Establishing and maintaining a Pennsylvania insurance practice can be personally, professionally, and financially rewarding. Pennsylvania offers special advantages for insurance professionals including its large population and large and diverse economy. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners ranks Pennsylvania in the top five or top ten of all fifty states in several categories including total licensed insurers, total premiums, total health premiums, total auto premiums, and total accident premiums. Yet Pennsylvania, like other states, requires that you maintain your insurance license in good standing if you are to continue your insurance practice. Disciplinary complaints and charges can lead to your license's suspension or revocation and loss of your insurance practice if you do not handle the charges properly.
If you face Pennsylvania Insurance Department disciplinary charges threatening your insurance license, retain the LLF Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team for your best disciplinary outcome. We are available in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, Reading City, Upper Darby, Scranton, Lower Merion, Bensalem, Abington, Lancaster City, Bethlehem City, and all other Pennsylvania locations to defend your valuable Pennsylvania insurance license. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now for our premier defense representation. Your professional reputation and your Pennsylvania insurance license and practice are worth protecting against disciplinary charges.
Pennsylvania Insurance Agent Licensing Authority
Pennsylvania's insurance laws create the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance to license and regulate insurance brokers, agents, and adjusters in the state. One insurance regulation, codified at 31 Pennsylvania Code Section 37.11, requires all insurance agents doing business in the state to obtain a Department of Insurance certificate. The same regulation requires all insurance brokers in the state to obtain a Department of Insurance license. A Pennsylvania criminal law statute, codified at 18 Pennsylvania Statutes 4117, makes it a third-degree felony for an unlicensed insurance broker or agent to engage in practice in the state. Pennsylvania punishes third-degree felonies with fines up to $15,000 and imprisonment for up to seven years. You could also face administrative penalties, civil liability, court injunctions, and contempt sanctions for continuing your Pennsylvania insurance practice after the Department of Insurance suspends or revokes your license. The risks of unlicensed practice are real and substantial. You must not continue your Pennsylvania insurance practice if you lose your license to disciplinary charges. Let us help you defend those charges.
Types of Pennsylvania Insurance Agent Misconduct
The particulars of your disciplinary matter may differ, but your matter probably falls within or near one of the common forms of insurance broker, agent, or adjuster misconduct. The Pennsylvania Department of Insurance publishes disciplinary action reports online. Those reports reflect the following common types of insurance professional misconduct. We can defend you against each of these types of disciplinary charges or less common types:
- failing to obtain and provide the coverage the customer or consumer specifies or otherwise failing to follow a customer or client's instruction;
- voiding insurance coverage by acts of incompetence or supplying a defective policy for the customer or client's needs;
- knowingly using false or misleading statements to induce an insurance transaction;
- engaging in unlicensed activity or selling an unauthorized line or product;
- forging signatures on insurance applications or other transaction documents;
- knowingly engaging in insurance business with unlicensed individuals;
- misappropriating premiums, proceeds, or other customer property;
- deliberately twisting insurance, causing customers to surrender and replace policies for undue extra commissions;
- unlawfully discriminating against insureds based on protected characteristics;
- violating administrative orders or court orders for child support or failing to pay state income tax obligations;
- using misleading titles or designations to induce customers to engage in unauthorized or fraudulent transactions;
- unreasonably denying insurance claims in bad faith or delaying claim processing while failing to investigate according to adjusting standards; and
- overcharging fees against settlement of insurance claims or engaging in unlawful solicitation and conflicts of interest.
Pennsylvania Insurance Practice Disciplinary Grounds
While the above section lists common types of misconduct, the specific grounds disciplinary officials allege for discipline are also important. Officials must articulate statutory or regulatory grounds for discipline in their notice of charges. Pennsylvania insurance regulations, codified at 31 Pennsylvania Code Section 37.47, authorizes the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance to suspend, revoke, or otherwise discipline an agent, broker, or adjuster license on any of the grounds on which the Department could deny a license. Under Section 37.46, those grounds include violating any insurance law or regulation, providing false or misleading statements on license applications or renewals, suffering discipline of an insurance license by another state, professional incompetence or unfitness in the insurance practice, or felony conviction within five years or conviction of a misdemeanor related to insurance practice. Your failure to complete required continuing education or to pay license renewal fees may also result in license discipline. Other insurance laws, rules, standards, or regulations may also authorize discipline for obstructing a disciplinary proceeding, dishonest insurance practices, or misappropriation of customer funds or property. We can defend any of the above disciplinary charges or other charges you face.
Pennsylvania Insurance Practice Complaints
The Pennsylvania Department of Insurance maintains an online complaint system for anyone to complain against an insurance professional. Complaints of wrongdoing can come from a variety of sources. The source of the complaint can be important to the outcome of your disciplinary matter, depending on the complainant's credibility, expertise, and foundation for observing your conduct. Customers or clients are common complainants, although they may not know the insurance standards against which officials must judge your conduct. Competitor insurance brokers and agents are other common complainants. Their knowledge and expertise are greater but they may also have competitive interests undermining their credibility. Pennsylvania Department of Insurance officials also monitor media reports and court and agency filings in the state and other states for agent misconduct.
