or incompetence in insurance practice;
- unauthorized insurance business with an unlicensed individual;
- unfair competition, restraint of trade, or fraud in insurance practice;
- disobeying insurance commissioner orders or subpoenas, or
- violating disciplinary sanctions, including continuing your insurance practice after license suspension or revocation.
Insurance Producer Fitness Issues
- felony criminal conviction;
- discipline by an insurance board in another state or jurisdiction;
- false insurance license application statements;
- obtaining an insurance license through other credential fraud;
- cheating on an insurance licensing exam using unauthorized notes or materials;
- violating state court child support obligations; or
- failing to comply with agency orders to pay state income taxes.
Section 27-1-15.6-12 of Indiana's insurance producer laws adds these other grounds for discipline to the above Model Act grounds: (1) failing to satisfy continuing education requirements and (2) failing to timely inform the Insurance Commissioner of a change in your legal name or address. We can help you defend any of the above disciplinary charges.
Indiana Insurance Department Reporting Duty
Your Indiana Department of Insurance disciplinary charges may have been the result of a customer or competitor complaint. But your charges may instead have been the result of a report from your insurance entity's owner, officer, or manager. Section 27-1-15.6-12 of the Indiana insurance producer laws provides that an insurance entity can lose its own license if its owner, officer, or manager fails to report or correct producer misconduct about which they knew or should have known. Put simply, Section 27-1-15.6-12 increases the risk you face of disciplinary charges. Your own employer or associates may turn you in if they believe that your insurance entity's license is at risk due to your suspected misconduct. Retain us immediately upon learning that your insurance entity's owner, officer, or manager is considering reporting you to the Indiana Department of Insurance. We may be able to show them that their concern is misplaced, that you did not violate any rule or standard, or that you have already corrected any violation without harm or loss to any customer.
Nature of Indiana Insurance Department Charges
For you to successfully defend your Indiana Department of Insurance charges, you must keep in mind that charges are only allegations. Your disciplinary charges do not necessarily mean that Department officials have substantial evidence that you actually committed a sanctionable wrong. Department officials may instead have based your charges on a complaining witness's mistake observation, understanding, inference, or interpretation or on inadmissible hearsay. Department officials charging you with misconduct may even doubt the veracity of their charges, expecting you to come forward with an explanation of your innocence. While the Indiana Department of Insurance disciplinary action reports already referred to above indicate that plenty of discipline cases result in serious sanctions, your case may be the exception. Do not admit to misconduct that you did not commit. And do not minimize or ignore the charges. Instead, take your most responsible action by retaining us to present a strategic, sound, and effective defense to the charges.
Defending Indiana Insurance Department Charges
You may have any number of valid and provable defenses to your Indiana Department of Insurance disciplinary charges. Depending on your own particular case and its circumstances, our attorneys may be able to raise and prove any of the following defenses, falling into two main categories.
Indiana Disciplinary Defenses Challenging Complainant Credibility
Your disciplinary defense may depend on straight-up disproving the complaining witness's allegations. The outcome of some cases comes down to a so-called he said/she said proposition. Your complainant may have misidentified or misheard you, recalled your communications or actions incorrectly, or misconstrued your motives, knowledge, or intentions. Your complainants may alternatively have their own reasons for manufacturing false allegations against you, whether to steal your insurance business, recover losses they suffered because of their own decisions and actions, or cover up their own wrongdoing. Your complaining witnesses may also have relied solely on inadmissible hearsay and may have had no first-hand knowledge or other reliable factual basis for their speculative allegations. These are only a few of the ways in which we may be able to challenge the credibility of the allegations and charges made against you.
Indiana Disciplinary Defenses Justifying Your Actions
Even if what your complaining witnesses allege that you did is substantially accurate, we may be able to prove the soundness of your actions. We may be able to present your testimony, the testimony of your colleagues, and the testimony of a respected consulting insurance professional to the effect that your actions met all insurance standards. You may have faced extraordinary or unusual circumstances calling on you to make a close judgment as to the appropriate professional conduct. You may also have reasonably relied on the advice, counsel, instruction, or direction of a knowledgeable supervisor, creating a safe harbor for your actions. Your actions may alternatively have caused no harm or loss when you have a long record of valuable insurance services without any other blemish of alleged misconduct. We may also be able to help you avoid license discipline in favor of remedial measures, even if you did commit a technical violation that you have already corrected.
Responding to Indiana Insurance Investigation
As you can see, we know how to defend Indiana Department of Insurance disciplinary charges. But you may not yet appreciate that our attorneys may also be able to head off disciplinary charges before they occur. If you retain us the moment you learn of an Indiana Department of Insurance investigation, we may be able to help you present truthful, accurate, and complete information showing that you did not commit misconduct or that charges are unwarranted and unnecessary because of your prompt corrective action after an incidental, unintentional, or harmless error. Let us help head off disciplinary charges before they occur.
Indiana Insurance Department Procedures
Section 27-1-15.6-12 of the Indiana insurance producer laws guarantees you the right to request a formal hearing on your disciplinary charges as a recognition of your constitutional due process rights. Section 27-1-15.6-12 further expressly incorporates the additional procedural protections of the Indiana Administrative Procedure Act for agency adjudicative proceedings. Those additional protections include appeal and judicial review. Let us help you invoke these protections for their best strategic effect in defense of your disciplinary charges.
Premier Indiana Insurance License Defense
If you face Indiana Department of Insurance disciplinary charges, the Lento Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team is ready to provide you with our skilled and experienced representation. We have successfully defended hundreds of insurance producers and other professionals across Indiana and nationwide. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now for your best possible disciplinary outcome.