Responding to Pennsylvania Insurance Complaints
Retain us the moment you hear of a complaint or potential complaint against your license, if possible before the complaint reaches Pennsylvania Department of Insurance officials. We may be able to supply the concerned individual or individuals with your information explaining the propriety of your actions and reliable documentation of those actions, heading off a formal complaint. Do not be surprised, though, if you learn that a Department of Insurance investigator is already contacting individuals with information or documentation relating to a complaint against you before notifying you of that complaint. The target of an investigation is often the last one whom investigators contact only after they have all the information and documentation they can otherwise acquire. Your investigator may know more about your matter than you do. Retain us if you learn of an ongoing investigation so that we can help you identify and preserve evidence related to the investigation and otherwise help you prepare to respond.
Responding to Pennsylvania Insurance Investigation
Do not respond to a Pennsylvania Department of Insurance investigator's requests for information, documentation, or interview without promptly retaining us to help you ensure that your statements are accurate, truthful, and not misleading, and your documentation is also reliable and complete. Careless answers can lead to inconsistencies and obstruction charges. Let us help you organize and present your information and documentation to ensure that you retain a reliable and accurate record of your disclosures. We may, in the course of an investigation, be able to communicate and advocate with the investigator and negotiate with other disciplinary officials for the dismissal of the complaint, either based on your exonerating evidence or remedial measures you have already undertaken on our advice.
Pennsylvania Insurance Law Disciplinary Procedures
Pennsylvania Insurance Law Section 37.47 requires the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance to conduct a hearing before imposing license suspension, revocation, or other discipline. Section 37.47 expressly incorporates Pennsylvania's general rules of administrative practice and procedure for contested agency cases. Those rules are replete with procedure protections including fair notice of the disciplinary charges, pretrial exchanges of information, the opportunity for conciliation or other pre-hearing conferences, and a formal hearing before an administrative law judge or agency panel. Your constitutional due process rights guarantee you fair notice and fair hearing before an impartial decision maker. Pennsylvania's administrative practice rules more than meet constitutional requirements.
Our Role in Pennsylvania Discipline Procedures
Our attorneys have the substantial knowledge, skill, and experience to strategically deploy the above Pennsylvania administrative practice rules for your best disciplinary outcome. For instance, we know how to informally approach Pennsylvania Department of Insurance disciplinary officials with the information and documentation showing those officials that your continued licensure presents no public risk. If your matter instead proceeds to a formal hearing, we can present your testimony, the testimony of other supporting witnesses, and your documentary evidence while cross-examining adverse witnesses. If you have already lost your hearing, we can take the appeal that the state's administrative practice rules authorize. One of those rules, codified in 2 Pennsylvania Statutes Section 702, expressly authorizes an appeal to the state's civil courts.
Defenses to Pennsylvania Insurance License Charges
Just because the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance pursues disciplinary charges against you does not mean that disciplinary officials have the evidence to back up the charges. You may have any one or more of several defenses to the charges. We may be able to show that you did not do as the charges allege and that the complaining witnesses misidentified you or misconstrued your actions and intentions. We may be able to show that complaints against you were retaliatory or anti-competitive rather than genuine and supported with credible evidence. We may alternatively be able to show that you followed the reasonable direction of a supervisor or qualified advisor on a disputed matter of standards interpretation. Your conduct, whether compliant or not, may not have exposed any individual or entity to any loss or risk of loss. Let us present your best case for the defense of disciplinary charges.
Pennsylvania Insurance Division Discipline
Pennsylvania Insurance Law Section 37.47 refers only to license suspension or revocation as sanctions for disciplinary violations. However, Pennsylvania Department of Insurance officials also have implied authority to impose other, lesser sanctions or to forgo sanctions in favor of remedial measures. Common lesser sanctions include caution, warning, oral reprimand, written reprimand, license probation, or license limitation or restriction. The Department may opt to limit your license to certain product lines, certain customer populations, or certain transactions. The Department may alternatively require you to practice under supervision or to accept mentoring, monitoring, evaluation, and additional training or education.
Invoking Department Disciplinary Discretion
While the many sanctions or alternative remedial measures the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance may impose can sound daunting, our attorneys may be able to turn that official discretion to your advantage. We know the remedial measures that disciplinary officials favor to carry out their public protection obligation. We may be able to negotiate remedial measures that you have already undertaken, already completed, or can complete with reasonable ease. Our goal in any such negotiation would be to avoid punitive sanctions, keep your record clear, preserve your good reputation, and ensure that you retain your license so that you can continue your insurance practice.
Qualified Pennsylvania Insurance License Defense
The above discussion should have shown you that retaining our skilled and experienced representation is your best move toward a successful defense. By focusing our practice on professional license defense, we acquire and hone the substantial skill and experience you need for effective representation. We also develop the reputation and relationships among disciplinary officials across the state. The laws, rules, and procedures for administrative license defense all differ from criminal and civil court rules and procedures. Do not retain an unqualified criminal or civil court lawyer who doesn't know the insurance laws and administrative license rules and procedures.
Premier Pennsylvania Insurance License Defense
If you face the Pennsylvania Department of Financial Services disciplinary charges against your insurance license, retain the LLF Law Firm's premier Professional License Defense Team for your license defense. Our attorneys help hundreds of professionals, including insurance brokers, agents, and adjusters, across Pennsylvania and nationwide in the successful defense of license disciplinary charges. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now.